I've often found my self saying the words, "technology is not a panacea", whenever I hear organizations looking to focus what I think are excessive energy on search engine optimization.  My thoughts have been that spending that time and money on writing great content, rather than trying to manipulate search engine rankings.

But what if a simple technology switch could more effectively highlight your organization's website content in search engine results, and thereby make it more likely that visitors would click on your links rather than others? And what if the solution was easy and affordable?

I figure you'd probably try it.

So, what's this differentiator you can implement immediately for your website?  It's called Rich Snippets.

It always warms our hearts to see our organizations get the support they deserve.  Earlier today, a new link appeared on the Google.com homepage. "'Tis the season. Google supports organizations that are changing the world."

The reason? The Google Foundation announced a $40 million grant allocation to non-profit organizations, including our Soapbox client, Polaris Project, to help tackle important challenges around the world. One of their key areas of focus, "fighting human trafficking and modern-day slavery," is the cornerstone of the work done by our friends at the Polaris Project.

Google just released some major upgrades to Google Analytics that make it extremely valuable for anyone managing a website. So, if you haven’t logged into your account for a while, or if perhaps you never got around to signing up for one, now is the time to immerse yourself in Google Analytics.

Here are a few things that have changed:

• Real Time Reporting: This means you no longer have to wait around to view how people interacted with your site in the past. Instead, you can see how people are using your site right now. With this feature you can more directly track how changes to your site are affecting the way people are interacting with it. For example, if you add a new homepage banner to your website about your Thanksgiving Food Drive in preparation for your drive being featured on a local radio station, go to GA while they are announcing the food drive and see if people are clicking on the banner during the radio segment. It will help you to learn whether or not the banner was an effective addition to your website.

From time to time, non-profits come to us wondering what they can do to improve their search engine standings. We recently came across a great video straight from the horse's mouth, specifically Matt Cutts of Google, that serves as a great reminder of what is really the secret behind good search results—good websites! Watch this video to see what we mean, but here are a few spoilers: