 Welcome and thank you so very much for joining us today for another fantastic episode of The Nonprofit Show. When you see this yellow, you know that it's special. This is a non-profit thought leader episode. So we have Anne McCauley Lopez joining us today. Anne is the SEO content writer with agency content writer. It's a lot to say right there, but you've got a lot to say during our episode as we talk about does an NPO need SEO? And so that's something we're going to dive in and pick Anne's brain. So before we do that, we of course want to make sure that you know who we are if we haven't quite met you yet. Julia Patrick joins us. She's the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your non-profit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And we are continuously in gratitude for each and every one of these presenting sponsors that you see on the screen. If you have not checked these companies out, make sure you do so right after the episode, not now, but briefly after the episode, because these companies exist to help you do more good and to move your mission forward in, around, throughout and all those other good prepositions in your community. So we're excited to have their support and we are excited to have Anne back. Anne, welcome and thanks for joining us today. Thank you, thank you for having me back. It's great to see you both. You know, Anne, we loved having you on, talking about blogging. It's been quite a while. And we really, you kind of, I think for both of us made us think about our own businesses and what we can be doing and what we should be doing. And then we reconnected and we were talking about this issue of SEO. And so we were like, wow, we need to get you back on to really help us understand what this means and if it's important or if it's something that, it's just one more thing we need to be maybe thinking about. So let's start with the basic premise. I think we all know what we think we know what SEO is, but what is it really? SEO stands for search engine optimization. And really it's how well is your website found on search engines like Google? For nonprofits, does it make sense to, you know, we're talking about, does it make sense to have SEO to invest in that? And I think there's a level for nonprofits and smaller businesses, you know, small, medium-sized businesses where it makes sense. And you don't necessarily even need to hire someone who is an SEO specialist, right? We don't need to dive too deep, but there are some things that we can do that will help the website get found a little bit faster. And that's really important. You know, one of the things we've talked about over these last couple of years is how the expansion of knowledge has truly gone throughout the nation. You know, for a lot of our nonprofits, our constituency base, these individuals are no longer in our backyard. They are in our backyard and they are truly across the nation and even the globe. So having this SEO search engine optimization is really necessary. And I agree with you, Julia. When Anne shared this in particular about blogging, I thought, oh my gosh, I had no idea that it went to that whole new level. So I'm excited to learn more about how you help nonprofits in this SEO space. And then also you talked about how we can tell our story, our nonprofit story, by using backlinks. And I hope you're gonna tell us what a backlink really is as well. Yes, so one of the signals for Google that your website is relevant and of value and active is through backlinks. And what those are are articles that you post on websites that are not your own that include a link back to your website. So we've got Jared's website and you blog or you write an article somewhere else and it links. There's a link that says Jared Ransom, the Raven group and it comes back to your website. So when we write on like a grant station for you because we've done some work together, right? We talked about that last time. Always ask if someone says, do you wanna be a guest blogger, a guest writer or a thought leader and write an article for our website? Make sure that you get a link back to yours. Those are really valuable and a signal to Google that your site is of value because you're a thought leader somewhere else on a bigger website that gets more hits. So even if it's medium, mediums a website. Yeah, it's really, it's a powerful tool. It takes some work, but it also as we'll talk about today can be used in a PR strategy so that you're really thinking about the same ideas and creating content that is all linked together and you're not creating a bunch of content that people maybe aren't going to read or interact with. Great. Okay, now back up a little bit because I have never asked, and no one's ever asked me about that. And every day we are linking our guests and we're setting all these things out. I mean, I'm not Kevin Pace, our executive producer. But I see this activity and I see this web of interconnectivity is it fair to say that we're not really using this that people don't really understand this? Maybe probably in the spaces I run in with SEO experts. Yeah, we talk about it a lot, but that's really, you know, years ago, they'd say be a guest blogger on any website and it's really better now. We know because Google makes changes, right? It's not just a link that comes back to your website, but it's valuable websites, websites bigger than yours. I'll never write for a website unless I get that link. What's the point, right? Me, to make sure that you get that link. And for organizations, you know, really looking at building credibility and having that awareness to build branding and build awareness, I can see the value of those backlinks. And I can imagine it's as simple as asking, will there be an opportunity, right? Because that helps to build the credibility and back to that awareness. It sure does. It sure does. It's good. For example, if there's a media group or a newspaper and they publish online, get that link back because that newspaper is going to be bigger than your website. Absolutely. Right, or what's the other one? I wrote another one down. Oh, a parent organization. So if your organization and you're in a particular metropolitan area and your national organization, so like Habitat for Humanity has the Phoenix Habitat, but then there's a national and an international Habitat website. If you can get published on those, even the parent website and get a link back to your local, you know, hey, we've got more pictures on our local site, you know, something like that, that's also good. It does lend credibility to your organization and it gets the word out to more folks about what you're doing, especially now to your point, Jared, in a digital age where we're not just seeking in our local economy, we're seeking folks around the world. We've got volunteers around the world. We've got donors around the world and we wanna get that word out about the organization. You know, I love that you said see more pictures. I mean, is that the sort of action or what are some of those things that would entice and encourage somebody to use that backlink? A call to action, even in your bio to learn more about your organization, to learn more about your projects, maybe they're interested in learning more. I click it because I'm a geek, right? And so when it says, oh, she also writes for, go to visit her website, I click that. I just wanna know more about them. It also, you know, your website will have your social media on it. So there's kind of a connection there where you're even getting more communication with the audience that you want through those actions. It is, you know, where it makes sense to do so. You know what I mean? Like it's related to the organization. It's related to a particular project and it makes sense. Then it really, it really does help boost that SEO. I had another thought and it escaped me. So I'm sure it will come up again as we talk more. One of the thoughts I had, Anne, and because organizations, you know, nonprofits, they're also seeking that corporate partnership and that strategy. And so to ask the corporations and the businesses to maybe use the logo or a link on their community, you know, support page that says we're a proud partner with X, Y, and Z agency. That is another great way to build, you know, some of the SEO to come back to the organization. And again, that awareness and branding. So I think that's, you know, I've already learned a lot because this is not my zone of expertise. But like you, I am a nerd. And so I totally dive into this wholeheartedly. But I'm curious if you could talk more about your area of expertise, especially when it relates to the power of blogging and how we can best use SEO and backlinks through the power of blogging to really build out this credibility and the awareness that we're talking about. Yes. I think the key is to make sure that we're using keywords as we're telling those stories. So when I was on last time, we talked about telling the story of the organization and what projects are you working on and what do you want to reach? And is there a call out for volunteers? It's also important to make sure as we do that to weave some keywords through it. Google doesn't like when we pack an article with keywords. We used to do that and it's called Black Hat SEO and you get slapped on the hand by Google and it's not good. But if we can weave some things into it, into the article with keywords. So I have four resources that I like to use one is Google, of course, but here's the trick. You put in your term that you want, don't hit enter. Look at the list of other words. Right, so it's fun to pick anything and do it and sometimes it'll give you a laugh but for research purposes and for what we're talking about today, don't hit enter. When you do hit enter, you'll come up with some similar articles and there's another section called people also ask. So when you do a Google search and you've noticed that that I really use for blog post ideas. I shouldn't say that out loud, that's the little secret I have but it's the other questions that people are asking that are related to the main idea that you've Googled. So those are two ways to just use Google to get higher rankings on Google. Kind of use its own tool. There's also answer the public where you do the same thing. You can ask questions and it will give you related questions to what you're asking to give you some ideas to generate some key words. Maybe it's simply moving the words around. It's a different word order that people are searching. It could be that simple. Maybe it's adding your geographic area if you're looking for something specific in a specific geographic area. And seed keywords is a new one that I've started using and it's the same idea as that we put in the main idea or the big idea and see what kind of pops up. For me, when I'm stuck, I go to those places and I say, okay, here's what I'm writing about and what else are people asking about this? How can I phrase it differently? How can we be a little bit more creative in what we're sharing? Because we don't simply wanna say, we need volunteers. It maybe it's five ways to be a great volunteer for a blank, blank, blank organization in city name. I don't know. But those are some resources that we can use. The other piece of SEO that I wanted to make sure that we mentioned and I kind of learned this along the way is that Google reads our websites in a particular order and in a particular way. So there are things that we can do to structure the website and structure the homepage and where things are linked and how they're linked that help you get better search engine results. I have a website designer that I've worked with and that is her specialty. She said, Anne, I do nothing with content. She said, I'm going to call you, let's do a project together. I know how to make it pretty on kind of the back end. It looks like a beautiful website. The way Google reads it is how she creates it. She also does, I think we maybe talked a little bit about this, some tagging in the background, meta tags and headers and all these things that are very technical on the back end of the website. That's why you hire someone, right? They know I hire someone to do that for me. I do the front end content and we'll talk about that front end also when we, I think further in the conversation. But the website can be set up in a certain way that Google actually even reads the website better. So then you bring in someone like me and we restructure the content in a way that makes sense. Typically we do branded content but more generic. And then within the blog, what we do is get more specific. We want to talk about a specific project, a specific call to action. And we create that strategy plan that we talked about last time and leave room for other things that happen obviously throughout the year, especially for nonprofits where it's a moving target, right? Like we don't know what's going to happen. Last year, good example. Yeah, the last two years, good example. Yeah, oh yeah. It is two years now, isn't it? That was long. I'm fine. My brain is on fire or as Julie would say, her hair is on fire but it's really, you know, and I get it, Ann, because I speak the nonprofit language and people think that I have just, you know, a golden egg. And so that's how I feel right now with you talking about this, because even when it comes to some of those simple Google searches, it's like, that seems so basic, yet for those of us that this is not their world, that does not seem to be our default action when we're stuck. So this has already been of great value. And I have a very novice question. So when you type this into the Google search and you do not hit enter yet and you see what it pulls up, you know, yeah, the different words or phrases, is that because Google analytics has pulled like an aggregate of some of the most common searches? Is that what's pulling up? Yes, yes. There's some YouTube videos, movie stars pull up. They're name and like a verb, like an action word. And there's a list and they go, why would someone ask that about me? They're like, well, there must be a lot of people asking. You know, Ann. And that's exactly what it is. I think it's interesting that you mentioned this because I think a lot of times in the nonprofit sector, we get involved in our own vernacular and the dialogue and the nomenclature, the words that we use are not necessarily the words that our donor population uses. And I kind of see what you're talking about with helping us to bridge some of those communication factors, they're gonna actually help draw more attention to us as opposed to some of the dialogue that maybe we're pushing or creating that doesn't really mesh with the population. Yeah. We all get our own jargon, right? I mean, we use a nation, I think, speak in acronyms. But it's also our own jargon. And I think this tip is so crucial and I think will change the way that many of us, most of us look at the words that we use and how we might choose to rephrase our narratives to help us tell our story and to use this through the power of blogging. One of the things you had teased earlier, Ann, is really about some PR strategy and looking at how we can use the power of blogging and move that into a public relations initiative and strategy. And I'm curious if you can share some of that with us now. Sure. When I started my business as a writer, it was 2010 and my very first client was someone who was a PR professional. And at that point in time, they didn't know what to do with social media. I don't even think it had a name yet. PR, social media, blogging, we were all kind of clumped together and because we're all reaching people, right? So PR is really more, we've kind of separated back out. And PR is for newspapers, magazines, news channels, videos, you know, YouTubers that are a big deal and that sort of a thing. And then there's this content and social media. And I think especially, especially for nonprofits who have a story to tell, who have success stories, who can talk about who they've served and how they've served them, how they're using that money that the donors have given and what they're doing with those funds. We really do have a story from a PR perspective, right? Like we can go to the news and say, come on out and see us building our house. Come on out and see us at the food bank and Tuesday, turkey day, what do they call it? They collect turkeys at the grocery store and all the news people are out at grocery stores for Thanksgiving, the Turkey Tuesday. You know, whatever it is, there's a story to it. So what we can do is we can take those stories and we can put them on those other websites and get those backlinks. But what we can also do is use those stories on our blogs and we may put the press release right on our blog. You might do that. I've done that for my own business. My clients have done that. In addition to the other things that we're doing, you can use that piece of your website. The good thing about that too is there's, to get the attention of Google, they like when we add new pages. Well, guess what? Every blog post is a new page on your website. I did not know that. I did not know that. Yes, yes, because it has a separate link. So when we say add pages to your website, people think they have to have a page for each service. Now, some places that makes sense. If you're launching a new campaign, that absolutely makes sense to do that. But it also makes sense to be adding articles, blog posts on the website because it's a new page and Google loves when we add new content. It loves when we change the content on an existing page and it loves when we add new content. So I think there's some strategy there that we can utilize and that way we're talking about Turkey Tuesday and we're putting it out on one big news website but we're also utilizing it on our own to talk about the success of that project. And I use Turkey Tuesday because it's November, right? I think it's too, it's getting creative. We get stuck in the weeds of our own organizations and we don't see the possibilities. And so that's a way that we can repurpose content kind of creatively and strategically in addition to whatever we're doing on a consistent basis. What was, I did it again. Well, let me. How else do that? Let me interrupt you again. So when you say this, which I love this idea but can you give me a framework for time? Is this like something that we should be doing like every day, every week, every month, every quarter? What does that, if you don't mind me saying workload look like? Yeah, that's where I get caught up. I here's that they can consistency is what is consistent for your organization. Okay. So most of the folks that I work with, we're doing two articles a month. Okay. Most of them. We're not doing huge SEO strategies. Get us number one on Google, which is ridiculous, by the way. We're doing. Pro tip, I love those. Yeah, pro tip. We're doing things to get us consistently seen and get us, you know, we've got original content. We can share it on social and our newsletters. We can make a video about it, you know, all those things. So whatever is consistent, whatever your organization can do consistently. What I would suggest, especially for nonprofit and especially because there are seasons when it's busier or there's a season of fundraising or a season of a particular project kickoff and final reveal or whatever that we leave enough space in that plan so that we can drop those special events. So maybe it's once a month. Maybe it is two a month during the busy seasons where we know we have maybe an educational piece that maybe it's hired out. Maybe you hire somebody to write that piece and then somebody else writes the PR piece or the event piece. I don't think it needs to be a lot. I think it has to be, it's more than it's consistent in whatever way you can do that. Yeah, and then you can share it out to those other places that we talk about. I'm so glad that you mentioned kind of those seasons because as I think about, you know, the end of the year and that's where we are, then this is a very busy fundraising season. More than 30% of operating dollars come in in this final quarter of the year. And so that's exactly, you know, this is the season of giving. It's really hectic and fundraising, but another really big season, honestly, is an event season, right? And that of course has been shaken and stirred in all kinds of ways over the last couple of years. But looking at the event season as well as, you know, the final push for fundraising at the end of the year, there's a lot to be said and a lot of other noise because we also talk about 1.8 million nonprofits are registered throughout the state, the state's plural, the US. And so there's a lot of organizations out there that are also vying for attention and vying for donations and vying for, you know, volunteerism. So there's a lot going on, but I really think looking at this power of blogging, looking at the backlinks and the SEO, which is really what we started with is what exactly is this and how do we as an organization keep our finger on the pulse when it comes to all of the moving targets? I'm so glad to know that, you know, geeks as you called yourself and exist in this world for this type of work. So yeah, Julia, I think you had something you were gonna say as well because I'm just a little dumbfounded. Well, I think the thing of it is that I appreciate that you linked how this works together because it is kind of a mystery. But the other thing too, and I don't know about you, Jared, I feel like what Anne has shared is very achievable. You know, I mean, if she's like, yeah, you gotta get a new post up every day or every three days or you're sunk. That is just like, oh, you know, but I liked what you gave me was almost something that it's, okay, I can add that to my plate. Or sometimes these things are just so overwhelming that it's like, that's never gonna happen. So. Here's an idea. This is what I was thinking of earlier is for folks that have, you know, you've got all these ideas and you're like, can I just, I call it brain dumping. Can I just brain dump and email you or send you over the press release that we wrote and can you make it SEO friendly? Absolutely. That is something that I do with my clients that I'd be happy to do with nonprofits. And that way you get a little bit of boost. Yes, we're telling the story. Yes, we're telling the news. We make it a little bit different, right? Cause Google likes to see it different on different sites about 30% different. So we judge it. You know, I love the word judge and we add those keywords in so that we can add it to your website so it attracts folks to your website in addition to the backlinks and social media and newsletters and all the things. And we can do that. You know, you can do that pretty simply just having somebody on board. I don't think you, I really don't think for nonprofits, especially given what's happened in the world and everything that's happening, everyone's strapped, right? For what do you spend your money on? So it's a way or what I was gonna say was you don't need to hire the SEO people because oh no, we can do this. We'll figure out what these words cost on the Google. No, we don't need to do that. Big brands need to do that. Big, big brands who have a lot of traffic can afford to do that. For us folks that are going listen, we're doing a really good thing out in the world. We want more people to know about it. We can make that website readable by Google and add content consistently so that it keeps Google's attention. I love it. I wanna point out that you have this fabulous blog article on your site, agencycontentwriter.com and I'm showing the card on it. SEO is a PR strategy. It's really, really a great article. And especially if you've watched this episode today and then you need to take this back to leadership or someone in your team and try and explain why you need to be doing this. I loved, loved this article and I really wanna recommend it. Again, you can go to Ann's website, agencycontentwriter.com and check it out because it's really well done. Here's Ann's information. Check her out. I love your energy. I love your integrity. I always feel like you're not trying to sell us something that we're gonna have to cut out from our budget elsewhere that you're giving us ideas and strategies that we can do. We might need to bring somebody in. We might need to get some help but they're not just so overwhelming that they sound fantastical. So check out Ann's information. Again, Julia Patrick here with you today alongside my trusted non-profit nerd. I would like to say she's my non-profit nerd. She's also your non-profit nerd. I feel like there's enough to go around in this nerd phase. Well, and we are glad for that. Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. Again, we wanna thank all of our sponsors. Without you, we would not be here. We're very excited. We added a new sponsor this month, your part-time controller. So yay team on that. Again, this has been the non-profit show and Jared, this is like got me looking at the website that we run in a different way. It's actually these backlinks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's really cool. I'm just thrilled. Hey everybody, this has been great. Ann, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. You really are a non-profit thought leader and we are delighted to say that you're somebody that we work with. We have you back on next month if I'm not mistaken. And so look for that because we'll get more of Ann's genius. Hey, in the meantime, we like to end every episode with our mantra. Stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow everyone. Thanks so much.