SEO Writing for Nonprofits:
9 Free Tips and Tricks to Make Your Charity Show Up First in Google Searches
Look, I get it. When you work for a nonprofit, there aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything on your to-do list.
In the grand scheme of changing the world, little things fall to the wayside. Maybe you have a stack of donor leads you haven’t found time to cold-call. You delay updating your computer because it will take precious time from finishing grant proposals. Your supply closet hasn’t been organized since the Bush administration. I get it.
I get it because I’ve been there. I get it because I’ve promised myself, time and time again, I would handle the regular administrative messes I’d been neglecting as soon as I finished my next big project. I get it because I’ve talked to other nonprofit professionals who feel the same tension between saving the day and taking care of the day-to-day.
There is one thing, however, I see far too often neglected in nonprofits. This one thing is critical to telling your story and sharing your cause. This one thing can be make-or-break when it comes to attracting and converting new donors. The one thing you should never ignore if you want to move the needle for your cause is search engine optimization (also known as SEO) on your website.
Again, for the people in the back, you will attract new donors and better nurture existing partners by making your nonprofit’s website easy to find in search engines.
“Where do I even start when it comes to SEO?” you may ask yourself. “What’s the secret to helping my nonprofit’s content show up first in Google’s listings?” This is where I come in. I have compiled a list of SEO best practices for nonprofits, just for you, free of charge.
1. Know what SEO means
The first question I hear when talking to people about SEO rules of thumb for charities is: “What does SEO mean?”
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and refers to the process in which search engines (like Google and Bing) read information on the internet (known as “crawling”) to provide results that match what a user is looking for.
Think of it this way: There is a lot of information on the internet. Any time you use a search bar to look for something, Google (or your search engine of choice) crawls the internet to find and return information relevant to the answer you want. To do this quickly, Google has created an algorithm to determine which websites will be most likely to give you the information you need. This quick process of looking through all websites and choosing the best ones for your query is called search engine “ranking” because your search results will display with the websites that rank the most relevant to your search at the top.
This is why SEO is so important. When someone searches for your organization or for ways to support your cause, you want your website to rank highest in the search results.
According to HubSpot, a company specializing in inbound marketing, 75% of web users never click past the first page of search results. This means that if you don’t take the time to optimize your website and your content for search engines, you might as well be invisible.
2. Make sure your website is listed in Google’s indexing
Let’s take this back to 1995. Say you were launching a nonprofit in the heyday of “Seinfeld” and the year of the O.J. Simpson trial. One of the first things you’d do is make sure your business was listed in the Yellow Pages so people could find you. Yes, you may get traffic from somebody driving by your storefront, but you’d get a lot more traction from having your information in the phonebook.
Fast forward to 2019. The same concept is true for search engine optimization, but instead of listing your organization in a phonebook, you need to be correctly indexed with Google.
In order to quickly crawl every website on the World Wide Web, Google maintains an index that lists every page of every website. Because this list is so massive, however, there’s no possible way Google can maintain it on its own. It is your responsibility to make sure your website is listed and that your listing is updated every time you make a major update to your site.
To do this, you need to create a sitemap and upload it to Google. You’ll want to follow Google’s step-by-step instructions, which can be found here. Don’t expect quick results, however. It takes between four days and four weeks for your website to become fully indexed. Once it is indexed, though, potential donors can find your website. They can then learn how your organization affects change for causes they care about. Hopefully, your awesome content will persuade them to donate!
3. Know you’re writing for computers
In order to properly write for SEO, you need to shift your thinking a little. In marketing, bold, flashy headlines and clever wordplay make human readers want to read more of your writing. The AI (artificial intelligence) that crawls websites, however, doesn’t care about emotional appeals, puns or other things that make people want to learn more about your organization. Instead, AI looks for content that is an exact match in a search.
Becky Bruce, an SEO specialist and digital content manager for KSL NewsRadio in Salt Lake City, says you need to keep those computers in mind when crafting your content. She likes to think of the AI systems as gatekeepers to your website. According to Bruce, SEO keywords are how we communicate with those systems.
Bruce explains, “SEO is the best way we’ve figured out, at least for now, to talk to machine-learning systems like Google’s to help make sure our content gets seen first.” If you don’t write in a way that AI recognizes as an answer to a user’s search query, your content won’t populate search results.
Bruce says one way to achieve a high search ranking is to be a master of synonyms. She says, “Sometimes, the thing you think is the obvious keyword people are going to search for that would get them to your article isn’t the same thing people actually search for.”
As an example, Bruce talks about a story she wrote about electric scooters in the streets of downtown Salt Lake. “People might call the same object different names. Electronic scooters, e-scooters, scooters, motorized scooters are all terms that occurred to me—but when I looked up synonyms, I found motorscooter as an alternate version, alongside minibike and scrambler, which were terms I hadn’t heard before.” By incorporating as many of these terms as possible into the story, Bruce increased the likelihood that somebody looking to learn more about e-scooters would find her article.
Kivi Leroux Miller, founder of Nonprofit Marketing Guide, says she sees nonprofits mess up their SEO writing by getting “cutesy” with titles. She says, “you can be creative, but remember to include keywords,” when explaining best practices for writing blog posts.
Miller explains being descriptive is more important than being clever. She recommends nonprofits use familiar labels in their website’s navigation. According to Miller, some nonprofit marketers hurt their SEO strategy by using webpage titles that are too unique for AI to recognize. It is perfectly fine to call the contact page simply “contact” and the about us page just “about us” because those are the terms people will use when trying to find your organization’s most vital information.
4. Don’t forget you’re writing for people too
Here’s the thing about SEO. Although the AI system finds your content for a human reader, that human is still your ultimate audience.
Sometimes well-meaning writers go too far when it comes to writing for SEO, and it makes their content unreadable or boring when an actual person tries to read it. Bruce explains that it can be difficult to strike that balance. She says, “You have to pack enough keywords that someone might search for to get to your story to register, but you have to do it in such a way that it still reads like English and not a computer manual.”
She explains that you should think about the phrases you’d use in a search query to find the content on your website. Bruce says, “I’ve found that people who are just sort of naturally better at using search engines themselves tend to have a knack for working those keywords into a story organically. They are already thinking of all the alternative search terms for the same thing someone might use and finding ways to incorporate them.”
Miller writes that nonprofit writers should write in a way that won’t confuse donors. She recommends reading anything published on your website as an outsider would. If it’s confusing, repetitive or has too many acronyms or too much industry jargon, you need to rewrite it.
5. Provide content relevant to your audience
Now that you know how to make your content relevant in search results, you need to figure out what kind of content you will create to tell your nonprofit’s story. Miller suggests putting a blog on your website. She says, “A blog is a great way to establish your organization’s personality and tone.”
Plus, a blog is one of the best ways to keep your website at the top of the search results. “Google loves new content, so having a blog on your website can improve your overall search rankings and allow you to gain new supporters as well,” Miller says.
She’s not wrong. According to HubSpot, there is a direct correlation between how often a company updates its blog and how much traffic its website receives. HubSpot’s research found websites that update their blogs at least 16 times per month attract 3.5 times as many clicks to their sites than those that update four times or fewer each month.
So, what kind of content should you put on your nonprofit blog? Marketing and social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk writes, “A great marketing story is one that creates an emotion that makes consumers want to do what you ask them to do.” Although Vaynerchuk writes for business professionals who want to attract more customers, his advice also applies to nonprofit professionals who want to attract more donors.
Vaynerchuk does not believe every post needs to be an ask. Instead, he advocates for a series of posts that provide what a customer (or, in your case, donor) wants, such as entertainment, information or something that makes them feel good. He calls these pieces of content “jabs.” After you have launched enough jabs, it’s time for a “right hook,” or a call to action. This is where you post your big ask for donations. If readers have found value in your previous posts, they will have built trust in your brand. Once that trust is built, you can use it to ask for what you really want from your donors.
6. For nonprofits, in particular, use the “three G’s” to guide you
Miller believes she has found the perfect formula for a nonprofit’s content strategy and it fits into Vaynerchuk’s “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” method. Miller calls her plan the “three G’s”: be genuine, be generous, and be grateful.
She found following the “three G’s” allows nonprofits to develop an organizational personality that shines throughout their writing. Although she originally created the “three G’s” for social media writing, she has found they are applicable for all communication channels a nonprofit decides to use.
According to Miller, these “three G’s” make up the holy trinity of nonprofit content creation:
Be Genuine: People connect with a nonprofit because they believe in the causes the nonprofit supports. Miller says it is vital for a nonprofit’s writings to have a human element because that is what potential donors want to engage with. She writes, “Let people know how staff feel about what’s happening in the world. Express some opinions, take people backstage, and let them see what’s going on behind the scenes.” She says readers respond well when they can see the employees, board members and volunteers of an organization are fighting for and believe in the same causes as the reader.
Be Generous: Miller writes that you need to provide content useful to the reader. She likes to compare content creation to giving gifts to your donors, writing that you can “empower them with helpful information and resources. Think about what the people on the receiving end want or need.” When someone reads your blog post, you don’t want them to passively scroll past a headline. You want them to engage and think about what you’ve written. Generous content is good content.
Be Grateful: Miller recognizes that nonprofits cannot do their work without supporters, including donors, volunteers and board members. She gives this instruction to charities: “Tell stories not just about your organization and its clients but also about its fans and followers, too. Show them how much they really mean to you.” After all, your work would not be possible without them.
Miller says the goal of the “three G’s” is to establish your organization as a helpful friend or trusted expert. If potential donors see your nonprofit has a strong personality to match your mission, your organization will stand out among the sea of other charities they may encounter.
7. Have a primary focus for your blog
A good nonprofit blog has something in common with a good nonprofit: they both have a specific purpose. It’s easy for nonprofit marketers to think their blog needs to be a one-stop-shop for anything and everything related to their cause, but that’s not the case.
Before a nonprofit adds a blog to their website, Miller recommends staff think long and hard about what they want to accomplish through their writing. She recommends choosing a specific purpose for your blog. She identifies the following as the most common (and successful) types of nonprofit blogs:
News: This type of blog focuses on articles and features that keep donors up-to-date on your nonprofit’s goals and achievements. It should serve as a way for people to stay up-to-date on what you’re doing. Miller recommends using storytelling to entice readers to connect with your posts.
Advocacy: This type of blog acts less as a news source for what you’re doing and focuses more on why you’re doing it. You would use an advocacy blog to remind readers why your cause is important and why partnering with you is the best way to make a difference.
Toolbox: This type of blog lets people know how they can help. If your charity relies on grassroots efforts, this is a great way to go because you can offer resources for people to take their philanthropy into their own hands. Alternatively, if you work for a nonprofit and would like to share your expertise with other nonprofits, you can offer a toolbox-style blog to give them resources.
Executive-led: In this type of blog, posts are written from director (or board president). The leader of the nonprofit can give a personal perspective of the day-to-day doings of the organization. This is a great way to go if the who behind your nonprofit is a draw for potential donors. Charities such as The Michael J. Fox Foundation and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation use messages from the founders to draw new readers.
While it may seem stifling to stay in one lane, Miller says that having a specific focus will help you brainstorm content and stay consistent in your messaging. That being said, she says it is OK to mix and match blog post styles as long as every post helps you achieve the purpose you identified for your overall blog.
8. Answer your reader’s questions
Every search query starts with a question.
“How can I help fight childhood hunger?”
“Which charities are serving the homeless in my community?”
“How tall is LeBron James?”
Even if a query isn’t phrased exactly like a question (in our examples, a person could type “help hungry kids” “homeless resources SLC” or “LeBron height”), people turn to Google because they want a question answered. If you keep that in mind when crafting your copy, you will attract more attention from search engines.
This is because Google understands people turn to search engines when they want more information. If a website is able to anticipate and answer its readers’ questions, Google will rank that website higher in search results. Think about the questions people would ask that can be answered by your website. Chances are, you already know the answers. Think about the questions you receive regularly via phone and email - – these are the same questions readers will want answered on your website.
A simple way to make those answers easy to find is by incorporating the question itself into your copy. You may have noticed I took advantage of this strategy by asking “Where do I even start when it comes to SEO?” in the introduction of this article. This question is likely to be similar to a question somebody looking for a nonprofit SEO guide would type into the search bar. Hopefully, that person would see my headline and click to read more.
Also, knowing the questions that drive people to learn more about your organization can help you brainstorm content. Again, think of the phone calls you receive every day. If someone will take the time to call to ask a question, they will take the time to read an article that explains the answer. Help them find what they’re looking for by writing blog posts that answer your most frequently asked questions.
9. Be thorough in your SEO
This article is primarily focused on using SEO writing to help donors find your blog, but every portion of your website can be search engine optimized. Every time you update your website’s copy, make sure you do so with SEO principles in mind.
If you use pictures, include captions. If you have a page outlining your nonprofit’s mission, make sure it’s written in a way that preemptively answers questions a reader may have. Far too often, I see nonprofit marketers create amazing blogs but neglect to use the same, rich writing for other parts of their website. By forgetting to write with SEO in mind, you are doing your cause a disservice.
In closing, nonprofit professionals shouldn’t ignore writing for SEO. By using search engine optimization to tell your nonprofit’s story, you can better engage people who want to help your cause. You will spend less time looking for potential donors because they will be able to find you when they want to help a cause that is near and dear to their hearts.