3 Digital Marketing Solutions for Non-Profit Organizations
When most people think of digital marketing, they think of e-commerce tactics to boost profits for businesses small and large. However, non-profits and charities can also benefit from incorporating digital marketing strategies into their charitable giving campaigns. Below are three digital marketing solutions that can increase your donations, improve your engagement, and get the word out about your cause.
① On-Page SEO
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is not just a tactic used by for-profit companies. These strategies are ideal for any organization with a web presence that wants to improve their reach and get more people engaging with their content.
Improving your on-page SEO requires more than just inserting a few keywords into your home page. In fact, it is a multi-faceted strategy that can be implemented with the help of an SEO agency or SEO consultant. The type of things these experts look to improve include:
→ Load speed
It doesn’t matter how good or important your cause is, if your website takes forever to load, most people won’t stick around to read about it. On-page SEO involves streamlining your site (and especially your landing page) so that users get easy access to your content.
→ Mobile optimization
In addition to a fast load speed, your site needs to be optimized for mobile devices. More and more people are using phones and tablets as their primary mode of surfing the web, so ensuring they can access your content will automatically improve your reach.
→ Keyword optimization
Keyword optimization involves choosing and including the best keywords to ensure your content is reaching your ideal audience. These keywords may be included in your on-page content, but they may also be present in your title tags, meta tags, alt text and other behind the scenes content to ensure your page is getting indexed correctly by search engine bots.
→ Content creation
While you may already have a regular blog of social media account where you promote your charity or non-profit, SEO experts can advise you about when to post, where to post, what keywords to include, and even what to post about. These consultants will have access to data that shows what people who are interested in your type of business generally engage with, and that can give you the leg up to need to really get your message out there.
② Call to Action
There may be nothing more annoying than clicking on a site and starting to read some quality content only to get bombarded with pop-ups asking to sign up, donate, click here, subscribe and more. Often, these kinds of calls to action achieve the opposite outcome. Instead, choose different methods of encouraging engagement with your cause. One CTA may be a pop up, but another could be an in-text link, and another still could be a form box that follows in a scrolling side bar. You can also include CTAs on your social media pages that direct to content on your site. Some tips for starting a CTA include:
→ Start small
If you are just starting out, pick on CTA and promote it in different ways. If you want people to sign up for your newsletter, you can use the above methods to promote that for a month or two. Then you can look at the data and see which tactic worked best. Or, if you want people to donate to a cause, take down your newsletter CTA and swap it out with your donation campaign. Keeping the message clear will lead to more engagement and less frustrated users.
→ Provide incentives
Many for-profit businesses offer discounts from products or services when visitors sign up for their mailing list or like them on social media. While this may not be feasible for you depending on your charity, you can provide other incentives such as stickers, buttons, or access to behind-the-scenes content.
→ Keep it relevant
If you run a charity that helps kids, your call-to-action should be at least somewhat related to your mission or goals. Asking people to sign up for a run to help the homeless is a great cause, but it doesn’t relate to the topic that brought people to your site in the first place. Instead, you can cross-promote with other causes on your social media page or ask someone from that charity to guest-post on your blog.
③ Off-Page SEO
As the name suggests, this is search engine optimization that happens away from your website. This strategy involves the creation of backlinks, or links to your site that appear on other pages. These are usually related websites that have a higher authority rating than your own. When people click these links, it tells the search engines that your site must have some authority too. This authority and relevance can boost your ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) so people find your site easier and can engage with your cause. Below are a few ways you can improve your off-page SEO.
→ Guest-posts
As mentioned above, guest-posting is when someone from another site creates content for that site. This could be an article, blog, interview, or even a podcast. Guest-posting not only creates backlinks, it exposes your cause to a new audience and basically acts as free advertising for your organization. While some outlets may charge for guest-posting, you can find plenty of places that seek submissions from related organizations and industries.
→ Social shares
While not technically backlinks that boost your ranking, social shares are another form of advertising that will increase your traffic. Whenever you post any content, whether on your site or another, include social links so readers can share your content with their followers. Not only does the increase in traffic improve your authority online, but it can also get more people involved in your cause.
→ Backlink building
Guest posting is a great way to build backlinks, but it is a slow, tedious process when done one-by-one. When you work with an SEO agency or SEO consultant, they can help match you with sites looking to host content that relates to your industry or organization. Because they have the resources already in place, the backlink building process goes much faster and you can see noticeable improvement in your ranking.