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I googled [madison holiday charity] and was dismayed by the lack of relevant results. My favorite holiday tradition is “adopting” a family in need, giving them Christmas gifts that they otherwise would go without. Now I can see that I need to add SEO for charities to my gift list.

Think what an optimization campaign around [location] + [charity gifts] or [christmas donations] could do for a local charity. Say a seasonal program attracts 100 volunteers — what if SEO could attract 20% more? I’ve reached out to help my favorite charity optimize for next year since this year is essentially a wash for holiday optimization. Next year, look for http://www.mompop.org at the top of the SERPs for [madison charity gifts]!

I finally stumbled on MOM (Middleton Outreach Ministry), a local charity serving the western part of Madison, WI. Like many charities, MOM is a local operation staffed by hard-working volunteers and a few employees that wear too many hats to focus on online marketing. Even the national or global charities tend to lack strong SEO savvy. What would they optimize for? Keyword research would light the way, of course.

I did some quickie keyword research to find the optimal annualized keyword phrase for holiday and Christmas donation gifts. The keyword market isn’t huge, and the data for Madison-based phrases is even tinier since we’re not a major metro area. In the end I had to settle for non-location-specific keyword phrases, logically prepended with location. Here’s what I came up with:

The tricky thing with keyword research is intent. When folks search for [charitable gifts] they may be looking for general charities to donate to as opposed to the intent I had in my search, giving holiday gifts through a charity. The non-holiday keywords are incredibly valuable, of course, but will probably be utilized at the top of the site’s hierarchy. [Christmas donations], [holiday giving], [holiday charities] and [charity christmas gifts] are more on target for the seasonal holiday charity campaign’s landing page.

So let’s look at an example. MOM’s Madison Christmas donations page appears to target the program’s name: Sharing Christmas Program. That’s handy for folks who saw another form of marketing and already know the program exists, but it’s not going to get them a lot of natural search-referred traffic or donations.

While the page mentions some of the optimal individual words, none of the valuable phrases are incorporated together. Here’s what I would do for the Title Tag: Christmas Donations: Madison Charity Christmas Gifts & Holiday Charitable Gift Giving

That one string targets my primary phrase of [christmas donations] and touches six secondary keyword phrases either by exact match or with another word interrupting the exact phrase:

• [charity gifts]
• [donation gifts]
• [charitable gift giving]
• [holiday giving]
• [charity christmas gifts]
• [charity christmas gift]

In addition, the heading, body copy and meta description should be optimized for the primary and secondary keywords. The best I can do for them for this year’s holiday giving season is give a link, but next year we’ll be ready with optimization a-blazing!

Learn more about Madison charity MOM, volunteer or donate, or visit their blog or Facebook page.

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Thanks for sharing.