Search engines use a secret algorithm, a set of rule-based actions, to determine the most relevant webpages (or other content) to return in response to a search query. Generally, the higher you rank in the search results for these terms, the more traffic you’ll attract to your website.

Search engine optimization or SEO is about getting your website to the top ranks in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing for specific keyword phrases related to your nonprofit’s services, events, issues, etc. In other words, the goal of SEO is to align your website with the search engine’s algorithm as best as possible in order to increase the probability of your site appearing in the search results for pertinent keyword searches. Top rankings can be accomplished by changing the structure, code, and content of your website in ways that facilitate search engines in discovering all the pages on your site and give it a clearer understanding of what your website is all about. SEO also seeks to increase the number of other sites linking to your website as this is an important factor search engines use in determining your rankings for keywords. Lastly, SEO is a long term online marketing strategy and it may take several weeks to see the payoff, but the return-on-investment can be very high. Below is an example of SEO at work for Amnesty International for the keyword “arms trade”.

SEO is designed to increase the volume and quality of organic traffic coming into your website.

The Opportunity for Nonprofits:

Search engines do not charge a fee to list your website among organic search results, so this is a great opportunity for nonprofit organizations to expand their reach online.

Many search engines incorporate images, videos, press releases, books and shopping feeds in their search results which may represent a tremendous opportunity to create an engaging user experience for your nonprofit within the search engine results.

How to get started:

1. Identify keywords that are related to your nonprofit using the Google Keyword Tool.

2. Assign a keyword to each page on your website. You will optimize the page for this keyword.

3. Add the keyword to the title tag, meta description tag, meta keyword tag, header tag, alt attributes, main site navigation, and URL to its respective allocated page when feasible, being careful not to overdo it and sacrifice user experience.

4. As best as possible, incorporate each keyword into the main body of content of its assigned webpage. The main page content should have between 300 – 500 words of copy.

5. Ask partners, donors, and members to link from their website to your nonprofit site using the keywords you selected as link text. Identify blogs, forums, and website directories and install links to your site using your keywords as link text according to any stated guidelines. In some cases, you may want to send a friendly email to the owner of related websites politely requesting a link to your site.

Are You A Nonprofit Organizations Who Wants To Know More About Internet Marketing?

The proceeding was an excerpt from A Nonprofit’s Guide to Internet Marketing: Cost-Effective Opportunities to Accelerate Online Marketing Success for Your Nonprofit.  This is my FREE 15-page guide designed to help nonprofit organizations activate or to accelerate their online marketing efforts.  Download it instantly by clicking the button below.

If you have any questions about the content of this document, please feel free to comment to this post and I reply there.  If you are looking to retain my services for any of the online marketing programs mentioned, please use this form to contact me.

  You’ve decided what your blog is about and you’ve written your blog’s mission statement.  Now it’s time for the fun part – reserving a domain name (also called website name) for your blog.  A domain name is the address of your website on the World Wide Web.  It’s how users will find your website.  For example, digitalsapien.com is the domain name for this website. 
“Reserving a domain name” refers to the process of declaring your ownership of a website domain name through a domain registrar such as 1&1 Internet or www.GoDaddy.com .  It’s actually a relatively simple and cheap ($7 – $15) process to reserve your own domain name depending on the domain registrar and top-level domain (TLD) name you select (we’ll discuss TLDs later).  For the lowest affordable rates, we strongly recommend using 1&1 Internet or www.GoDaddy.com to register your domain.

Why is picking the right domain name for your blog important?

Not only does a domain name tell users how to access your blog, but a domain name give your website an identity and helps you to establish a brand on the Web.  Your domain name will have an impact on your blog’s search engine optimization strategy, the implications of which we will discuss later.  Lastly, a competitive domain name can have value.  It’s not uncommon to hear domain names being sold at auction for $5000.  So it’s in your best interest to spend a little time thinking about the domain name for your blog.

What is a top-level domain name?

Digitalsapien.com is the domain name of this website.  The “.com” in this example is referred to as the “top-level domain” (TLD).  Common top-level domain names include .com, .net, .us, .org, .info, .biz, .name.  Please note: that yourwebsite.com and yourwebsite.org are two completely different website names and will require two different registrations.

Top-level domain names can give some indication about who owns the website or what the site is about.  Here are some common TLDs for blogs and their traditional usage.

You will have to select both a combination of a domain name and a top-level domain name for your website.  If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t be.  You’re already half way through your crash course in domain name registration for blogs.

Blog domain name ideas

There are many pointers to go about selecting a domain name for your website.  Here are a few of the most popular ways:

Here are some more tips for selecting a domain name:

• Avoid using dashes in your domain name.  For example, you should reserve financeblog.com over finance-blog.com when possible.  This is a preference, not a hard and fast rule.
• Avoid registering domains that are more than 5 words long as they tend to be less memorable to users.  For example, thisdomainiswaytoolengthy.com isn’t the best choice.
• Use keywords in your domain name when possible.
• Registering a .biz top-level domain name is not recommended.
• Big companies are protective of their trademark, so avoid registering domain names that sound like another companies website name.  For example, do not register ebayy.com.

Search engine optimization (SEO) considerations for domain name selection

  Search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo are able to read the keywords in website domain names.  Many use keywords in domain names in order to rank websites relevant to a user’s search.  Search engines also use domain names to as cues to understand the topic of the site.  Again, this helps them to present better results to their searchers.  Therefore, incorporating keywords into your domain name can benefit your search engine rankings, help you to attract people who are interested in your blog topic, as well as your search engine referred traffic.

Let’s say a person goes to Google and searches for “blogs about cars” and there are two (there are really millions, but for this example we will say two) possible websites to return as the top result.  The domain for one website is carblogs.com and the other potential website is airportcarrentals.com – both competing for the #1 position on Google.  All things being equal otherwise, carblogs.com is more likely to be in the #1 position than airportcarrentals.com because the keywords in it’s domain more closely mirrors the user’s search query.

Go ahead and reserve a blog domain name!

Take a few minutes and generate a list of possible domain names for your blog.  Done?  Good!  Now use the domain availability tool below to see if the domain names on your list are available.  Don’t get discouraged if the domain name for your blog has already been reserved, there’s still plenty of really good domain names still left.  Use this super handy tool to register a domain name for your website.