Non-profit link outreach with limited resources

[SOS_Children]

Our competitive metrics are good but we need to increase our linking root domains to beat our competitors and climb a few critical positions in the SERPs.

We have drawn up a link-building strategy based on Moz's very helpful guide, and begun trying outreach.

We're a non-profit and the content we are pushing is blog content like this, in-depth articles like this (which, incidentally, do well in search), and we're also going to start creating more infographics and other types of content to try to generate some traction that way.

However, based on the success of the campaign so far, it seems unlikely we'll acquire links at the rate we need to in order to keep up with our competitors, particularly given that we only have three people who can spend time on this (at a total of around 1.5 days per week). Clearly this is something we need to persevere with and integrate into our normal content cycle, but I can't see us picking up more than a dozen or so links a year unless something unexpectedly goes viral! It seems like link outreach is so common that it's very hard even to get link targets to engage with you on social media. People just see it as spam.

It would be interesting to hear what other people have done successfully to help us figure our what a realistic approach to link building looks like.

[SOS_Children]

Thanks Patrick, the Linkarati article is especially helpful.

[SOS_Children]

Thank you OptimizedPresence.

We have a Grants account and it's invaluable to our online income - so thanks for raising it.

[EcommerceSite]

Ranking Non-Profits can be tough, a lot of time you are dealing with very limited resources. I know this isn't the answer to your question but have you looked at the Google Grant program? It helps non-profits with ppc advertising funds.

[EGOL]

Content republishing

Much of your content has been republished on other websites.  This is generating competition for you and may be costing you a significant amount of traffic.  You can see some of this here.  If a website a lot stronger than yours starts republishing your content you can expect them to outrank you in the SERPs for your own content.  If you can get some of these other sites to stop, use rel=canonical, or at least attribute your articles to your site, that will help.

Interlinking within your articles

I don't see you linking between your articles.  Within an article if there is a relevant tie to another story you should consider linking to it.  This will facilitate the flow of power between your pages.  It will also encourage your visitors to view multiple articles.  The more they see on your site that interests them the more they will like your site and share it, bookmark it, link to it, tweet about it, etc.

Also, at the bottom of each article feature other related articles on your own site.  Study the content ads distributed by Taboola, Outbrain, and other content networks to get ideas on how to elicit more pageviews.  When you have an interested visitor do everything that you can to get them onto another page.

Overall, I think that your site is poorly interlinked. Think about some category pages, some featured topic pages, an image gallery that links to relevant articles.  Get the linkjuice pumping through your site more vigorously.

Call your tribe into action

A site like yours with compelling stories certainly has a lot of supporters.  I think that you can do a better job of calling them into action, mobilizing them to help spread the word about your site and your cause.  Place obvious social share buttons on your site.  Create graphics or text boxes with attention getting titles that ask your visitors to spread the word, share on Facebook, email, link etc.   You have a little of this but you need to SHOUT ABOUT IT.

I don't do anything directly to share my content on social sites or build links.  My visitors do that for me.  Your fans are probably doing this already but if you tell them HOW YOU CAN HELP they will do even more.   Your content is far more compelling than mine.  Use the power of your stories to motivate sharing.  You can probably figure out numerous ways to do this. Brainstorm at your office.

Some other websites and some bloggers might post small banner ads of chicklet ads that link to stories on your website.  Offer them to your visitors, tell them this is how they can help call attention to the problems you address.  Your own audience  is your best linkbuilder.  Take advantage of it.  Tell them what they can do and some of them will do it.  That is how powerful your content can be.

Promote your website on your website

Your site has hundreds and hundreds of stories and very few visitors who land on your site know about them.  You could have topical navigation, or geographic navigation, or theme navigation.   Find out which stories on your site are the most popular the most compelling and feature them prominently. Which ones convert the best.  Do you know the path to conversion through your site.  Learn about these things and set up your site to promote your strongest content.  Make sure everyone knows about these most compelling stories.  If you have a story that lots of people are sharing, mentioning, linking to, do what is needed to make sure that everyone who lands on your site knows about it.  Play your strengths.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Linkarati has some great tips in their resource on non profit link building, SEOBook has a nice resource as well, and Moz has an article that can help as well.

I would also take a look at opportunities via Moz Local or Whitespark for listings. Look for media opportunities for work you have done in your community and do some competitive analysis to see where other non-profits have gotten links that are relevant.

Hope this helps! Good luck!