 Good morning, good afternoon, whatever time it might be, wherever you're tuning in to us. Another fine episode of the non-profit show. And today we have back with us for a non-profit thought leader show, Ann McCauley Lopez. Welcome back, Ann. Ann serves as the SEO content writer for agency content writer. As you can see with her amazing background there. But today she's going to share three steps to stellar SEO content. So stay with us. Before we jump into the deep end with you, Ann, and we're going to learn so much, Julia Patrick and I want to remind our viewers and our listeners that we're here and who we are. So hello to Julia Patrick, CEO of the American non-profit academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your non-profit nerd, CEO of the Raven group. And we are so very honored to have the continued ongoing support from our amazing presenting sponsors. So I'm going to give those verbal shout outs to Bloomerang, American non-profit academy, fundraising academy at national university, non-profit nerd, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, and non-profit thought leader. So thank you so very much. You have kept us going and growing well over 600 plus, plus, plus episodes. And again, thank you so very much because we are allowed to have such amazing conversations. If you missed any of the conversations or you want to go back and listen to what Ann is going to share with you for this conversation, you can find us on so many channels. That includes Roku, YouTube, Amazon, Fire TV, as well as Vimeo. But wait, there's more. We're also on podcast. So if you're a podcast listener, go ahead and queue up the non-profit show wherever you might stream your podcast. You know, Julia, I've heard lately that we've become like the Netflix binge series. So if you're going to share with us like so much information, people are going to come to your show. And then hours later, they're still going to be, you know, watching the non-profit show. But we certainly want to welcome you back. And thank you for sharing your time and expertise with us. And thank you for having me. It's, this is always a great opportunity. I have found over the last few years, I truly have a heart for non-profits. The work that you're doing out there is changing people's lives. And if I can help get your website found, get your mission out there to more people, then I've done my little piece of it and you can take it around with it. So yes, it's exciting to be back. I'm excited to see both of you. Thank you. Well, you know, I always love your energy. And we were saying in the green room chatter, I always feel like you give us ideas that aren't intimidating. They're logical. They seem achievable. And so you kind of reduce that hair on fire moment for me at least. And so I really appreciate that, that steady hand and guidance. But one of the things that we wanted to bring you back on today to talk about is SEO. We're always talking about it. We always, you know, you need to do that. But if we could pull back a little bit and really dig down into what it is and what we can do that's actionable. And so I'm really excited to kind of get a deeper understanding. And I think I want to start with a question is, what is SEO content strategy? I know. Is this going to get my hair on fire? What are all these letters? Oh my gosh. No, don't catch your hair on fire, ladies. SEO stands for search engine optimization. And it's basically how is your website found on Google? So when we talk about an SEO content strategy at its most basic, it's really how is your website organized? Is it organized in a way that Google will read and understand Google scans websites and how Google scans them has changed over time? So our websites have to keep up with that. And the content strategy piece is what information is on there? Is it useful not only for the people who visit your website, but is it also at least some of it findable by Google? Not everything has to be optimized. And I want to make sure I stayed up from the outset so I don't forget. We can tell a story about those we serve, but we don't need to have all those key words in it necessarily. So that's it in the nutshell is how Google finds us and what's the content we're putting out there. Yeah. And I love that you said it's changed over time. So, you know, our search engine, so our website or internet or internet, whatever we refer to it as the worldwide web, it has changed. And so that has of course impacted how search engine optimization needs to change. And you work with so many organizations, different sectors for profit nonprofit, but you definitely have a love for nonprofit. And so I'm really excited to learn from you here because as you know, and SEO is not like our bailiwick for us nonprofit nerds like that's not typically why we go into the sector. No, not at all. And I think for for most of the folks that work with for profit and nonprofit, that's not your focus. That's why it's mine. That's why that's why we love you. Yeah. Yeah. And help me understand this a little bit more in depth. This is not like a one and done thing. You know, you work to get a new website up or change it. And then you're like, okay, we're done. Right. I mean, this is an ongoing thing, correct. It is, I'm sad to say it's a marathon, not a sprint as well. So we'll take a little bit for Google to notice you and we'll dive into what those details are today. But yeah, it's because Google changes, but honestly, it's also because your nonprofit's changing. You know, there may be a time of year when we want to highlight donations or we may want to highlight a particular program or kids are going back to school. This is kind of the season for that. And if your nonprofit is focused on that, then maybe we've got to have a different focus. We want to have donations of paper pens and crayons. I don't know for your nonprofit rather than, you know, fill the teacher's classroom rather than some other program that you have. And that's okay, we can work with that. So it's really, it's really about being flexible. I remember one of our early conversations, Julia, we talked about, you said, well, if I fill out my editorial calendar, what if I have something else? And so we want to allow for that as well as we're as we're planning out the content we're putting there. And this conversation is really hyper focused on how do we do that strategically, both for the organization and for Google? So I have to admit, Julia and Anne, I always thought it was a set it and forget it. And you just blew my mind in this, like, it can be seasonality or themed based off of what's what's most important for the organization. But I have to admit, I always thought SEO was a set it and forget it, like, let's just do it every year, let's update it, and let's be done. But to have it based off of what's going on in the priority of the organization, never would have thought of that. Yeah. And we stick to, we stick to those, you know, the keywords that that we identify and we'll we'll dive in on that a little bit. Yeah, I mean, there, there can be some strategy and also while telling the story, right, we always want to tell the story of who we're serving or highlighting our staff or whatever it is that we're doing. I've got a client now and he's got an basically like an agribusiness and he's got a different style of farming. And so we're writing about that and he sends me an article and he's like, oh my gosh, all that we were talking about the weather in Arizona right now. I'm in North Carolina now. And and he's he's in Utah and he's like this weather in Utah is weird. I'm like, so is Arizona. And so we said, well, how does that impact the business and how does this impact the mission of your nonprofit? And he's like, we've really got to get this information out to people. Right. So even the literal weather in this case is impacting the content that we're going to put out ever changing. I love it. So in that understanding and Jared, I appreciate you saying, you know, that said it and forget it versus understanding that this is an an an ongoing thing. What does technical SEO mean versus just SEO? Well, I think I've come on here before and said, I don't want to put good content on a bad website. And I don't mean that your website's bad. I mean, maybe it's out of date. Maybe it needs some tweaking. And where I want to start and and where I've seen great results is on the technical side, which is the back end of the website, that part of the website that nobody wants to touch. We want to set it and forget it. But there are some things that need to be monitored. We need to make sure the website's being updated. We need to make sure that it's loading in a particular time. All the things that the search engines count as high priorities. We want to make sure our websites are doing as well. That's the technical side. There's also some SEO kind of coding for lack of a better phrase that we need to do on the back end of the website. I know enough on this topic to know it's important and that I am just slightly dangerous. So I actually have a website partner and all they do is build websites and technical SEO. And they have wonderful maintenance plans. Because then what that allows me to do is partner with them and say, okay, here's what I see on the front end. And here's what we've got on kind of more the creative side on the front end of what can we do to enhance what you've already done on the back end to already have this good website. How do we put that great content on the front to really mess them together and create a beautiful marriage of tech and storytelling? Oh, someone write that down. That was good. The thing this is recorded. Yeah, no, that it's a listen to it again. Yeah, that website optimization is step one. And you're right, like, like looking at the back end, because I can't tell you how many times I've been to a website, including maybe my own, and a link didn't work, right? Or the pic, the picture didn't load or there's so many different nuances. And so that technical piece of it is so important. And I know that that definitely is not static. It's constant. Yeah, yeah. And it really it impacts how Google scans the site. If it's not loading enough, then that's everything else could be great. You know, if it's not something else, you know, if things aren't updated and stuff like that. So yeah, it's and that's one of those things you can farm out. You can have some you don't need somebody on your staff to I don't have I hire my website partner. I called her up one day and I said, you know, the stuff I'm selling and telling people about I'm going to need that. She's like, I've been wondering. It's a bit of an embarrassing conversation. Yeah, but you know what? It's a really interesting conversation because so often the nonprofit sector, we struggle to get going with that great website that can do everything. I mean, our episode yesterday or on Monday was all about the donation experience, the donor journey on a website. And yet we're it seems like we're doing it once and then letting it go and not being engaged. So I appreciate you bringing that up to kind of help us understand we need to keep investing in this, you know, for a lot of reasons. Step two, you talk about the impacts of keyword research. And again, what is that looking like for nonprofits? There are some tools out out there. SEM raw school suggests I got uber suggests keywords everywhere, ask the public, all sorts of research. There's also on Google, if you type in a question, it says people also ask, and I'll tell you my big fat secret, my big fat secret is I use that for blog post ideas for clients. I put in the main idea, do a search and go to people also ask. That will give you a very good idea of literally what people are asking. So take it around with it. That'll give us a good idea about what to use for keywords. We can get I spent a year looking for someone who knew SEO, and I came across a lot of scams. And a lot of strategies that I thought, gosh, that doesn't quite sound right. It sounds like you're writing fake reviews or doing these other taking these other tactics. A lot of that probably is still happening, but I don't go near those folks anymore. What I found was that if we're answering questions, common questions about our organization, we are understanding what are people asking about the organization? What do they want to know? What's the story we want to tell? We can even tell a story and infuse those keywords. We have to be, you know, you kind of have to be strategic about it. But again, not every piece that you put on your website has to be, has to have all those keywords. So I start and I do an overview. And if we're not going and doing like paper, click ads and stuff like that, I understand what the volume is. I don't need to know the cost necessarily of those keywords for really what we're doing, which is fairly basic keyword research and SEO, you know, search engine optimization. From there, once we've built that up, then we can go and we can say, okay, and we can go to my guy who does the in-depth research and say, okay, how do we build this from where we've gotten it and make it even more powerful of a website? If we want to do so, what if we have the budget for it? Because that's going to cost more. But for me, it's really about strategically creating those stories and using that technical piece and what we know about Google and what we want to say about what we're doing. So I go in and I do research. We find those key words. I have conversations with my clients about, you know, what do people call it? Do they call it hydroponics farming or do they call it farming with less water? Do they call me a content writer or a freelance writer? And we write to those words. And that's really what it means. You know, like, Jared, we were talking about the homeless, it's not homeless people, it's people experiencing homelessness. So if it's those kinds of tweaks, how do we help people who are experiencing homelessness during this, you know, during the pandemic, during the whatever, now. I love your, I forget what you call it, but your big fat trick or whatever. People tell Google a lot of things, right? Like we do a lot of things. And so we can pull up and really leverage that to help us determine, you know, truly what those keywords need to be or key phrases to incorporate for our SEO. It's almost like, you know, the recipes written for us, we just have to pay attention. Right. Kind of, yeah. Don't tell anyone now, Jared. Now, I have a follow-up question. When you talk about this in terms, and let's just address it through a blog, a blog post, are you talking about actually using that vernacular and those specific words in the content and or plus putting it in the backside? So for example, I know like on our website, if we do a post, we have the opportunity to, on the backside, input those words as well, whether they're in the actual content or not. So could you help us with that to understand that? I do both. I use, typically I'm on WordPress websites, so I don't know what others use. But there are two plugins, Yoast or RankMath, that are utilized, that I utilize on those websites. And I know on Yoast, it's a green light and RankMath gives you a score, which is like getting a test score. I'm like, oh, I got a C plus. Oh, I got a B. Right, right. And it helps give it that extra question in addition to everything else that's in the background. But yes, it definitely helps to have it in both places, also on your images to have that keyword on the images. Yes. That's what I'm telling you. All my secrets today. What is that? I had the flu. Everything's coming out now. It's because you love our nonprofits so much. I'll tell you all my secrets. I love it. I'm asking, is there a difference between using keywords or key phrases? Key phrases are a little bit longer. They're technically long, long tail keywords. And yes, I use them interchangeably. Is there a difference nominally? Yeah. But both are ultimately the same purpose. Okay, the same purpose. I will say too, I will add it's important. And this is always the first question I ask is who's your target client or who's your target audience for nonprofit? Like, are we talking to donors? Do you need volunteers? Do you need a sponsor for your big events? Who is it that we're trying to reach on this version of the website or within this blog post that we're doing or this series of blog posts so that we can then, I can dig a little deeper in the keyword research. So if it's children with leukemia versus adults with leukemia or, you know, mothers with children who are experiencing homelessness rather than just homelessness in Phoenix or homelessness in Charlotte, you know, whatever it is, we want to dig down a little bit deeper so that we're capturing that audience as well. And again, it can change depending on what we're writing about. Like, what is that that we're highlighting for the nonprofit? So it's a little bit different. I mean, I think business in the for-profit world, it can be the same. You know, always, you know, you want to focus on a service maybe rather than a program. But the idea, the idea is the same is that we want to highlight, highlight something and use the keywords and know who we're talking to, which kills me like, who are we talking to? Like, I don't know. Right, right. Honing in on that niche audience, honing in on that niche terminology, both of those are really complementary to one another. And I just want to call out, you know, because Julie and I learned this from you, Ann, is SEO is also built into blogs or can be built into blogs. And that's one of the things that you provide our great sector is really that blog writing, in addition to content writing for websites is how we can build in the search engine optimization, use those keywords in blog articles. And I just, I had to call that out because Julie, thank you. We learned that from you. And that's why we wanted you to kind of dovetail that into how that is strategic content. Because absolutely, I always thought that that was just kind of like an extra that didn't flow out as much. And it wasn't as powerful, but maybe it was just more of an ego driven kind of thing. You know, I haven't actually one of the, sorry. Oh, no, no. It's actually one of the easiest ways to gain that. They used to say Google juice, the Google love. So one of the things I've done is, and I, I'm pausing because I'm putting new packages together. So I'm kind of like, okay, let's talk about this. So one of the things that we can do, I know I'm very, very, very excited. So one of the things that I have noticed is whether it's for profit or nonprofit, we have a lot of websites have a lot of content. I'm like, okay, how does it all go together? And how can we create something? Because what Google's done is they want relevant content that answers people's questions. Again, I thought that was just kind of why we did all this on websites. But no, it's not intuitive. People were just kind of throwing content up in some, in some instances. So the first thing I like to do is just take a look at the website. There is a, it's either called a cornerstone or a pillar blog post, which is a longer form post. And it starts interlinking all those articles. It's one long article. The one that we'll mention later that's on this topic that's on my website is, I think is one of mine. And then there's another one. There's an ultimate guide to hiring a content writer that I've used as both really as pillar cornerstone blog posts. It starts linking pages of your website together, which gets us that Google love. And it's really simple because your articles are there, right? Like, if we're blogging on American Nonprofit Academy, let's pull in some of those podcasts related to that topic, because it signals Google. The other thing that we can do that Google likes, which is another big fat secret I'm telling, we should call this all my secrets. Top 10 secrets I have is to take an article from, to link to an article outside of our own website. So you link it back to mine, you link back to Jared's, you link it to a nonprofit professionals website. If you're a nonprofit, link it to Julia's, right? American Nonprofit Academy. So that, and it's related, it's not just a random link, but it's related to something. So you can start building authority online. So Google notices, oh, you've got our attention. We see that you're interlinking. This website is about this. It's not about all the other stuff. It's about this. And it really, it really boosts that. So then once we have that pillar post created, we have other topics that we can write about. So I love bullet points. It's so easy. Like, here's what, here's what we know. And I'll take one of those words and say it's like freelance writer on mine. And then I know, oh, okay, I'm going to write an article. I'm going to link it to freelance writer from my pillar post so that the blog posts are talking to each other. And then from there, it's fascinating. It is. Like Jared, I'm going to the world talk later. Julia, we'll talk later. And it's fun for me. You love nonprofits and fundraising and getting all the right people in all the right places. And I love looking at content and putting it all together. So yeah, I just jumped up in my seat because I'm excited. You love pillar post. I love it. I'm thinking, I need a pillar post, but I'm going to blame the sweet tea that you're drinking in Charlotte. And I think that's why you're divulging all these secrets. And I love it. Oh my gosh, I am. I am. Oh my goodness. You know, next time I'll have to do my top 10 secrets. I don't know. I know. I think we've gotten through it. Hey, you know, what's really interesting about this is that in the nonprofit sector, and we do have a lot of information that we learn from our own experiences, but from the sector. And so it's, I love what you said about really becoming that online authoritative voice. And because I've got to believe that when funders or donor investors are searching, and they, they find you, maybe that elevates or builds a new relationship. Are you seeing that? It drives new, new contacts to drive new content. Oh, for sure. For sure. And I think too, for, for you ladies, you are thought leaders, you know, so let's, let's put some of what you've learned. You go, you know, maybe you've gone to a conference or speak at a conference or speak to a group. And here's what we discuss. Like, I don't feel like we're giving anything away. I think for a little while, people thought blogging was like, we're giving away the farm. And I go back to the auto mechanic. And I've probably said this before on here, but you could do a video about how to change the oil in my exact car. And I will not do it myself. I'll go, wow, that guy really knows how to do it or that gal knows how to do it. I'm going to go to them. Right. So you're not giving anything away, you know, how to put a board together and encourage them. Well, I, great, Jared, come in and help us do that. I'm not doing that. Yeah. So let's write about it on the blog and then for that big pillar post, which is like 1500 words probably, then we can, we can think of a strategy. We'd say, okay, here's what we've got and here's the direction we want to go and different articles that we need to maybe fill in the blanks of some of the information that we've talked about, but also we want to be sharing events and sharing where does the money go and sharing family stories. In some cases, we can probably weave in some of those key words for sure. Um, subtly, I feel like that if you want to talk about superpowers, that's my superpower. So we can, we can certainly do that, but not everything does. You could have someone on your staff write an article and let's get that up there. It's not all SEO, but it is important to have some of that. I mean, that's my, on my hill, I'm willing to die on. I love it. You know, I always learn so much from you and I want to make sure that everyone gets to know that they can go to agencycontentwriter.com and you have a fabulous article. Want more website visits? Three step SEO content strategy. It's a fascinating read. It really helped us to talk about what we wanted to talk about today with you and my colleague Lopez. Just amazing. Again, it was the agencycontentwriter.com. We have a comment for a viewer. I've got to share this with you, Anne and Jared, because it's great. This, this viewer writes in, why do I leave the nonprofit show with so much personally imposed homework? Yes. I think that's just great. I really do. Yeah. I mean, it's really cool and you always give us a strategy and a framework with not only how to do something, but why we should be doing it. So that's super powerful for us in the nonprofit because as our, our viewer just, you know, wrote in, we do have so much to do and we add things to our plate every day and sometimes we have to make a judgment. What's, what's the highest and best value? And so thank you, Anne, for sharing that with us today. Again, we are just always amazed when Anne can come and visit us. Anne at agencycontentwriter.com is her direct contact information or again, go to agencycontentwriter.com and as she says, call me. I will help you figure this out because it's a, it's a big task. Again, I'm Julia Patrick. I've been joined today by the amazing Jared Ransom. Jared, can I say the newly affianced? You may. Yes. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you. Thank you for the support. And I have a feeling, Anne, you're going to have a lot of people calling you or writing you to say, I want a pillar post. Like that's just what I'm leaving. They are going like pillar post. Okay. I need one of those. I mean, yeah, totally. I've probably already written yours, Jared. Oh, what? Oops. Yes. I have to witness Anne does my blogs and it's been phenomenal working with you and you really do, you know, weave in so much. It's fantastic. So from one nerd to another, thank you. I'm super glad to have you on my team and get this, you know, leverage your insight and expertise. So we are honored to have you not only on the show, but in our sector at large. Absolutely. Absolutely. I enjoy seeing both of you speaking with both of you, nonprofits. This is like the nonprofit year for me. I'm telling you. I just love it. So it's been really fun. And I think I'll see you again one more time. So this is wonderful. Yes, at least. Well, we want to make sure that we thank all of our sponsors before we leave our viewers and our listeners today. Our gratitude goes out to boomerang, American nonprofit Academy, your part time controller, nonprofit nerd, fundraising Academy at National University, staffing boutique, and of course, nonprofit thought leader, and my colleague. It's been really, really amazing. And as we like to end every episode reminding ourselves, our viewers and our listeners to stay well, so you can do well. Thank you, ladies so much. Have a great day. We'll see you back here tomorrow.