Webinar follow-up: SEO Best Practices

TW: To me, it depends on the campaign. If the campaign is fundraising focused, you’ll want a donate button and a text link above the fold, along with text that clearly states the ask.

However, at LLS we also conduct search initiatives to get people to sign up for an event — and for a number of patient-service programs. The needs for those initiatives are slightly unique and not directly tied to giving. In those instances, the donate feature is secondary. But generally, whatever your goal for a search campaign, optimizing it above the fold with a strong image and a clear call to action with a link is a best practice.

Q: Todd mentioned planning ahead by updating content on the Web site before a direct-mail campaign. Would this hold true for an e-newsletter? Should the e-newsletter content be posted on the Web site four weeks before it is e-mailed out?

TW: That’s an interesting question — I still struggle with whether we should have our e-newsletters available from the site at all (as making them available only via subscription is a better way to grow your list). As a page, that e-newsletter page won’t likely be crawled in time for any significant ranking. However, the fact that you’ve been posting editions online will, and that page is likely to be ranked well.

Back to your question … I’m not sure if you’re also sending this e-newsletter out via e-mail. If you are, as an online guy, I would encourage you to side with the interests of your online subscribers first (send it to them and then post). With the mailed version, I would ask those print subscribers to consider subscribing online to help with costs, and de-dupe the mailing list accordingly.

Q: Can you give us good tips for increasing inbound links to your site?