Nonprofit Expressions

I recently wrote an article for a group I am involved in and I thought the information would be relevant here also.

I have always been a big proponent of the need for Open Source software applications in the nonprofit community. Open source can save thousands of dollars and provide capabilities that would otherwise be out of reach for most nonprofit orgs.

This list is in no particular order or ranking structure. The following are just five applications that can greatly benefit nonprofit organizations.

• Wordpress- This application is probably the most widely used and supported blogging tool on the internet. You can even get a hosted blog on the website for free.
  http://www.wordpress.org
• OsCommerce- This e-commerce shopping application has all the major features you would expect in an expensive shopping cart application, including Full Search, Product Reviews, and Bestseller lists.
  http://www.oscommerce.com
• Drupal - The cleanest look and feel of the open source content management systems. Also the best content manager for search engine results.
  http://www.drupal.org
• Openoffice.org- I transact every day with Microsoft Office users. but I am not paying Microsoft. Every consultant that places this in an office and saves thousands for the organization should be branded a hero.
  http://www.openoffice.org/
• PHPList - With this Opt-In mail system I have been able to help clients save thousands in email fees. One of my clients has over 5,000 emails opened each week by donors because of this application.
  http://www.phplist.com

All of these applications are released under an Open Source license agreement. Your nonprofit organization can use them at no cost for the license. Of course you will still need to pay for hosting the application and any other services required to operate the software.

Enjoy!

I recently found an article that can help all of us who use Google on a regular basis. Most of us are quite good at finding information on Google, but there are better ways to search that can improve the results page.

Check out the article here

Don’t let Black Hat SEO practices damage your brand

In the world of search engine optimization there are two schools of thought. The first, “White Hat” SEO, uses great content, smart link writing techniques, great information structure, link campaigns, and extensive keyword analysis to create pages that rank well on the search engines. These sites stand the test of time and deliver the results your organization deserves.

The other school of thought, “Black Hat” SEO, is in a constant battle to trick, manipulate, and defraud search engine results. The techniques used include creating link farms (many sites that link to each other), cloaking (trying to fool the search engines by redirecting from one domain to another), and stuffing keyword phrases in places people cannot read.

Today’s Black Hat SEO techniques are in fact just old methods of tricking Google and Yahoo into giving you good search engine results. The results often work very well if done correctly but it is a short-lived victory. The search engines are constantly updating the parameters they use to rank sites. They are dedicated to finding sites that should not rank so high and bringing them down to size. Currently that means you get placed in the “sand box”. The sand box is a very friendly term for what really means blacklisted. If your site is identified as trying to trick the search engines you can be banned from appearance on the index entirely.

The consequences of getting blacklisted can be jaw dropping. Imagine one day that your website that has thousands of dollars and countless hours invested simply ceases to exist on Google, Yahoo and MSN. It would be as detrimental to some businesses as having all brick and mortar locations burnt down in one weekend. Just like it would take a company months or even years to fully rebuild physically, it can take months and even years to dig your way out of the sandbox.

The risk is foolish to any real business or organization. Losing credibility from the search engines is a needless mistake when the guidelines are so clearly listed on every major search engine. Google Senior Webspam team member Matt Cutts explains that by simply following the rules and developing great sites you can achieve search engine recognition. In today’s day and age, spam is a real problem and the search engines are becoming more effective at catching it.

So don’t make the mistake of spamming the search engines; instead, make sure your site’s SEO team is both ethical and looking out for your best interests.

Here is a list of the SEO guidelines for the major 3 search engines.

The Google Webmaster guidelines

The Yahoo Webmaster guidelines

The MSN Webmaster guidelines

Keep in mind that over 80% of all search traffic is on Google, while MSN and Yahoo represent less than 20% of search traffic online. If you follow the guidelines on the Google page, you should do well everywhere else.

The value of organic search
The true value of having your site listed in search engine results is often overlooked by all who are contemplating the barrier to entry. Surely the initial cost of building a website is nearly always higher than most organizations assume before they begin looking. I know in my own work on more than one occasion I have received the “it can’t really cost that much” look from prospective clients after delivering proposals for work. The truth of the matter is my hourly rates are very low because I work for nonprofit organizations and churches, and have a sincere desire to deliver quality services at the lowest possible rate. I can imagine those in my industry pitching half million dollar projects, and the amount of stress that must be created in those meetings.

The bottom line for most nonprofits, as well as business in general, is often the financial bottom line. How much will it cost, and what am I getting for the investment? Contrary to what many would think, the cost of site development is far lower than it was ten years ago. The initial barrier to entry for a .COM business of the mid 90’s was roughly five million dollars. This included the staff required to keep the site up and running for a limited time, and the cost of development. As one can imagine the .COM fiasco was very lucrative for thousands of design studios that no longer exist today. Today’s market is far more modest, and the barrier to entry has adjusted to meet the marketplace.

It is often hard to convince prospective clients that paying for Search Engine Optimization services (SEO) is a wise investment from the first day of the project. It is often placed on the backburner and considered for the future once an initial site is up and running. This is almost always for the same reason: money. By waiting to develop the site for search engines the barrier to entry is lowered, sometimes even by half. This is a financial decision, but it is often the wrong one. Let me tell you why.

Organic search engine results are the results returned from a search on the left and lower part of a search engine results page. They are freely provided by the search engine at no cost to the website owners. The Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisements are shown on the right hand column and often the first 1-2 results on the left hand side. These search results are paid for by the website owner on a per click basis.

Organic results are very valuable because they produce visitors to a website at no cost to the owner. A correctly designed site with SEO principles used in its creation stands a better chance of becoming successful. With hundreds of millions of websites currently online, only a small percentage of those sites are represented by search engines effectively. Now don’t get me wrong. They are visited by search engines; it is almost impossible not to be visited by the “spiders” (programs) used by the search engines. Google’s mission is to spider the entire internet effectively and present current relevant results to searchers. For this reason there is not even a need to “submit” your site to search engines in today’s day and age. SEO is a completely different battle today. The key is in getting your site listed in the first 5-10 results for keyword phrases that will bring visitors to your website that are likely to gain from the visit. If you sell Nike sneakers online, you want people looking to buy Nike sneakers to find your online store. You don’t need people who hate Nike and only wear Reebok. The relevancy of the visitor is more important than the number of visitors. Making sure the right people find your site is the entire premise of search engine optimization (and all internet marketing.)

Organic search is the most important form of online marketing on the internet. Why? Because the results are far cheaper to produce, and the visitors are more likely to trust your site than if they had clicked on an advertisement. Growing organic search results should be on the top of your priority list when it comes to internet marketing.

In recent eye movement studies, the organic search results are the first place searchers eyes visit on a search results page. After scanning the natural listings the eyes will move on to the advertisements. The simple reason for this is that people trust Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask to provide them with relevant information more than they trust the marketing persons who place ads. The lesson in this study is not to give up pay per click as an option. It has instant and proven results, but the visitors generated cost more in the long run, and are not as high quality as those generated by organic search.

The other option

Many people simply cannot afford a lot of SEO work in the first days of site creation. The search marketing is often an afterthought because even many designers are not aware of its importance. It is the most affordable marketing venue in the world, and I say that with conviction because of the overwhelming number of visitors it can bring into a site.

So if you cannot afford to pay for SEO on day one, what should you do? Much of good SEO work is in redesigning a website to be readable by search engines. The standards that must be followed in the site’s design comprise a good portion of what most people end up paying for in their SEO bill. By circumventing the need for a redesign you can save thousands. The key to preparing the site for SEO during its creation is in finding a design team that is both aware of SEO and has the knowledge to design to the standards the search engines require to index your site.

Build your site to be readable and indexable by search engines, and you will be in a good position once your budgetary restraints allow you to fully SEO the site.
The next piece of advice I would offer is to strongly question any design team that claims to be creating your site for search engines if they do not offer search engine optimization services. This skill set is in another realm far from design. They do not teach SEO in any school that I am aware of,  certainly not in design school. Small time designers working for local business are often unaware of new search engine technology and practices and do not create websites for search engines, even though they claim to.

If they do not offer the service, they are most likely uninformed or simply being untruthful.

Aaron
Developer / SEO

PS. All websites this company designs are built to be indexed by search engines, even if we do not do any specific SEO work for the site.

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Build a ministry website checklist for success

The internet plays an important role in ministry development. The net is a place for donor development, branding, and marketing your organization. Many organizations simply do not realize the power of having a professional image until they miss funding opportunities because their marketing is unprofessional.

If you place yourself in the socks of an executive in charge of dispersing funds to charity, or even just an everyday Joe who only has $50.00 to donate this month, a professional image will go a long way as a convincer. The number of scams in every community that focus on ripping off potential donors, is staggering. People give money voluntarily to charity, so naturally criminals will pose as charities.

Your organization’s first line of defense against skeptical donors is your reputation. By doing your work well, you will build a good reputation. However, that is only one side of the reputation coin. When investors and others are introduced to your organization it may be a business card or a website doing the introduction. The first impression that person forms will be based, in part, by the image presented by your marketing.

To make the most of first impressions and further facilitate relationship building, make sure your organization is represented well in all of your marketing. Especially your website, because an internet visitor may only give you 3- 5 seconds before they decide you are not worth the next 30 seconds of time it will take to read the web page. Keep the following in mind to take your 3 second interview and turn it into a lifetime relationship:

1. Is every page of your site organizing the information in such a way that it is easy to identify what your organization does? (For instance, a church web site should identify the fact that it is a church in the title and logo of the site)
2. Is the information easy to read and well organized? If your site looks cluttered or the text is hard to read most visitors are going to favor the “back” button over further investigation.
3. Does your site look as professional as other sites in the same industry? When you compare your site to your competition how does it stack up? If your site does not look as professional, you are likely to loose potential relationships to your competition. Likewise, if you look more professional you are likely to draw new relationships away from your competition.

If your site does not meet the standards it should, then it is time for a re-design. If you don’t have a site yet, the following should be helpful in preparing to create a ministry website.

Checklist for creating a ministry website

• Find an experienced design team. Do not put your image in the hands of a college student who builds websites in his spare time. Likewise do not allow a “technical” person working for you to create a website unless they have the necessary experience. Now that rule does not apply if the college student is an intern at amazon.com and the technical person used to work for a web design firm. But a good rule of thumb is that those who have little experience in developing websites will have little success in professionally presenting your vision to the web.

• He who creates his own site, has a fool for a client. Now this is not always true. I of course create my own site, but as a professional developer who has been building sites since 1996, I should be expected to do so. But even with my experience in writing xhtml, css, xml, and many others,  I still have to learn new tricks and techniques weekly. The web design field is simply too broad for one person to successfully know or learn everything. It takes a team to create a successful ministry website. In 1998, developing your own website using a “for dummies” book was not only acceptable, but common. Today’s internet is not a D-I-Y environment. The rate at which the technology of web design is changing is blistering. Hire someone who does this for a living, and prides himself on keeping up with the trends.

• Who will update your content? Now just because you should not develop your own site does not mean you cannot edit its content. With today’s technology managing pages and content is in the realm of the non-technical. Enterprise level sites are often updated by people without technical skill beyond Microsoft Office. Ask your developer about Content Management capability for your site. It may cost you more up front, but in the long run you can save time and money by having interns and secretaries update the content on your site.

• Don’t get ripped off: know how much should you be paying. The price for a professional design studio to design a website will vary depending on what technology you require and how experienced the team is. Current rates for web development teams are right around $1000.00 per day of work the studio performs. This should average out around $80 - $100 per hour. Every task will not require more than one person during development, thus any price less than $75 per hour is a good deal. If the design studio is charging you on a per-contract basis and does not offer to break down the contract on a per-hour basis, you are getting ripped off. The design studio is offering to create a “cookie-cutter” website that will likely take them only a few hours to launch. Your design company should be able to show you what they accomplished hour-hour. This is the current standard.

• It is all about your goals A design team worth their oats should be asking questions about your ministry’s goals. Without a solid understanding of your goals and your vision, the website will not be able to contribute to them. When shopping for a web site you will find many offers for a site with 5 - 10 pages of content, and a slick layout. You pay for quality and experience. A good design team should be attempting to create an internet extension of your current ministry. If you cannot easily identify the ministry goals being accomplished by the proposed site, you will only end up with an e-business card. While this is easy to refer people to, it serves little purpose, and is likely not worth the amount of effort a website requires, or the money needed to develop it.