3 Nonprofit SEO Myths

Nonprofit SEO has obtained a number of myths and legends over the years. As the search engines change their algorithms consistently, nonprofits who don’t keep up hold onto past truths which are no longer valid. Nonprofits need to review the myths then reposition their marketing to avoid falling into these pitfalls.

Myth #1. Domain Age is an Essential Ranking Factor

This is the first myth nonprofits should throw out the window. Often, smaller organizations are start-ups and haven’t had a chance to grow, which means the domain is still quite young. Nonprofit organizations only need to wait a couple months before the impact of the domain age no longer matters to search engines.

Some agencies swear by domain age as a ranking factor because older domains are ranking higher. Older domains have had time to build on themselves and include items which do matter to rankings. A beginning nonprofit site holds as much competitive SEO clout as an older site after only a few months on the search engines.

Myth #2. The Only Way to Grow Traffic is to Increase Ratings

Every nonprofit needs to grow their site views, and while links, relevance and content matter, they aren’t the only way to increase rankings. The top sites on the search engines will claim that traffic estimates for keywords are touch and go most of the time. Pouring effort into a single ranking is a massive waste of time; there are better ways to increase rankings and grow traffic.

The best efforts put forth by nonprofits include concentrating on promotional materials while composing content built around low-competition keywords. If promotions don’t work right away, nonprofits should focus on producing more content. Increased content will help push rankings.

Myth #3. Links Rule Above All Else

Links are great, and certainly encouraged, but they’re not the most important SEO factor. People consider links to be essential due to their elusiveness and crucial traffic driving properties. However, focusing on links will waste valuable time which could be spent on other ranking efforts.

The word is not links; it’s relevance. How relevant are the links associated with the site? Google and other search engines need to recognize the relevance of the links on the site to match with the search terms. Therefore, links are great, but make sure they hold relevance to the content on the page and the nonprofit organization’s brand before allowing them onto the site.