Increasing your Organization’s Internet Presence

1. Increasing your Organization’s Internet Presence July 17th, 2012

2. Today’s Overview

3. Increasing Website Visibility • Introductions • Attracting visitors to your site • Search engines and directories • Paid services • Getting others to link to you • Getting people involved • Donations / Volunteering • Analyzing and reacting to web traffic • The Dark Side • Time for questions 3

4. Introductions

5. Introductions - Confluence • Mission: • To help our nonprofit clients achieve the greatest strategic value from their technology resources • Founded 3/01 • ~500 clients nationwide • Concentration on East and West Coasts • Over 30 full time staff and consultants • 95% of our work is for the nonprofit sector

6. Introductions – Lisa Rau • CEO and co-founder, Confluence (www.confluencecorp.com) • Frequent Nonprofit Technology Consultant • Computer Scientist • BS, MS in Computer Science from UC Berkeley • Ph.D. from University of Exeter specializing in Information Retrieval and Artificial Intelligence • 20 years experience in IT / support services industry • Stints on Board of YWCA of National Capital Area • Peer Reviewer, for MD Nonprofits’ Standards of Excellence Program 6

7. Services Breakdown

8. Breadth of Services • Open source implementations • CiviCRM, Joomla, Drupal, custom web software • Strategic technology consulting • Website design, development support • Salesforce implementation • Interface Design • Full branding, print and graphic design • Infrastructure Support

9. Setting the Stage

10. Definitions / Setting the Stage • Being visible on the Internet is important • Search Engine Optimization • Not Paid Placement • Google, Images, Videos, Local… • Anchor text, link label or link text is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink • Cloaking is an attempt to boost search result rankings by serving different content to Googlebot than to regular users

11. What is SEO? SEO = Search Engine Optimization Improving visibility of your site by changing the design, words and phrases of the site So search algorithms will have searchers more likely to find you Not paid placement or advertising Not specialized search (e.g. image search, local search, maps, etc.)

12. Overview - SEO • Specific and implementable methods of increasing the visibility of your web site • Tailored for organizations that want to be found: • Search engines • At related web sites, and/or • When individuals are looking to get involved – through donations of time or money. • Search engines: How they work, how to raise visibility on major search engines • Meta-Tags and web programming for SEO

13. Overview – SEO (cont’d) • Linkages: Why links from other sites are important, and how to find good places that will link to your site • Web Site Submittal Services: • What they are, how they work, whether they are worth the money • Pitfalls: Things to make sure you don’t do if you want your web site found

14. Your Expectations / Our Objectives • Increase your leverage of the internet • Attract site visitors • Increase and ease participation • Improve comfort level with technology • This is not rocket science! • Suggest resources • Provide specific suggestions • Things you can take back to the office and implement immediately, at little or no cost 14

15. HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK

16. Words, words, words • If you don’t remember anything else… • Search engines are still primarily word based • A statistical match between the phrases in the input (a “search query”) and phrases on a page • More common words/phrases get a low weight • Precise, uncommon words/phrases get a high weight • Extra weight given to repeated words/phrases (except if it looks like “spam”) • Extra weight given to titles, headers, and other seemingly important words/phrases

17. Page Rank (aka “Link Popularity”) Page Rank is Google’s name for an algorithm that ranks pages higher when linked to by other “important” pages This concept is “recursive” importance of page depends on importance of back-linked pages, which in turn depends on other backlinks All search engines today use something like this Think of page rank as being a “tie-breaker” – a secondary factor (in general) that ranks pages that already match the search words Link popularity is affected by “anchor text” – the words “inside” the link that points to a page

18. Aside: “Google Bombs” “Google Bombs” are a conspiracy (but can be either “left wing” or “right wing”) to overwhelm a search engine by making link popularity so high that a page matches a query that it otherwise wouldn’t Requires many pages using the same anchor text and pointing to a common selected page and/or to each other Sometimes, but not always, dismantled by Google

19. The most famous “Google Bomb”

20. Google’s “Dismantled” Bomb

21. Other Search Factors Many other factors (hundreds!) influence search results, and they change daily…some examples Personalized search results (based on user’s location, search history) Extra weighting given to timely or frequently-updated information However, this does not change the basic emphasis (words and link popularity)

22. Attracting Visitors

23. The Search Engine Algorithm Arms Race • White Hats and Black Hats • Algorithm Arms Race • Google Panda update • Penalizes websites containing content duplicated from other websites and sources

24. Search Engine Algorithms • Details are highly proprietary • Why? • In 2010, Google made over 500 algorithm changes - almost 1.5 per day • Combine (review): • Link popularity/”page rank” (primary Google innovation) • Computed relevance: keyword frequency, proximity and term weighting • Checking for gaming the system (e.g. repeated terms, lots of extra tags) 24

25. Search Engine Market Share - 2011

26. Getting “Found” - Basics Optimizing for Google covers the lion’s share of potential searches Following Google’s own guidelines for webmasters is a good start(http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769) Concentrate on consistently using accurate, distinct words and phrases (in the right places) on your site Maximize linking potential

27. Google’s Own Tips • Do 301 redirect (permanent) from domain.com to www.domain.com • Verify ownership in Google tools; set up email forwarding for alerts from Google • Look at keywords in tools in case of issues • Do “fetch” as GoogleBot and submit to index • Include Analytics • Have design strategy – 1 page = 1 topic

28. Google’s Own Tips, Continued • Define conversion and have opportunity to do something on every page • Have natural keywords in your copy • Focus on answering questions you expect people to have • All Pages • Topic, Title, Meta-Description (for snippet) • Anchor Text, and all titles / keywords lowercase with hyphens • Use Webmaster Tools’ Search Queries

29. Getting “Found”: Words • No single trick optimizes for all engines • Some factors for some engines include words that are: • High up on the page - In headings • In the URL - In the page title (very important) • In description - In link text (“anchor text”) for inbound links • In the ALT tags for graphics - In generic keywords metatags • Bold text 29

30. Example: Friends of Rock Creek’s Environment (Rock Creek Conservancy)

31. Example: Friends of Rock Creek’s Environment (Rock Creek Conservancy)

32. What the Webmaster Sees <base href="http://www.rockcreekconservancy.org/" /> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <meta name="robots" content="index, follow" /> <meta name="keywords" content="FORCE, &quot;Rock Creek&quot;, RiverSmart, Rainscapes, &quot;Rock Creek Park&quot;, kids, families, RCC, &quot;Rock Creek Conservancy&quot;" /> <meta name="description" content="Rock Creek Conservancy works to protect and restore Rock Creek, a natural treasure in the heart of Washington, DC, and Montgomery County, MD." /> <meta name="generator" content="Joomla! 1.5 - Open Source Content Management" /> <title>Rock Creek Conservancy (formerly Friends of Rock Creek's Environment)</title>

33. Summary: Rock Creek Conservancy • Changed name to something more unique (we can’t all do this!) • Still succeed in getting found through old name • Use page title, repetition for SEO • Use “description” tag for summary info to be displayed in search results • “Keywords” meta-tag doesn’t matter much • No spam, nothing here conflicts with good design principles

34. Getting “Found”: Key Factors • More weight is on the factors that would be hard to fake • Inbound link text (“anchor text”) • Page title • This shows up on the SERP -- Search Engine Results Page • Description • Google pays no attention to metatags 34

35. Getting “Found”: Maximize Linking Potential • All engines today use some kind of “link popularity” like Google’s Page Rank • Link popularity “kicks in” when other factors are roughly equal (especially when there are a lot of exact word matches) • Again, link popularity is “recursive”, depends on how many sites link to you, and how popular those sites are

36. Maximizing Linking Potential (cont’d) • Get “important” sites to link to you • Get all your friends to link to you • Supply accurate, consistent anchor text • (Less important) submit your site to engines, directories (e.g., Yahoo! and OpenDirectory) • Link your own pages and choose anchor text carefully (e.g., environmental impact, not click here)

37. Link Popularity: Examples

38. Link Popularity: Wikipedia • Wikipedia has the highest page rank • Why not get a Wikipedia entry for your organization? • Get the Wikipedia entry to link to your site? • As long as it follows Wikipedia’s rules, it’s fair game • Other “popular” sites are possibilities for this as well

39. Link Popularity: Competing for Rank

40. Link Popularity: Competing for Rank

41. Who Links to You? • Google search using the link: operator link:www.confluencecorp.com • Lists a selection of web pages that have links pointing to the confluencecorp.com page

42. Getting sites to link to yours • Stay away from link sites / link exchanges – they undermine your credibility • Look at your “competitors” and go where they are • Search for their domain name • Search using quotes • Get your name out there, use links when you do 42

43. Getting sites to link to yours • Seek out places where those you want to find you go to look • Government resource lists • Membership organizations • Yellow pages, business listings • Call / email people asking to be added to their page • Do this periodically 43

44. Other Factors that Increase Visibility • Cross link within site (remember anchor text) • Write content with good keywords • Anchor text and “alt” tags for images (good practice, anyway, for accessibility) • Name all filenames good names • Update content often • Have SEO friendly URLs (with real words) • 301 redirects • Moved Permanently • IIS, CF, ASP.NET, PHP, JSP, CGI Perl, htaccess

45. Other Factors that Increase Visibility • Quantity and quality of content • Technical precision of source code • Spelling • Functional v. broken hyperlinks • Volume and consistency of searches • Viewer traffic • Site Map and Image Site Map

46. Other Factors that Increase Visibility • Time within website • Page views • Revisits • Click-throughs • Uniqueness • Redundancy • Relevance • Advertising revenue yield • Freshness • Other intrinsic characteristics

47. How to Get “Found”: Summary • Content: Make sure pages, titles and descriptions contain the words you expect searchers to use • The more unique your names, the better • Get partners/friends, high volume sites to link to you (don’t forget anchor text) • Organize your site consistently, with links • Submit your site to all automatically indexed engines • Submit your site to all manual indices • Open Directory • Google Directory - http://www.google.com/addurl.html • Yahoo 47

48. Keywords • Create a list of top keywords that users would search on to find your site • Tools can help find the right keywords • WordTracker • Overture’s Search Term Suggestion Tool • Google’s AdWords • Google Webmaster Tools 48

49. Google Webmaster Tools • See which parts of a site Googlebot had problems crawling • Notify of an XML Sitemap file • Analyze and generate robots.txt files • Remove URLs already crawled by Googlebot • Specify the preferred domain • Identify issues with title and description meta tags • Understand the top searches used to reach a site • Get a glimpse at how Googlebot sees pages • Remove unwanted sitelinks that Google may use in results • Receive notification of quality guideline violations and request a site reconsideration

50. Webmaster tools