Marketing A Nonprofit: 5 Tips To Boost Your Local SEO

Inherently, marketing channels take a person's attention away from what occupies them. Whether they are browsing their social media news feed, listening to the radio, or replying to emails, most marketing efforts, like print ads, billboards, or radio ads, interrupt a person's experience of media. The only marketing channel that does the opposite is SEO.

With search engine optimization, you first deliver value through the articles you make. People come to your business — instead of pushing your product to them, they seek you out because of your content. What's more, SEO helps you rank for keywords or phrases popular among people searching in your area. For nonprofit organizations, local SEO is a great way to build awareness. Here are five things you should do to maximize your optimization efforts today!

Claim Your Free Google Business Page

Create a GMB or Google My Business to leverage your Google search results. If you have a GMB page, you increase your odds of being part of Google's local three-pack. The three-pack lists the top three results for local keywords, and it selects these results based on the user's location when they submitted the query. Being part of the local three-pack ensures that more people searching for organizations like yours see you.

When creating your GMB page, ensure that you have on hand your location data. Things like the nonprofit's name, address, and phone number are requirements for registering your GMB listing. Also, make sure you use your business' real name. The one in your Google listing should match the one on your door, in your brochures and social pages, and your website. Also, use your mailing address and a local phone number; these details anchor your office to the location you're targeting.

If you have multiple locations, keeping track of all of them can be tricky. Stay organized with a spreadsheet listing all your locations and their various information. When you have all the data for all your locations, you can go down the list and update or claim the pages for all of them.

Create Business Listings For Various Sites

You can have a business listing in places beyond Google. Social networking sites, vertical-specific directories, and other similar spaces online help people research and compare various businesses. Get in front of more people by having your nonprofit in these online destinations. As local search evolves, the impact of various factors changes with it. Claiming online business listings can help you rank higher for search results and allow more people to discover you, but it might not have as dramatic an effect as amassing citations did in the past. No matter what, though, providing relevant information will always make you a winner.

Have A Strategy For Online Reviews

One of the most important things to a small business is building a good reputation. For nonprofits, it is the same. These organizations get more grants and donations if people are secure that they get the job done. People today turn to online sources to evaluate charities they want to support, so a nonprofit's standing online is increasingly vital today. Reviews are a significant contributor (or detractor) to that reputation.

You could work at securing your company's name by making it easy for clients to leave reviews. Have a short URL to a review page, share it with your customers, and encourage them to write about their experience. Encourage them to be candid and honest, and refrain from sending automated requests. Soliciting in bulk is against Google's policies. One other thing you should refrain from doing is paying for reviews. It is also against Google's rules.

Be graceful in corresponding with everyone. Respond to negative reviews with the same tone and professionalism as you would with positive ones. If you reply in this manner, it shows you value all types of feedback. Replying also increases engagement, which can lead to more conversions. Do not think that negative reviews are the end of the world; most people can change their minds if they see issues addressed.

Find The Best Keywords For Your Organization

Finding the right phrases to incorporate in your content is the basic building block of SEO. With keyword research, you have a guideline for proceeding. You can optimize existing articles to include these keywords seamlessly or create new pieces that do. SEO needs a thorough understanding of your target audience and what they search for online. Target high-volume and high-intent keywords; these are phrases that many people search for, directly affecting conversion rates.

Use On-Page Optimization For Your Nonprofit

Besides keywords, ensure that you cover other aspects of on-page optimization. Things like the page title and meta description, use of header tags, and alt text for images help Google determine how relevant your page is to people in your target audience.

Suppose that you are a nonprofit dedicated to marine conservation and coastal cleanups. If you have the phrase "marine conservation" in your page's content, the description, and page title, search engines are likely to consider your page relevant to this category and will rank you here.

Conclusion

For nonprofits, investing in SEO provides enormous long-term benefits. A well-crafted search optimization strategy is a cost-effective way of scaling your business and reaching possible leads. When creating a nonprofit marketing strategy, make sure you cover local SEO tactics to reach the people who are most likely to work with your organization.

Refine your nonprofit's content strategy with fully-managed SEO by Ranked. Our team helps more than 2,500 clients in over 40 countries rank across multiple markets and grow their online presence. Book a call with our team or activate your account today!