Richie Jones at Digital Leap 09

1. Using SEO to support online fund raising

3. About me
• Creative technology director at
Yucca
• Founded Yucca 9 years ago
• Self confessed geek and lover of
technology
• Have met Tom Jones

6. The pace of change
The time it takes for influential
websites to hit 100,000,000 users is falling.
TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
Ebay took 7 years. YouTube took 6 months
1900 TIME 2009
View original chart at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PPTParadigmShiftsFrr15Events.jpg

7. "The perfect search engine, would understand exactly
what you mean and give back exactly what you want.“
Larry Page, Google co-founder

8. Sorry what was that? Did you say ‘Golf’ or ‘Golf’?

9. It’s a little like a school disco…
is the cool kid
is having a breakdown in the bathroom
is still trying to pick an outfit

10. 48%
of all of UK web visits in the UK are to Google
Source: Hitwise UK 2009

11. How users are using search
Wireless
broadband Many users Google has
has released are using replaced
the computer ‘human’ bookmarks
from the phrasing for many
study
Many will
search your Search length
site using is increasing –
Google, rather 4.1 words in
than your 2008 from 2.4
navigation in 2006*
* Google UK

12. Why is SEO relevant to fundraising?

13. Defined ROI
• Using your web stats package, phone tracking and interfacing with your
CRM systems you can track exactly what your investment in SEO is doing
to your organisation
• It can also inform other activity

14. What to aim for with SEO
• Aim to create value
• Visitors over rankings; customers over traffic
• Prioritisation based on comprehensive reporting and analysis
• Focus on quality
• Innovative, high quality content engages visitors and attracts quality links
• Quality links confer long-lasting ranking benefits
• Make sure you understand your objectives
• Strategies appropriate to your site and your objectives
• Methods that leverage your existing strengths
• SEO is not a dark art, it’s common sense.

15. Case study

20. About Surfers Against Sewage
• www.sas.org
• UK-based non profit-making
• Founded in 1990 by a group of surfers
• Not just surfers, not just sewage
• Unusual (sometimes humorous) and
photogenic media-friendly tactics have
ensured that the campaign message of
pollution free recreational waters has
reached a wide audience

21. How is sas.org doing now?
• Homepage PageRank 5 – Good
• 16,300 inbound links – Good: Links come from a vast range of sites, from
commercial sites and national newspapers to personal blogs. All of them
are “natural” links – not paid for and probably not solicited for either.
• 1,020 Google indexed pages – Good
• This gives it a stronger ranking potential than most commercial sites
• Excellent content with real authority, SAS release academic papers
annually
• Synopsis: the site really has the potential to get lots of traffic.

22. A common story
• Same page title on all pages across the site: Cardinal sin of SEO. Sorting
this alone will have immediate benefits.
• Keyword meta tag stuffed – no need and potentially damaging
• Non-descriptive link anchor text
• Same page description across site – should be unique to each page

23. Site doesn’t feature in top 100 for searches
• [Surfing] – 1,000,000+ searches/month
• [Surf report] – 25,000+ searches/month
• [Surfing Holidays] – 5,000+ searches/month
• [Surfing UK] – 2,500+ searches/month
• [Surfing Videos] – 2,000+ searches/ month

25. What the Googlebot sees – www.sas.org
…. Headers and copy need optimising.

26. What the Googlebot sees – www.yucca.co.uk

27. Optimise video content

28. Optimise video content

29. Identify emerging content opportunities

36. Consider your target audience
Don’t do anything before considering target keywords and audience:
• What keywords does your audience use when searching? (run a test PPC
campaign to establish this if you have no PPC data)
• Remember these keywords may be very different from language used
internally
• What keywords are your competitors targeting?
• It might be very difficult to break into highly competitive keyword areas, stay
realistic
• Look for untapped potential, track slang and media terminology

37. Paid search (PPC) and organic search (SEO)
how to leverage both strategically

38. Organic Paid
Search

40. Click through rate (CTR) modelling
Removed

41. Google Grants

42. What is it?
• In-kind advertising for non-profit organisations
• Google Grants is a unique in-kind donation programme that awards free
AdWords advertising to selected charitable organisations
• Google support organisations that share Googles philosophy of community
service to help the world in areas such as science and technology,
education, global public health, the environment, youth advocacy and the
arts
• More at www.google.co.uk/grants

43. What you should look for from an SEO project
• Site Analysis, in depth audit of the existing site – including measurements
for success (e.g. ‘goals’ or funnel analysis are set up correctly in Google
Analytics)
• Indicators of Ranking Potential, vital to manage expectations up front –
especially when dealing with non technically literate board member types
• Competitor Analysis, there is much to be gleaned from how your
competitors are setup
• Keyword Analysis, identify the keywords to chase
• Enhancing Content, rework existing and new press releases and ensure
they are syndicated effectively
• Link strategy, identify good quality links, quality not quantity

44. Resources
• Use Google alerts –
www.google.com/alerts
• Google Insights for Search -
www.google.com/insights/search
• Wordtracker –
www.wordtracker.com
• SEO for Firefox & Rank Checker,
both at http://tools.seobook.com
• Surf reports/webcams
www.magicseaweed.com
• Yucca blog:
www.yucca.co.uk/blog

45. Finally
• Presenting this presentation to SAS this month (surfing is compulsory)
• Yucca plan to work with SAS on the integration of SEO as part of their core
strategy going forward