We all work to be compensated, and to make a living to support ourselves and our families. While money is important, it is not everything and helping nonprofits is among the most rewarding work we do.
At RooSites we have been working with non profit organizations for over 25 years. We make a point of discounting all web design and development services for nonprofits. That may not be the smartest business decision in the world, but there’s something to be said about helping other people.
RooSites is committed to helping non-profit and charitable organizations
This is not just a tagline from our nonprofit page. We always say we like to help those who help others. Why you ask? In truth, it just feels good to do something nice for people. I always have loved this quote from Einstein, and really take it to heart. As someone who works seven days a week, I don’t always have the time to volunteer or help charities in the way I would like to. But being a web designer, I have the ability to help those entities.
“It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.”
Albert Einstein
Beware of Unscrupulous Companies
Unfortunately, there are companies out there who take advantage of nonprofits. I recently had one of the worst experiences I’ve had in a long time. I had a client years ago that we built their initial nonprofit website. As the nonprofit is helping people based outside of the US, they decided to move the website to that specific country.
They recently decided to bring the website back to us. The way we do things, migrating a wordpress website can be very simple. But in this case, the company had taken such advantage of these poor people and not kept anything up-to-date. There were 15+ updates which had been ignored for years! Amazingly the site hadn’t been hacked yet, but it was only a matter of time. We discounted our work 50%, as I felt so bad for these people. They are trying to do a nice thing in the world, yet there are unscrupulous companies who don’t really care.
As I said in my opening, I find working with non-profits its own reward. I feel like I am making a difference in the world when I help those who truly are making an impact!
I have been very fortunate over the years to work with some great nonprofits. All are typically staffed by people who truly care about the cause and not about the money. They really rub off on you, and make you want to do more. I recently had a client who is putting on an event and needed a quick website built. We donated the entire cost of the development, so that every dime they raised in this event goes right to the people who need it most.
Be Careful & Verify!
Sadly, just like there are unscrupulous companies taking advantage of nonprofits, there are also some fake nonprofits out there. Before we do work for a nonprofit we do our due diligence and make sure they are legitimate. This article gives you methods for determining the legitimacy of nonprofits. As an example, we recently had a call with a company, and when I asked for their credentials, they said they would get back to me. I had looked up their company name and found that they were not listed as a legitimate nonprofit in the eyes of the law. I passed on the project, as the worst thing you can do is help somebody steal money meant to help others.
Bottom Line on nonprofits
Helping those who help others is extremely rewarding. You get back far more than you put in. If you know of a non-profit in need of help, please have them contact us.
Your website management company should help you with many things. Here are 5 things which we feel are critical.
Keeping Your Website Backed Up And Safe: In today’s world security is so important. It is naïve not to think anyone will ever attack or hack your website. So it is imperative that your management company is backing up as often as possible so that if something malicious happens, you can get your site back. It is also important to know where your site is being hosted, as some do a much better job than others with security. At RooSites we use industry best website hosting.
SEO: One of the most important things for companies is to be found on search engines like Google. To do so, you need to make sure that your management company is working on Search Engine Optimization, or SEO as it is referred to. We realized early on, that it was not enough just to build nice websites, they have to rank well. If you aren’t seen, then no matter how good your company is, or how pretty your site looks won’t matter. There are four types of SEO we help our clients with. The first is on page SEO. There are several factors involved to optimize your site including use of headline tags, meta tags, and other on page ranking factors. We also assist with Technical SEO, where we assist Google’s bots in successfully crawling, interpreting, and indexing your website’s pages . This also includes the creation and submission of sitemaps. Next we have what’s called local SEO. This is when you go to do a search for something near you, say a plumber or other services. So if you are in Dunedin Florida, you would search for Dunedin Plumber, not just “Plumber”. This is what usually shows up at the top or the right of your search results page. In many cases thousands of people see this listing every month, so it is so important to have a local SEO presence. We also assist with Off Page SEO, which are tasks we do outside of your website to help it rank higher in Google’s search results. This includes getting good social media advertising, getting clients to give you good reviews online, and getting links from credible websites.
Content: This goes with number two, the most important factor in search engine rankings is your content[↗]. I always use this example: Say you are very good at what you do and have a nice little seven page website. I come along and build a similar website but every week I post an article about the subject matter our website is all about. After one year I have over 70 or more links within the google index (including tags and other links which google indexes), or 10 times as many as my competitor. So I ask you, who should fare better in search? Common sense, right? All of our management plans include time to help with content and blogging as well as help with social media.
Pay Per Click Advertising: One thing your website management company should be doing is helping you with is your Google ads, Facebook ads and all Pay Per Click Ads. SEO by itself is not always enough, so if you can start an advertising campaign, you can fill in the gaps where you aren’t being found as highly as you would prefer.
Page Speed Optimization: One thing search engines put a lot of stock in is how fast a page loads. Since we use different content management systems, such as WordPress optimizing your site is very important. Your website management company should be able to help you by installing a caching plug-in and other methods. A lot of times companies have too many plug-ins and things going on which slows down the site. The one thing I have noticed over the years some of the testing tools are not as accurate as they need to be. For instance some of the tools are measuring how long things take to load in the background. Now this doesn’t really affect your viewers, as everything that they need to see, loads fast, and if there’s some JavaScript file loading in the background it really doesn’t affect them.
Bottom Line: So these are five things your website management company should be helping you with, there are obviously more things as every client is different. What we do at RooSites is design different plans for different companies so they have enough hours to do all the things they want to achieve. And, by signing up for our plans they save roughly 50% on their development hours which is nothing to sneeze at!
If you need help managing your website or designing a new one, don’t hesitate to contact us, we are happy to help!
