Can Volunteers Find You When Searching Online?

First Steps in Search Marketing & Measurement

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Learning Objectives

After this training you will: Understand why you need to be listed on

search engines Know how search engines work, and how user

friendly content can help your rankings Be able to start brainstorming and selecting

keywords Understand why inbound links are important

and have the tools to start a link campaign (including links from social media)

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Three Legs of Search MarketingStep 1: Ensure that your constituents and search engines can find

your online content. Keyword Research & Selection Modify content with keywords, keep content fresh Eliminate technical issues

Step 2: Develop a network of sites linking to your content

Register on directories Establish a link campaign strategy Use social media to build links

Step 3: Measure results based on business goals & refine above

strategy

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Why Search Marketing? More than 86% of all people arrive at websites

through search engines. HUGE cost for volunteers to find you solely

through brand recognition/remembering your URL/web address

Without search marketing you will not be found in search engines

Space on search engines is getting competitive. Your competitors are engaged in search marketing, and you should to.

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How Search Engines Work Google, Yahoo, Live and Ask create their listings

automatically. They "crawl" or "spider" the web and add those websites to their index.

When a human visitor to the engine puts in a keyword phrase, the engine serves up relevant, fresh content based on the pages in their index who have those keywords, or are link to from other sites based on those keywords.

Keyword Phrases

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Sites That Work for Humans

Fact: New visitors spend 8 sec or less evaluating your site Make sure “above the fold content is clear and

provides action. People scan online. Make sure content is

bulleted and short. Make use of bold for key points Use Alt Text to make your site friendly to all

users

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Sites That Work for Search Engines

Use of title, description, and keyword tag Fresh, relevant content that uses keywords All images have alt text Registered in search engines/directories Links from other sites No flash or duplicate content

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Step 1: Keyword Research

BrainstormBrainstormphrasesphrases

Constituents Constituents may use tomay use to

find youfind you

How?1. Brainstorm with staff, use thesaurus

2. Look at your literature, competitor literature

3. Ask your volunteers

4. http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/

5. Add variations: volunteer, volunteering, community service, Texas, TX

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Remember:

It’s not about the keywords You want to be found on.

It’s about the keywords the Volunteer uses to find you.

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Selecting Keywords

Step 1: Brainstorm keywords and phrases Home page should feature the most universal keywords, such as

“volunteer” or “volunteering” plus location-based keywords. Every page should have unique set of keywords

Step 2: Visit Wordtracker, to learn: How times people used that keyword in their searches How many other sites contain that keyword, and The Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI), a ratio between how many

other sites contain that keyword, and how many searches were performed with that keyword. A higher KEI is better.

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Other Keyword Research Tools

Yahoo Keyword Selector Tool http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Google AdWords Keyword Toolhttps://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

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Where do you put the keywords? Meta tags: Title, description

Page text Alt text for all images Links Opportunity titles Footer Contact us section

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How People SearchThe Long Tail of Search:

3% of Excite’s search traffic was 3 keywords – 97% of the rest was in the “long tail”

Amazon.com makes 57% of sales from keywords outside of the “popular” terms.

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Step 2: Registering in Search Engines & Directories It is important to get your site linked on the major and minor directories.

Submission for non-profits/non-commercial are free.

Your site should be submitted to the following major directories: Yahoo! (http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/): free for non-

commercial sites Google’s Open Directory (http://dmoz.org/add.html): free Other directories, both paid and free, can be found at or

Directory Archives

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Step 2:Creating a link campaign Who would place a link to your site?

Newspapers you currently work with Schools, community sites, professional associations, chamber of

commerce, businesses Just ask the webmaster and follow up! Links from .edu and .gov are more important

What should think links look like? Make sure the text around the link is relevant, and not all sites are

using the same phrase

How can you place your own links? Some suggestions here, more on the next slide… Postings on online boards, listserves Write articles for enewsletters

DON’T BUY LINKS!!!

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Step 2:Using Social Media to build links

Create accounts in Local search engines (local.google.com, local.yahoo.com, askcity.com)

Post on craigslist.org Post news on Reddit Post photos on Flickr Optimize press releases, and use pr.com,

prleap.com to distribute releases Post answers on Q & A sites (like Yahoo

Answers)

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Step 3:Measure your success

Why Use Web Analytis? Shows if visitors are actually USING your

website Allows you to troubleshoot technical or usability

issues with your website Shows you what kind of service your community

actually wants to be engaged in Helps you measure success of online marketing

efforts. Free Web Analytic Tool: Google Analytics

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Step 3:Measure your success

Tips for how to read Web Analytic reports: You’re looking at a computer conversation, human

translation required Trend tracking process It is part science, part art driven by curiosity: Why

are people doing that? Make sure to look at more than one data point

OVER time

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Step 3:Web Analytic Terms Hits – Measures every element that loads when a visitor

request a page (images, javascript, the html itself). A visitor requesting a page with 30 elements would register as 30

hits! This is an inflated # you shouldn’t measure. Conversions – the # of visitors that did what you wanted

them to do when they were on your website For us this is volunteers clicking on “express interest” on an

opportunity Industry standard conversion rate is 8-10%

Bounce rate – Measured in two ways: % of visitors who see just one page on your site, or % visitors who stay on the site for a small amount of time (usually

five seconds or less). Your homepage bounce rate should be 30% or less

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Step 3:Web Analytics – Questions to Ask

Are my visitors coming from all search engines?

Are my visitors finding me through email campaigns, do they convert?

Which keywords are they using? Can I add more of those to my site content?

Are my visitors converting? Which of my website partnerships is

sending me the most traffic?

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Quick Review

Benchmark site performance Traffic #s, referrals, keywords, rankings in

Search Engines, competitors Fix technical issues/check site content

(keywords, description tag, etc) Start link campaign Measure success Build more links!!!

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Additional Tools

SEO for Firefox SeoMoz’s Tools Compete.com SEO Book’s Keyword Tool Google Webmaster Tools Yahoo Site Explorer Live Search Webmaster Central

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Learn More – Search Marketing Search Marketing for Nonprofits Blog:

http://Searchmarketingfornonprofits.wordpress.com

How Search Engines work: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2168031

The expert on linking strategies: http://www.ericward.com/

SEO Chat http://www.seochat.com/

Web Marketing Today http://www.wilsonweb.com/

Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day (book) http://www.yourseoplan.com/

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Learn More – Web Analytics

How web analytics is like using Evite for a holiday party

Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik Web Analytics Demystified (book)

http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/

Google Analytics 2.0 (book) Web Analytics: An Hour A Day (book)

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Questions?

Katherine WatierWatier Creative

Nonprofit Search Marketing Consultant

301-793-6121

katherine@watier.org