Search is marketing in its purest format. It puts ‘buyers’ and ‘sellers’ together in a natural and uncomplicated way.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the art of getting your web site ranked at or near the top of the major search engines like Google and Yahoo, when someone types in a keyword related to your business, such as “charity support”.

When you talk about search in the charity sector, one name that must be mentioned is Everyclick, a site that enables any charity and its supporters to earn money through sponsored and customised search (more on that later).

In the main, however, there are two kinds of search engine marketing; organic and paid. Learn more about these:

Organic search

Paid search
 

Everyclick

There is a specialist third sector search engine called Everyclick that lists all of the UK’s registered charities and encourages all of them to register and boost their profile, for free, via the site.

Every time you or your stakeholders use Everyclick to search on the web, your charity receives a small donation. What’s more, you can customise the Everyclick homepage for your charity so that when your stakeholders use the site to search, it feels familiar and personalised.

You can even use the site for online fundraising and donations.
 

Do it yourself?

Organic search can be highly effective in the right circumstances but you will probably need help from an expert not just in crafting a search strategy, but getting your web site designed in an optimal way to support it.

Paid search. Why not? Start with Google AdWords and take it from there.

Set up a Wiki page - www.wikipedia.com. It’s easy. It’s a great way of championing your cause, getting content out there, and providing links back to your own website.

Register with www.justgiving.com. This will establish valuable inbound links to your site, driving traffic.