Like many nonprofits, are you seeking to increase donations and grow your donor database? Whether you’re a local SEO novice or experienced, we can help demystify the process of using SEO to increase traffic to your website with these free SEO methods that industry experts rely upon to grow local organizations and market local nonprofits online.

Determine Your Nonprofit’s Keywords

Begin by creating a list of keywords based upon terms you believe potential local donors will search. Look at the websites of similar non-profits and charities in your area and see what terms they’re using. Another great way to find keywords is by Googling the name of your city or state with the word “nonprofit(s)” accompanying it (example: “Albuquerque nonprofits”) and checking out Google’s popular search term suggestions or autocomplete suggestions. Autocomplete suggestions show up in the search bar as you type.

Google’s popular search term suggestions or autocomplete suggestions. Autocomplete suggestions show up in the search bar as you type.

The popular search term suggestions can be seen by scrolling to the bottom of the first page of search results. 

Popular search term suggestions can be seen by scrolling to the bottom of the first page of search results.

Your nonprofit can then use these keywords thoughtfully in URLs, headings, and web copy to build domain authority, which is the probability your website will appear in search results for a particular keyword relevant to an industry, topic, or product. 

Here is a list of key phrases relevant to local nonprofits that are trending among users to get you started:

• Which nonprofits to donate to?
• Which nonprofit should I donate to?
• Which nonprofit org is best?
• What nonprofit should I donate to?
• [City, state] nonprofit organizations
• Nonprofits in [city, state]
• List of [city, state] nonprofit organizations 

As one can see by this brief list, questions are essential keywords, and a great way to incorporate them into your website is through a FAQ page. By keeping it conversational and naturally integrating questions, you’re optimizing your website for voice searches like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant.

Check out this article for a list of the best nonprofit SEO keywords of 2022.

Continue to Grow the Local Nonprofit’s Web Presence

Now that you have implemented your keywords, let’s keep the momentum going with these tried and true SEO tips!

Google My Business and Nonprofit SEO

Google My Business (GMB) is reasonably easy to set up. It will require confirming that your organization is what and where it claims to be through one of Google’s authentication methods. There are several different reasons it is essential to set up GMB. It allows your local nonprofit’s Business Profile to appear in search results, which contains key information about your organization such as hours, address, phone number, reviews and more. 

Google My Business allows your local nonprofit’s Business Profile to appear in search results, which contains key information about your organization such as hours, address, phone number, reviews and more.

GMB also importantly allows your local nonprofit or charity to appear in the local map pack of search results.

Google My Business also importantly allows your local nonprofit or charity to appear in the local map pack of search results.

Why Backlinks and Directories are Important to Local SEO

Backlinks, or external links, are simply a link to your website that appears on a different website other than its own. Google uses backlinks to determine if it can trust your website and confidently place your site towards the top of its search engine results page (SERP). 

A way to bolster your backlinks is by listing your local nonprofit in online directories. For example, your city or state may have a local nonprofit center dedicated to supporting nonprofits in your area, and this would be a great place to list your organization. It is also essential that your Google My Business name, address and phone number (NAP data) match with what you list on directories to increase your trustworthiness. Listing in directories takes time, but it is incredibly valuable, which is why it’s one of the many central SEO services NisonCo’s team offers. 

Additional SEO Considerations

Many other tools will benefit your local nonprofit and its donations as well. For example, producing high-quality social media content that users will be interested in engaging with can help funnel people to your website via platforms like Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. Additionally, ensure that your website is mobile-friendly with responsive web design to promote your Clickthrough Rate (CTR), as more users are exclusively navigating the web from a mobile device. Consider what languages are spoken in your local communities and translate your website into those commonly used languages to make your website accessible to more users. 

Hopefully, this article has shed some light on how to market your local nonprofit online and reach new engagement. NisonCo’s SEO team is here to offer our services. We can lend a professional touch to your nonprofit’s SEO efforts and spread the word about your important work.

Are you seeking help from our experienced nonprofit, legal, medical and cannabis PR, SEO and marketing team? Let us know if you need help researching trends and topics, crafting communications, or securing news spots by contacting NisonCo here.