SEO vs. Consistent Style

August 25, 2009

In the process of promoting this year’s Capacity Building Training Series, we’re implementing some of the SEO techniques we’ve been studying.

As Communications staff, one dilemma we’ve encountered is the use of alternate spellings from what we use in the TSNE style guide. Such as “nonprofit” vs. “non-profit” and “fundraising” vs. “fund-raising,” etc. TSNE uses “nonprofit” (except for the NonProfit Center) throughout all materials and the website.

So “non-profit” (the example in question was “non-profit financial management”) does not actually appear within the text on our page. Which translates to a lower quality score for certain search terms (“non-profit fund-raising”), and thus lower SEO potential.

If you have an organizational style guide, how do you address this issue? Do you ignore the style guide on your website in order to allow for multiple options to appear within the text? Do you stick to your style guide and remain consistent? Have you created a new style rule that still allows for consistency?

As part of the new lecture series, Conversations with …, the Diversity and Inclusion Initiative of Third Sector New England hosted a presentation by Dr. Michael Eric Dyson for the region’s nonprofit community. The professor, CNN commentator, author and pundit spoke of the central role diversity and inclusion play in building cohesive and effective organizations - and strong communities.

He shared his insights on issues such as the politics of inclusion; the privilege of invisibility; institutional perpetuation of racism; challenging other “isms”; stereotypes and forms of bigotry; and rethinking the paradigm of race, bias, and class prejudice vs. concentrated poverty.

     
    Part 1

    Part 2

    Part 3

    Part 4
This video was originally shared on blip.tv by tsne with a No license (All rights reserved) license.