Showing posts with label Search Engine Optimization. Show all posts

How do you send emails to supporters and others who want to hear from you?
  • An email marketing tool built with nonprofits in mind?
  • Microsoft Outlook or Gmail?
  • Carrier pigeons?
Email Service Provider

If you answered anything but the first in that list, we're here to sound the "bad idea" alarm. (We won't get into why carrier pigeons are a poor decision . . . Let's just say their delivery time isn't up to snuff and clean-up is a nightmare. And honestly, doing email marketing from your desktop email program isn’t much better.)
Many nonprofit organizations get started with email marketing by sending out e-newsletters via Outlook or Google's Gmail. But beware; there are rules, caveats amd landmines awaiting the nonprofit using Outlook or Gmail for email outreach.
While Outlook and its many cousins are fine for 1-to-1 email, they weren't designed for sending email newsletters or fundraising appeals to groups of people. To do this effectively, you need an Email Service Provider.

An Email Service Provider Built for Nonprofits 

Network for Good's EmailNow was built by email marketing experts to do the tough stuff for you. It allows you to send beautiful email appeals without having to become a designer or a software engineer or someone who knows HTML or the CANSPAM regulations.
To visit EmailNow :  www.networkforgood.org/npo

Email Service Provider

Good Nonprofit Email Service Provider Bad Nonprofit Email Service Provider
1. Addresses the reader directly as “you” Must be thoroughly read, not skimmed, in order to be understood
2. Is short – think hundreds of words, not thousands Involves scrolling -- lots and lots of scrolling
3. Can be skimmed in a few seconds – which means you’ve included great headlines,
subheads and link text
Covers too many topics
4. Focuses on just a few items – and ideally only one Sounds academic or formal
5. Directs the reader to some kind of next step, even if that’s just “learn more” Leaves the reader hanging
6. Is designed for the preview pane Uses generic email templates (like Winter, or The Green One)

The Boundaries of Search Engine Technology:

"No smart engineer would ever build a search engine that requires websites to follow certain rules or principles in order to be ranked or indexed. Anyone with half a brain would want a system that can crawl through any architecture, parse any amount of complex or imperfect code, and still find a way to return the most relevant results, not the ones that have been 'optimized' by unlicensed search marketing experts."
Crawling and Indexing

The leading search engines many operate on the similar principles. Automated search bots crawl the web, follow links, and index content in huge databases. These execute this with stunning artificial intelligence, however current search technology is not really all-powerful. You can find numerous technical limitations which cause considerable problems in both inclusion and rankings.

Problems Crawling and Indexing:

  • Online forms: Search engines tend to be not good at completing online forms (such as a login), and hence any content contained behind them may remain hidden.
  • Duplicate pages: Websites making use of a CMS (Content Management System) usually create duplicate versions of the same page; this is a major problem for search engines seeking for completely original content.
  • Blocked in the code: Errors in a website's crawling directives (robots.txt) may possibly lead to embarrassing search engines entirely.
  • Poor link structures: If a website's link structure is not easy to understand to the search engines, they could possibly not reach all of a website's content; or, if it is crawled, the minimally-exposed content may be considered unimportant by the engine's index.
  • Non-text Content: Despite the fact that the engines are getting better at reading non-HTML text, content in rich media format is continue to difficult for search engines to parse. This involves text in Flash files, images, photos, video, audio, and plug-in content.

Search engines typically presume that the considerably more popular a site, page, or document

Search engines are generally answer machines. Whenever a person performs an online search, the search engine scours its collection of billions of documents and does two things: first, it returns only those results which are relevant or useful to the searcher's query; secondly, it ranks all those results according to the popularity of the websites providing the information. It is both relevance and popularity that the process of SEO is meant to impact.
With a search engine, relevance means a lot more than finding a page with the right words. During the early days of the web, search engines did not go much further than this simplistic step, and search results ended up of limited value. Through the years, smart engineers have created better ways to match results to searchers’ queries. Today, hundreds or thousands of factors influence relevance, and Search engines typically presume that the considerably more popular a site, page, or document, the more valuable the information it contains should be. This assumption has proven reasonably successful in terms of user satisfaction with search results.

search engines, relevance and popularity

Popularity and relevance are not determined manually. Alternatively, the engines employ mathematical equations (algorithms) to organize the wheat from the chaff (relevance), and then to rank the wheat in order of quality (popularity). These algorithms often consist of hundreds of factors. From the search marketing field, we refer to them as “ranking factors.” Moz constructed a resource specifically on this subject: Search Engine Ranking Factors.

Search Engine Optimization have turn out to be invaluable to modern day. Websites optimized with keywords and hyperlinks have been proven for you to increase traffic to websites, increase search engine rankings and secure greater coverage in the keyword research.

Search Engine Optimization

When developing SEO‐friendly websites, ask yourself the following questions:


1. How does this article's dovetail with my website’s current SEO initiatives?

2. What are my website’s top five keywords/phrases, and are they appropriate to this specific
article?

3. Are there any additional or different keywords suitable for this specific article going to be post?

4. Are there specific pages on my website that I want to drive traffic to with this new post?

5. Can this article's content be enhanced by rich media content such as videos, photos, podcasts, etc.?


Once you have got your SEO goals in order, think about the following tactics help to make your website as search engine friendly as possible.

1. Determine the most effective keywords for your article. Depending on the content you are providing, they may vary from previously identified terms.
2. Online keyword tools are excellent resources intended for determining the correct phrases. If you did not subscribe to a paid keyword service, consider these kinds of free alternatives:
3. Once keywords were determined, you might need to associate more colloquial words along with them.
4. Apply the most popular keyword phrase in the headline, which will brings the most weight with search engines, as well as in the content of the article and in hyperlinks.
5. Pick one to three relevant keywords and repeat them at least three times in the article.
Search Engine Optimization
6. Don’t OVER‐HYPERLINK words. Optimizing content for words which are not used frequently in the article content can lead to irrelevant results and become considered spam by some search engines.
7. Include anchor text hyperlinks in the content of the article that are your keywords or similar to them. Make sure that you link these words returning to the appropriate page on your website. For example, in case you are linking a product name, link back to the product page on your site.
8. Ensure that the page you are linking back to is optimized for your chosen keywords. If the anchor text is “accounting software” be sure that it is linked to a page containing “accounting software” in the title tag and within the text on the page.
9. Spot your anchor text links within the first two paragraphs. Search Engines will pick up all these words much more efficiently when they are placed before the “fold” of the screen.
10. Keep articles short as well as concise. Most experts agree that the “sweet spot” for an SEO‐friendly content is between 300 - 500 words.
11. Ensure there is a balanced keyword to website article word length ratio. Avoid too many keywords and hyperlinks in shorter articles, and vice versa in longer articles.

Search Engine Optimization
12. Include rich media content such as images and videos which will augment search engine pick up in places just like Google Images or Google Video. Make sure all media‐rich content is appropriately tagged with keywords.
13. Include a link (not a hyperlink) to your website. Be sure to include the http:// of the URL.
14. If the content has a subheading, make sure it contains a keyword phrase. Search engines give a lot more weight to bolded text (i.e. heading, subheading).
15. Optimize your boilerplate - always include links as well as keywords.
16. Resist the tendency to shorten terms. For example, in case you are writing about your company’s branded data management software product, you’ll be inclined to make the second mention “the solution” or “the software.” However, people searching in search engines will type in “data management software.” Repeating “data management software” as a keyword phrase will assist your content be found, while “the solution” will not. (But, try to maintain the writing as “natural” as possible.)
17. In case your company or product falls into a particular industry that is often known to by an acronym, include both the full term and abbreviation throughout the article. For example, “Customer Relationship Management” should be referenced by its “full name,” and, “CRM.”
18. Post all articles on their own permalinked page on your website in addition to sending it out over wire services.
19. Always be consistent with keyword use both in articles and on your website. The website should have a keyword density of between 2‐8%. This tool, www.keyworddensity.com, will allow you to enter your URL and selected keyword for a complete keyword density analysis.
20. Buy Adwords for those keywords which are very difficult to obtain in the first page of results (i.e. those which are more generic and colloquial, or common industry terms). Putting this extra cash to drive traffic to your website could be essential to helping the impressions of your site, increasing visibility and the possibility of greater pickup.

search engine optimization

What is search engine optimization?


SEO is an acronym for "search engine optimization" or "search engine optimizer." Exercising SEO can potentially improve your site by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) -- including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines. And can likewise risk damage to your site and popularity. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO practice can do to your site.


Before beginning to use SEO technique, it's a great idea to get familiar with how search engines work.

  • Review of your site content or structure
  • Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
  • Content development
  • Management of online business development campaigns
  • Keyword research
  • SEO training
  • Expertise in specific markets and geographies.

when you're thinking about a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. make sure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up.

Some useful tips to built your website as an SEO friendly:

 

  • Do some examples, get ideos from other successful websites from similar category.
  • Follow Google Webmaster Guidelines.
  • Plan for What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?
  • Practices that violate guidelines by search engines may result in a negative adjustment of your site's presence from search engines or even the removal of your site from our index.  

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