SEO basics: how to help people find your organisation online

Search engine optimisation for organisations is the work of helping search engines understand your pages so that the right people find them. For an NGO, agency or company in East Africa, those people might be a journalist looking for an expert, a partner checking your track record, or a funder searching for evidence.

Google is clear that there are no secrets that will automatically rank a site first.¹ Its Search Essentials have three parts: technical requirements a page must meet to appear, spam policies that can lead to lower ranking or removal, and key best practices.² The first of those best practices is to create helpful, reliable, people-first content.² Most of good SEO follows from that.

Organisations often describe their work in programme language that nobody types into a search box. Google recommends using the terms people would search for and placing them in prominent spots such as the page title, main heading, image alt text and link text.² Its starter guide also suggests anticipating different ways of describing the same thing.¹

Ask colleagues, partners and the people you serve how they would search for your work. A ministry may call it "early childhood development" while a parent searches for "nursery near me". If you publish in Kinyarwanda, French or Swahili as well as English, write the page title in the same language as the main content of that page.³

Do this research before you write, not after. List the five or six questions your audiences most often ask about your work, and make sure each one is answered clearly on a page of its own. A page that answers one question well is easier to find, and easier to share, than a long page that tries to answer everything.

The title is usually the first thing someone sees in search results. Google advises that every page should have a title that is descriptive and concise, and warns against vague labels such as "Home", keyword stuffing and repeated boilerplate text.³ Keep your organisation's name short and add it at the start or end of the title with a separator.³

The meta description is the short summary under the title. Google says it sometimes uses this text when it describes the page more accurately than the page content alone, and that each description should be unique, specific and a summary of the whole page.⁴ There is no fixed length limit, but long descriptions are truncated in results.⁴ Google Search does not use the keywords meta tag, so there is no need to fill it in.¹

Google's guidance on helpful content asks whether a page provides original information, reporting, research or analysis.⁵ Organisations have a real advantage here: you hold field experience, data and stories that nobody else has. Of the qualities Google describes as experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, it says trust is the most important.⁵

Make those assets easy to find and read. Publish key findings from a report as a web page, not only as a PDF download. Google recommends text that is easy to read and well organised, with short paragraphs, sections and headings, and content that is kept up to date.¹ It also lists warning signs, such as producing content mainly to attract search traffic or changing page dates to look fresh without real updates.⁵

A clear site structure helps people and search engines alike. Google's Search Essentials ask you to make your links crawlable so that Google can find the other pages on your site.² In practice, that means every important page should be reachable through ordinary links from your menus or from other pages, not only through a search box or a downloaded file.

Google's starter guide recommends a few simple habits:¹

• Use descriptive words in URLs, such as /reports/annual-report-2025, rather than random numbers.
• Group similar pages in folders, for example all insights or all case studies together.
• Keep each piece of content at one URL, and redirect old addresses when pages move.
• Write link text that tells people what they will find, never "click here".
• Use sharp images placed near the relevant text, with short alt text that explains the image's relationship to the content.

Google Search Console shows how your site performs in Google Search. Google's getting-started guide recommends verifying that you own the site, making sure Google can find and read your pages, considering a sitemap, and monitoring the Search performance report, which breaks traffic down by queries, pages and countries.⁶ You do not need to log in daily, because Search Console emails you about new issues; Google suggests checking around once a month or when you change your content.⁶

A quick first test is to search Google for site: followed by your domain. If results appear, your site is in the index.¹ Be patient with changes: some take effect in a few hours, others take several months.¹

The Search performance report is also a valuable source of audience insight. Its queries show the words people actually typed before they found you. If people reach a page using terms you never used, consider adding them to the title or a heading. If an important page receives no search traffic at all, check that it can be found and read, then ask whether it answers a question anyone is asking.

When someone searches for your organisation by name, accurate details matter. Google lets you manage how your organisation appears on Google Maps and Search by claiming its Business Profile, and once verified you can edit the address, contact details, business type and photos.⁷ An official representative can also update the knowledge panel about the organisation.⁷

Finally, tell people about your work. Google recommends promoting your site in the communities where it is relevant.² Its starter guide calls word of mouth one of the most effective and lasting ways to build an audience.¹ In our own practice, the pages that perform best in search are usually the ones partners and journalists already link to because they are genuinely useful.

• A unique, descriptive title on every page
• A specific meta description for key pages
• Search terms your audience uses in titles and headings
• Key report findings published as web pages
• Descriptive URLs, link text and image alt text
• Search Console verified and checked monthly
• Business Profile claimed and details up to date
• New content shared with partners and networks