Online media, whether that be your social media, your non-profit's personal website, or blog, it is more important than ever before to ensure more passionate people can find and interact with your non-profit online.

You may have heard the term SEO before, and the phrase "SEO is really important", but it's often elusive what this actually even means, let alone how you can get to grips and improve your SEO.

So..

What is SEO?

SEO = Search Engine Optimisation. This basically relates to how close to the top of search results in Google you can get without paying for Google Ads. This is the goal. The further up the Google search ranking you can get, the more chances there are people will find you through organic Google searches.
You can achieve this through a number of ways.. here are 2 ways which will hopefully help!

Improve Your Website Pages Descriptions 

When you build a website, through a provider such as Wix, SquareSpace, or a.n.o.t.h.e.r. you can improve your SEO by changing specific details which are embedded in the code of web pages. In Wix (which we have used at Appreciate) you can go into "Edit Site" and there is a big button which says SEO. Make sure you authorise Wix to allow your search engine to include your website in search results, otherwise they won't include you! The second thing is to make sure your Header Meta Tags are up to speed. This sounds complex, but all the Header Meta Tags do is provide a description for the pages of your website. 

If you've had an Agency or Freelance web developer build your website, they will know exactly how to change these specifics (it's a 5 minute quick job so don't let them charge you for an hours fee!!).

E.G. Your non-profits "About Page": Make sure your "About Page" description in your Header Meta Tags says something like: "Welcome to our Cat Sanctuary. The number 1 animal non-profit in Manchester" - this directly links to the description of your non-profit.

This description will not show up on your web pages, it is a behind-the-scenes description in the code. It allows the search engines to essentially communicate with your website to understand what your website is about. The better your descriptions are, the better your website will perform in Google rankings!

Create a Blog:

If you create a blog on your website, you will increase the amount of content on your website, and this means Google will have more information to link people to. The reason for this is every time you blog, a new page is basically created in your website, and the more valuable your site becomes!

"When you run a blog on your site, you will be increasing the number of pages on your site materially. With each new page, you will be adding a new opportunity to rank for a keyword, to obtain Page Rank, and to engage visitors. You will naturally have more links to move people from one page to another around your website, improving engagement. You also have more pages of information that other websites can link to, establishing your authority through backlinks. Each page on your website that meets these criteria will increase your search engine ranking. Think of each page as a new opportunity to try for the top rank." - Search Engine Watch (https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2407771/blogging-and-seo-a-relationship-it-pays-to-nurture)

Aside from just helping your SEO, a blog will help people learn more about your non-profit and over time hopefully create a larger community of people engaging with your non-profit's dream and vision! 

At Appreciate we use Medium (www.medium.com/appreciate) to write our day-to-day blog, and as there is a link to our social platform there, people can directly go to our platform and start exploring non-profits!

I hope this is a useful quick insight into the world of what SEO actually means, lots of 'tech' terms are used these days, and we can hopefully shed some light on how we do things at Appreciate which may be useful to your non-profit!

I run Appreciate (www.justappreciate.com) which is a new 100% free social platform to help people connect with non-profits, and one of our goals is to help take some of these stresses away from your day-to-day online social media management - setting up a profile is quick and you'll know people on Appreciate will see a visually great and to-the-point insight to your charity when they find your charity on Appreciate!  As a tech-for-good start-up, social media is a focus for building our brand, and so I hope these insights are helpful to your charity’s social media strategy!

Thank you all and if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] !

Thank you!

Robert