The Basics of Non-Profit SEO, Part 3: External links

Following up on the last tip about internal linking, it makes sense that external links are also important to your search engine optimization strategy. These are links from sites other than your own and in general, the more the better, assuming the links are coming from reputable sites and with some caveats listed below. One way to think of this is that search engines consider a link from one site to another as a vote of confidence.

Not all links are created equal: the continuing importance of keywords

If a partner links to you on a generic word or phrase (such as "Click here") it will be less valuable to you then if they were to link on your organization's name or on the keywords that you are targetting. In the first case, you will benefit from the link, just not as much as you could have. The really frustrating thing is when you wish you could just tweak a link you received on someone else's site to make it a little bit more optimal...but sometimes you just have to be thankful for what you've got. (Or risk being a pain in the butt and asking them to modify the link they've generously given).

It should be said that random links to content deep in your site that you were not necessarily targeting are a good thing -- but more on that in a future post.

Links from relevant sites are more valuable

Not only are the keywords that the link is on important, but the site that the link is on plays a role, as well. If your non-profit is environmentally focused and you get links from a supporter who has a blog about the stock market, it will likely be less valuable then a link from a supporter who has a blog focused on sustainable living. Using the analogy we started with (links to your site as "votes of confidence") you can imagine that if you called someone in to testify on your behalf in court, the testimony would be worth more coming from an expert in the field as opposed to your eight-year-old son. Various other factors play into this as well, such as the page rank of the linking site, the number of external links on the page, and the prominence of the link they give you (for example, if the text is bolded near the top of the page versus in regular type way at the bottom).

Backlinks from comments, forums, and trackbacks (and rel='nofollow')

One way to generate external links to your site is to be active on other related sites in the comments and forums, and to generate trackbacks by referencing other blog posts in your own and sending a trackback ping. It can't be emphasized enough that you should not begin to spam other sites by making unrelated comments just to promote your page -- this will inevitably hurt you more than it helps. If you are going to post comments, make sure they are on topic. If you join forums, again, be relevant to the topics, and perhaps you can add a signature line that links back to your site if the forum allows it. 

Note that many sites have implemented the rel="nofollow" indicator on all externally added links in content such as blogs and forum posts. This tells Google not to share the love with this particular link because it is not vouched for by the site's owner. (It was created to try to help minimize the incentive for blog spam as a way to increase page rank). It's unclear how much value links provide in these cases, but regardless you will increase your human clickthroughs if you post relevant and interesting comments.

Link farms and buying external links

We have done a little research on some of the various "link farms" out there who try to sell links on their pages which will supposedly increase your page rank and are left feeling quite skeptical. A much better plan is to really focus on getting good, organic SEO results which will typically last much longer. (This isn't to say you shouldn't pay for online advertising if it's part of your plan to get the word out there or promote a new project or program, just realize that as soon as you stop paying, the love will quickly dry up.) Be working on the organic SEO in the meantime.

advantages of being a non-profit as you solicit external links

One benefit that non-profits have in this area is that many people are willing to link to a .org if it's a cause they believe in and if they are excited about sharing it with others. The easier you make it for them, the better -- we recently created a variety of web banners to make it easy for people to add a graphical link to us. (Since we've just added those, there's no telling how effective they will be since we're not sure how many people will add them.)

Update on our quest to increase our rank on the phrase "non profit web design"

As we continue to tweak our optimization on the phrase, we have bumped up to the third page of results  on a Google search and are now in position 30. SEO results are always slow to move, but it can actually be kind of fun to see the result crawling forward as changes you are making begin to propagate. Interestingly, on a Yahoo search, we're on the first page, in the fourth position overall!