This month’s resource round-up includes a resource for free webinars geared toward non-profits, an article outlining the difference between Facebook and Twitter and the misconception of Twitter as a “social network” and an article covering the evolution of non-profit websites, citing a Google Grantee as an example and detailing the role of technology in the way that non-profit websites will evolve in time.Read More

This month’s resource round-up includes a resource for free webinars geared toward non-profits, an article outlining the difference between Facebook and Twitter and the misconception of Twitter as a “social network” and an article covering the evolution of non-profit websites, citing a Google Grantee as an example and detailing the role of technology in the way that non-profit websites will evolve in time.

Maximize year-end giving
Network for Good has a long list of free non-profit webinars to offer, including one to help maximize year-end giving to non-profits.


Social media explained
Mashable discusses the differences between Facebook and Twitter as social media and dispels the myth that Twitter is a social networking tool. This is helpful information for those organizations building social media campaigns for either outlet.


How non-profit websites have evolved
Citing a Google Grantee, Mercy Corps, as an example, this article on NTEN.org discusses how non-profit sites have evolved from single page presences to the multi-site and media-rich environments we know today with the progression of technology.

If you come across resources that would be useful to the greater non-profit community, feel free to post it to the appropriate topic in our discussion group so that everyone can benefit. If you'd like to review previous round-ups, just click here and read through previous months' round-ups or search for "resource round-up" from the search box at the top of the page.

Posted by Jessica Vaughan, Google Grants Team

Creating a new AdWords campaign? Check out 5 simple tips below that will help you get started.

Identify your primary goal - Why do you want to advertise on Google? What audience are you trying to reach? What sort of action to you want people to take when they see your ad? Do you want them to donate to your organization? Attend your annual event? Or simply be aware of your foundation?

Read More

Creating a new AdWords campaign? Check out 5 simple tips below that will help you get started.

Identify your primary goal - Why do you want to advertise on Google? What audience are you trying to reach? What sort of action to you want people to take when they see your ad? Do you want them to donate to your organization? Attend your annual event? Or simply be aware of your foundation?

Create one campaign per goal - For each of your goals create one campaign and use the language and location targeting settings to pinpoint your audience. If you have a national organization, but are only looking for volunteers in a certain city/state, location targeting can help reach the audience that is most relevant for you. You can also use language targeting in the same manner, such as targeting Spanish if you would like to reach the Hispanic population in a certain city.

Consider different messages - Consider the different messages you want to get across. These separate messages can be expressed in different ad groups. For example, let’s use the goal of volunteering. You might create three separate ad groups focusing on three different messages: Recruiting Student Volunteers, Recruiting Professional Volunteers, and Recruiting Youth Group Volunteers.

Use AdWords tools - Use the Keyword Tool in the Opportunities Tab of the AdWords interface to help expand your groups of keywords. You should have a list of around 10-35 keywords per ad group. For example, under the ad group Student Volunteers you may want to have keywords such as: student volunteering, student volunteer opportunities, after-school volunteering, etc.

Optimize as needed - Once you fill out each ad group in your campaign with the appropriate number of keywords make sure to check back as often as you can to see how everything is performing. Continue to make adjustments to your campaign, such as adding negative keywords and deleting poor performers, to make sure you are getting the most optimal results.

For more tips on creating your campaigns please refer to the AdWords Help Center. Good luck!

Posted by Alex Moss, Google AdWords Team

In your AdWords account, you already have access to a number of mobile ad formats and features. The new location extensions ad format lets users searching for your keywords find the local chapter of your organization by displaying your phone number and address with an expandable map. When people nearby your organization do a search on one of your keywords, the hyperlocal ad feature provides distance information to let them know how close they are to your physical location. Alternatively, if you accept donations via phone you can use phone extensions to drive phone calls directly from your ad. Popular desktop features are also available on mobile. Ad Sitelinks allow you to display additional links to popular content located deep within your site. For instance, you could drive users to your donations or volunteer page directly from the ad.

Read More

Mobile Internet usage is growing at a tremendous pace. By 2013 it’s expected that more people will access the Internet through mobile devices than with desktop computers. Using your Google Grants AdWords account, you can extend your reach and harness this growth to promote your organization.

In your AdWords account, you already have access to a number of mobile ad formats and features. The new location extensions ad format lets users searching for your keywords find the local chapter of your organization by displaying your phone number and address with an expandable map. When people nearby your organization do a search on one of your keywords, the hyperlocal ad feature provides distance information to let them know how close they are to your physical location. Alternatively, if you accept donations via phone you can use phone extensions to drive phone calls directly from your ad. Popular desktop features are also available on mobile. Ad Sitelinks allow you to display additional links to popular content located deep within your site. For instance, you could drive users to your donations or volunteer page directly from the ad.

As you begin to target the mobile audience, remember to follow these guidelines to improve your performance. Create separate campaigns targeted only to high-end mobile devices. This will give you more granular control over bids, budgets and keywords. Also, there is a maximum of five ad units on mobile search pages -- two at the top and three at the bottom. Optimize your bids to aim for the top two ad positions to drive more users. As you optimize your account, keep in mind that user behavior can differ when searching from a mobile device. For instance, users may be more likely to make mobile queries with local intent than they would on desktop. Additionally, users on mobile often make more general queries, so consider using broader keywords to increase impression volume. Lastly, try including a strong mobile call to action in the ad text like the example below:

For more information on targeting mobile devices with full Internet browsers, such as iPads, iPhones and Android-powered phones, and the different mobile ad formats, visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Zack Bailey, Mobile Specialist

Googlers often participate in live site clinics at conferences, giving advice about real-world sites and allowing webmasters to learn by example. Now Google's Search Quality team is excited to host an online site clinic on the ...Read More

Cross-posted on the Webmaster Central Blog

Googlers often participate in live site clinics at conferences, giving advice about real-world sites and allowing webmasters to learn by example. Now Google's Search Quality team is excited to host an online site clinic on the Webmaster Central Blog. In future posts, the Search Quality team will be looking at some user-submitted examples and offering broad advice that you can apply to your site.

This site clinic will focus on non-profit organizations, but chances are that the advice will benefit small business and government sites as well. If you work for a non-profit and would like your site considered, read on for submission instructions.

How to submit your site:

To register your site for the clinic, fill in the information requested on this form. From there, the team will determine trends and share corresponding best practices to improve site quality and user experience. The analysis will be available in a follow-up post, and will adhere to the public standards of webmaster guidance. Please note that by submitting your site, you permit the team to use your site as an example in follow-up clinic posts.

There are a few guidelines:

1. Your site must belong to an officially registered non-profit organization.

2. In order to ensure that you're the site owner, you must verify ownership of your site in Google Webmaster Tools. You can do that (for free) here.

3. To the best of your ability, make sure your site meets the webmaster quality guidelines. The team will be suing the same principles as the basis for their analysis.

All set? Submit your site for consideration here.

The site clinic goes live today and submissions will be accepted until 11/18/2010. Stay tuned for some useful webmaster tips when the sites are reviewed.

Posted by Alexi Douvas and Jen Lee, Search Quality Team

We are happy to announce that the video recordings from our recent Google Grants workshop in Mountain View, California are now available on our YouTube channel! Check out our channel to view sessions presented by ...Read More

We are happy to announce that the video recordings from our recent Google Grants workshop in Mountain View, California are now available on our YouTube channel! Check out our channel to view sessions presented by Googlers and by your fellow grantees. You can dive into AdWords basics, optimization strategies, best practices for tracking account performance, and much more. Additional videos highlight other Google for Non-Profits products, including YouTube for Non-Profits, Google Earth Outreach, and other helpful tools for your non-profit.

We hope that all grantees, whether able to attend the workshop in-person or not, can learn from these resources and put this new knowledge to work for your organization’s Google Grant and for any additional Google for Non-Profit products your group uses.

Posted by Kristie Mun, Google Grants Team

Do you manage an AdWords account? Do you use AdWords Editor? If not, you should check out this free application for managing and making mass changes to your AdWords account. The program allows you to download your account, edit your campaigns offline, and upload the edits live in your account.

Essential tasks made easy within AdWords Editor include:

• Adding, editing and deleting campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords and placements
• Advanced searches using various filters
• Sharing proposed changes with others before uploading along with any comments
• Using performance statistics like clickthrough rate and cost/conversion to view certain results and take action on those results accordingly

While the program is easy to use and fairly intuitive, there’s also a plethora of options. Here are five key features to know.

1. ADVANCED SEARCH

Use advanced search to find exactly what you’re looking for. Click on the link at the top right of Editor, and choose from more than 30 criteria. For instance, you can find all keywords with a certain word, or all ads with an exact specific destination URL.

You can also use advanced search to view performance over selected time periods. Choose one to two performance metrics to filter results, like clickthrough rate and conversion rate to identify areas to either delete or optimize. This is an especially great method for identifying underperforming keywords. Note that you can only have two metrics in the filter, but you can sort by columns by clicking on each one within the results to gain additional perspective.

2. FIND DUPLICATE KEYWORDS

Use this feature from the Tools menu to easily identify duplicate keywords across the account so you can leave only one keyword in the most appropriate ad group (with the most relevant ad text for that keyword). You can either look within an ad group or across ad groups or campaigns.

When the duplicates are displayed, there will be a button beside the tabbed navigation called “Select Duplicates By” which allows you to highlight instances based on different criteria. If there is no difference between the keywords (in terms of bids, etc.), you can hit “Order of Appearance > First” and then the “Delete” button underneath the tabs.

3. ADVANCED EDITING TOOLS

Use “Advanced Bid Changes” to make mass changes to keyword bids. Increase or decrease your bids by a certain amount or percentage. You can also set a max or minimum amount so the bids don’t fall below or exceed certain values. You’ll have this option as a small link at the bottom of the Keywords, Placements, & Ad Groups tabs.

Use “Advanced URL Changes” to update display or destination URLs. The great feature here is the ability to append text to each selected URL – most likely, adding a particular external tracking code to all ads within an ad group or campaign. Many people add a tracking URL that contains “google” so they know a particular visit came from AdWords, especially if they do not use AdWords Analytics for deeper insight.

4. REPLACE TEXT

A commonly used feature that is available for keywords, placements, negative keywords, ads and extensions. Found a misspelling across all of your ads? No problem. Need to update your donation related keywords? Change them in seconds. This tool is a very valuable time-saver.

5. EXPORT OPTIONS

Sharing your proposed changes with someone else is one of the greatest features of Editor. To share, view the export options in the File menu. The most common and easiest is the AES file that clearly shows all changes in bold when the person imports the file into AdWords Editor to view it. They would save the file to their computer, then go to File > Import Account Snapshot, and choose the file. Keep in mind that “Keep proposed changes” does NOT make changes to the live account, and they can make any further changes they like.

If they can’t use Editor, you can send the HTML version which displays an overview (will not identify what was changed vs. existing) but can be viewed without any program. CSV (which can of course be formatted for Excel) is also an option for those who prefer a spreadsheet format.

No matter what format you choose, you will export through File > Export Changes For Sharing (AES), and then choose the ad groups, campaign or campaigns you want to share. Also, it’s important that when you’re collaborating on an account, both are using the most current view of the account. For the most recent version, Click Get Recent Changes > All campaigns.

For more comprehensive instructions on how to use this tool visit the AdWords Editor Help Center. Happy editing!

Read More

Do you manage an AdWords account? Do you use AdWords Editor? If not, you should check out this free application for managing and making mass changes to your AdWords account. The program allows you to download your account, edit your campaigns offline, and upload the edits live in your account.

Essential tasks made easy within AdWords Editor include:

• Adding, editing and deleting campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords and placements
• Advanced searches using various filters
• Sharing proposed changes with others before uploading along with any comments
• Using performance statistics like clickthrough rate and cost/conversion to view certain results and take action on those results accordingly

While the program is easy to use and fairly intuitive, there’s also a plethora of options. Here are five key features to know.

1. ADVANCED SEARCH

Use advanced search to find exactly what you’re looking for. Click on the link at the top right of Editor, and choose from more than 30 criteria. For instance, you can find all keywords with a certain word, or all ads with an exact specific destination URL.

You can also use advanced search to view performance over selected time periods. Choose one to two performance metrics to filter results, like clickthrough rate and conversion rate to identify areas to either delete or optimize. This is an especially great method for identifying underperforming keywords. Note that you can only have two metrics in the filter, but you can sort by columns by clicking on each one within the results to gain additional perspective.

2. FIND DUPLICATE KEYWORDS

Use this feature from the Tools menu to easily identify duplicate keywords across the account so you can leave only one keyword in the most appropriate ad group (with the most relevant ad text for that keyword). You can either look within an ad group or across ad groups or campaigns.

When the duplicates are displayed, there will be a button beside the tabbed navigation called “Select Duplicates By” which allows you to highlight instances based on different criteria. If there is no difference between the keywords (in terms of bids, etc.), you can hit “Order of Appearance > First” and then the “Delete” button underneath the tabs.

3. ADVANCED EDITING TOOLS

Use “Advanced Bid Changes” to make mass changes to keyword bids. Increase or decrease your bids by a certain amount or percentage. You can also set a max or minimum amount so the bids don’t fall below or exceed certain values. You’ll have this option as a small link at the bottom of the Keywords, Placements, & Ad Groups tabs.

Use “Advanced URL Changes” to update display or destination URLs. The great feature here is the ability to append text to each selected URL – most likely, adding a particular external tracking code to all ads within an ad group or campaign. Many people add a tracking URL that contains “google” so they know a particular visit came from AdWords, especially if they do not use AdWords Analytics for deeper insight.

4. REPLACE TEXT

A commonly used feature that is available for keywords, placements, negative keywords, ads and extensions. Found a misspelling across all of your ads? No problem. Need to update your donation related keywords? Change them in seconds. This tool is a very valuable time-saver.

5. EXPORT OPTIONS

Sharing your proposed changes with someone else is one of the greatest features of Editor. To share, view the export options in the File menu. The most common and easiest is the AES file that clearly shows all changes in bold when the person imports the file into AdWords Editor to view it. They would save the file to their computer, then go to File > Import Account Snapshot, and choose the file. Keep in mind that “Keep proposed changes” does NOT make changes to the live account, and they can make any further changes they like.

If they can’t use Editor, you can send the HTML version which displays an overview (will not identify what was changed vs. existing) but can be viewed without any program. CSV (which can of course be formatted for Excel) is also an option for those who prefer a spreadsheet format.

No matter what format you choose, you will export through File > Export Changes For Sharing (AES), and then choose the ad groups, campaign or campaigns you want to share. Also, it’s important that when you’re collaborating on an account, both are using the most current view of the account. For the most recent version, Click Get Recent Changes > All campaigns.

For more comprehensive instructions on how to use this tool visit the AdWords Editor Help Center. Happy editing!

Posted by Carla Swiryn, Google AdWords

Since launching in 2003 in the US, Google Grants has expanded its reach to 27 countries around the world, including Israel in 2008. The program has helped many Israeli non-profits increase their web presence and allowed them to grow donations to support their causes. The three Israeli organizations below explain how they have benefited from the Google Grants program.

The Aviv Organization for Holocaust Survivors was founded in 2007 to protect the rights of Holocaust survivors. It is the only organization in Israel that trains volunteers, professionals and Holocaust survivors in all aspects of realization of survivors’ rights. Their Google AdWords campaign has contributed to a large number of direct inquiries and offers of assistance for the survivors. In fact, the AdWords campaign accounts for one-third of all the traffic to their website since its creation.

Established in 2003, El Halev is a non-profit organization that effects social change by empowering women of all ages and by reducing violence against women, teens, children, seniors and people with disabilities by means of training in martial arts and self-defense. After launching an AdWords campaign El Halev has seen “a substantial increase in the number and quality of inquiries coming from their website thanks to Google Grants”.

The New Family organization specializes in legal counsel for family issues as well as support for civil marriages, wills and inheritance, same sex marriages and more. The organization has seen "an increase of at least 40% in the traffic to the website since the beginning of our Google supported campaign." Rachel, the organization’s founder, pointed out that the impact of Google's donation has been extraordinary and has allowed them to help a much larger audience, including people who did not know that solutions existed to their problems and that are now enjoying the special services the organization provides.

If you are a registered non-profit in Israel and would like to apply for the Google Grants program please visit this page for more information. For more grantee success stories check out our testimonials page.

Posted by Noam Wolf, Google New YorkRead More

Since launching in 2003 in the US, Google Grants has expanded its reach to 27 countries around the world, including Israel in 2008. The program has helped many Israeli non-profits increase their web presence and allowed them to grow donations to support their causes. The three Israeli organizations below explain how they have benefited from the Google Grants program.

The Aviv Organization for Holocaust Survivors was founded in 2007 to protect the rights of Holocaust survivors. It is the only organization in Israel that trains volunteers, professionals and Holocaust survivors in all aspects of realization of survivors’ rights. Their Google AdWords campaign has contributed to a large number of direct inquiries and offers of assistance for the survivors. In fact, the AdWords campaign accounts for one-third of all the traffic to their website since its creation.

Established in 2003, El Halev is a non-profit organization that effects social change by empowering women of all ages and by reducing violence against women, teens, children, seniors and people with disabilities by means of training in martial arts and self-defense. After launching an AdWords campaign El Halev has seen “a substantial increase in the number and quality of inquiries coming from their website thanks to Google Grants”.

The New Family organization specializes in legal counsel for family issues as well as support for civil marriages, wills and inheritance, same sex marriages and more. The organization has seen "an increase of at least 40% in the traffic to the website since the beginning of our Google supported campaign." Rachel, the organization’s founder, pointed out that the impact of Google's donation has been extraordinary and has allowed them to help a much larger audience, including people who did not know that solutions existed to their problems and that are now enjoying the special services the organization provides.

If you are a registered non-profit in Israel and would like to apply for the Google Grants program please visit this page for more information. For more grantee success stories check out our testimonials page.

Posted by Noam Wolf, Google New York

To use keyword insertion in your ads, place the following code into a section of your ad text: {KeyWord:Default Text} where “Default Text” is the backup text you will use in your ad. When your ad shows on Google.com, AdWords will automatically replace that text with the keyword that triggered the ad - unless the search term exceeds the character limit.

For example, if your ad group contained the following keywords: donate online, online donations, donate today and the user searched for online donations the ad below would appear with “Online Donations” in the headline. If the search term exceeded 25 characters, the default text “Donate Online Today” would appear in the headline.

Example:

Keyword insertion can be used with any text-based ad. Use keyword insertion with care and do not use it in place of proper ad group structure. It’s always important to create tightly themed ad groups, even when using this feature. If your ad group has keywords that do not follow the same theme, you can end up with poorly targeted ads.

For more information on keyword insertion please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Read More

Keyword insertion is an ad text feature that can improve your ad relevancy. This feature inserts a user’s search query into a part of your ad text that you choose, including your display URL. When a user sees your ad with their exact search term in it they will be more likely to click on your ad.

To use keyword insertion in your ads, place the following code into a section of your ad text: {KeyWord:Default Text} where “Default Text” is the backup text you will use in your ad. When your ad shows on Google.com, AdWords will automatically replace that text with the keyword that triggered the ad - unless the search term exceeds the character limit.

For example, if your ad group contained the following keywords: donate online, online donations, donate today and the user searched for online donations the ad below would appear with “Online Donations” in the headline. If the search term exceeded 25 characters, the default text “Donate Online Today” would appear in the headline.

Example:

Keyword insertion can be used with any text-based ad. Use keyword insertion with care and do not use it in place of proper ad group structure. It’s always important to create tightly themed ad groups, even when using this feature. If your ad group has keywords that do not follow the same theme, you can end up with poorly targeted ads.

For more information on keyword insertion please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Janelle Kuhlman, Google Grants Team

Location targeting gives you the powerful assistance to tailor advertisements to the right user. Draw attention to your non-profit’s advertisement by providing tailored ads that were created specifically for a user’s region.

You can access the interactive map targeting tool under the settings tab, and under the “Locations and Languages” section. With the tool, there are several ways to specify your location targeting:

• Search or browse for countries, territories, regions and cities
• Select a preset bundle of locations
• Choose a point on the map and specify a radius around it where your ads will appear
• Target a custom shape on the map
• Exclude areas within your selected locations

You may change these location settings at any time.

For each of your campaigns, you can select the countries or regions and the languages for your ads. The targeted ads will appear only to users located in those areas and who have selected one of those languages as their preference. This can be useful in many circumstances such as recruiting local volunteers for a fundraiser.

For more information on location targeting please refer to the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Phill Park, Google Ann Arbor

Read More

Location targeting gives you the powerful assistance to tailor advertisements to the right user. Draw attention to your non-profit’s advertisement by providing tailored ads that were created specifically for a user’s region.

You can access the interactive map targeting tool under the settings tab, and under the “Locations and Languages” section. With the tool, there are several ways to specify your location targeting:

• Search or browse for countries, territories, regions and cities
• Select a preset bundle of locations
• Choose a point on the map and specify a radius around it where your ads will appear
• Target a custom shape on the map
• Exclude areas within your selected locations

You may change these location settings at any time.

For each of your campaigns, you can select the countries or regions and the languages for your ads. The targeted ads will appear only to users located in those areas and who have selected one of those languages as their preference. This can be useful in many circumstances such as recruiting local volunteers for a fundraiser.

For more information on location targeting please refer to the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Phill Park, Google Ann Arbor