Search Engine Marketing

Google is still the biggest search engine on the planet. So paying attention to SEO that matters to Google is critical. But Facebook is the biggest social-media site on the planet. Did you know Bing is the search engine that controls all the "Web search" searches on Facebook? So when people are doing searches on Facebook, if your site isn't optimized for Bing too, you could be missing out on traffic.

The Google Grants program is a little-known offering by the search giant that is extremely generous and useful for nonprofit organizations. Although the criteria for this are rather specific, it offers qualifying organization up to $10,000 a month in free search advertising to promote their missions and initiatives through the AdWords system. This is a great opportunity for these organizations to get in front of Web-savvy contributors and volunteers. It also presents a golden opportunity to begin the process of reorienting efforts to a more Web-centric approach.

You use search engines like Google and Yahoo every day, and so do your donors. But what happens when a prospective donor types in the name of your nonprofit or your issue area in Google? Is your organization at the top of the results? The good news is that it can be, through search engine marketing (SEM). In a nutshell, SEM is a way to promote your website by increasing its visibility in search engine results.

Four fundraising experts discussed donor giving trends and what they mean for fundraisers at the Association of Fundraising Professionals Greater New York Chapter's Fund Raising Day in New York. SankyNet CEO Harry Lynch discussed online giving.

Nonprofit brand consultant Michel Levy provided 11 marketing communications best practices that fundraisers should utilize in their communications strategies. Here are tips six through 11.

Based on the findings from The Online Giving Study, Network for Good offers four tips to maximize online fundraising.

Is Google stealing traffic from your Web site? Maybe not intentionally, but the increasing sophistication of the search engine giant’s results page may be diverting your current donors and potential ones away from the very messages you want them to read. Try searching for any reasonably well-known charity on Google, and you’ll get the search engine’s results page, which is known as a SERP in the IT business.

In the Sage Nonprofit Solutions webinar "Intro to Search Engine Optimization & Marketing for Nonprofits" in its Web Wise Series, Katie McNally, account supervisor for Sitewire Marketspace Solutions, and Dan Gonzalez, Web manager for Sage Nonprofit Solutions, discussed search basics, best practices for organic SEO and what search’s role should be in fundraisers' overall interactive marketing mix, among other things.

Search engine optimization is an important strategy to ensure your organization's Web site gets found by Web surfers. But many organizations don't have the in-house skills to do SEO and don't have the budgets to hire consultants to do it. If this sounds like your organization, LotusJump, a new Web-based tool designed for SEO novices, could be for you. The tool, created by SEO firm Vizad, offers free basic accounts to qualified nonprofits.

At the end of this month, we will witness one of the biggest transformations in our country’s history when Barack Obama steps in as the first black president of the United States. Obama’s election represents a sea change for our country in race relations. It also represents a sea change in marketing, communications and fundraising for success.