Transcript Online Marketing 101,

Can Volunteers Find You
When Searching Online?
First Steps in Search Marketing
& Measurement
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 Marketing
Step 1:
Ensure that your constituents and search engines can find
your online content.
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Keyword Research & Selection
Modify content with keywords, keep content fresh
Eliminate technical issues
Step 2:
Develop a network of sites linking to your content
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Register on directories
Establish a link campaign strategy
Use social media to build links
Step 3:
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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
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Google, Yahoo, Live and Ask create their listings
automatically. They "crawl" or "spider" the web and add
those websites to their index.
Keyword Phrases
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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.
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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
Brainstorm
phrases
Constituents
may use to
find you
How?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Brainstorm with staff, use thesaurus
Look at your literature, competitor literature
Ask your volunteers
http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/
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
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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:
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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/
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Google AdWords Keyword Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
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Where do you put the keywords?
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Meta tags: Title, description
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Page text
Alt text for all images
Links
Opportunity titles
Footer
Contact us section
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How People Search
The Long Tail of Search:
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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
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It is important to get your site linked on the major and minor directories.
Submission for non-profits/non-commercial are free.
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Your site should be submitted to the following major directories:
 Yahoo! (http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/): free for noncommercial 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
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Who would place a link to your site?
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What should think links look like?
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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?
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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
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
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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
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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
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Hits – Measures every element that loads when a visitor
request a page (images, javascript, the html itself).
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Conversions – the # of visitors that did what you wanted
them to do when they were on your website
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A visitor requesting a page with 30 elements would register as 30
hits! This is an inflated # you shouldn’t measure.
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:
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% 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
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Benchmark site performance
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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
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Search Marketing for Nonprofits Blog:
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How Search Engines work:
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http://www.seochat.com/
Web Marketing Today
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http://www.ericward.com/
SEO Chat
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http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2168031
The expert on linking strategies:
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http://Searchmarketingfornonprofits.wordpress.com
http://www.wilsonweb.com/
Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day (book)
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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)
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http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/
Google Analytics 2.0 (book)
 Web Analytics: An Hour A Day (book)
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Questions?
Katherine Watier
Watier Creative
Nonprofit Search Marketing Consultant
301-793-6121
[email protected]
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