Hey, Google, pick me, pick me

Canadian Fundraiser eNews

28 million people in Canada use the Internet. 83% of those perform some online search each month. Google claims that it handled 80% of Canadian search engine queries in the second quarter of 2007. And that in a nutshell, says Don Lange of prospecting and information management company Cornerstone, is why you want your website to be one of Google’s best buddies.

Speaking at the September ArtezInterAction ’08 conference held in Toronto, Lange confirmed that Google can’t be bought. The companies that show up at the top of the list in a Google search haven’t paid for that prime location. Nor are they simply lucky. They’ve earned that position through relevance and frequent updating.

Google runs on algorithms, the secrets of which are carefully guarded. Those algorithms are constantly active throughout the Internet, crawling websites so they can determine their meaning.

Every time a search engine visits your website, Lange explains, it stores information about your site in a massive database. When a user initiates a search, Google scans the information in its database rather than hunting through the Internet in real time.

Winning words: more is better

What words would you use to find information related to Alzheimer’s disease? You’d probably choose something like Alzheimer’s, disease, and maybe myths. They would take you straight to the keyword-centred website of the Alzheimer Society, which Lange cites as an exemplar (http://www.alzheimer.ca/english/disease/myths.htm) of playing to Google’s keyword preferences. Those three words are repeated a remarkable number of times within a relatively brief text. And every time one of the words appears, the Google algorithms take notice. The more keywords Google spots, the higher your site is ranked.

The goal, Lange declares, is to incorporate keywords using a combination of proven methodology and common sense. Several websites listed at the end of this article note keyword combinations with search volume statistics. You’ll be able to tell the search terms most frequently used by the people you want to draw to your site.

Careful choices and repetition bring rankings up

Lange cautions against being too general in your choice of keywords. Entering “breast cancer,” for example, brings up 48,100,000 possibilities. Add “awareness” and the pool shrinks to 13,800,000. Adding “events” to create a four-keyword string brings up just 1,220,000 hits. If your website is about an event building awareness of breast cancer, then, you should work with that four-word string rather than trying to stand out among the 48,000,000 sites triggered by a search on “breast cancer” alone.

As you craft your copy, try for about 200 words per page. That minimum is enough to get your message across and create an effective level of keyword density, observes Lange. Write your headlines with Google in mind too. Keep them rich in target keyword phrases and use multiple headings to give you even more opportunities to use keywords, as well as to define paragraphs for the readers that Google delivers.

As long as it makes sense, Lange advises using keyword phrases once or twice per paragraph. If possible, start your paragraphs, especially the first paragraph, with the selected phrases to give them more prominence. The first sentence in the first paragraph should use the keywords and be no longer than 155 characters. It’s a good idea to make sure that the last paragraph also contains the keywords.

Other keyword tips

If the target audience is from a specific location, think about using localization keywords such as Vancouver, southern Manitoba or Maritimes in the copy. In order to make sure the copy keeps its flow, you might have to separate the keyword phrases in some instances. However, try to keep the keywords in the phrase as close to one another as possible.

As you plan your copy around your keywords, Lange warns, don’t forget title tags, the chapter headings of web pages that appear in the search bar. To impress Google with your title tags, incorporate the keywords and keep the computer jargon to a minimum.

Links help your ranking too

The more outbound links there are from other sites to yours, the higher your ranking will be. Look for chances to be listed in directories, on other sites, blogs, news sources and government sites to build those outbound links.

You may already have keyword-rich articles on your organization’s area of expertise. If you do, you can submit them to related sites and obtain back links as part of the posting arrangements. Or you can write articles specifically for that purpose and distribute them free with a link back to your site. It’s even better to see if you can get the first half or third of the article listed on their site with a keyword-rich text link leading back to the rest of the article on your site.

Contact the webmasters of sites that are complementary but not competitive to your site and request a back link. Explain the advantages to them and to their visitors of providing a link to your content. When requesting a back link to your site or linking internally, ask them to use keywords in the anchor text. For example, instead of saying: “Click Here to get more information,” ask them to use a text like “Get More Information on the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.”

Free advertising through Google Grants

Lange encourages charities to review the Google Grants Canada program. In your own Google searches you may have noticed the ads for related organizations, products and services that pop up beside your search results. They’re called AdWords. Google Grants Canada provides free AdWord placement to selected Canadian charities.

Within your AdWords account you can review the performance statistics of your ad campaigns. You can see the number of times your ad was viewed and the number of clicks to your ad. You can even track conversions such as donations, newsletter signups, and volunteer registrations. Then you can make strategic decisions on what poorly performing keywords and ad text to tweak.

The program has awarded AdWords advertising to hundreds of qualified charitable groups whose missions range from animal welfare to literacy, from supporting homeless children to promoting HIV education. Each organization choosing to participate in Google Grants receives at least three months of free advertising.


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