Tech Talk : SEO Jacking & Cloud Computing For Non Profits
Have you ever spent years and years building something that you’re so proud of? Those countless hours of work, blood, sweat, and tears, the trials, the tribulations, the wins, the losses. Last weekend, something I’ve worked on for over 13 years was basically stolen from me, and my latest podcast breaks it down for you and gives you some pointers on how to keep your DOMAIN and business safe.
Tom Craig and I also break down the cloud for non-profits and show you how to keep your tech provider honest, we’ve seen way too many non-profits AND businesses getting completely taken advantage of by their tech provider and we’re sick of it, damnit!
I really appreciate the listen and would love it if you’d share this podcast with a friend. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes, Google Play or where you listen to your podcasts.
Publish Or Perish : Winning At SEO
Some very good friends of mine are college and / or grad school professors. You’ll often hear them say, Publish or Perish. Simply put, if a college professor isn’t churning out intelligent content in the form of papers, studies, white papers, findings, etc., they are typically DONE within the institution. Institutes of higher education thrive on content creation and if you’re a new professor, the best way to prove yourself is to publish and defend your brilliance, CONSTANTLY.
SEO has seen an overabundance of changes in terms of alogorithms with cute names such as penguins, pandas, tarantulas, anteaters, (I made the last two up…) etc.. The almighty Google has strived to keep its search engine results pages squeeky clean, but unscrupulous SEO types have always managed to find a way to game the results. This manipulation has caused Google to constantly refine it’s formulas in order to provide clean, relevant results to users.
So, now that I’ve painted a gloom and doom scenario, how do you truly win at SEO? You take a lesson from those professors. You publish. You publish amazing works of your brilliance that let your hungry audience know and admire your expertise. People / customers want to buy from experts, from leaders in the industry. Your mission is to not only feed your audience, but to alert Google know that your web presence has it going on. You simply do this by publishing.
Some publishing keys to SEO success:
- Create with purpose.
Build an editorial calendar based around your brands sales cycle. You know what products are hot when, you know when your audience needs one service over the other, so develop a calendar that fleshes out content ideas around those cycles.
- Create with meaning.
Be inspired. If you’re not inspired, get inspired. Visit blogs in your industry, read, listen to music, go to the gym, weave a basket underwater, whatever sparks your plugs, but write with purpose. Don’t simply write to write.
- Create with your audience in mind.
It’s not about you. The Internet belongs to the people, give it to them. Know what your audience looks like in terms of demographics and feed them what they want. If you don’t know what they want, simply ask them.
- Create it to be shared.
True SEO gold is when your content gets shared and talked about around the Internet. Make your content shareable, make it easy to be shared, make it so juicy that it begs to be shared. Include photos, videos, commentaries, styling, make it amazing.
- Create it to be engaged with.
Make it easy and lead people to interact with your content. Make sure that your blog is easy to post comments on, make sure that you ask your readers to engage, lead them and respond to them.
- Create it to be talked about.
I’m not a fan of creating controversy for controversy sake, BUT, make your titles and content remarkable / sexy / enticing. We need people to want to click, read, share & engage.
Most importantly, keep your eye on the prize. Keep writing for your users, not just for SEO. The more you put your users first, the more Google will reward you. Google, in its webmaster guidelines spells out the following and tells us exactly what they are looking for:
Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.”
- Google Webmaster Guidelines.
Thanks for reading / sharing. Now, get to work. Your users are hungry for your wisdom, Google is anxious to get your brilliance found.
The REAL Secret SEO Sauce.
“Feed them what they want, talk to them about how you can constantly improve what you are feeding them. Businesses need to realize this: they need to focus on feeding humans rich, amazing content, and THEN optimize that content so that Google loves it.”
I've had so many people over the years ask what my secret sauce is for SEO and digital marketing. I guess with so many hacks out in the digital marketing landscape and so much dis-information out there about search marketing, companies / businesses have come to look at SEO as grey, or some wizardry behind a curtain.
The search engine optimization industry has gotten a bad rap. Yes, there are hacks. There are a ton of them. There ARE ways to game Google, there are ways to influence rankings that are non-ethical and yes, many companies have been screwed over as Google retaliates and drops them from the rankings.
So, do you want to know my SECRET SEO SAUCE recipe?
Work Hard And Never Stop.
SEO is an ongoing commitment. It's not a one and done. It's not simply playing around with some code and tweaking copy. It's about being dedicated to providing website visitors and customers with an amazing digital experience when they land on one of your digital channels. It's a strategy driven commitment to create remarkable stuff that pulls people to your brand.
Don't Be An Asshole.
As mentioned, yes, there are many ways to screw the system, and yes, screwing the Google system COULD yield some search results, but guess what... Not for long. Practicing in un-ethical practices to hyper-inflate your search rankings is NEVER a good idea. So, don't be an asshole, play by the rules and focus on creating remarkable content and an amazing experience for your site visitors.
Create Amazing.
Why do you want more website visitors?
Who do you want coming to your website?
How do you want them to feel about your brand?
If you can't answer these questions, you shouldn't even have a website. The whole point of the Internet, the core, is to give people what they are looking for. If your SEO / Digital Marketing strategy is to churn out tons of copy in order to attract Google and be NUMBER 1, you're doing it wrong. Plan and simple.
The way to get to the top is to be noticed. Be noticed by creating amazing 'stuff' that people (your audience) are interested in. Ask them what they want. Feed them what they want, talk to them about how you can constantly improve what you are feeding them. Businesses need to realize this: they need to focus on feeding humans rich, amazing content, and THEN optimize that content so that Google loves it.
Technical Is Important, BUT...
You do need to know the fundamentals of SEO in order to succeed, but, without a strategy to connect, grow and nurture your audience, you may as well hang it up.
- Have a crappy looking, dated website? Why bother optimizing a turd? Build a responsive, beautiful, secure site that people actually WANT to go and experience.
- Obsessed with being number 1 in Google? Stop. Obsess with creating an amazing experience for site visitors and watch what happens.
- Obsessed with H1 tags, Schema markup, ALT tags? Stop. I'm not discounting the technical components, but I am stressing this: Obsess about creating great stuff for that website, obsess about your audience, not about the technical.
Educate Yourself / Trust, But Verify.
I spend hours reading about SEO & Digital Marketing daily. I have to. You have to. It changes every minute which is one of the reasons why I love what I do.
Take the time read about best practices, but do so with caution. Some trusted sources that I visit daily are :
- Learn about marketing, amazing customer service and how to be unique at Seth Godin's blog.
- Educate yourself about how search engines work at Search Engine Watch.com
- You can find some amazing, unique insight into the world of search, social and more at Search Engine Land.com
Thanks for taking the time to read and share this if you found it valuable. The whole point to my rant here, If you want your site to kickass, create kickass. It's all about the strategy and all about the remarkable content that you create for your target audience.
Enough To Be Dangerous...
Do you know your profession inside and out? Do you live it, eat it, drink it, breathe it daily? Can you hold your own with a room full of peers because you know your “stuff” so well? Yes. The answer is yes. You, my friend are an expert. Experts know the ins and outs, experts have walked the walk and bitten the dust a few times. Experts know how to get it done without blinking an eye. Then there’s Mike.
Mike knows a little bit about everything. He dabbles here, he dabbles there. He tells you how it should be because he read that article once about the thing with the widget and the flux capacitor. He gets news alerts in his inbox about widgets and trusts everything. Heck, he’s even listened to a podcast or two about a thing or two and NOW he knows. Yes my fellow experts, Mike is real, and Mike is here to tell you how you should skin the cat, how you should roll, how you should focus on this or not focus on this. Mike has never actually done what you do, but gosh darnit, he read that article on LinkedIn and has a friend on Twitter who agrees most of the time.
The Mike’s of the world distract the experts of the world. The Mike’s of the world become the CEO’s “consultant” and throw everything off course so that they can simply keep their gig. The Mike’s of the world can ultimately end up single-handily throwing an entire company off course just because of a shiny object.
Knowing enough to be dangerous is a huge danger. Learning by doing, learning by experience, learning by the ole’ school of hard knocks is what makes an expert an expert. A never ending quest for learning coupled with a never-ending zest for finding a better, newer and more relevant way of doing this is what makes YOU an expert. Learning to trust your gut is challenging, but will ultimately insulate you from the many Mike’s of the world.
In my world, there are millions of Mike’s. They know how to do SEO better because their cousin Joey once got a site ranked in Bing by altering some code. They think Social Media isn’t right for your business because it simply just doesn’t ROI, they think that content can be churned out quicker, faster and cheaper in India and simply don’t get why we’re creating it in the first place. The Mike’s of the world are fixated on one particular portion of marketing and never look at the big picture because they kind of sorta know something about that particular portion. The Mike’s of the Digital Marketing world are everywhere and news-flash, the Mike’s aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
How do you keep the Mike’s out? You don’t budge. You stay the course. You stay grounded. You challenge. If you’re not allowed to challenge, you get the hell away from Mike. The Internet has made it stupid simple to get to see what Mike is really about. Use it. Challenge him. Avoid him, take his advice ALWAYS with a grain of salt.
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5 SEO Tips For Your Nonprofit Organization
Nonprofits don’t normally liked to be compared to the business world. They do good deeds, they devote their whole life to a worthy cause, they are passionate about executing their mission. Oftentimes, they are the EXACT opposite of how a business behaves. When nonprofits come to me for my digital marketing consulting services, the first question I ask them is can people find you in Google? Most of the time, the answer is no. That’s a problem. That’s a big problem.
Google and the Nonprofit.
People don’t just use Google to find window washers, restaurants, personal injury attorneys, or digital marketing agencies. They use Google to give. They use Google to learn. They use Google to contribute to the greater good. Oftentimes, nonprofits simply don’t have that pair of eyeglasses on, and they aren’t thinking in terms of search or getting found. They need to be.
Your audience is searching. They are searching for things to get involved in. They are searching for information on poverty, or the homeless, or the hungry. They are searching about endangered species, the arts, the humanities, the symphony. They are looking for you. Can they find your nonprofit?
Lost & Found.
I was recently appointed to the board of Michelee Puppets, an honor which I take very seriously. I was appointed because they see the value of digital marketing for their nonprofit, and they are looking forward because they see the massive need for being found online.
Michelee came to On Target a few months back and we donated a digital marketing plan for their amazing nonprofit. As I was meeting with the board president and executive director today, she informed me how very pleased she was that their traffic has shot up, their content is being read, their rankings are moving from page 10 of Google (the best place to bury a dead body) to page 1, position 1 under some of her core keyphrases. On Target is literally helping to transform her nonprofit by putting it on the radar in Google. Now, when schools are seeking educational programming for their students, Michelee Puppets is among those options. More people are served, and more lives are touched because of a simple search.
5 SEO Quick Tips for Nonprofits.
1) Content, Content, Content: Your audience is hungry, Google is hungry. Feed your audience, get found in Google. Focus your content on the mission you serve. Write about the grateful people that you’ve served. Tell the stories about the mother you helped, the little one who needed guidance, the amazing contribution that a corporate sponsor just made. SPREAD THE LOVE and don’t stop. The more amazing, shareable content that your nonprofit creates, the more Google will reward you with better search rankings.
2) Get Social: Installing amazing and fresh content on your website is great, and should be happening often. But you’ve got to take your nonprofit farther than that to get your audience and Google’s attention. Creating rich content for social media and building a strong following will not only keep your prospects, donors, board members and volunteers engaged, it will show Google that your nonprofit is alive and vibrant. Be sure to reference your website URL from time to time and steer your audience to your blog, newsroom, donation page, mission statement, etc.
3) Optimize Your Nonprofit: The majority of nonprofit websites that I see are NOT optimized for search. They don’t reference the specific location that they serve, they don’t adjust title and description tags, they didn’t incorporate best SEO practices, they didn’t chose the right URL structure, etc., etc. Have a professional look over your site and perform a quick analysis. Oftentimes, the majority of the SEO issues are easily fixed, but 9 times out of 10, a nonprofit website was built by a donor or volunteer who just simply doesn’t have the SEO background, OR the nonprofit was simply not thinking about getting the website found via search engines from the inception.
4) Get Local: If your nonprofit serves a particular regions, i.e., Orlando, be sure to claim your Google Places page. Add some rich photos, add some testimonials about the lives you’ve changed, add your ‘business’ hours. This will ensure that your nonprofit shows up during a Google search as a ‘place’ near the searcher’s location. Google is a real estate game, and you’ve got to make certain that you obtain every possible free listing that you can in order to own the real estate.
5) Get Responsive: Does your nonprofit website conform to tablets or smartphones? Many do not and Google has recently (in April) announced that it will be ranking websites that are built to ‘respond’ to the many different Internet enabled devices out there higher than websites that were built to remain static and seen on a desktop / laptop. This is critical and will typically require some pretty large modifications to your website code and sometimes, look and feel.
The Bottom Line.
It’s critical to treat your nonprofit and its online presence like you would a business. Your nonprofit needs to get found, get shared, get talked about, and get noticed by the people who can help share and spread the good word about your organization. SEO is a huge and critical factor (and just the tip of the iceberg) when it comes to digital marketing and growing your organization.
If I can help your nonprofit with its SEO or digital marketing in any capacity, I encourage you to give me a call at On Target Digital Marketing. In Orlando, call 407-830-4550 xt. 100.
Thanks so much for reading and sharing,
@TomJelneck