Search engine optimisation (SEO) helps charities reach more donors, supporters, and advocates by ensuring their website appears in search results. When potential donors or volunteers search online for causes like yours, an optimised website increases the likelihood that your message will reach them. This guide offers practical, step-by-step advice exploring SEO for charities to help you improve your website’s performance and share your mission more effectively.
What is SEO for Charities?
SEO involves fine-tuning your website so that search engines list it when people look for related topics. For SEO for charities, this means making it easier for individuals interested in volunteering, donating, or learning about your work to find you online. In practical terms, SEO helps you present your cause to those actively looking to support and engage with organisations like yours.
When your website ranks well, it becomes a resource for people seeking ways to contribute and learn. You can connect with a wider audience without spending heavily on advertising by making simple changes to your site’s structure, content, and technical setup.
Why Does Your Charity Need a Higher Search Ranking?
When your charity appears at the top of search engine results pages, your message reaches those already looking for ways to help. A better ranking means more visitors, improved credibility, and, ultimately, more engagement—whether that’s through donations, volunteering, or advocacy.
Using free tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console lets you understand how visitors find your site and what actions they take once they arrive. This insight can help you make informed decisions and adjust your approach as needed.
By improving your search ranking, your website becomes an ongoing resource that works in the background to promote your cause. The benefit here is that every optimisation you make continues to pay dividends over time.
Understanding SEO Basics
Search engines like Google, Bing, and Ecosia use complex systems to determine which pages appear for a given search. They look at many factors, including how closely your content matches the search query, the quality of the website, and the user experience offered. A well-optimised site with clear content and good structure helps these systems present your pages to interested visitors.
When you start, it’s useful to familiarise yourself with a few key concepts:
- Crawlers: These are automated programmes that scan and index your website.
- Algorithms: These determine the order in which sites appear in search results based on factors such as relevance and user engagement.
- User Experience: A website that is easy to navigate and loads quickly is more likely to be favoured by search engines.
Learning how these elements work can help you set up your site to serve your audience better.
Setting Up for Success
Effective SEO for Charities starts with an intuitive, fast, and mobile-friendly website. From a search perspective, the foundation of your charity website is essential. You need an intuitive website with clear navigation, fast page load times, and mobile responsiveness. You’ll also need to consider the technical details, such as meta tags, header tags, and linking between pages.
You’ll also need to identify the most relevant search terms for your charity. The right search terms will have a big impact on your success. You need to identify the words and phrases that your supporters are likely to use when searching for organisations like yours. You can use tools such as Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs to identify the best search terms. Then you can create content that can include these words naturally into the content of your website, such as page titles, descriptions, headings and main body text.
Setting Goals for Your Charity’s Website
Setting goals for your website can help you approach SEO in a way that works for you. Tracking specific metrics can help you make better decisions. Think about what matters to you—perhaps you want to increase online donations, recruit more volunteers, or influence policy change.
Consider how you want people to find you online. Most donors will not donate immediately but will revisit your website multiple times. By targeting the right keywords that align with donors’ search terms, you can help them find your content and return to your website time and again.
How do you know if your SEO is working?
You’ll know if your SEO is working by checking how people are engaging with your website. For example, you could look at how many people visit your website, how many are signing up to your newsletter or how many donations are being completed – these metrics will give you an idea of whether you’re reaching the right people and that they want to get involved
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the foundation of good SEO for charities. Start with broad terms that are relevant to your charity. Research existing organic search results and assess whether these terms match what people are looking for. Google Search Console and other SEO tools are useful for identifying strong keywords with search volume data, competition, and intent information.
Use short keywords (like charity donations) to get the broadest reach and longer phrases (like best ways to donate to a children's charity) to get people who know what they're looking for.
Use the keywords naturally in the words on your website – they should be in your page titles, meta descriptions, headings and blog posts. Don't use the old tactic of trying to stuff keywords everywhere. Instead, focus on creating content that is useful and provides what people are looking for.
Check out what other charities are doing on their websites – what keywords are they using? See what topics they haven't covered and make sure you do. Use your analytics to see how things are going, and watch as your charity starts appearing higher in search results and attracting more people who are interested in your cause.
A spreadsheet or keyword tool keeps everything neat and easy to reference. It makes it easy to keep SEO on track and make small changes that will help more people find your charity online.
Creating Good Content
Good content is at the heart of SEO for Charities. For charities, this means sharing stories, updates, and information that genuinely resonate with your audience. Google looks at Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). This means creating authoritative and relevant content that provides unique insight into your cause. Updating your content regularly will signal to Google that your site is active, which can help your rankings.
- Sharing Stories: Highlight the impact of your work through real-life stories.
- Expert Insights: Provide advice or research relevant to your cause.
- Regular Updates: A blog or news section that is updated often shows that your site is active and engaged.
- Research: Share new research, survey outcomes and data related to your charity and cause.
When writing, keep your tone friendly and direct. Write as if you’re speaking to someone who is genuinely interested in your work. Use clear, simple language that avoids jargon. Remember, the aim is to inform and engage, not to overwhelm.
Good content should always be relevant to your audience and match their search intent. Focusing on valuable, high-quality content will improve your SEO and drive more organic traffic to your website.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO refers to the process of optimising each web page and its content to improve its search engine ranking. Optimising on-page elements is a key part of SEO for Charities, making your site easier for both users and search engines to navigate. This includes refining title tags, meta descriptions, headings and images. When done correctly, on-page SEO helps search engines understand what your page is about, making it easier for people to find your page when they’re searching to donate or volunteer with you. A well-structured page that provides users with exactly what they’re looking for will improve engagement and increase the time users spend on your website.
Your on-page SEO should include keyword placement in the right context. This includes title tags, URLs, and meta descriptions. Also, ensure that you include alt text on images and links between pages. This will enable search engines to crawl your content and improve your overall SEO.
Title Tags
Title tags are important for search engine rankings. Each page should have a unique, relevant title tag with target keywords.
The recommended length for title tags is 50-60 characters, so your title is fully visible in search results. This length prevents truncation and ensures the whole title is shown, making you more likely to get clicks and improving your rankings.
Writing Good Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are important for click-through rates because they summarise what the user can expect from the page. Summarise your page content and include clear calls to action to encourage clicks.
A good meta description will increase user engagement and drive traffic to your site. It should be short and sweet and give the user enough information to click through to your content.
Using Headings
Search engines read your headings to understand your content and give it a structure. Typically, you should use an h1 tag for your main heading. Your subheadings work well as h2s, h3s or sometimes h4s.
When you add relevant keywords to your headings, you’re giving search engines a clear idea of what your content is about. This makes search engines more likely to rank your content higher in search results when people look for the topics you’re writing about.
Adding Alt Text
Adding descriptive image descriptions to your alt text can make your site more accessible and provide search engines with more information to work with. When you add these descriptive descriptions to the alt text, you’re helping search engines understand and index your images correctly.
Write in your main terms and you will see better image rankings, but keep your alt text short and concise and simply describe what’s in the picture in a way that works for readers and search engines.
Internal Linking
Internal linking guides users through a site and shows the relationships between pages.
A logical site structure will help with internal linking and make it easier for users and search engines to find your content. Descriptive anchor text for internal links will also help with relevance and SEO.
Local SEO
Local SEO for Charities is all about making your cause visible to local audiences. For charities, this will increase visibility in the community and attract more local donors, volunteers and supporters.
Including location-based keywords in your website content will connect your charity with its local audience. Updating your Google My Business listing and listing your charity in local directories are also important for local SEO. Encouraging positive online reviews will also improve your local search ranking.
Off-Page SEO Strategies
Off-page SEO describes strategies that boost search visibility outside of your site. These tactics will increase your site’s authority and reputation. Building a healthy backlink profile through various strategies is key to off-page SEO.
Link building and content marketing will help your charity’s SEO. Building backlinks from authority sites will make your site look like a trusted source and improve your organic search rankings. There are several ways to attract high-quality backlinks; we’ve outlined a few below:
Building Links and Authority
Getting good links from other sites is a big part of charity SEO. When other websites link to yours, the search engine sees it as a vote of confidence, and it helps improve your ranking.
Creating content that other sites want to link to is a great way to get links. You could write useful blog posts, produce research reports, make an informative video or create compelling infographics to help tell your story or explain a complex topic simply.
Joining online groups where people are talking about your cause will help you make connections and gain some natural links. Share your content, but remember to obey the group's rules. It's more important to provide value to the community than to spam links at people.
Your social media accounts can be a powerful tool in building your online presence. By sharing your work on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and LinkedIn, more people will visit your website. When you communicate with your followers and build relationships with other organisations in your field, they will often be happy to link to your website.
Getting Quality Backlinks
When respected websites link to your website, search engines notice how valuable your charity is. Building strong relationships with like-minded organisations does make a difference. Write guest articles and get featured in news stories or charity listings. This will help build your online presence and ensure more supporters find out about your charity. Incorporating digital PR strategies can amplify these efforts, as crafting compelling stories that attract media attention can lead to high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites.
Look for places where people mention your charity without linking to you—there's a great opportunity there. Write a friendly note to the website owner asking them to add your link. It's a quick win that will build up your online presence and help more people find your work.
Guest Blogging & Interviews
Guest blogging can help you build high-quality links and raise your charity’s profile. Choose sites that share your values and match your goals. It’s a great way to boost your search rankings and reach more people. Write blog posts that will resonate with the people who read these sites. You’ll build more engagement, drive more traffic to your site and build trust in what you do. Add a link to your site and share genuine insights that will make people want to know more about your work.
Interviews
Interviews are great, too. If someone from your charity is interviewed on a blog, podcast or social media platform, ask them to include a link to your website, ideally to a page on your site related to the interview. It’s a simple way to boost your search results and help more people find and trust your charity.
Online Reviews
Positive online reviews are important for local SEO and building trust. They are social proof and will make potential donors more likely to give. Ask your supporters to leave reviews on Google and respond quickly to positive and negative feedback to show you value their input and are committed to transparency and accountability.
Responding to reviewers will also strengthen your online presence and attract more donors. This proactive approach will improve your charity’s local search ranking and overall reputation.
Digital PR for SEO
Digital PR is an off-page SEO strategy that uses newsworthy stories for media coverage. Charities can create stories that the media want to cover, which will get high-quality backlinks from authority sites.
Work with journalists and bloggers to get interviews or features in digital media. Optimise your press releases with keywords and links and you’ll get backlinks from news outlets and industry publications.
Remember local or specialist media. These publications and websites can be valuable in attracting backlinks, increasing the visibility of your target audience.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is important to ensure search engines can crawl and index your site. Mobile optimisation is key as search engines favour mobile-friendly sites in their rankings.
A logical and hierarchical site structure makes navigation for users and search engines easy. Structured data (Schema Markup) helps search engines understand your content better and potentially get you more visibility in search results. Check for broken links and 404s regularly to ensure navigation and no SEO penalties.
Keep your XML sitemap up to date and submit it to search engines. You’ll get better crawling and indexing for search engine crawlers. Technical SEO techniques such as these will help your charity’s search visibility.
Measuring SEO Success
Measuring SEO is important to understand its impact on your charity’s goals and conversions. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console will give you valuable insights into your SEO success. Google Analytics 4 allows you to filter and analyse organic traffic for specific web pages to see user behaviour and content performance.
Google Search Console will give you data on clicks and impressions for different search queries and pages so you can track your SEO efforts. Review your metrics regularly, such as organic traffic and conversion rates, to see how your SEO is performing.
Google Ads Grants for Nonprofits
Google Ads Grants give non-profits £7,000 ($10,000) in free monthly advertising to create text ads on Google Search results. This will get your charity more visibility in search results. Creating campaigns that appear in search results related to your mission will get more donors and volunteers to your cause.
Make sure your ads are relevant and targeted to get the most out of Google Ads Grants. Use the grant to drive traffic to specific pages on your site that align with your goals, like donation pages or volunteer sign-up forms.
Go beyond SEO with Content Marketing
Content marketing complements SEO by creating resources that guide users from discovery to conversion. Content that meets the needs of your audience at every stage of their journey will improve engagement and nurture long-term relationships. By optimising content for social media, you can get more visibility and reach a wider audience and your SEO efforts.
Consistently publishing great content will establish your charity as an authority in its space, increase backlinks, and improve your search rankings.
Content marketing also gives you opportunities to get more visibility for your brand through multimedia content like videos, infographics, and podcasts and engage users across multiple platforms. By diversifying your content formats, you can reach different audience segments, increase engagement, and amplify your charity’s message beyond traditional search traffic.
How We Do Stories Can Help
As a charity PR and digital agency, We Do Stories offers full-service support for charities, managing every aspect of their SEO to build a robust digital presence and drive mission growth. We can take on the work for you, setting clear objectives and goals to guide the process while also providing training and best practices for your internal team if desired.
Our comprehensive services come with an approval workflow, so you remain in control throughout the process. Discover our case studies showcasing the fantastic results we’ve achieved and discuss how we can advance your charity’s SEO strategy and enhance your digital footprint.