How Non-Profit Organization Websites Can Benefit from SEO: A Quick Case Study Audit
By Ethan Lazuk
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In this quick case study, we’ll audit a non-profit organization’s website for SEO opportunities.
Although I’m an SEO today, I got my professional start as a grant writer for a Florida non-profit in 2014. (You can read more about that journey here.)
This case study is intended to show non-profits how they could benefit from SEO.
Why?
Scrolling on X (formerly Twitter) recently, I saw a tweet from Semrush mentioning how non-profit organizations were among the top seven trending industries looking for digital marketing services, based on keyword data.
That got me thinking, wouldn’t it be fun to audit a non-profit’s website from an SEO perspective as a way to shed a little light on how SEO (as part of a broader digital marketing strategy) could benefit them?
Which non-profit’s website are we auditing and why?
I’ll be looking at the website of Goodwill Industries of Southwest Florida. I used to work for this organization as a grant writer in Fort Myers, Florida, back in 2014-2015. At the time, I referenced the website often in the grants I wrote. Therefore, I thought it’d be fun to look at that website today to see how it’s changed and how it could improve even more from an SEO perspective.
Caveats to this audit:
This is NOT an in-depth SEO audit lol. I don’t have access to the website’s Google Search Console or Google Analytics accounts, and I’m only spending a few minutes browsing through different surface-level checks.
The intention here is not to create a formal recommendation for SEO, but rather to highlight some of the opportunities that could exist as a way to help non-profit organizations in general start thinking about their own organic search presences. 🙂
Table of contents
First impressions as a user
The flow of this audit will be somewhat stream of consciousness, rolling through the website and making callouts. I’ll make limited use of tools to provide additional insights as well.
SERP appearance & on-page factors
The colloquial way to write the organization’s name is [Goodwill SWFL], so that’s the navigational query I searched.
Favicon
The first thing I noticed is the favicon looks good for brand awareness, but it uses text that is a little hard to read at that size. There may be opportunities to adjust that design.
Site name & structured data
The correct name of the organization shows up in the site name above the snippet. However, this is by happenstance, as there’s no WebSite structured data (or any structured data) on the homepage. That’s an opportunity.
Homepage title tag, meta description, H1 & alt text
Also, the title link looks good, but this is by happenstance too, as the page only has “Home” as its designated title tag.
The page also has no H1 with the organization’s name or purpose/location.
And while the snippet text looks good, this is by happenstance as well, because there is no meta description provided.
These are all opportunities. But kudos to Google for its ability to fill in the gaps.
Furthermore, we notice from that Ayima Page Insights scan of the homepage that some images are missing an alt attribute. Since Goodwill provides services to people with disabilities, it would be helpful to make the website as accessible for screen readers as possible (never mind the SEO benefits for image search).
Sitelinks & internal link structure
One thing I will also point out is that Goodwill SWFL doesn’t just sell items online or in thrifts stores, it uses that money to help fund social programs for people with disabilities or who are struggling with employment. That’s central to the organization’s mission. While this purpose is mentioned in the snippet Google pulls, it’d be nice if the programs page appeared as a sitelink.
Even on the mobile SERP, which tends to show more sitelinks than on desktop, the sitelinks revolve around the retail aspects of Goodwill SWFL as opposed to its programs and services.
*Caveat: of course, sitelinks are pulled in algorithmically, but there may be internal link optimizations that could help highlight the programs page as being central to the website’s content and influence its prominence as a sitelink. Based on this Inlinks report from Screaming Frog, for example, it would seem that besides the menu link, there is only one other contextual link pointing to the programs page.
That said, the programs page does make good use of internal links itself to the individual program pages.
However, this page could probably highlight those programs more prominently with a revised layout of the page content using H2 headings and H3+ subheadings.
An optimized H1 and title tag may also help the programs page rank for non-branded program related keywords, and along with adding a meta description, help improve its CTR in organic search.
Title tags
In fact, there seem to be a lot of pages that have one-word or otherwise short title tags that could be enriched with details or related keywords to improve rankings or CTR.
Local SEO
Something else I noticed pertaining to local SEO is the Google Business Profile, which is listed above the website on a mobile SERP, has the name Goodwill Outlet Center. This is located on the property, but it is separate from Goodwill Industries of Southwest Florida. Ideally, Goodwill Industries of Southwest Florida should have its own GBP.
Google Business Profile optimizations
We also notice the website link and UTMs for the current Goodwill SWFL GBP have some areas for improvement.
The URL lists the non-canonical www. version of the website instead of the canonical non-www. version, which causes a redirect and may not show up in their Google Search Console data, depending on if they used a URL prefix for the non-www. version. (A quick search of the Goodwill SWFL homepage source code doesn’t show a GSC verification tag, so setting up GSC may be an additional opportunity).
Also, the UTMs for the GBP are listing the source as Google (good) but the medium as Yext (it should be organic, with a campaign name related to GBP, such as: &utm_campaign=gbp-website-button). (This Campaign URL Builder can help with that.) This may be skewing their Google Analytics data.
The GBP also has 280+ reviews, and the owner does a good job of responding to them, whether positive or negative. That said, I see a lot of reviews that are specific to certain stores (rather than the non-profit organization), and not all of those stores have a GBP. Also, the stores that do have a GBP use the Goodwill SWFL homepage as the website link, often the non-canonical www. version with no UTMs.
Since the website has a locations page, creating a dedicated page for each store location and linking that to its respective GBP could be a better approach.
Keyword rankings & content optimization
The last thing I’ll review are the website’s keyword rankings and top pages. We don’t have the benefit of first-party data from Google Search Console, but based on 3rd-party data we can make a couple of conclusions.
Branded search & specificity of pages
Overwhelmingly, the website gets its traffic from branded queries with a geo modifier, essentially “goodwill” + “city.” We can likely infer these are shoppers looking for a nearby Goodwill store. However, the majority of these searches return the website’s homepage, including the non-canonical www. version, which likely means those are Google Business Profile website clicks.
As mentioned above, having dedicated pages for each store and linking those to the GBPs could provide a better user experience.
The mission of Goodwill SWFL is not only to drive retail sales, but to fund its social programs and make sure people know those programs exist. Therefore, it’s important that the website’s program pages have good organic search visibility both for their branded and non-branded terms.
The main program page appears to have low organic traffic, resulting in nothing being picked up by this 3rd-party tool.
The page is, however, indexable and ranks for [goodwill swfl programs], albeit below some other pages. However, the programs page doesn’t appear for a non-branded search like [nonprofit programs in fort myers fl], so there are optimization opportunities there.
Next we’ll look at a specific program page. The “Digital Skills Training/Certifications” page feels appropriate. 🙂
Although the page doesn’t seem to register much traffic, it does rank for a few keywords, including branded keywords around “goodwill computer classes online” but also non-brand terms like [computer classes naples fl].
This demonstrates there are opportunities to optimize this page to improve its rankings for some of these search terms that could drive potential participants.
Blogging
But also, if someone needs computer lessons, it’s not a stretch to say they may not know how to search for them explicitly on Google Search.
Therefore, it might also be a good idea to create some informational blog articles or guides that cover some of the material taught in the digital skills class as a way to reach would-be participants early in their buyer’s journey.
Wouldn’t you know it, Goodwill SWFL has a blog! Its posts are currently items like podcasts from 2022, but past posts have driven a bit of organic traffic. In all likelihood, the blog could easily be turned into a hub for SEO-friendly articles.
Key takeaways
While not an exhaustive SEO audit, this quick run through of a non-profit organization’s website does show there are opportunities. These can include items as elementary as title tag or meta description optimization, on-page content and linking, as well as content strategy, not to mention site speed and UX, which we didn’t touch on here.
Get volunteer SEO help for your organization
If you’re a non-profit organization looking for digital marketing services, I offer free SEO assistance in my free time. Get in touch with me at ethan.lazuk@gmail.com or via X (Twitter) at @EthanLazuk (same on LinkedIn).
Thanks for reading. Happy optimizing! 🙂
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