SEO charity benchmarking study becomes card game
Howard Lake | 21 December 2021 | News
Digital agency Torchbox has gathered the SEO data of over 50 charity websites across eight sub-sectors to provide a benchmark of organic SEO performance across the not-for-profit space. They’ve also published them in a Top Trumps-style card game format! Just in time for Christmas.
Torchbox examined six SEO metrics including technical health, backlink profile, domain authority and content.
All the data gathered has been done so using tools that are freely available to the general public, such as Ahrefs, Moz and Advanced Web Rankings. None of the data used comes from first-party/private data or owned platforms such as Google Analytics or Google Search Console.
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The card game format enables you “to play your nonprofit against other charities operating in a similar space”.
As well the physical pack of cards, there is also a Super Trumps website, where you can play the game, read the state of the sector review, visually compare the performance of all included charities and read the individual sector reports.
Sub-sectors explored
The eight sub-sectors analysed are:
- Mental Health
- Cancer Support & Research
- Hearing Loss & Visual Impairment
- International Aid & Development
- Animal Welfare
- Children’s Charities
- Environmental
- Health Conditions
Phil McMinn, Digital Marketing Director, Torchbox, explained that the study was designed to “help to highlight where opportunities lie to utilise SEO and provide the data to illustrate what is possible in the not-for-profit sector.”
He added:
“We hope this gets some conversations started internally about the value of SEO at charitable organisations, and if not, we hope this at the very least raises a smile! This project comes from a belief at Torchbox that SEO is one of the most important channels nonprofits have at their disposal in reaching their target audiences, but it is also one of the least focused on. We want to see that change.”
The benchmarking study and project was published at a webinar, with guest speakers from Oxfam, Sightsavers, and NHS Digital and a panel discussion around SEO utilisation in the nonprofit space.
WATCH: SEO Super Trumps launch
Topics covered included:
- Who should own SEO
- How to ensure SEO delivers against your organisational objectives
- Striking a balance with content for SEO and content for users onsite
- Addressing some of the misconceptions around SEO in the nonprofit sector
Torchbox reports a positive response to the data, its lessons and the card game. So they’ll be running it again and expanding it to include other charity sectors such as Think Tanks.
More on charity SEO
- Benchmarking test shows charity marketers lagging behind in digital skills (4 September 2020)
- SEO for Dummies
- SEO helps charity get noticed by Channel 4’s Secret Millionaire (28 November 2011)
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.