The best thing to happen to this generation and social work in particular is all what the internet has to offer — visibility for your work. As we said in one of our posts at Impacty, a lot of individuals running social organisations do not know how to use this gold mine. While that cannot be taught in a 5-minutes read, it is on that basis that we saw the need to evince a few tips for better visibility of you organisation through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
1. Satisfactory content:
Everything rises and falls on the content you put out there. Ensure that your content is satisfactory to your audience. One tip is to use your content to answer a question or questions. Your question(s) should be based on what you hope to achieve through that content. This would direct your content flow and probably go as far as informing a subsequent content release. For example, in this article you’re reading, the guiding question is “what do social organisations need to know about SEO?”
2. Off-page SEO factors:
This includes social media engagement, marketing and links. Social media engagement is a very essential part of your SEO boost journey. Create engaging social media content, and include call-to-actions which may involve links to your website and do so consistently.
3. Mobile-friendly Website:
Most users of the internet use mobile devices. So mobile-unfriendly sites are very difficult to use on mobile devices and consequently affects user experience in the negative.
4. Update Old Content:
Some content are for the season, while others are meant forever; ever relevant and can stand the test of time. Update such old content, change publish date. This informs the world that your content is new and fresh!
5. Consistency:
There are very few things in the world which are greater than the benefits of consistency in any area of life, and it is just as important in your SEO boost journey. Posting helpful and engaging content regularly would do more for you than you think.
6. Keyword Frequency:
Have a keyword(s) and let them flow through your content. Additionally, avoid too many keywords, stick with a few and run with them. This will boost the relevance of your post to search topics. Use these words in your first 100 words and ensure that you use keywords in your images. However, avoid keyword stuffing. Search engines detest keywords in places they do not fit in.
7. Avoid SEO worst practices:
A good example of this is duplicates. Delete any double-posted content as this can affect SEO. Also, avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism is a crime and is not honourable.
8. Catchy Meta Descriptions:
Meta descriptions are the words just below your content title, about 150 or a little more words. It entails the description of your content and it gives the searcher a hint of what is contained in the site. A great meta description will earn you a click and a chance to be seen.
9. Title Tags:
Another key element is the title tag. This is like the title of a web page. It gives the reader a good guess of the content of your web page. For effectiveness, front-load your title tag. This means that you make the keyword you want to rank for prominent in your title tag. For example, if you choose the keyword ‘disability’, let your title tag be something like “Disability: The disguise of special abilities”. Remember that title tags must target your best audience and easily give off what your entire content is about. Avoid complex words and verbosity.
10. Headlines:
Headlines create a lot of magic. It determines whether the reader will start with your content or close the site and move on. Straight-jacketed, mono-sense, common headlines would do you no good. Be creative about your headlines. You headlines should hold some hope out to the readers that your content would be worth the while.
11. Use of ALT Text:
Don’t get worked up with technical language. ALT Text is short for Alternative Text and it simply is the text contained inside the box where the picture or video is supposed to appear. It is descriptive of the picture/video content and it appears while it is till loading. This Alternative Text gives the viewer a clue of what the loading content is.
12. Hyperlinks:
These are especially needful when the content piece contains some well-researched information. It is the link to another site (the source of the information) inserted into the content and directs the reader to the source of information. It makes the user experience more enjoyable and useful for research purposes. This is achieved on Windows by CTRL+K.
13. Local SEO Opportunities:
A ready example of local Google SEO opportunities is Google My Business. Also, add location pages to your website and other contact details. Google is the most used search engine with about 5 billion searches per day. It enhances visibility as it gives you appearance on Google searches and Google maps too. Additionally, it is very cost-effective. Actually, free! It’s something you may want to take advantage of. Google My Business also puts your business in the Local 3-Pack. This is the section after paid promotions and before organic search results. That’s a booster right there!
14. Pictures:
Studies have it that a large percentage of the human brain dedicates itself to visual processing. People prefer to see one picture telling a thousand words than a thousand words in text. This is because humans are visual creatures. Using info graphics can boost visibility.
15. Quality Back links:
Back links are links to your website from another website. Google, for instance, values some authoritative websites, and a back link from such websites to yours can boost traffic to your website. This can be done in many ways; one of which is suggesting your website link to a webmaster as a solution to a broken link. Another way is through creating valuable and insightful info graphics with a sharable link.
16. Stay abreast of SEO trends:
This is not difficult to do. You may subscribe to the RSS feed of the News & Updates, which is part of the Google My Business Community. RSS is simply a web feature which allows its users access to updates. This point also means staying aware of sellable keywords. \
We, at Impacty, do hope these tips are of benefit to you and your organisation. Good luck! Stay visible.
