David ries
Our speaker this past Tuesday was David Ries, from ConnectAd, a company that helps non-profit organisations with the use of Google Grants for Digital Marketing. He told us that Google has a grant program for non-profit organisations that offers them ten thousand dollars worth of free Google advertising per month, if they meet certain criteria.
When anyone makes a computer search using the Google search engine, Google returns the answers in a specific order. People who wish to have their websites appear close to the top of the list, pay Google an advertising fee for each time their website is clicked on. They do this by submitting AdWords that relate directly to the service or product they are promoting, and when these words appear in a search request their website is listed near the top where people are more likely to see it. This is called pay-per-click advertising.
Google has some requirements for the non-profit organisations that apply for their grant. Some of these are that they must be a registered non-profit. They must be registered as a non-profit with Tech Soup Canada. They must have a clean high quality website landing page that leads directly to the relevant search result. They must not be a government entity, child care center, hospital, academic institution or university. They also need to be able to set up their website appropriately, select the best words for the project they wish to advertise and must be able to monitor their results. The Google grant is in the form of advertising credits that recur with no end date as long as the organisation continues to meet Google’s standards.
Organisations wishing to use this form of advertising can do it themselves or they can hire an outside company to do it for them. This is where ConnectAd comes in. They have the computer expertise to do everything needed from defining the project to be advertised, building the landing page, finding appropriate key words and on to monitoring the results. Google Grants could be one way our group advertises itself and our various projects and is something we could consider in the future.