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HTTPS security

The Importance of HTTPS for Charities

Look up at the address bar of your charity website. Does the URL  begin with HTTPS and show a green secure icon? If not, you could be having some serious problems with your website. And they are only going to get worse as time goes on.

The Dangers of No HTTPS

That little “S” on the end of the HTTP stands for “Secure.” If you don’t have one, the connection between your visitors and your servers is vulnerable to a number of attacks. One of your top priorities when asking for donations is to be a good steward of that transaction and data. You wouldn’t share your donor’s credit card number with just anybody. Therefore, you need to be sure your website follows the same ideals.

HTTPS Impact on Google Search Results

Aside from data privacy best practices, Google announced that non-secure websites will start to suffer in their ranking. You may not show up as often in relevant Google searches. That could in turn lead to less traffic on your website. Every new visitor is a new opportunity to spread your message, increase your reach, and get new donors and volunteers. It’s important to keep one eye on SEO as you monitor your websites performance and adhere to current standards.

Conversion Rates without HTTPS

Another thing it could hurt is your conversion rate. Take a look at the image below. This shows what a visitor to your non-secure website will see in the address bar of their Chrome browser.

HTTPS Warning

Would you donate to a site with a warning at the top advising you not to enter credit card details? I wouldn’t. And neither should you.

There are lots of ways to accomplish securing your website on the HTTPS protocol. LetsEncrypt is a free provider of the necessary SSL certificates. If you’re not on HTTPS today, make this a top priority for the immediate future!

Google Search Console reports

Google Search Console Reports

Google recently released a long overdue redesign of their SEO monitoring tool, Google Search Console. In the newly updated interface, reports show a much longer history of data. Knowing how to use that data can assist you in specifying exactly where to spend your energy improving the performance of your site. There are two main reports I use that I will discuss here.

Clicks and Impressions

This report will show you how two metrics. First, how many times you’ve showed up as a potential result in a Google search (Impressions). Second, how many times showing up in the list resulted in a user clicking through to your website (Clicks). The new console will allow up to 16 months of data, as opposed to the previous limit of 90 days. While it’s great to show this trended data over time and see it grow, the data just below the trend lines is even more interesting.

Google Search Console Clicks and Impressions Report

Queries

The queries report shows exactly which words the user entered that resulted in your Impression. If you’re showing at all, that’s a step in the right direction. You can then spend time evaluating your performance on each of the keywords. It might be worth it to create some dedicated content targeting those words since. Google already considers your domain to be an authority on the subject. Creating targeted content can get you onto page one and drive significant traffic to your site.

Pages

The pages report shows exactly which pages of your site are showing up in Google searches. This can be good for two reasons. First, it shows you what your most valuable content is so you can spend your limited hours each day where it will count the most. Second, it might show you that some less-than-desirable pages are being hit most often from organic searches. Quick, fix these pages up! Make them good landing pages with calls to action to drive towards your goals.

If you’re having any trouble getting your Google Search Console set up, or just have some questions on how best to interpret the data you’re seeing, contact us today for an SEO evaluation.

SEO Basics

The most basic SEO test

Many people overlook the most basic search engine optimization (SEO) test you can perform on your website. SEO can seem daunting and overwhelming for those new to the topic. They may put it off, or think that it is too time consuming or expensive to tackle the subject. When I teach SEO, I say that SEO is just a couple hundred easy steps. Learning and mastering them all is not easy. That shouldn’t stop you from adding to your skill set over time.

The most basic SEO test you can perform on your website is to google it.

How to Most Effectively Google Yourself

Start by googling the name of your site or organization. Does your domain show on the first page of results? If not, click through a few pages to see if you might be languishing on page 2 or 3. If so, you have a bit of work to do. Are organizations with a similar name outranking you? Or might your social media profiles be outperforming your core website?

Tehnical Issues Uncovered

If your site cannot found, or shows the message, “No information is available for this page,” you might have technical problems with your site. This is most often due to your robots.txt file. The robots.txt file is a directive to search engines about how to best crawl your site. It is very common to set up a robots.txt file that says, “Go away! Don’t index me!” while your site is under construction or on a secondary development server. Many times, developers push that file into production. Its impact goes unnoticed until someone performs that most basic SEO test.

The last thing you can do is a site syntax search. In the Google search bar search for site:yourdomain.com (where yourdomain.com is your domain name). The “site:” syntax restricts Google results to just your domain. That definitely tells you if you have a technical problem with your SEO. If you still don’t come up, or get a no-information error, then investigate your robots.txt file. Look for Disallow: statements that are preventing your site from being found.

You’d be amazed how common this error is. It can make a huge difference once you rectify this error!

If you find your site not being indexed and you need assistance to correct it, contact us today. We can perform a preliminary SEO evaluation of your domain and correct this an other SEO errors.

SEO for Nonprofits

SEO for Non-Profits

SEO for Non-Profits may seem daunting or overwhelming when you’re just starting out. To be fair, there is a lot that is working against you as a brand new website. Your domain authority quantifies your domain’s reputation. It is primarily calculated based on a measurement of how many backlinks your site has accumulated, and those take time. Not to mention that another factor in domain authority is simply that – age. As a brand new website, you will struggle to rank on Page 1 organically for any competitive terms.

Does that mean you should give up immediately and ignore SEO? No!

As with any digital marketing strategy, SEO will play just one part of raising awareness and conversions on your site. You should be aware of your SEO performance, and look for opportunities to improve. Set a list of targeted phrases you believe would bring you relevant traffic. Then, track your ranking for those phrases. Use these same keywords to inform your keyword strategy. This includes building additional content around certain topics to raise your reputation on search engines. Tools like Google Search Console can help you determine which keywords users were searching when they arrived on your site. You can capitalize on what you’re already ranking for to drive more, engaged traffic to your site.

But that’s the long game. You will grow domain authority over time and start to see more and more organic traffic. But, it will not happen over night. That’s where PPC, or pay-per-click advertising, can help. You can use the same keyword lists that you are monitoring for SEO and bid on them in Google AdWords. If you are a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit, you can even do this free of charge through Google’s Ad Grant program. Bidding on a keyword won’t affect your organic ranking. But, over time you can marry the two strategies to get the most real estate possible on page 1. Then start to drive relevant traffic to your site.

If you’re ready to look at the SEO performance of your site and drive more traffic for free to your non-profit, contact us today!