Search Engine Marketing for Nonprofits
10/29/07
Brian Cendrowski, VP, Web Services
One of the most common questions I am asked by clients and prospects is "How can I get my Web site to show up in Google?" I wish the answer were as simple and innocent as the question. Getting into search engines involves a lot of variables, and can often take a lot of effort and money.
Search Engine Marketing vs. Optimization
Before I get too far into search engine marketing, I would like to make a distinction between search engine optimization and search engine marketing. Search engine optimization is the process of increasing the "search engine friendliness" of a Web site by using relevant text, effective organization of pages and content, and other techniques. Optimization alone does not guarantee search engine placement. There are other factors involved, including how much traffic comes to your site from external links, how relevant the search engines consider your content to be, and how competitive the keyword phrases are that you are trying to appear on.
Search engine optimization is more of a "passive" activity. Many search engines, including Google, display their search results based on what their spiders find and their particular formula for determining the order of the results. There is no way to "buy" your way to higher search results. You can only do things that will help your chances of improving your ranking, and often it could take a long time and continual tweaking of your Web site to get noticed and move your way up the chain, depending on the competitiveness of the keywords.
Search engine marketing is a more active endeavor. Most search engines, Google included, do have areas of their search results for paid advertisements. On Google's search results, you will see two areas for paid advertising, at the top of the search results and in the right column. Both areas are titled "Sponsored Links." These areas are for paid advertising, although the placement and appearance of ads are still based on keywords.
Google AdWords
Though the exact statistics may vary, Google remains the most popular search engine for Internet users. Most studies show that Google is used for around 45 percent of all searches, with Yahoo coming in second at around 30 percent, and MSN at 13 percent. Because of its popularity, for the purposes of this article I will only focus on marketing with Google.
Google AdWords is the program Google uses to manage paid advertising on its search results. Essentially, Google AdWords works by registering a list of keywords or phrases that you would like your ads to appear on when people search. You can set up different campaigns and tailor different ads for specific keywords and phrases. Once your campaigns are set up and your ads begin to appear on searches for your keywords, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, not each time it appears.
Google uses a bid system to develop the pricing system for particular keywords. Like any open market system, the more popular keywords are, the more expensive the bids will be. However, Google does allow you to set budgets for your ads and will automatically remove them once your limit is reached, so you won't pay any more than you want to.
Google has a dashboard with detailed reports for each of your ad campaigns that allow you to monitor the results and gauge the effectiveness of your ads. This provides a great amount of information to identify which keywords you need to adjust or where your efforts should be focused. Because search engines are such a competitive landscape, a lot of diligence is required to keep your ads listed. Often this will require at least weekly, if not daily, monitoring of your campaigns, again depending on the competitiveness of the keywords you select.
Google Grants
If you are a nonprofit organization, you might be saying to yourself, "There is no way we could afford to do search engine marketing." But wait, there is hope! Google has a program called Google Grants which awards AdWords funding to nonprofits. Each recipient of one of these grants will receive at least three months of free ads with Google AdWords, up to $10,000 per month.
Any organization with 501(c)(3) status, except those that are affiliated with religion or politics, are eligible to apply. Google chooses its grant recipients quarterly, and they say that you should receive an answer in no longer than six months.
Google presents a great opportunity to nonprofits to take advantage of the power of the Internet to attract possible donors and volunteers and to spread the word about their cause. The application is not very long, and I would encourage any nonprofit to apply:
http://services.google.com/googlegrants/application
Be sure to read the Google AdWords information page, as it will provide valuable tips that can help improve your chances of being selected to receive one of their grants. If you would like help with your grant application, feel free to call us here at Trio (843) 216-0442. We would be happy to assist you in any way we can.
