Many NGOs and community based organisations don't have a deep understanding of Search Engine Optimisation.
For the basics of SEO, see the recent post Small Business SEO Strategy on my Australian SME Marketing Blog. (The same principles apply to any organisation or group that has a website.)
But here's one simple tip that many organisations and groups miss that can produce enormous benefits.
The most important aspect of your website for search engine purposes are the "Title tags" on each page, beginning with the Home page.
You can tell what's in your Title tag on your Home page by going to the Home page, put your cursor over some text (not images), right click and select "View Page Source" or "View Source". Somewhere near the top, you will then see text that looks like this:
<title>
The words that follow immediately after '<title>' are critical.
The mistake that many make is to put their organisations name in the Title tag.
What should be in there is the keywords that people might use when they are looking for the kind of products or services that you offer.
To use my business as an example, it would be a mistake to have "Distil International" in my title tag. Instead I would be better off with words like "community development", "facilitation" and "small business marketing".
In deciding what to include, keep it down to 60 characters - any more and you begin to dilute the effect, not to mention that some search engines stop reading after the 60 characters.
Incidentally, that title tag is also what appears on the top line when people are searching (eg in google) and come across the entry relating to your home page - all the more reason to use the important keywords rather than your organisations name.
Changing this title on your home page takes less than 5 minutes but can have enormous benefits.
Of course, once you have done it for the home page, the next step is to decide on appropriate keywords for every other page.
