Results from a year long exercise of implementing affordable search engine and social media marketing strategies for nonprofits.

1. LawHelp/NY SEOM Project
www.LawHelp.org/NY
www.AyudaLegalNY.org
Wilneida Negrón
LawHelp.org/NY

2. Why is it important?
- Orgs see in fundraising (up to 40%), brand and social awareness, visits to
websites, etc. (Blackbaud 2011 Report, “Boost Event Fundraising with Social Media.”)
- More cost-effective than traditional forms of marketing; can fit into the budgets of
most non-profits. (2009 International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising).
- Getting great search engine rankings is an extraordinarily competitive. There can
only be one number one and a lot of people are working hard at achieving prime
status.
FindLaw.com FreeAdvice.com

3. 1. Increase visibility of LawHelp.org/ NY and AyudaLegalNY.org in
search engines
2. Initiate a Spanish-language search engine optimization (SEO)
and social marketing (SM) campaign to reach New York's large
Spanish-speaking user base
3. Develop a model “dashboard” and toolkit so efforts can be
replicated

4. Strategies
Focused on organic, free and low-cost strategies appropriate
for nonprofits:
1. Keyword Research
2. On-Page SEO (title and meta tags)
3. Link Building
4. Blogs and Social Media Optimization
5. Directory Submission
5. Website Banner Ads
6. Forum Participation

5. Demographics Legal Situation
• 31-54 yrs old Socio-economic • Looking for help as a
• Female Status result of the economic
• Spanish users identified downturn
• Self-Identified as low-
as South American income • Top Topics:
• Internet-savvy, found • Family and Juvenile:
website via major search divorce, child neglect
engines and abuse, child support,
custody and visitation.
• Housing: eviction,
Section 8, SRO Housing,
and Jiggets/FEPS rent.

6. Keyword Research
• Plug keywords in Title and Meta tags.
• Website Navigation
• Alt attributes of images
• Content on the page
• Blogs
• Also use keyword research to find “hot topics” we can blog
about
• Anchor text for link letters

7. Link Building = Relationship
Building
• Use interchangeable anchor text
NO: “Hey Sarah, check out this website page with information on public benefit in New York, the
link is http://www.publicbenefitsinfo.com/.
YES: “Hey Sarah, check out this website page with information on public benefits in New York.
• Prioritize your link requests. Keep in mind websites with .Gov
or .Edu are SEO Gold! They have a strong impact in helping
your website rank for targeted keywords.
• Be personable
• Be patient-this should be an on-going part of your marketing
outreach.

8. Directory Submission
• Best: DMOZ and Yahoo
• Look into community directories:
• 1. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Google
Places,
• 2. City and state governmental websites
• 3. Chamber of Commerce links
• 4. Niche associations directories
• 5. The Better Business Bureau
• 6. Local library's Web site

9. Website Banner Ads
Step 1 Identify your maximum budget.
Step 2 Identify your target audience. Geo-targeting means ad will appear on the
website when visitors from designated zip codes view it.
Step 3 Lay out your goals. Are you looking for high impressions or high click-through
rates?
Step 4 Design the ad. If you don’t have Photoshop, download an excellent free
alternative to Photoshop called GIMP. You can download GIMP here:
http://www.gimp.org/ .
Step 5 Identify your approach. Cheap but time-consuming or $$ but fast and
extensive? For our Spanish web banner ads we used, Hispanic Digital Network.

10. Geo-targeted ad in over 140 Latino news
websites nation-wide

11. FaceBook Banner Ad: 10,508,399 impressions and
1,627 clicks

12. Measuring Results

13. Driving Traffic and Actions

14. Factors to Measure
SEO factors in bringing people Conversion
to your site
Referral traffic Page Views
Keyword Variation Completed Surveys
Visits Newsletter sign-up
Unique Visitors Length of Visit

15. Increase in visits (22%) and page views (59.7%) for
www.LawHelp.org/NY.

16. Page views: 2,232,138 in 2009 to 3,565,942 in
2010.

17. Increased page views for www.AyudaLegalNY.org:
For the past 3 years page views never exceeded 25,000. Now 47.6%.

18. Increase in conversions, measured by completed surveys and
number of English and Spanish resources downloaded:
7,000 Completed Surveys
6,000 5,735
5,000
4,031
4,000 3,473
Completed
3,000 Surveys
2,000
1,000 Linear
(Completed
0 Surveys)
2008 2009 2010

19. Both sites now ranking (i.e. showing up in the first pages of search results) for more keywords
phrases variation than before: Prior to SEO, LawHelp/NY was only ranking or showing up in the
first or second page of search engine results for a small group of generic keywords which varied
based on our name, for example NY Law Help, LawHelp NY, New York Law Help, etc.

20. Emails increased
from 1,200 in
2009 to 3,218.

21. 4.5
Spanish Keywords
Phrases with
4 4 Highest Growth
Across All Search
3.5 Engines for
AyudaLegalNY.org
3 3 3
2.5 asistencia legal nueva
york
2 2 2 2 servicios legal de
nueva york
1.5 ayuda legal en nueva
york
1 1 1
servicios legal en
nueva york
0.5
0

22. Engaging Existing Constituents and Increasing
Awareness and Information

23. Social Media Metrics
Blog Metrics
• # of Blog comments and responses
• # Links back to blog
• # of times blog or social media posts were picked up by reputable thought leaders in your niche.
Also, keep a track of the topics which were picked up.
• # of times media picked up any of your blog content
Facebook Metrics
• # of Facebook “likes” (previously fans)
• Money raised through Facebook Causes
• # of people who RSVPed to any events you posted on Facebook
• # of Facebook “likes” on specific posts
Twitter Metrics
• # of times your organization is mentioned
• # of Twitter retweets
• # of Twitter followers over time
• # of times your tweets were picked up by influencers
• Money raised through Twitter-sourced donations

25. Social Media Tools Used
Listening: Twitter
Participating: Twitter
Generating Buzz: Twitter, E-newsletters
Sharing Content: YouTube, English and Spanish Blog,
Flickr, E-newsletters
Community-Building: Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn

33. Toolkit and Measurement Dashboards available for download
at:
www.LawHelp.org/NY/toolkit