Determining the key components of your charity’s digital marketing plan can be challenging.
Should you focus on creating compelling content, leveraging advertisements, engaging on social media, enhancing organic SEO, or prioritizing the creation of backlinks?
Including link building as part of your digital marketing efforts is essential for expanding your site’s reach and enhancing your online reputation.
This strategy connects your website with others relevant to it. It strengthens your presence on the Internet, subtly paving the way to exploring the importance of a link-building strategy.
The Importance of a Link Building Strategy
Google’s ranking algorithm values natural, high-quality backlinks more than paid ones because these links suggest your content is valuable and worth sharing.
The reason is straightforward: Google aims to provide the most relevant and useful answers to user queries. If other reputable sites link to yours, it likely indicates that your content is informative and reliable.
Moreover, it’s about more than just the number of links. Since referral traffic greatly enhances conversion rates, guaranteeing your links are placed appropriately on relevant sites can increase customer acquisition.
As we explore further strategies to enhance your website’s visibility, consider how charitable efforts might help build valuable links.
Building Links for Charity
Link building will always be a difficult task, but it is critical to do it correctly to improve organic search results.
Fortunately for charities, you have several advantages that your average business does not.
Authenticity
SEO is a good approach for charities because people trust charities and are less hesitant to link to them than a company. They typically garner quality backlinks and build domain authority.
Uplift Local Charities
The majority of the charity you’ll work with on a tactical level will be local. The biggest non-profit organizations are national organizations, but they also get around $500 million in non-government donations and don’t need the services of a local SEO expert.
Open Doors of Communication
Charities rely on fundraising to stay afloat, yet they’re always using their non-profit status to acquire anything for free or cheap.
This may be attested to by any company owner who has provided bids to a charity. This implies they’ll be receptive to suggestions, and you’ll be able to get your foot in the door quickly.
They aren’t doormats, and they don’t want to be link farms, so you’ll need to be inventive and subtle while pitching them.
Working for a Good Cause
Non-profits aim to improve the world, and supporting their goals contributes positively to this mission.
Unlike for-profit entities, which often face skepticism due to profit motives and stiff competition from major industry players, non-profits can leverage their charitable objectives in their link-building efforts.
Unlike their for-profit counterparts, non-profits may possess excellent content or valuable services and inspire trust and collaboration. Next, we will explore what a non-profit’s link-building strategy should encompass to harness these advantages effectively.
What Should Your Non-profit Link Building Strategy Include?
There are some things you should do when launching a link-building strategy for your organization. Make sure to incorporate these crucial elements in your approach to expanding your website’s internet reach.
Obtaining Links from Other Sites
Networking is an essential aspect of any charity’s success, and most organizations that succeed in this area have many associates.
It’s also conceivable that a significant number of these affiliates will rank high on search engines.
Since many local charities collaborate with colleges, local businesses and government programs, there’s a good possibility you’ll obtain some pretty powerful connections from the.edu and.gov domains.
Most business sites that work with a charity are typically proud of it, so getting a link from them shouldn’t be difficult. All of this is fantastic news for the SEO community.
Create Unique Blog Posts
When it comes to establishing your online reputation with Google, content is critical. As a result, adding a blog to your site is a vital aspect of your link-building plan that you can start right now.
Alternatively, if your blog hasn’t been updated in months or years, now is the time to start adding fresh material!
Your content can market when you seek out people for backlinks. Other websites are more likely to connect to you if your material is valuable to them.
Feature it on your blog and tell others about it if you’re a leader for your cause.
Use Social Media
Facebook groups, Twitter accounts, and social bookmarking are excellent ways to publicize your fundraising efforts.
Social media can help you get the word out to your whole network and beyond if you’re planning a sponsored walk, marathon, or skydive.
People seem more ready and upfront to share a link or post related to a charity event or fundraising campaign, just as they are with PR.
I’d start by creating a Facebook page with all pertinent information and then urging everyone to share it as much as possible.
Utilize Your Local Search Engine
When it comes to link building, ensuring your local presence is up to spec is critical for locally located NGOs inside a town.
This involves claiming your Google My Business page and providing your company shows on local listing sites like Yelp (which is free to claim and incredibly valuable).
Local organizations value user-generated material and evaluations, so community resources such as local directories and even the local chamber of commerce may be invaluable to your charity.
Improving your local presence can help you increase your domain authority and, as a result, appear more often in SERPs, particularly for local queries.
Outbound Links
The next step is to go through all the outbound links on the contribution page. You don’t have to sit there counting them; a visual assessment should suffice.
Donation pages with too many outbound links on a single page risk weakening their page authority. When you look at the list of donations over the previous two years, you’ll see that there are no linkages at all.
Instead of businesses exploiting this to develop backlinks, it seems that the great majority of these donors are just individuals who appreciate the website.
In this situation, check to see whether the site would accept a gift made in your company’s name or if you’ll have to use your name. It’s not worth it if they won’t let your company donate and receive credit.
So if they agree to connect to your website for a contribution, this is generally okay.
It all relies on the authority of the page. If you’re looking at a low-authority website with hundreds of outbound connections, I’d avoid it and seek another choice. On the other hand, if a page with hundreds of outbound connections has a high authority, there should be enough link juice to go around.
Give Back to the Community
If your company hasn’t engaged in charitable work, I encourage you to consider it, but always with genuine intentions.
While backlinks are valuable, positively impacting your community enhances your business’s reputation and brings joy to your heart.
Charitable giving should remain the core motive, yet leveraging these efforts to boost your business visibility is acceptable.
Speaking of leveraging efforts, as we look into charity-linked strategies, we must explore what mistakes should be avoided in link building to guarantee authenticity and effectiveness in such initiatives.
What Mistakes Should Charities Avoid in Link Building?
To effectively enhance your online reputation through link building, you must follow SEO best practices and adhere to Google’s webmaster guidelines.
Focus on building a natural backlink profile by avoiding reciprocal link exchanges. Google frowns upon these due to their transactional nature.
It’s also wise to avoid deceptive tactics like cloaking, where a site pretends to have high-quality content to boost rankings.
Similarly, resist the temptation to buy links, as this practice violates Google’s rules and could damage your organization’s reputation.
Avoid using link farms, which are considered spammy and diminish trust. This advice applies to charities and any organization looking to improve its online visibility and search engine rankings.
As we consider these strategies, it becomes clear why nonprofits, in particular, need a dedicated link-building strategy to guide these challenges and maximize their online impact.
Why Do You Need a Dedicated Link Building Strategy for Nonprofits?
Creating an effective link building strategy is important for nonprofits to enhance their online presence and attract more donors and volunteers.
This approach improves a nonprofit’s search engine rankings, directly increasing website traffic and engagement.
By securing backlinks from well-regarded websites, a nonprofit boosts its credibility, which reassures stakeholders about the organization’s validity.
Also, link building opens networking opportunities and collaborations vital for expanding outreach efforts.
This strategy is particularly advantageous for nonprofits with limited budgets, as it delivers lasting benefits that continue well after the initial effort.
Nonprofits can effectively expand their online impact and influence by producing high-quality content and developing relevant relationships.
Key Takeaways for Successful Link Building in the Nonprofit Sector
By now, you know that link building is vital for your charity’s digital marketing plan, and it’s not as simple as you might have thought before.
An effective SEO strategy that gives you the connections you’re looking for and the referral traffic your site needs makes your charity more visible, allowing it to stand out and reach a broader audience.
Link building can make or break your site, and this is why it’s better to have it done with professionals that offer personalized and all-encompassing services; professionals who understand that it takes relationship-building, know-how, and hard and smart work that takes time to get right.
If you need help with figuring out the details and executing your strategy, contact us, and we’ll get it done the right way.
