An introduction to SEO

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving your website to increase its visibility in Google and other search engines whenever people search for products you sell, services you provide, or information on topics in which you have deep expertise and/or experience. There is organic SEO, which focuses on ways you can increase your visibility in search engine results without paying for ads, and paid SEO, which is paying a service (like Google Ads) to rank your organisation higher in search results.

For example, if I Google "nonprofit marketing", here’s what appears in my results:

The results on the left say “Sponsored”. Those organisations paid for those ads to appear in the search results when someone Googles <nonprofit marketing>. The results on the right are organic. Although these organisations did not buy an ad for their organisation to appear in the search results, they were strategic in how they optimised their website in order for their organisation to appear before others in the results.

SEO can get very complicated, and there are jobs dedicated to optimising search engine results for companies. However, there are a few basic ways you can improve your chances of appearing in search engine results when someone researches something relevant to your company.

Include links

Include links to your social channels throughout your website, and include a link to your website from your social channels.

Mobile-friendly

Since most people visit websites from their mobile devices, ensure your website is mobile-friendly and easy to see and use from a mobile view.

Capture attention

Capture your audience’s attention with the content on your website. Use graphs, images, and videos to engage your audience longer on a page of your website. The longer people stay on your website, the more important it is viewed by search engines.

Add a blog

Consider adding a blog to your communication strategy. Creating fresh content on your website makes it appear more in searches.

Website

Ensure your website is clearly organised (based on the journey you want your audience to take!) with buttons on your webpages that lead to other pages on the site. Instead of those buttons saying “Click Here”, be more specific, like “Learn More About Our Services”.

Your URL

Did you know that you can control the URL of each page of your website? By logging into your website platform, shorten any lengthy page URLs. For example, your About Us page’s URL should be something like <renewministries.org/aboutus>.

Linking websites

Linking to other websites from your website or having your website be linked to from other websites can increase the chances that it’ll be seen in search results. Consider any opportunities for this as it’s also a great way for ministries to support one another.

Index your website

This is getting a bit more technical, but indexing your website for Google helps it better direct your audience to your website. You can find a tutorial for how to do this through Google Search Console, by clicking on the heading ‘Index Your Website’.

Identify key topics

It’s important to identify topics your audience cares about, then keywords within each topic that you can use throughout your website. Think about what words or phrases your audience would type into Google for which you’d like your organisation to appear as a result. Then, use those words and phrases throughout your website whenever it makes sense to do so. You can find more resources on keywords in the Additional Resources section of this course.

Customise Meta Descriptions

If you log into your website’s platform (popular examples are WordPress and Squarespace), there are options to customize meta descriptions for each page of your website. In each meta description, you essentially want to write a 1-2 sentence summary of what is on the webpage. Google and other search engines will use these descriptions to influence what appears in the search results under the name of your website (see below). You can find more information and advice about meta descriptions in the Additional Resources section of this course.

Google Ads are another great way to ensure your organisation appears in search engine results. Because it is a bidding system, you can choose how much you’d like to invest in this paid channel each month, which makes it more affordable. It is fairly easy to use with many tutorials available online. The best way to begin using it is to simply experiment with a few ads and see how many clicks they get. Then, you can determine if it is worth the investment for your organisation.

SEO can feel a bit tedious, but ensuring that your target audience can easily find your organisation is a great way to serve your audience well and increase your impact.