DIY SEO Audit

Everyone should be checking their Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) on a regular basis, and as our sites mature we need to be developing our knowledge of how our sites perform and keep improving our SEO.


Google Webmaster tools provide everything you need for a quick DIY audit, which should show you any major issues and give you the impetuous to have a full survey done.


Check you navigation - Think about your main user groups and think about what they want to find about on your site. Starting from your homepage is it easy to get there, easy to find.. and is everything they want in the same place or at least signposted?


Ask a friend to try the site out and find a major piece of content – ask your Mum, then think about how easy it is again


How many pages are indexed - Using Google webmaster tools you can check and record the number of pages Google is indexing from your site. If the numbers are widely different there is a problem because Google isn’t indexing your site correctly – but don’t panic if they aren’t exact, they rarely match


Not enough pages indexed? - Try putting your site in www.seo-browser.com to see how search engines view your site. Can it see everything, is it crawlable? Can it see the main content? If not you have a problem that need fixing.


Too many pages Indexed? - Do your pages have multiple URLs? For example your homepage might be www.mycharity,org,uk and www.mycharity.org.uk/index.html.


If you have lots of pages that have multiple URLs Google will report them as separate pages. Similarly if your site works with and without the www (ie as http://www.mycharity and http://mycharity..) Google may double count


Perform a Quick Redirect Check  - You can use a tool such as http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/ to check that the way your site redirects from http://mycharity.org.uk to http://www.charity.org.uk – which should be through the 301 redirect rather than anything else


Check the XML Sitemap File - When checking the site indexing check for signs that major sections are missing. If there are whole sections not being indexed then there may be issues with the XML sitemap.


Also make sure the sitemap is using the correct version of a URL. The links you use and the ones in the site map are different it will dilute your listings


Check the Robots.txt File - In Google Webmaster Tools you can use the built-in robots.txt checker (Site Configuration/ Crawler Access). This shows you pages that Google cant access because they are blocked off by the robots.txt file.


Write content for every page - Pages with images and no html content are seen as low quality to search engines, so keep them to a minimum, and may even class as duplicates. Unless you are running a large shop try to minimize the number of pages without individual content so the site is seen a high quality


Avoid pages with "Template Content" - If you have duplicate pages or listings with standard copy and just a change of header the search engines assume they are duplicates and discount them. That is why Amazon tries to add reviews and “content” to every book page


Use H1 Tags - Always use H1/H2 and TITLE tags for your content. Search engines use these as the “title” of the page and give them extra weight. It also helps to put the most important keywords at the beginning of the title


You can use Google Webmaster Tools to check on duplicate title tags, missing title tags and meta data. (Go to Diagnostics, and then HTML Suggestions.)


If you use the same tag on lots of pages they are actually competing with each other for page ranking


Quick Check


This quick check won’t replace a full audit, or even solve the problems, but it will show you any major problems which you can start working on.


If you need help to improve your SEO then we can now offer a full SEO Audit and SEO optimization service – contact me at sue@suefidler.com

Are you missing a great opportunity?

If you are doing an email newsletter and have a sign up form then you should be sending a "thank you" email when people sign up. If you aren’t you are both being a bit rude in not saying thank you and missing a brilliant opportunity to build the relationship.


If you send the standard reply, along the lines of “thank you for signing up for our email newsletter” it is time to rethink and rework.


First, make sure your thank you goes immediately. Any decent email newsletter software will send out an automated thank you as soon as somebody signs up. If you aren’t using a system then make sure your system sends out the thank you straight away and that its automated so it doesn’t create work.


Say thank you for signing up, and if you can personalize the email with Dear @firstname@. If you have a personal email style then sign the email from a person and add a signature. Whatever the style of the enews they have signed up for should be replicated in the thank you.


Thank you emails have the highest open rate, so take the opportunity to get a really important message across. Tell them how they can help, how much their support means, tell them a story about what you do and make them feel like part of it.

Take the opportunity to mention ways they can support you or get involved in whatever way suits your cause. Keep the thank you email up to date with the latest ask or campaign. Add a banner for the latest event. And include a link to something they can do next, some other way to participate.

Finally make sure you include an unsubscribe, clearly you don’t want them to, but it builds up trust. If you want to really impress include a “received this in error” link in the body of the email rather than the normal unsubscribe in the footer. Include a link to your website privacy policy to reassure them you have one and make sure it covers how you handle their data, whether you share/sell, and that you are registered with the DPA.


Whatever you do, make sure you are doing something that will build the relationship more than a bog standard "thank you".

The best set of social media icons

If you havent seen it yet this is an excellent site for getting a set of social media icons:

http://webdesignledger.com/freebies/the-best-social-media-icons-all-in-one-place

12 Things to help improve you website and web presence

12 simple.. and not so simple things to improve your web presence:

1. Design a good website, it might be simple but make it good.
2. Make sure it is usable – TEST IT – ask your friends, family, especially non webbies
3. Add interesting, useful content that is “new” and renewed enough to bring people back
4. Keep it up to date – old copy/events is a complete turn off
5. Work hard on SEO and Search Engine registration
6. Set up an email newsletter and sign up form
7. Create landing pages for the various mediums – ie don’t send somebody who got the dM appeal to a page with the same copy.
8. Use URL masks to create short memorable page addresses for offline media
9. Promote the site on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, et. al. and feed content to them to keep them fresh
10. List your Facebook and twitter addresses and ask people to sign up/join you
11. Ask people to add your pages to social bookmarking sites (such as Delicious) and social-recommendation sites (such as StumbleUpon)
12. Add your videos and images to FlickR and YouTube with interesting (relevant ) tags

Need any help - just ask!

What not to do with your email news

Somebody asked me for a list of absolute no-no’s for email marketing:

• NEVER email somebody who has unsubscribed
• Do not send email newsletters from PC based emailers like Outlook - that's not what they were designed for.
• Never resend to hard bounces – wastes money and they are counted as spam by gmail, hotmail et al
• Never make your emails too long and complex. If you are doing peer to peer then you might get away with 20 items, although I would argue you would still be better dividing by subject and sending separate emails, but for donors and supporters 3-5 short stories, tasters to get them to the website.
• Never send without testing - always test the links and proof-read
• Test send to other email browsers (gmail, hotmail, yahoo) to check the design
• Don’t buy lists, they don’t work. Swap stories to get in front of new audiences instead

Ways to improve your email newsletter

Email has been around as long the Internet and email campaigns and email marketing are still among the most popular and effective tools for communicating with donors, campaigners and supporters.

Here are some strategies for improving existing campaigns or launching new ones.

Take advantage of peoples increasing use of social networking and “tagging”.

• Always include a forward to a friend link,


• Always add a link back to your enews sign up form (Received this as a forward? Sign up here)


• Add “share this” to allow people to post your email to Facebook, twitter etc


• Always invite them to join you on the social networking sites by giving “connect with us” links to whichever sites you have a presence on.

Make sure you are sending the right emails. That might sound daft, but make sure you regularly check what people are clicking on and consider separating your newsletter into more than one send,

• If some people only click on one area or type of work you do then segment into more than one address book and send separate stories. It might only vary by one item but it will work better if it is tailored.


• Look at who clicks the most and consider what else they might engage with – they are clearly your strongest supporters


• Think about taking the people who seem less committed and trying to engage them; a special ask, a personal appeal or a special offer.


• Offer multiple types of emails, supporters, campaigners, events, jobs – whatever will most engage the audience.

Make sure you include all your offline campaigns in your enews, even if it is just a small banner.

• If somebody sees a new poster campaign but you don’t mention it in your enews It looks disconnected


• Make sure you have landing pages for enews stories which is appropriate to the message, not just a repeat of the enews or direct mail copy.


• Add soft asks to the side bars and footers.. like reminding people about fundraising opportunities (ebay, everyclick etc), special events or other ways to give such as payroll, legacies etc

Always offer every opportunity for people to sign up, change their email and unsubscribe.

• Make sure you don’t re email unsubscribes.. even by accident


• Always flag and remove hard bounces, they count as spam. Do you have another way to contact people and ask for a new email address?


• Consider offering text and HTML emails.. let people chose what they want to read


• Always have a “read this in a browser” link

Check your reports. Whichever email system you use remember to check.

• Which are the most popular stories? which ones work best?


• Consider testing subject lines


• Can you see better open rates with the day of the week or time of day?