Here’s the transcript of the above video on SEO if you prefer or need to read:
If you don't show up in search results, all that hard work you put into your website may have been for nothing. You have got to get people to your website and a major way to do that is through search. So let's talk about SEO. This is increasing both the quality and the quantity of your website traffic. And we're talking about traffic that you're not paying for. These are the search engine results. They're going to come from Google or Bing or Yahoo! Search or whatever search engines that people are using now or they might be using in their future. Search engine results are really important.
We know that 70 percent of searches result in an organic click on the first page of Google. This has been shown multiple times, in many studies. Around 70 percent of people are trying to not even go to the second page. They are going to pick something on the first page and typically in the first five results. So being in those results when somebody is looking for an organization like yours is really important.
SEO Is About People
I love this quote from MOZ, which is this SEO company that's been doing this since 2004. They're really good at what they do. They say SEO is as much about people than it is about the search engines themselves.
What we really want to do is understand what people are seeking and then we want to provide it to them. This assumes it matches what we are trying to do as well as the organization.
So to improve your SEO on your website, you're going to first choose your SEO keywords, which is not hard to do. I'll point you in the right direction for that. You're going to use those keywords in the text and the meta description for the page. Your meta description is what shows up underneath the main title in your search results. So it's a little bit of text, usually just two or three sentences at the most that you need to be crafting.
And then you also need to review your analytics. You are very clear on how people are finding you and what search terms they're using.
If you do these three things, you're going to be able to improve the SEO of your website. This will then improve your ranking in results for Google or another search engine.
How to Do Keyword Planning
So let's talk about this kind of keyword planning. How do you do some keyword research so you know what words to choose? Well, the first place I always start is in the Google Ad space at this tool called Keyword Planner. So this will require you to sign up for Google Ads, but that doesn't mean you have to ever run a Google Ad. I've been using this for years and I've never run an actual paid ad. But what you can do then is under the Tools area, there is this thing called the Keyword Planner. So definitely sign up for Google ads, get to the Keyword Planner. Then you can put in terms that you think are related to your organization.
Let's pretend I run an organization that is trying to promote pet ownership for people who've never had a pet before. They might be thinking about their very first pet. So after I put in my term and I press enter, I then get a list of keyword ideas. This is the keyword I provided up here. And these are ideas that Google has based on searches that they are seeing for related terminology.
So you don't have to worry about the cost of any of these things because you don't have to buy the ads. What you want to see is people's way of wording things in Google. So "easy pet to take care of." Then you would start to say, "OK, let's choose some of these phrases that are maybe well used, that are being searched."
If I see something that has zero or one hundred searches, then maybe that's not a great search term for me to choose. But maybe something like "low maintenance pets" could be a term that I might want to do some competing on. And I'll compete, and I'll use that term in my writing. Another place I like to look at is "Answer the Public." This is kind of a weird website. I don't know why this gentleman is always on the website looking out.
I don't know the history behind that, so I have to kind of ignore the guy. But what you can do here is you can choose your country. Then you can choose an item, and you can search and you can see what people are asking about. And so this is great to see what is getting put into different search engines and what people are curious about.
You don't have to do a paid plan. It will let you do like two or three searches a day completely free. And you can download a CVS vile that you can use in Excel or Google Sheets. This will have the key terms with the questions people are asking. Ultimately that's what you want your website to do: to answer people's questions around a certain area or topic.
Another place to look for potential keywords would be YouTube. When you start to type into YouTube, like Google, there are other things that are going to come up. You can get a sense of what other people are searching for and that might give you other ideas for keywords. So maybe you decide, "OK, we're going to pick three to five keywords." We will write some blog posts that relate to these keywords. And perhaps we will make sure these keywords are used on certain pages on our website. That will help you "compete for the keyword."
Now Use Those Keywords!
You're going to use your chosen keywords in a few different places on the page and in your URL if that's possible. If you are able to get the keyword in the URL, that can only help you.
You're going to definitely use it in the article title. Rather than doing something super catchy, you can just do something straightforward. The closer it matches what people are putting into a search engine, the more likely it is that they're going to find your content.
You're also going to use any chosen keyword in the body text just one to three times. You don't have to do what we term keyword stuffing, which is where we used to write lots of keywords on a page. The search engines are smart enough they can figure out what the page is about if
the article title has the keyword you're going to use
the keyword appears a couple of times in the body text.
So I should be clear and say you're using ONE keyword or ONE keyword phrase for each page. So for, let's say a page, I might say, "OK, this is going to be "low maintenance pets." That is going to be the phrase that I'm going to use on this page in the title, as well as a couple of times in the body to help people.
I'm also going to be sure to use a meta-date description as well. You need one for each page on a website, including any blog posts or articles. You want to craft that media description to specifically reflect what that page is about. Do not depend on your general description for the entire site or the entire blog area. This will help more people find you.
I'm going to use my chosen keyword for the page I'm on a few times in the body text. I'll use it once in the article title and in the description, of course too. So after you have a list of three to five keywords, you're going to choose maybe to write an article. Or you're going to recraft one of your pages on your website with one of the keywords or keyword phrases.
Note that it's not using all the keywords on one page. It's using a chosen keyword or keyword phrase for ONE article or page.
You are going to try to get the keyword in the page URL if that's possible.
You're going to make sure that the keyword is in the article title.
You're going to make sure it's in the body text a couple of times.
You're going to make sure it's in the meta description, which is what shows up in search results.
If I'm going to try to write an article to target that "low maintenance pets" that we saw earlier come up with the keyword planner, I use that in the title, in the body text, maybe up to three times. I'll make sure that the meta description is specific for this page. Be sure to go in and do our meta description for each page on our website, each blog, post, and article we write. We don't want to just depend on the meta description for the site as a whole or the blog as a whole.
Google Analytics
Now if I put my content out in the world hoping for better, so I'm going to keep an eye on my Google Analytics. So here's an example of a website that I have done some work for, this is the Carolina Yoga Company. And you can see this is a key area where you want to look for your search terms. So under acquisition, I mean, Google, Google Ad Links is free.
So there's really no reason Google Analytics should not be on your website. It will give you lots of good information, and it's worth any data that they might take on your website traffic. You will get great information to help you do a better job at SEO and having a user-friendly website. In Google Analytics, under "Acquisition", look for "Search Console" and then "Queries." And this will show the search query and how people are actually finding this. So in this case, they're finding Carolina Yoga Company on these different terms. And it makes sense because there are different locations. And then they also try and specialize more in teacher training. They might decide they want to have some more pages that are specifically for teacher training.
This will help you understand what people are looking for. You might learn new keywords that you want to compete for if only a few people are getting through for certain keywords. So you want to be up to date with your analytics, you want to check them quarterly. I would say at least quarterly.
Make sure your analytics are set up correctly. Exclude bots and yourself. You don't want to add website clicks to your website data, right? Make sure analytics are set up so you're not having counting people in your own organization or bots as website traffic. And then you should have some good numbers and you should be able to look carefully.
You definitely want to set up Google Search Console. This sometimes requires a few extra clicks. But then you can see what are the terms people are searching for and then they end up at your website.
In Summary
So remember, here's what you need to know to get started with SEO:
choose your SEO keywords
do some research
use your keywords in the text, the title
use your keywords in the meta description for the page
review analytics regularly (make it part of someone’s job!)
These things will help you improve your SEO.
Keep Learning!
Get more practical tips to improve your nonprofit homepage by grabbing 3 Free UX Lessons to Drastically Improve Your Nonprofit Website here.