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Search Engine Advertising Holds Promise for Nonprofits
Global statistics, anecdotes from the industry, and NPA’s own experience indicate that nonprofit organizations can profit handsomely from paid advertising on search engines like Google and Yahoo! According to a recent story in DMNews, the Internet Advertising Bureau determined that online ad revenue increased 38 percent in the fourth quarter of 2003 to $2.2 billion. The same article indicates that eMarketer reports that 30 percent of all online advertising is paid search engine listings. Another DMNews article indicates that Google has 150,000 keyword advertisers. Three of them are NPA clients. We’ve seen that we can generate hundreds of new web site visitors daily from a single ad in Google that is associated with a dozen or so keywords or phrases. I liken the process to “reverse word association.” Remember the pseudo-psychiatric game whereby the doctor reads words from a list, and the patient says the first word that comes to his mind? The key to search engine advertising is to guess the words on the doctor’s list. In other words, what words or phrases are people entering into search engines when they’re looking for your nonprofit’s services? Careful attention to keyword buys can really boost results. Watch for sudden spikes or dips in action on those keywords, and for a more subtle trends that tell you it’s time to refresh an ad. It’s also a great way to grab traffic based on a recent event. My guess is, that before December 26, the phrase “Iran earthquake” had no sponsors. Now Unicef, Mercy Corps, the National Iranian American Council and the United Methodist Committee on Relief all have ads. Setting them up, and linking them to their earthquake action page, could have been done within the first hours of a disaster response. Now that Google, and Overture too, are placing their keywords within news stories on CNN.com, the Washington Post and others, you can get very interested readers clicking right through to your action page. To help you evaluate, improve, or launch your keyword buy program for as little as $1500 per month, contact me at mailto:rick@npadvisors.com. February 2004 | |
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