Optimize the content of your non profit website for search engines

First you have to understand how search engines work. Most of us don't have a clue, it's something about complex mathematical algorithms....right?

Yes, that's right, but you are now most likely in a mild coma, so let's look at the 3 major components that power the major search engines:

1. Crawling
   Crawling is actually done by bits of computer that find information on a web page, read it and then continue along be following links from your page to other pages. Another terms to describe crawling is search engine spiders that "crawl" around the web looking for content. Spiders will return looking for changes to the original page, which means there are always opportunities to alter the way a search engine sees & evaluate your website content.
2. Indexing
   Once your content has been captured, it is indexed & stored in a giant database. It is now gauging how relevant your content is to the words that people searching the web are using (i.e. keywords or key phrases)
3. Ranking
   The critical aspect of search engine technology is how the engine decides to provide the most relevant content to people searching for specific stuff (via keywords & key phrases). This is done by the secretly guarded "algorithmic functions". Fancy word for the search engines rules about what's relevant and what's not, thus PageRank.

Take a look at the major components of Google ranking algorithm

24% Trust/Authority of the Host Domain
Largely based  on the quality of incoming links. They treat links that flow to your site over time as an indication of other's people's trust in your site, find value in it, and reference your content as an authoritative citation. Creating a blog on your site that others link to or add a link on their site to yours is one of the major way to accomplish this. You can also call your friends and beg but don't be surprised if they stop answering the phone when you call. Provide value & be a resource is how you get this done....and it takes time & dedication. Read Blogging tips for non profit websites

22% Link Popularity of the Specific Page
The number of links to a specific page matters a lot too. How you keep visitors engaged and the quality of the content (highly valuable) is directly related to the probability of attracting incoming links. If the first measure is quality, this one is about quantity. Be a reference (.e. link) on many site as you can. Same here, this takes time, won't happen overnight.

20% Anchor Text of External Links
Anchor text links from other sites matters because this is their way of finding out what your page is about (i.e. "Your Company Name" as a link to your website posted on other websites)

15% On-Page Keyword Usage
The density of keywords in your content. There are few tools who can help you with that. The one I use is SEOscribe, it does all the work for me, it's like having a pro on staff reviewing your content before your post it...for $47/month. To help you with indentifying the right keywords, Google Keyword Tool is a great start

7% Visitor/Traffic and Click-Through Data
What do visitors do when they land on your site, stay for a while and browse or leave seconds after they get there (bounce). Engage people as soon as they land on your site, if your site doesn't provide any value, or valuable information, then they'll leave. Information about your company or services is not valuable...especially if it's full of marketing catch phrase such as "state of the art" or "best in class" or any other marketing mumbo jumbo. Provide value, something that 5 minutes ago I didn't know, i.e. valuable information in bite size format. If you do that, then I may re-tweet, like or link to my Facebook page your valuable content. Now you are helping your site with the #1 & #2 factor to better ranking....does that make sense? Google analytics has all the tools you need to analyze your traffic/

6% Social Graph Metrics
How popular you are with Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. How often people "Like" or "Re-Tweet" your content is very important. The more likable you are in social network, the better it is for your rankings. Now you may have realized why you should do it if until now you were a bit puzzled by why & how to do it.

5% Registration and Hosting Data
The trust worthiness of your domain name registration & hosting provider.

What do you think your biggest challenge will be in optimizing your site?