Tools for Online Marketing – Charity Edition

Charities, like any organization can and should engage in online marketing activities, especially, since in most cases it’s much easier for them to attain results with smaller investment.

Take Twitter, for example- a charity can generate a strong following much faster than a commercial company just by virtue of people being more emotional and interested about a good cause than they are about an iPad (in most cases at least).

Who needs pandas anyway? It’s not like they can connect to Wi-Fi..

Every charity should ask themselves ‘Are we gaining the maximum benefit from online presence?’ For many charities the answer would be a definite ‘no’ and that’s a pity, because now, more than ever, there’re more low cost tools and resources at a charity’s  disposal than ever. Here are some of them:

Facebook Moving Into Search… Not

There was an article earlier today on AllFacebookLand, where a user posted about Facebook possibly testing a second search box with a ‘Search the Web’ label. This is not true! Facebook later commented that this may be a third party app or malware.

I’d suggest to run some virus or malware scans, if you see this, just to be safe.

 

The fake search box on Facebook

 

Getting Results in Google Adwords Part 1 – Keyword Match Types

Google Adwords can be the best thing that happened to your business or charity since the demise of animated gifs on websites.

I miss the 90's

It can also be a big headache and a mire of costs, spreadsheets and loads of unqualified visitors to your site, if it is setup or managed poorly.

One Step at a Time #2 – Engage and Track

This post is a part of the One Step at a Time series. View previous post here.

In the last installment, I talked about the first steps of a new website. That is registering your brand name on social networks and getting your site indexed on the major search engines, thus probably saving a couple of quid. Today let’s take that further- start “engaging” and “tracking”.

Engagement

One of the main things in any marketing campaign is consistency and it’s no different in the case of social media. Create a persona and stick to it. Do you want to be official, friendly or act like their high school buddy? Do you keep an air of authority, try to generate discussions or just want your followers to laugh at every update? The recommended approach is to go with what seems the right image for you or your organization, just don’t break the character you’ve adopted.

The major buzzwords in the social media marketing circles is ‘engage the audience’ or ‘engage the following’ or even ‘build a following’.

Afterwards just set to 'follow'

Google Adwords “Related to” – an update

I wrote about stumbling upon the ‘related to..’ results in Google Adwords last Friday here. Since the chances of Google giving an answer to me were slim at best, I did my own research into the matter and here’s what I found out.

The earliest reference to this phenomenon I found was from June 21st last year.

The Search Agency’s blog reported about seeing the ‘Related to …’ results on several queries, like ‘facial at home’ and ‘dodgers’, both of which still do serve up the related ads.

Facial? Why not get a pedicure instead?

The story doesn’t end there though. I did some digging of my own and found a page in the vast plains of Adwords Help.

Extra! Extra! – Google Adwords recommended results?!

Just posted an update with some information from Google.

During some keyword research on Google for a client yesterday and found this gem of a result:

How is a nose and tummy similar?

State of Google – Latest Trends March 2011

“The world is moving – either move with it or watch it float by.”

/Someone./

The above is also true to search engines and especially for the biggest of them all (cue drum roll) Google. The reason why they moved to the top is that they were changing and adapting faster than other search engines of the time. And they’re still at it, dragging the internet with them on the way to complete their mission: ”..to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.

Google - helping you access the most useful gossip since 2000

Keyword | Keyword | Title or Basic Onsite SEO

Two of the most frequent questions we get asked by potential and existing clients is a variation of “How does my website look from an SEO perspective?” or “How can my website rank higher on Google/Yahoo/Bing/Yandex/SearchEngine?”

In most cases, especially with local or small businesses and charities the answer is, quite simply, onsite SEO. Not link building, social media, elaborate affiliate campaigns or voodoo rituals, not that those don’t matter, it’s just that it’s the basics that count the most, especially, if you’re just starting online activities.

To put it into perspective- if you’re ranking in top 10 for ‘yellow socks’, you’re already doing stuff right on your site and you need the stuff mentioned above (apart from the voodoo ritual.. probably) to rank higher. But if you’re ranking on page 9361 of search results, then there’s something missing from your own site and no amount of whitehat SEO (more on that later) off site will put you on 1^st page faster than getting your yellowsockextavaganza.com in shape.

One step at a time – First Steps of a New Website

This post is a part of the One Step at a Time series. View the next post here.

Got a website – now what?

Many companies, in my experience, believe that just having a website is enough to ‘be online’. While it may be true in some cases, the majority of us need to work to actually get people visiting the website. As with all things in life, this Venn diagram perfectly illustrates the dilemma that arises:

Pictured: life's harshness

In other words; good results will cost you either time or money.

Charities? Online?!

More and more businesses (I bet even your plumber has a website by now) get online every day – why not charities?

Mostly it’s got to do with the perceived barriers, like the money, time and expertise required, which charities lack in most cases. Another major factor is ‘we’re not big enough’ or ‘we’re not known enough’.. Well that’s the whole point of getting online, isn’t it? to grow your charity and increase the awareness for your cause.

Just to rephrase- most charities that have started seriously using the internet for fundraising have achieved phenomenal results, with online donations often growing by more than 100% within a year, with even higher numbers in some cases.