Nonprofits and SEO

Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege to work with a few different nonprofits over the summers doing copy writing/marketing related work. One theme that I noticed working for several different nonprofits was the struggle to balance the roles and responsibilities required for marketing while also having enough bodies to perform the actual services the nonprofits provided. Nonprofits cannot always afford to hire people solely to market the organization. Often what happens is that an employee hired for another role will end up taking on the responsibility of advertising the organization’s services. This can cause several difficulties for the both the employee and the organization as a whole. Employees can experience burn out and organizations can lose traffic to their websites because the people handling marketing/website efforts lack both the training and time required for the job.

As an intern, I’ve found it helpful to read blogs from marketing experts to aid me in planning marketing campaigns. One such blog I read on SEMrush’s website detailed the benefits of using SEO tactics to increase traffic for nonprofits.

SEMrush recommends SEO to nonprofits because it is a cheaper alternative to boost traffic to an organization’s website. This is ideal for nonprofits because much of their financial resources go towards the costs behind performing the services they provide. In my own experience, I’ve witnessed the hesitancy nonprofits experience when deciding how to market their organization through social media boosting and other marketing techniques that can be more expensive. SEO allows nonprofits to limit funds spent on marketing endeavors so they can focus on putting resources towards service.

In my opinion, the most helpful tool recommended by SEMrush for nonprofits was local SEO. Local SEO is very practical for nonprofits because many of them serve their local communities and therefore their target audience tends to be in a specific region. Google produces “local packs” at the top of the SERP when users type certain keywords into the search bar. These packs provide a list of resources and websites based on the organization’s proximity to the searcher. SEMrush suggested ensuring that your nonprofit is listed in the local pack by creating a Google Business Profile. This will allow Google to place your business’s URL, address, contact information, etc. in packs that are relevant to local users based on their location and the keywords they search.

According to another SEMrush blog post, Google determines a website’s local SEO ranking based on the website’s relevance to the user’s search, their location and reviews the organization has received. SEMrush recommends several different ways to determine relevant keywords for local users including looking at the keywords competitors are using and using SEO resources such as Google autocomplete, Google’s Keyword Planner, and optimizing your nonprofit’s Google Business Profile. Resources like these can make it much easier and faster for employees of nonprofits to market their organization and increase web traffic efficiently in terms of affordability while preventing burnout.

Overall, each of these blog posts provided me with useful tools that I can employ when doing nonprofit work in the future.