Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead Not all those who wander are lost. J.R.R. Tolkien

Transcription

1 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead Not all those who wander are lost. J.R.R. Tolkien Jonathon D. Colman Senior Manager, Digital Marketing The Nature Conservancy Slide #1 of 106

2 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Introduction to Web Marketing via Search Seven key topics we ll be covering today: Findability Search engine optimization [SEO] Search engine marketing [SEM] External web marketing Online reputation management Landing page design Web analytics Slide #2 of 106

3 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 I. Findability 101 Slide #3 of 106

4 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 You ve Got an Opportunity: The Web But: It s big, really big And: It s unstructured, ad hoc, random By the way: No standards for quality, value, credibility, or usability Did you know?: Your donors and competitors are already there. Don t forget: It s growing like a weed Slide #4 of 106

5 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 You ve Got an Opportunity Challenge! Web publishing is not print publishing: Your users act as both information consumers and providers Users decide what s quality, what s credible, what s valuable Your user experience is now part of your brand Users decide how to navigate the web: Users decide when (or if) to link to your site or your competitors Inbound links to your site are votes of credibility and relevance Slide #5 of 106

6 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Wayfinding: How Users Get to Your Site Accidental (discovering) User Your Site Slide #6 of 106

7 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Wayfinding: How Users Get to Your Site Accidental Purposeful (finding) User Your Site Slide #7 of 106

8 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Wayfinding: How Users Get to Your Site Accidental Purposeful Your goal: provide findable pathways to your content for both User 1 Your Site User 2 Slide #8 of 106

9 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Push Content vs. Pull Content Push content drives content outward toward incoming visitors Great for purposeful wayfinders who need detailed info. Standard means for showing & telling your org s story Ex. online magazine, news releases, e-newsletter article Pull content brings visitors to your site from diverse venues Brings visitors to your site from all over the web Leverages strong external networks, online services Ex. e-cards, volunteer events database, online quiz or poll Bottom line: you need both types of content to build traffic and drive engagement Slide #9 of 106

10 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Don t Forget: Offline findability Provide findable pathways to your online content in offline venues: Magazines, journals, brochures Annual reports, press releases Marketing collateral products Sign-up sheets at events Signage at conferences and other events Office voic , business cards Slide #10 of 106

11 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Where is Your Audience on the Web? Local portals, communities News sites Online stores Partner sites Blogs, social networks Events, volunteering sites Slide #11 of 106

12 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Where is Your Audience on the Web? News sites Online stores Partner sites Local portals, communities Blogs, social networks Events, volunteering sites Oh, yes, and... search engines Slide #12 of 106

13 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 II. All About Search Engines Slide #13 of 106

14 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Search Engines = The Means of Wayfinding For many people, Google, Yahoo, and MSN are the Internet About 60 million American adults use search engines each day 61% of searchers think that organic listings are relevant Why? Perceived credibility Probably bring in a high % of visitors to your site These can be very high-value leads due to contextual relevance Fast, free, and useful for finding what you want Slide #14 of 106

15 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Your Business Case for SEO Good SEO draws new visitors, audiences to your web site Helps bring better leads to your web site Improves your positioning against your competitors Supports and builds brand strength, online reputation Gives you more data on how your target audiences find you If performed in-house, costs nothing but staff resources/time Saves money when compared to buying search ads Slide #15 of 106

16 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 What Can t SEO Accomplish? Make your site the #1 top result for all searches, all the time Purchase ads if you need a guaranteed top result Be prepared to spend Optimize your site for all keywords Especially keywords you don t use Un-optimize competitors sites Force people to visit your site Slide #16 of 106

17 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Vertical Search Markets to Consider Niche markets can = better leads Local News Images Products Maps Travel Slide #17 of 106

18 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Submitting Your Site Don t need to do it for most search engines they ll find you! Directories: Yahoo! (free for non-commercial sites) DMOZ Open Directory Project Paid inclusion? Probably not worth it buy ads instead! Best way to make sure you can be found in search engines? Build great content, link to it on your site Get inbound links Slide #18 of 106

19 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 No Time for SEO? Out-source to the Pros Many firms practice SEO responsibly using ethical tactics But, caveat emptor: No one can guarantee a #1 ranking Be wary of SEO firms that send you out of the blue Be careful if a company is secretive You should never have to link to an SEO Be sure to understand where the money goes Make sure you re protected legally Slide #19 of 106

20 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE Questions to Ask Your Prospective SEOs Do you create pages that are not built into the navigation of my site? Does your technique involve showing a different page to the search engine than to my visitors? Do you guarantee that you won t work with my competitors while you are working with me? Outside of rank for a search on my keywords, how do you measure success and ROI? What, exactly. does your service provide: rankings, traffic, and/or conversions? Slide #20 of 106

21 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE Basic Steps to a Great SEO Campaign 1. Research keywords 2. Build optimized content 3. Solicit new inbound links 4. Create a positive online reputation 5. Track your position and success Slide #21 of 106

22 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 III. The Basics of Keyword Research Slide #22 of 106

23 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Keywords: The Nucleus of SEO Single most important part of SEO The more effort you put into keywords, the greater your ROI Drawing more traffic, better leads to your site Determine whether or not you reach your target audience(s) Can save you money when purchasing ads on search engines Slide #23 of 106

24 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Search Engines Analysis of Keywords No one knows for sure; dynamic updates = no guarantees Instances of exact keyword/key phrase Keyword density Keywords in near/far proximity to each other Keyword word roots/stems Other keyword variants, misspellings Keywords occurring in HTML headers, link text, bold/italics, lists Slide #24 of 106

25 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Getting Started with Keywords Brainstorm with your colleagues Analyze your partners and competitors keyword choices Use web analytics to examine referrer logs for keywords Avoid ambiguous or overly broad keywords Slide #25 of 106

26 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Identifying Your Competitors Off-line competitors vs. online Once you ve selected your keywords, search on them Which oranizations/sites appears above yours? What is their content like? Who links to them And why aren t they linking to you? Tip: To view a web page s code, right-click anywhere on a page and choose View Source from the pop-up context menu Slide #26 of 106

27 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Slide #27 of 106

28 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Selecting the Best-Performing Keywords Choose keywords for which you can produce compelling, useful, engaging content for your target audience(s) Choose keywords that many users search for daily (popular) Choose keywords that have less competitors than others (niche) Ex. stop climate change vs. climate change stop So: How do you discover this search data? Slide #28 of 106

29 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Demo: Using Wordtracker for Research 1 When you login to Wordtracker, you ll see a lot of research options. Today, we ll walk through the Keyword Universe function to look at how you can use Wordtracker to research keywords for your SEO campaign. Slide #29 of 106

30 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Demo: Using Wordtracker for Research 2 Enter the Keyword Universe and type one of the words from your selfgenerated list into the textfield on the left. Slide #30 of 106

31 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Demo: Using Wordtracker for Research 3 Wordtracker will return a list of terms that are related keywords for your original entry. These terms may be variants, synonyms, or otherwise related terms to your original entry. Slide #31 of 106

32 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Demo: Using Wordtracker for Research 4 Click on one of the related keywords and Wordtracker will generate data on the most popular keywords in the table on the right side. Select the keywords that you d like to research further to add them to your cart. Slide #32 of 106

33 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Demo: Using Wordtracker for Research 5 Wordtracker shows you which keywords have the greatest potential for success via the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) score. Strong keywords have a high amount of daily searches performed on the, yet have a low amount of competition. Slide #33 of 106

34 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 IV. Introducing Search Engine Optimization [SEO] Slide #34 of 106

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37 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 SEO Mechanics Work on Many Levels Text: keyword density, coding practices Slide #37 of 106

38 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 SEO Mechanics Work on Many Levels Text: keyword density, coding practices Page: <TITLE>, META information, structure Slide #38 of 106

39 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 SEO Mechanics Work on Many Levels Text: keyword density, coding practices Page: <TITLE>, META information, structure Site: architecture, navigation Slide #39 of 106

40 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 SEO Mechanics Work on Many Levels Text: keyword density, coding practices Page: <TITLE>, META information, structure Site: architecture, navigation Topical community/sector: strategic linking, site positioning Slide #40 of 106

41 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 What Do You See on the Web? Design Page layout Interactivity Photos Graphics Colors Type size Slide #41 of 106

42 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 What Does a Search Engine See? Page <TITLE> <META> content Content (text-only) Navigation Headers Links, link text ALT text Slide #42 of 106

43 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Optimizing Your Page for Search Engines <TITLE> and <META> HTML tags: 6-11 words, characters Place your high-priority keywords at beginning Avoid repeating words, using the same word side by side Inline HTML tags: Avoid excessive use of keywords in graphics, Flash, or JavaScript Use keywords in text headers, bold/italics, list items, and link text Use minimal coding, compliant with W3C standards Remember: Your content should still feel very natural, not spammy Slide #43 of 106

44 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Optimizing Your Site for Search Engines Use search-engine friendly URLs Avoid URL appends, dynamic URLs, and page-level redirects Build links to your page(s) into site architecture Make them a part of universal navigation Use keywords as link text Cross-link to your page(s) from within your site Homepage link Make sure your site s search engine can find your campaign content Slide #44 of 106

45 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 When Will You See Results from SEO? You will never see immediate changes Well-ranked pages are re-indexed more frequently than others It may take up to 3 months for significant changes to appear You can speed along this process by soliciting new links from highly-ranked, relevant sites The longer you wait to start SEO, the more time competitors have Bottom line: optimize your site now Slide #45 of 106

46 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 V. An Introduction to Search Engine Marketing [SEM] Slide #46 of 106

47 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Slide #47 of 106

48 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 The Difference Between SEO and SEM Findability, relevancy is not determined by organic results alone Credibility vs. accessibility Can t compete on content, inbound links? Buy your way to the top of the page! Slide #48 of 106

49 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 The Case for Paying for Ads Size of the market: 1999: $4.3 billion; 2005: $28 billion 2007: expected to surpass all magazine advertising Involvement of competitors Difficulty of obtaining top results in organic listings Organic results, paid ads not mutually exclusive Investment, ROI easy to track; not so for SEO Instant gratification Slide #49 of 106

50 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Two Basic Types of Ads Cost-per-thousand (CPM) Used primarily for affiliate advertising on other sites Great for building brand awareness Difficult to track; hard to measure ROI Spend and Hope Slide #50 of 106

51 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Two Basic Types of Ads Cost-per-thousand (CPM) Cost-Per-Click (CPC) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Used primarily for ads on search engine results pages Great for driving actions, conversions Highly trackable; many metrics recorded ROI Marketing Slide #51 of 106

52 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Google vs. Yahoo Ad Networks Overall: subtle differences; use what works best for you Test, test, test Upgrades/new releases: Google has more, quicker Publishing ads: Google is faster, but Yahoo is less restrictive Bidding for keywords: Yahoo is transparent Reporting: Google has fast, automated, customized reports Payments: Yahoo offers pre-pay Slide #52 of 106

53 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Anatomy of a Google AdWords Ad Headline (25 chars. max) Two lines of description (35 chars. max/each; 70 chars. max total) Display URL (35 chars. max) Destination URL Slide #53 of 106

54 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Best practices for writing AdWords ad text Provide a strong, clear, and simple call-to-action Inform user about what makes your site different or special Use the keyword wildcard or manually include the keywords Use short, clear, non-repetitive phrases Always use correct spelling Slide #54 of 106

55 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Google s Editorial Guidelines Very different from traditional print or TV advertising Programmatically enforced by Google prior to ad publication Highlights: Landing page quality check; keywords must relate to landing page Local services must include location No unnecessary capitalization or repetition No universal calls-to-action No use of superlatives w/o third-party validation Slide #55 of 106

56 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Monitoring Budget and Performance Campaign Summary screen shows current status and performance Drill down into individual ad groups to see detailed data Individual keyword results within ad groups show you how well ads are targeted Slide #56 of 106

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58 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 VI. Soliciting New Inbound Links Slide #58 of 106

59 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 How Search Engines Use Links Crawlers, spiders, bots all follow links from one page to another Only pages that have links pointing at them can get indexed Pages with more high-quality links to them get indexed more often Pages that are indexed more often gain a higher ranking Slide #59 of 106

60 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Links Support Your Business Goals Every link is a vote of authority, credibility, relevancy The more high-quality inbound links, the more trust in your content High-quality links from trusted, optimized sources greatly help increase your search engine rank More direct links = more sources of traffic Local traffic Traffic relevant to context (good leads) Slide #60 of 106

61 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Links Improve Your ROI Gives you additional channels by which to reach target audience(s) Builds traffic to your priority web content Ex. Five minutes work = 50+ visitors in one day (Craigslist) Ex. Five minutes work = 1,000+ visitors in one day (Wikipedia) Builds greater search engine positioning Without new inbound links, ranking can plateau, drop Helps defeat traditional slump periods (summer, holidays, etc.) Can lead to viral linking, traffic increases Slide #61 of 106

62 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Not All Links are Created Equal All links help get you traffic, but not all of them help with SEO More links are always better than fewer Never participate in paid link submissions, link farms, etc. More contextually-relevant links are always better than random links Ex. Link from relevant blog outperformed by 3x link from NPR A few very high-quality links to your page can out-perform many poor-quality links Slide #62 of 106

63 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 How to Get New Inbound Links Make your own links Slide #63 of 106

64 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 How to Get New Inbound Links Make your own links Ask others for links Slide #64 of 106

65 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 How to Get New Inbound Links Make your own links Ask others for links Piggyback on earned media coverage When placing stories, don t forget to place links Include both traditional and new media outlets Slide #65 of 106

66 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Where Can You Create Your Own Links? Directories: Yahoo, DMOZ Open Directory Discussion groups/forums: Craigslist, Yahoo!Groups, enthusiast forums Social networks, bookmarking tools: Care2, Wikipedia, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon Blogs Local news, local publications, local forums and listservs Slide #66 of 106

67 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Choosing External Sites to Pitch Relevant, high-quality sites Sites that rank higher than yours in keyword searches Partners sites you may already be linking to them! Sites with missions that are similar to yours Sites that look professional, nicely designed Sites that do not include ads, pop-up windows, spam, spyware, etc. Slide #67 of 106

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75 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 VII. Designing Your Landing Pages for Success Slide #75 of 106

76 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Know Thy Visitor Profile your audience(s) Survey and analyze demographics Personalize, personalize, personalize Consider source site/e-communication vs. target site (your page) Remember: your user experience is your brand Slide #76 of 106

77 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Develop Strong, Measurable Goals Take typical conversion rates with a grain of salt Don t guess/worry what your competitors are converting at Focus on getting traffic, breaking down barriers to conversion Slide #77 of 106

78 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Common Errors When Designing Pages Assuming that your audience is everyone Assuming that visitors want to contact you Assuming that visitors are ready to buy/donate Assuming that your homepage is always the best landing page Assuming that visitors have a lot of time to run through your process Assuming that visitors want to read through all of your information Assuming that visitors need lots of choices Slide #78 of 106

79 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Two Basic Approaches to Landing Pages Don t make visitors think = focus on simplicity Slide #79 of 106

80 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Two Basic Approaches to Landing Pages Don t make visitors think = focus on simplicity Develop a strong case = persuade the visitor Slide #80 of 106

81 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Two Basic Approaches to Landing Pages Don t make visitors think; focus on simplicity Develop a strong case; persuade the visitor Both approaches are valid = test to see what works for you! Slide #81 of 106

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83 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 General Best Practices Place key content above the fold Don t try to tell your entire story Share key facts, be persuasive and credible Spell-check and use simple grammar Employ a non-cluttered layout Give user a noticeable call-to-action Focus visitor on completing a single task Slide #83 of 106

84 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Creating Strong Calls-to-Action Effective writing: a strong hook provides incentive to click Content re-use: repeat keywords from SEO organic result, SEM ad Visual cues: looks clickable, uses strong color, pointer changes Lack of competition: no other strong visual elements on page Loads fast: heavy visual elements should load after this and/or below the fold Slide #84 of 106

85 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Improving Landing Page Performance A/B testing Swap in/out text, graphics Remove unnecessary details Sweeten the deal: digital freebies, exclusive content, contests, etc. Offer second-chance for visitors who don t buy/donate Customize landing page(s) for different segments of inbound users Slide #85 of 106

86 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 VIII. Creating a Positive Online Reputation Slide #86 of 106

87 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 The Search Experience is Your Brand Searchers gain a sense of your brand s strength through search 65% of donors visit the web sites of the charities they support 40% always go online before making a giving decision 92% of journalists use search engines to research stories Comments about your brand are continually being published These eventually end up in search results All your good work can be undone very quickly Just one super-activist can greatly affect your placement Slide #87 of 106

88 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 From Search Findability to Search Branding 62% of searchers click on a link appearing in first page of results 90% of searchers click on a link within the first three pages Your goal: move from mere findability to dominating the entire search engine results page with your results or friendlies Slide #88 of 106

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90 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Organic Results vs. Ad Visibility Organic Ranking Visibility: Rank #1: 100% Rank #2: 100% Rank #3: 100% Rank #4: 85% Rank #5: 60% Rank #6: 50% Rank #7: 50% Rank #8: 30% Rank #9: 30% Rank #10: 20% Sponsored Links Visibility: Ad #1: 50% Ad #2: 40% Ad #3: 30% Ad #4: 20% Ad #5: 10% Ad #6: 10% Ad #7: 10% Ad #8: 10% Lesson learned: There s more to SEO than just being the #1 result! Slide #90 of 106

91 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Organic Results vs. Ads A question of budget Organic results have greater credibility Ads are much more easily controlled, tweaked, tracked Page 1 of search results, page 2, page 3 Slide #91 of 106

92 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Build Your Brand s Reputation via Search Build first page of search results for your brand with your site(s) and friendly/partner sites Move unfriendly/critical sites off the first page by optimizing your site, linking to friendly/partner sites Saturate channels (regular search, news search, blog search, image search, etc.) with friendly content that links back to you Pitch stories to new media along with traditional outlets ID and enlist super-activists to help you Start an organizational blog Slide #92 of 106

93 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Another Site Outranks Me for My Brand! If a legal use of search engine marketing, purchase ads and out-bid your competitors If an organic SEO result: Analyze competitors inbound links, indexed content Optimize your pages, site for brand keywords Solicit new inbound links using brand keywords as link text Slide #93 of 106

94 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Examples of Branding via Search Good: Google Pontiac Bad: Google Splenda Slide #94 of 106

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99 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 IX. Tracking Your Position and Success Slide #99 of 106

100 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Metrics to Watch in Search Engines Total # of resources on your site indexed in search engines Total # of inbound links, rate of increase in new links Growth in the total # of results for a search on your keywords Note: The use of automated querying tools (such as WebPositionGold) to find your position is officially discouraged by search engines Total # of places that your rankings rise Total # of places that your competitors rankings fall Slide #100 of 106

101 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Metrics to Watch on Your Web Site Total # of unique visitors to your optimized content % of unique visitors arriving from search engines, rate of increase Total # of referrers of traffic to your content: Find domains that you contacted, compare # visitors from each Look for domains that you did not contact (viral growth) Search terms used by visitors to find your content Cookie, segment all incoming visitors by source Conversion rate by segment Bounces Slide #101 of 106

102 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Helpful Third-Party Metrics Google PageRank Alexa rank, reach, and page views in relation to your competitors Useful only as directional data, not a precise measurement Use Alexaholic to compare many orgs at once SEOmoz Page Strength Age of your domain (via Wayback Machine, WHOis) Slide #102 of 106

103 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 X. Conclusions Hang on, you re almost there! Slide #103 of 106

104 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 What Have We Learned? The importance of making findable pathways to your content The business case and goals for using search engines, SEO, & links The five essential steps of SEO: 1. Research keywords 2. Build optimized content 3. Solicit new inbound links 4. Create a positive online reputation 5. Track your position and success How search engine presence influences brand perception Slide #104 of 106

105 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Your Web Marketing Goals To dominate: First get found, then get more and better traffic Leverage existing networks to reach out to new sites/communities Place priorities on most valuable audiences, sites/communities that work Use both organic SEO results and SEM ads to increase targeted traffic Saturate channels with friendly content, build positive reputation Monitor online reputation, respond quickly to negative influences Design landing pages for success on a per-audience/per-source basis Analyze traffic to measure ROI, revise tactics, and set strategy Slide #105 of 106

106 Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead United Jewish Communities CPE 2006 Contact Information Jonathon D. Colman Senior Manager, Digital Marketing 703/ The Nature Conservancy N. Fairfax Dr., Suite 100 Arlington, VA Slide #106 of 106