Pros & Cons
Pros
- For the search terms that are most relevant to your mission, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can position your webpages at the top of Google and Yahoo results. In so doing, Search Engine Optimization could attract millions of new visitors to your website, if you are positioned well for popular search terms.
- Search Engine Optimization is free. For an organization with more time than money, SEO and link building may be your only internet outreach options.
- Optimizing a webpage for a particular keyphrase can help you find the perfect member or an ideal volunteer. That's because people who find your website via search engine research actually seek the content you provide.
- If your website is positioned among the top listings at Google for a popular search term, you will receive hundreds of partnership requests from other organizations, including some that may help you accomplish your mission.
- A well-optimized webpage can stay among the top search results for months or years (as long as your content remains popular).
- Search Engine Optimization is easier and less technical than you think. Most SEO techniques can be done successfully by do-it-yourselfers.
Cons
- If Google lists your webpage 8th out of 100,000,000, you will have done your job better than 99.999% of your opponents. But a ranking of 8th still requires scrolling to be visible and thus won't drive much traffic to your website.
- If you hire an SEO firm, you will likely be disappointed and may be poorer for it. Consider the odds: If just 20 competing organizations are actively optimizing their websites, only 3 in 20 can achieve a top 3 position at Google for your most important keyword. The remaining 17 out of 20 organizations will be frustrated.
- Investing in SEO requires patience. It may take days or weeks before Google notices your improvements and even longer for those improvements to be reflected in search engine results and web traffic. If your directors are looking for a "quick win," you will likely abandon SEO before it has a chance to work.
- In uncaring hands, many webpages have been made unnecessarily unappealing or cumbersome in the name of search engine optimization.
- With the notable exception of the Private Supporter's Forum at webmasteworld.com, many SEO message boards are rife with speculation and outright misinformation from member's whose opinions are fact-free or based on hearsay.
- Some websites are so poorly constructed (from a Search Engine Optimization perspective) that the changes required go beyond the scope of this chapter. For instance, if your webpages are constructed dynamically and their content is hidden from search engines, you'll need to hire a professional SEO programmer to fix that. In such cases, it's better to solve the larger structural issues before implementing the tweaks recommended in this chapter.
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