Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Improving Your Ranking

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012 Topics Covered 1.SEO Basics 2.Managing Your SEO – Quick Overview 3.Managing Your SEO 4.SEO Resources 5.SEO Success 6.Need Assistance? Contents = Go to Topic Next Page

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012  Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 1.A search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc), uses a combination of techniques to gather information about web pages so they can organize, index and categorize the data for use during search requests 2.Search engine ranking means where your page appears in the list of returned search results provided by a search engine 3.SEO is the active practice of improving internal and external search engine factors to improve search engine ranking SEO Basics Back to Contents

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012  Understanding SEO Factors You Can Influence or Control 1.Friendly URLs - using URLs that reflect the contents of a page is a very good way to increase the chances of having that page being at the top of the search results 2.Page Title - Short description of the contents of the page 3.Page Description - Longer description of the contents of the page 4.Page Keywords - a comma-separated list of words that identify the key subjects covered in the page 5.Sitemap - an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling SEO Basics Back to Contents

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012  Managing Your SEO – Quick Overview 1.Login as admin user. 2.Customize your SEO data by using the Manage Pages tool found under the admin menu for each page in your site 3.Create your Site Map page, if it does not exist 4.Notify when you would like us to publish your sitemap to Google and Yahoo. Managing Your SEO Back to Contents

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012  Managing Friendly URLs and Page Title Managing Your SEO Select the Page you wish to manage Enter or change the HTML Title to identify the primary page content. Ideally you should create a unique title for each page. Your home page Title is a good place to briefly describe your focus or mission statement. Enter a value for Friendly URL that best describes the primary page content. You may use a phrase separated by dashes or underscores, but avoid overly long phrases. Using keywords in your title is very helpful, as is lowercase names. For example, let's say we have a site focused on Cancer with a Facts page: /facts is not a very friendly URL. /cancer-facts is much more search-engine friendly. Important: Remember to include the leading slash (/) Select the Page you wish to manage Enter or change the HTML Title to identify the primary page content. Ideally you should create a unique title for each page. Your home page Title is a good place to briefly describe your focus or mission statement. Enter a value for Friendly URL that best describes the primary page content. You may use a phrase separated by dashes or underscores, but avoid overly long phrases. Using keywords in your title is very helpful, as is lowercase names. For example, let's say we have a site focused on Cancer with a Facts page: /facts is not a very friendly URL. /cancer-facts is much more search-engine friendly. Important: Remember to include the leading slash (/) Back to Contents

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012  Managing Meta Tags, Keywords and Meta Robots Managing Your SEO Resources Maximizing Your Description: logspot.com/2007/09/improve- snippets-with-meta- description.html logspot.com/2007/09/improve- snippets-with-meta- description.html Google Keyword Tool - search for keyword ideas by entering a keyword related to your organization: argeting/Explorer?__c= &__u= argeting/Explorer?__c= &__u= Note: Review the Help contents too. Resources Maximizing Your Description: logspot.com/2007/09/improve- snippets-with-meta- description.html logspot.com/2007/09/improve- snippets-with-meta- description.html Google Keyword Tool - search for keyword ideas by entering a keyword related to your organization: argeting/Explorer?__c= &__u= argeting/Explorer?__c= &__u= Note: Review the Help contents too. Enter or change the Description to more fully describe the primary page content. It should support your page Title. Enter Keywords that best describes the primary page content. Effective keywords involve Setting the value of the Meta Tags - Robots section to "nofollow" will tell search engines that all links on this page shouldn't be followed and it will prevent your page's reputation from being passed to any linked content. Using the Meta Robots section, you can assign a Page Priority to improve a page's importance in search results compared to other pages within your site or exclude a page from being crawled and exclude it from the Sitemap. NOTE: Be awar that giving all pages maximum priority or maximum frequency of change will not yield any improvements. Enter or change the Description to more fully describe the primary page content. It should support your page Title. Enter Keywords that best describes the primary page content. Effective keywords involve Setting the value of the Meta Tags - Robots section to "nofollow" will tell search engines that all links on this page shouldn't be followed and it will prevent your page's reputation from being passed to any linked content. Using the Meta Robots section, you can assign a Page Priority to improve a page's importance in search results compared to other pages within your site or exclude a page from being crawled and exclude it from the Sitemap. NOTE: Be awar that giving all pages maximum priority or maximum frequency of change will not yield any improvements. Back to Contents

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012  Managing and Submitting Your Sitemap - Overview 1.After editing your site's page Titles, Friendly URLs and Meta Robots values it will be time to notify Google and Yahoo about your updated sitemap. 2.Create a Site Map page, if one doesn't already exist, by adding the Site Map component to a new page (Add Application | Content Management | Site Map) 3.Notify when you would like us to publish your sitemap to Google and Yahoo and we will gladly assist. 4.You may elect to publish your sitemap to other search engines, such as ask.com, Bing (Live.com) or Moreover.com. Visit the target search engine sites directly for instructions or you can utilize a submission service. Managing Your SEO Back to Contents

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012  Creating Your Sitemap Managing Your SEO If you don't have a Site Map page, simply add a new page to your site and place it where you want the page to appear (e.g under the Contact Us page) and title it "Site Map", then select "Add Application" from the admin menu. Then click on the Content Management group to expand it, then click on the Site Map component and drag into position on your new page. The Site Map will be autogenerated. Back to Contents

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012  Other Steps to Consider 1.It is important to have a strong presence on social media sites. Open an account on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Digg and others and post updates and cross-link to content on your site. 2.When linking, avoid always linking to one page or linking to a single anchor text. Avoiding this tendency helps you build a natural link profile which improves ranking. 3.Write your content for your audience, not search engines. Search engines are increasingly modifying their algorithms to detect search-engine targeted optimizations and are discounting such targeted content. 4.Keep your content fresh and update it frequently and monitor your rankings with search engine reporting to guide your ongoing SEO efforts. Managing Your SEO Back to Contents

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012  How to Avoid Being Banned by Search Engines 1.Do not redirect to another domain – this should only be done in a very controlled manner, such as a sub-site redirection from a page with a low priority. 2.Do not link invisible images 3.Do not include invisible text on your pages (text with a color the same as the background, or text with an ultra-small font size, such as 1px) 4.Do not create doorway pages (very simple pages that are written to optimize heavily on one or two keywords or keyword phrases that are designed so that search engine spiders see them, but regular visitors are taken to the real site) 5.Do not display different content to a spider/robot/crawler than site visitors 6.Do not try to use large lists of keywords Managing Your SEO Back to Contents

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012  Additional Resources Google SEO Starter Guide Google Webmaster Central Yahoo SEO Basics Guide SEO Resources Back to Contents

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012  DonorCommunity SEO Services DonorCommunity provides professional SEO services that can improve your rankings and free up your valuable human capital to focus on other activities that are core to your mission. Our SEO services include:  SEO Assessments and Action Plan  Organic Ranking Improvement  Keyword Research and Optimization  Link Building Service  Monitoring Service  Google Adwords Advisory Service Please contact us at to discuss how we can help SEO Success Back to Contents

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012 If you need any assistance, please contact us at Back to Contents