SEO For NonProfits: Complete Guide To Rank in Google And Ensure Your Target Audience Lands On Your Offer Page From Google Search
Want To Appear High in Google Search And Ensure That Your Prospective Donors and Volunteers Lands on Your NonProfit Website? Can't Do It Because You Don't Know How?
As a member of Nonprofits organization, it is not your fault that you do not know much about how to rank your website pages in Google to make your offer visible to your donors, volunteers, or members and attract them to your offer.
SEO For NonProfits (2020 Guide)
How To Get More People From Google Search To Your Fundraising Webpage
This is my step by step guide to help you optimize fundraising and donation pages of your NonProfits website to help them rank high in Google and attract targeted visitors.
In this all-new guide you’ll learn:
- How you can improve the rank of your web pages in Google with a Free Plugin (if your website is built on the WordPress platform) even if you don’t know much about SEO
- How you can optimize your site’s pages (called ‘on page‘ optimization in SEO Industry) and achieve a quick win for your website and your organization
- How to correctly use the FREE plugin to get suggestions on onpage optimization focusing mainly on Title, SEO Meta Data, and SEO Schema Data to attract donors and volunteers.
- Get a scorecard to identify how much you have optimized the page and what else you need to do
To give you an idea of what you can expect by following this guide here’s an example.
The screenshots below shows the ‘before score’ (18/100) and ‘after score’ for a webpage (90/100) that has been optimized following the guideline provided by the plugin we are going to discuss and guide you through.
The main advantage of this plugin is that it provides you with suggestions on onpage optimization focussing mainly on three things: Title, SEO Meta Data, and SEO Schema Data. (Don’t worry, if these words sound like an alien language to you, you will soon become familiar with these terms and learn how to use seo for nonprofits correctly to rank high on Google).
One of the most important features of this plugin is that it provides you with a page score to identify how much you have progressed with the webpage optimization that you are working on.
Contents
Section 1 :
Effects of Wrong onpage optimization
Too much of a good thing can often turn out to be bad. This is true in life and in search engine optimization (SEO).
SEO is awesome, but too much of seo optimization or wrong SEO can cause a negative effect for your website resulting in failure to rank on Google and attract donors and volunteers.
Over the years with various algorithmic updates by Google, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) process has changed a lot. So if you target a wrong Keyword (search term) for your website page and do not understand the ‘search intent’ (what the Google searcher is actually searching for) you will not be able to rank in Google or reach your target audience and your goal (conversion) will not be achieved.
As SEO is getting competitive day by day, it would be a foolish decision to waste time on optimizing the wrong SEO keywords for nonprofits. Moreover, if you target a wrong KW and optimize it, it may lead to a negative ranking of the search term or keyword in Google Search Engine.
Section 2 :
Myths about self Done SEO optimization
Often people who are new to SEO, gets wrong advice.
In this guide we will focus on some myths about trying to SEO optimize a webpage with Free SEO Plugins available online.
Myth 1) You can entirely rely on the plugin:
No you cannot. Though this Free Plugin we are about to discuss, will help you to optimize for your website pages easily but you also need to pay attention to some parts of onpage optimization manually, to complete the optimization process correctly.
Myth 2) Optimizing a web page title helps to rank a page in Google and also attract readers from Google Search Page:
I’m assuming that you have heard of the term ‘Title’ of a web page. But have you ever wondered that there could be more than one type of title used in a single content or webpage?
The ‘Title’ that you are familiar with is a ‘Reader’s Title’ (the title you see in Google Search Result). But there is one more title available. Its the ‘Search Engine Title’.
The ‘Reader’s Title’ is mainly targeted towards the reader of the content or visitors of your website. By using and optimizing the ‘Reader’s Title’ you will attract the readers i.e. your prospective target audiences like your prospective, donors, volunteers, or clients, once your webpage ranks high on Google. But the ‘Search Engine Title’ is mainly focused on Search Engine robot and algorithm to help you rank well in Google.
Observe the screenshot below to notice the difference of two types of webpage Title.
Before reading this article you were unaware of these 2 types of titles on a webpage. But now you know that the ‘Reader’s Title’ is to attract your prospective target audience from Google Search Result Page and ‘Search Engine Title’ is for Google algorithm to get better ranking in Google Search.
Your SEO knowledge has already started getting enriched 🙂
So now let’s start optimizing your webpage with the free plugin. For that, first go and download the free plugin from here, install it on to your WordPress site and activate it
Section 3 :
Installing and Activating The FREE Plugin For Easy Onpage Optimization To Get More Visitors From Google
If you are not sure how to install a plugin in WordPress and activate it, watch this quick video.
Once installed, this plugin will be used to optimize the webpage.
Done? Good. Now follow the step by step guide below to quickly optimize your first webpage on your own.
Section 4 :
Selecting focus keyword for your webpage
The focus keyword or key phrase is the search term for which you want a page to rank high in Google.
The objective is, when people search for that phrase, they should find what you have to offer for them.
If you set a focus key phrase for a page with this FREE plugin, the plugin evaluates the page’s content and shows the way to improve your site content so that you can rank high in Google for that search term.
After installing the plugin in your WordPress, click on the post or pages in the left side panel of WordPress dashboard (depending on whether your content is published as a post or page)
Then select the particular post/page you want to optimize and open it by clicking on ‘edit with Elementor’ if your site is built with Elementor page builder
Website not built with Elementor? Here’s how to optimize with RankMath Plugin.
For the rest of this guide, We will use the example of a website that is built with Elementor.
Before starting to optimize, note the SEO score provided by Rank Math. For our example page, it looks like this
As you start optimizing the page , this score will increase gradually. Your goal is to get as high score as possible by completing the optimization process.
To begin, first, you will have to set the focus keyword for the particular page. To set the keyword, open the SEO section from the editor mode of your page,
Then scroll down to the ‘Focus Keyword’ section as shown in the image below and type your Focus Keyword and press enter. For this example, I am using ‘SEO for nonprofits’ as my focus keyword.
Unsure about what should be the right focus keyword for you?
There are so many keywords that have significant search volumes to target your webpage, the question is how to zero in on a focus keyword for a particular blog post?
What Is Focus Keyword?
A Focus keyword is that single term from the list of researched keywords that you want your webpage to rank for.
5 tips for Helping You Choose the right keywords
1. THINK LIKE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
First, identify your target audience and put yourself into their shoes. Ask yourself, ‘If you want to find these products or services, what would you type into Google?’
2. STUDY THE COMPETITION
List out your main competitors. Visit their websites to see what keywords they are targeting through content and meta tags.
3. UNDERSTAND THE LONG TAIL KEYWORD
Long tail keywords consist of 3 or more key phrases. They tend to generate more traffic, less competitive, and easier to rank even if they have lower search volumes. try to choose a long tail keyword.
4. USE KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS
Pick a keyword research tool like ubbersuggest and gather data on keyword search volume and keyword trends, keyword competition
5. ANALYZE THE RESULTS
After you have finished selecting the focus keyword, monitor them thoroughly. Utilize your focus keyword in your content as well as blog posts, social contents, meta tags etc.
Based on the FOCUS Keyword (you specify) the plugin will provide suggestions on optimization using that keyword in different areas of the content. So select the focus keyword accordingly.
Section 5 :
Optimizing Metadata Of The Webpage
Your website metadata consists of page title and meta description for every page on your site.
These provide search engines like Google with important information about the content and purpose of each individual page on your website.
It helps them determine whether your website is relevant enough to display in search results.
Next you will have to go to the meta data section to optimize your SEO title and SEO description.
Just below the snippet preview window, you will find an option ‘edit snippet’. Click on that.
While creating your SEO Title, there are certain things that you need to take care of. Your SEO Title Should Contain
- Number
- Power word
- Focus Keyword
- Positive or Negative sentiment word
The below format will help you to prepare your SEO title easily.
[Number] [Focus KW] [Positive/Negative sentiment] [Power word]
You can order the above parameter in an order that makes sense within the sentence. But it is best to have the focus keyword at the beginning of the title.
Here’s an example of SEO Title using the above formula:
SEO For Nonprofits: 5 Tips That You Can Implement To Improve Google Page Rank Easily
After clicking on ‘edit snippet’ a dialogue box will open like this snapshot below within the snippet editor,
I have already mentioned what to include in an SEO Title. So go and add your SEO Title in the title box.
For SEO description box, whatever you write it must be contextual to your title and must include the ‘Focus Keyword’ once which is SEO for Nonprofits in my example.
Example of a description: SEO for nonprofits requires time and effort but is still worth it because of the benefits that it delivers. Use these five effective SEO strategies.
Another thing that needs to be mentioned here is that for both SEO Title and SEO description there are certain character limits.
- For SEO Title its 60 Character
- For SEO description its 160 Character
What will happen if you do not maintain the character limits in Title and description?
If the word limit is not maintained properly then when your website ranks for any keyword in Google, the texts that show up in Google search will be incompletely displayed resulting in a decrease of CTR (number of people who actually clicks on Google search to visit your page)
CTR stands for “Click Through Rate” which gives the ratio between the number of people who see your website in Google search results for a search query and the number of people who actually click on your website title on the search result page to visit your webpage. So for example, if your webpage appears in Google Search for 100 times for a particular focus keyword, and 15 people clicks on your website link in Google to visit your website, your CTR is 15%
In nontechnical explanation, If your CTR is less than your competitors ( i.e. other webpages ranking in Google for the same keyword), Google will favor your competitor’s webpage and will rank their pages higher than yours.
So go and fill in the Description section with attractive content containing the focus keyword as guided above.
For our example, after filling up the description section, it looks like this,
Note: Your Description should look good in both desktop and mobile versions of your webpage.
Here’s a video that shows a preview of how your SEO Description will appear both on desktop and mobile mode.
To make your SEO title more effective, you will need Power words and positive or negative sentiment words other than having the focus keywords.
If you need help in this check out the below Cheatsheet for Power Words and Positive/Negative Sentiment to help you rank your webpage in Google.
– New
– Most
– Exclusive
– Amazing
– How To
– What, Which, and When
– Why
– Free
– Guaranteed
– Because
– Easy/ Simple
– Today
– Discover
– Huge
– Everything You Need
– Proven
– Instant/ Fast
– Secret
– Premium
– Best
Now that you know how to correctly use Title and Description for Your Web page for onsite optimization let’s move on to another important aspect of optimization that you should be aware of and know how to implement it.
Section 6 :
Optimizing Schema Data
Have you heard of the word SCHEMA?
Schema is a semantic vocabulary of tags (or microdata) that you can add to your site to improve the way google read and represent your webpage in SERP (Search Engine Result Page).
Schema markup is an excellent way to help your website stand out from your SEO competitors and attract your target audience to click and visit your webpage instead of your competitors.
According to a study by ACM queue, less than one-third of Google’s search results include a rich snippet with Schema.org markup. This provides a huge opportunity for the rest of us
What Is Schema Used For?
- Businesses and organizations page
- Events page
- People profile page
- Products page
- Recipe page
- Reviews page
- Video containing page
- And more
To fill up the schema data, just follow the below snapshot for the option to select,
Then Paste the SEO title that you have created before in the ‘headline section’ and SEO description in the ‘description’ section.
Select appropriate Schema type from the list and update the article.
Are you unsure of what will be your exact schema type?
Here’s a quick guide to help you choose what type of schema will be good for what you are offering on your webpage.
How to identify your webpage’s Schema type?
Below are given 8 screenshots with most commonly used schema markup tags. You can easily choose between these to select the schema type of your content.
Don’t forget to use Google Structured Data Testing Tool to check your existing or new schema markup.
If you didn’t follow Google’s guideline, your webpage’s schema structure will be considered as Spammy Structure Markup, which will negatively affect your website in search engine.
If you have been following this step by step guide and optimizing your webpage, you may have noticed that after adding the SEO title SEO description and Schema data, your score has already increased a lot. Here’s scorecard from our example.
Congratulations! You have learnt now, how to optimize your webpage not only to rank high in Google but also get more clicks from Google Searchers to visit your donor or fundraising page (or whatever page you choose to optimize).
Now go and do it for the rest of the content on your website.
Section 7 :
Do's and Don'ts
Do's
- Take a look at the Focus Keyword suggestions provided by the plugin before adding your keyword in the Title and description
- Try to reach a score of at least more than 85 out of 100 to reach a better position.
- If you are importing data from previous SEO plugin,, do that before starting the optimization process
Don'ts
- Try not to cross the Meta Data character limits provided
- Don’t forget to preview your Meta Data structure both in mobile and desktop before finalizing it as it may hamper the CTR
- Don’t forget to update your the changes you made on your webpage frequently . You will be able to see the changes in your SEO score
Section 8 :
Bonus Tips For You
BONUS TIP:1
Does your existing website have a SEO plugin pre-installed? (Like Yoast, All in SEO)
Do you already have any schema set up built in your website? Are there any redirections (301) set in your website?
If you answer YES, then we have a quick solution for you.
The Rank Math plugin has an additional feature to IMPORT settings and data from your existing SEO plugin and SCHEMA plugin thereby replacing the old plugins from WP database. To know how to do the import process, check the below steps.
BONUS TIP:2
This plugin also provides another additional benefit – an option of creating XML sitemap for FREE. If you don’t have an XML sitemap for your website, create it from this plugin.
Why is xml sitemap necessary for your website?
XML Sitemaps are important for SEO because they make it easier for Google to find your site’s pages—this is important because Google ranks web PAGES, not just websites. There is no downside of having an XML Sitemap and having one can improve your SEO ranking, so we highly recommend them.
Now It’s Your Turn
In this guide, we have covered in detail about how to do the onpage optimization for your web page by using FREE RankMath plugin. But to help increase your website’s ranking in Google you need to fulfill all the visibility parameters as shown in our VISIBILITY BUILDER MODEL below.
The green section in the picture below shows that by following this step by step guide you have been reading till now, will ensure better CTR for your webpage i.e you get more people to visit your website and see your offer.
But before that, you need to get best possible ranking in Google for more eyeballs to actually find your offer when they search in Google. This is exactly what is taken care of in the section above- “How to increase Visibility in Search Engine Ranking” (i.e . the first part in the above picture followed by the action steps you need to achieve it).
Also, the third row in the above picture shows the last part of our VISIBILITY BUILDER MODEL. It is about “Ensuring that the visitor who has landed on your webpage from Google, stays longer on your site ” (and take the action you want). The action steps to achieve this is shown in the above picture.
To achieve all these goals shown in the VISIBILITY BUILDER MODEL, it can take months for you to watch different Youtube videos, read several dozen blogs, and try it out through trial and error method for a year or so.
Else, you can take help of our professional service and get it all DONE FOR YOU.
Interested? It all starts with a 15 minute chat.
Click here to Book a FREE 15-minute time slot to find if this will work for your Nonprofit and how it can benefit you.
Utsab Dey
Chief SEO and Tech Specialist
I’m the go-to-guy for Search Engine Optimization work for all projects at VWIT. Also, handling “behind the scene” technical issues and related problem solving is my other responsibility that I enjoy doing for our client’s projects.
We are located in India but work with clients all over the world. If you believe in your product or service and would like to increase the functionality of your website to use it as a tool to grow your business, let’s connect.
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