Nonprofits often don't realize that they can excel in another area, too: in the quality of their inbound links. Search Engine Optimizers have known for years that simply having links pointing to your sites isn't enough...it's the quality of those links that counts, more than anything else.
Google defines a link as being valuable according to how relevant it is. The standard explanation has always been that a search engine sees a link from one site to another as being a vote for the value of the second site from the first site. However, this is simplistic, and must be taken a step further to truly understand the value of links to a site.
If we imagine a situation where all "votes" aren't worth the same amount, we're closer to the real picture. For example, if I vote for one website to be considered an authority on website design, and I'm an authority on website design myself, then my vote might be seen to carry some weight, since I evidently know what I'm talking about. On the other hand, if I know nothing about website design at all, my vote might be seen to meaningless and worth nothing at all, since I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Google considers links to your organization's website the same way. If you work in play therapy, and you have links pointing to your site with the link text "play therapy" from a site that's itself considered a good resource on play therapy or closely related terms, then the link is valuable. Similarly, university and college websites (with an .edu ending) and government sites (with a .gov ending) are often considered authorities on everything, since there are such vast amounts of content on such sites.
This is where nonprofits have a crucial advantages. While businesses often resort to link-building campaigns to develop more links pointing to their sites, nonprofits will often find that related organizations or institutions are more than happy to place a link to their site, simply because their work is seen as humanitarian and altruistic in nature. Similarly, many nonprofits have collaborations with other nonprofits and with colleges and universities, which means that they often have write-ups on projects and other such content on other very high-value websites...simply asking webmasters to have this content contain a link to your organization's page for that project, or to your organization's home page, can add a big boost to your search engine ranking. Another idea might be to develop a campaign for soliciting donations...using a button image to ask for donations to support a project or initiative and asking community businesses, other nonprofits, or university sites to feature it can alo help in this regard (as well as providing a source of funds, of course).
Nonprofit organizations can benefit greatly from a better understanding of the tools they have available for increasing their search engine rankings, especially in the area of meaningful links from high-quality websites managed by collaborating institutions.
