Friday, July 13, 2012

5 Hot Tips on Writing SEO Optimized Titles

Check out these 5 Hot Tips on Writing SEO Optimized Blog Titles | WordPress Widgets, Tutorials, Guides, SEO by WPWidgets.net

It will help you get more traffic to your website or blog and in that way it will improve your fundraising success.  It can also be said that these rules apply to the creation of the FundRazr itself.

As quoted from the WPWidgets.net blog the 5 Hot Tips are:

"1. WRITE SHORT TITLES.

Of course, we do not mean 1-2 words here. The best title length is about 60-70 characters. Writing longer titles is not recommended for two reasons. Firstly, search engines like Google cut down longer titles anyway. Secondly, long titles are more difficult to read for visitors. Thus, a long title is ineffective both in terms of SEO and readability. Just check the number of characters before posting the text. Of course, sometimes it is difficult to create a short and catchy title, so, think of the ways to convey the key idea with several words.

2. IDENTIFY YOUR KEYWORDS.

Perhaps, all experts would agree that using primary keywords in titles is a must. So, make sure you have primary keywords in the title. Moreover, it is recommended to use them at the beginning of the title or in the middle to help search engines index the new webpage and give Google a clue on what primary keywords for the webpage are. For instance, if you have a title consisting of 6 words, make sure the first ones are your keywords. Of course, it is imperative to avoid keyword stuffing since this will not only negatively affect readability of the title, but also may cause sanctions from Google (which are crazy these days, especially after Panda and Penguin). You are probably well-acquainted with these recent updates. Make sure to use relevant keywords!

3. WRITE DESCRIPTIVE AND CATCHY TITLES.

Well, forget about SEO for a while and focus on creating quality content for website visitors. Blog titles should be informative and descriptive. In other words, having read the title, visitors should have an idea on what the blog post is all about. A title should grab attention and be compelling to read on. At the same time, do not fool your readers. Yes, you may write a title that will look like a newspaper screamer, i.e. truly sensational. However, when visitors find out that the blog post itself does not contain promised info or tips, they will hardly return to our blog.

4. WRITE ORIGINAL TITLES.

This may sound obvious for lots of webmasters and copywriters; however, duplicate content is a common problem. Make sure you create unique titles for each blog post. Sure, sometimes, involuntarily, we create duplicate contents. At the same time, it is possible to use online plagiarism detection tools to make sure the content is 100% original. As known, search engines may penalize sites for posting duplicate contents. Falling into Google’s disgrace might take a few minutes, while even experienced webmasters may need months to get the site back to top 10. So, be particularly careful with uniqueness of titles, since such mistakes can be too costly.

5. WRITING FOR SEARCH ENGINES IS WRITING FOR PEOPLE.

Perhaps, you have met bloggers who claim they write for people, not search engines. However, it should be said that writing for search engines is writing for people since if you comply with the above mentioned rules. There is nothing wrong in creating short, catchy titles that contain targeted keywords. Why not take advantage of own or somebody else’s SEO experience and write titles that your visitors and search engines will like. You may like it or not, but we all play by these Google Panda rules. The aim of all search engines is to deliver helpful and relevant search results."

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

How to embed a fundraising widget on your blog



Here is the example fundraising widget:



Your Blog as a Fundraising Portal


Using your blog to build community and raise money

The road to success is paved with connections.
Having a blog is an integral part of social fundraising.  If you write a short post every couple of days on how your cause is doing it will help people to connect to your cause.  Connection and goodwill are the reasons that people donate - so let's help them connect!

Writing killer content for your blog

There are a few good points to follow that will help you write great posts.
  1. Choose a topic before you start. Having a point will help post will flow better.  Choose something that interests you, or that you have a lot of experience with - that will make it easier to write about.
  2. Give it a good title.  It's one of the most crucial parts of your post.  It acts as a mini-ad on search engines.  Use keywords that describe your topic. Draw people in deeper with a compelling opening line.
  3. A post should always have a photo.  Right justified so as not to impede reading.
  4. Add depth to your post by fleshing it out with who, what, where, why and how.  Allow your personality to shine through.
  5. Drive your readers to do something - Like visit your Facebook Page or Donate - with a Call to Action! (This is where you could embed your Fundraising Widget.)
  6. Polish your posts.  Be sure to do a spelling and grammer check.  Read it twice to make sure it flows.
  7. Tag & Label your post with keywords that represent your topic.  It will help drive people to your blog.
  8. Include anchor links.  An anchor link is a string of text that has been hyperlinked.  Here is an example of a few anchor links.  The text acts like a title for the link.  "We found an app for Facebook fundraising.  The FundRazr website taught us  how to fundraise online,  how to use fundraising widgets,  and get new fundraising ideas - all from one place."
  9. Publish your post - Time it to publish in the morning or mid-day to allow for maximum readership. Then share it out on your social networks.  Share it on Facebook, Google +, Twitter
  10. Conversation – often the real action happens once your post is published and being interacted with by readers and other bloggers. Taking time to respond to other people's comments will always bring on more engagement.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Awesome Fundraising Widgets!


Need a fundraising widget?

fundrazr widget

We've got you covered. Our widgets are the best fundraising idea since chocolate covered almonds! When you create a fundraising campaign with FundRazr we automatically create widgets for you to publish on your blog or website. Best of all they are FREE! Some other fundraising services charge extra for these perks - but that doesn't make sense to us. We want to help you reach more people and raise more money.

How does the FundRazr donation widget work?

The widget is a little bit of code created by our developers that makes it easy to place your fundraiser on a website. It is linked to our servers and allows your supporters to make donations right there without leaving your site! Your widget showcases your goal, and how much money you have raised. It is visually appealing and comes in three different sizes! Here are some recent examples of widgets for an Olympic Athlete's campaign.

Widget sizes

Small donation widget

Tall fundraising widget for blogs

Wide fundraising widget for Website

How do I install my widget?

You need to copy the widget code and place it inside the HTML of your website where you want the widget to appear. Once you have created your campaign you visit your FundRazr Dashboard and click the "Embed" link. A lightbox will pop up with your code and instructions for installation. All you have to do is pick which one you want. You can use one, two, or all three of them. There is no limit. You can also give the code to other people who support you. They can direct traffic to your fundraiser from their websites too!

Fundraising Ideas

Fundraising ideas from FundRazr

Social media fundraising is the new and exciting way to raise money online. Anyone can do it. All it takes is a few minutes to create your campaign. Then you share it to your favorite social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. You can also share your fundraiser through tweets, email and other embedded tools. What this does is reaches many people very quickly. People will see your rich and dynamic looking campaign in their Facebook news feeds. It's the best fundraising idea since girl guide cookies!
Traditional fundraising strategies like bake sales and door knocking are labor intensive and take a lot of time. Sometimes they end up costing money rather than raising money. With FundRazr you will never owe us anything.

FundRazr is free to set up, you only pay a small fee off of each donation at the time the donation is made. That means that there is no up front investment and the money you raise is available immediately. And unlike other fundraising sites we won't penalize you if you don't reach your goal. We know you care about your cause and using our powerful Facebook fundraising app will save you time and money. Now that's a good idea!

What do people raise money for?

Many of the fundraising ideas that our customers come up fit in three categories.

Personal, Non Profit, and Political.

Personal campaigns can include
- fundraising for medical expenses
- fundraising for personal tradgedy
- fundraising for tuition or education expenses
- fundraising for travel
- fundraising for special needs
- fundraising for just about ANYTHING! (even lunch money)


Non Profit campaigns can get really huge using FundRazr. Take for example our recent fundraiser for Save The Children known as Sharecraft 2012. They used our Facebook fundraising platform to raise $1 million for starving children in the horn of Africa in less than 100 days!

What is your idea for a fundraiser?

We are happy to be here to empower you! Take charge of your situation. Where there is a will, there is a way!

Facebook Fundraising


FundRazr was designed for fundraising on Facebook

fundraising photo
There are 900 million people around the world using Facebook as of May 2012. Wouldn't it be wonderful to use that resource to raise money for your cause? Now you can. FundRazr was built for fundraising on Facebook. Our whole platform is coded for shareability and viral trending. That means that you'll be able to reach more people and raise more money.

Advanced sharing capabilities

You can do more than simple sharing with FundRazr. You can like, share, add to a tab, send, embed, email, tweet and pin your fundraising campaign - and so can your friends. Every time your campaign is shared by someone else it reaches 100 times more people. It has an exponential effect. Imagine that you had 20 friends who shared your Fundrazr, and they each reached 100 people on their network. You are reaching 2000 people in just one sharing step. Each share of a FundRazr on Facebook has an estimated value of almost $10!

Fundraising milestones in Timeline

Showcasing your achievements has never been easier. Our development team worked tirelessly to create seamless Facebook Timeline integration. When you get your first online donation - you will trigger your first milestone and all your friends will see it! When you reach a certain number of supporters they will see that too. Each major milestone you achieve will be published. People can like, share, and comment on your milestones - giving them an opportunity to remain involved in your cause. Being reminded that you are still fundraising can inspire people to share your FundRazr campaign again - and you continue to raise money on Facebook.

Fundraising app for Facebook Pages

FundRazr was designed for Facebook. It has never been easier to have an online donation button on the web. All you have to do is click the "Publish to Page" button from your FundRazr Dashboard. You select the Facebook Page that you want to publish to and voila! You can learn more in our facebook page video tutorial on the subject.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Fundraising for the Olympics

Olympic hopeful is raising money online

In 18 hours Boston College's Devotia Moore will be running in the Olympic trials.  She has been following her dream of a running career since high school and is now in her first year of professional running.


"I am an 800m runner." Devotia says.  "When I tell people this, they say “Whoa, brutal event” which fills me with great pride, because it makes me feel amazing to excel at one of the most difficult running events of the day... After 9 years of committing to this sport, my PR of 2:03.45 from last year qualified me to be in the field this Friday at 5pm at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon at the Olympic Trails."



Devotia Moore has been on a winning streak


Devotia winning a race





Devotia MooreWill she make it as an Olympic athele?  Many people think so.  In the past 24 hours she has raised more than $2200 to cover the cost of her trip to the trials using the FundRazr social media fundraising software to ask her friends for support.  Many of the comments posted with the donations are words of encouragement and faith.

Is it possible that more and more Olympic athletes will begin to raise money online?  

We have seen a rapid increase in the number of Olympic fundraising campaigns in the past two months.  Social media fudraising is the way of the future.  The world is starting to notice that online fundraising is growing.  Social fundraising. also known as crowdfunding, is also growing.  Network for Good's online giving study - quarterly index shows that, despite the current global economic situation, social giving is still rising in popularity.  

Social media amplifies the amount of people that can be reached with social fundraising.  When fundraisers share their online fundraising campaigns on their social networks, giving increases.  Peer to peer fundraising solutions, like FundRazr, are being used not only by individuals, but also by an increasing amount of non-profits. Research by First Giving has shown that the value of each campaign share on Facebook is worth $10.87 in donations.  This means that more people are making smaller donations for an overall positive outlook, allowing fundraisers to reach their goals quickly and easily. Many people are searching for effective Facebook fundraising applications and fundraising widgets to use on their sites.  FundRazr has both which is why it is considered one of the best online fundraising tools on the market.

We are happy to see that the work our development team put into the app has made us the choice fundraising software for Olympic Hopefuls.  We are proud to support Devotia Moore as she competes in the Olympic trails!

Go Devotia Go!  Examples of FundRazr Fundraising Widgets

Widget Type
View
Small FundRazr Give Widget
Wide FundRazr Fundraising widget
Tall FundRazr Fundraising widget


Devotia Moore




Visit the FundRazr website to create your online fundraising campaign today!  You'll have your fundraising widgets in no time!


raise money online


Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Raising Money For A Sick Child



"Our Daughter Normandy Mae was born with severe kidney issues. After several hospitalizations and surgeries, she was given a clean bill of health. Our family in much need of some bonding and recuperating, went on an extended trip through Central America. 4 months into our trip Normandy woke up with the all too familiar symptoms of a severe kidney infection. We spent all of our emergency resources to get her to a hospital that could treat her. Within 2 days of hospitalization we were out of money and the Central American hospital was demanding $2,000 a day or we'd be asked to leave. We learned that Normandy's infection was now in her bloodstream…we were terrified. 

We used all of our social networking pages to update friends and family with our situation. A friend immediately wrote with information about FundRazr encouraging me to start one right away. I'll be honest, I was scared of what people would think. Asking for help can be difficult. I was afraid this would imply that my husband and I were irresponsible parents. I was afraid that my friends would be annoyed. We had an extremely ill 2 year old and desperately needed help. I had no choice but to push those feelings aside and ask our loved ones for help…FundRazr provided a wonderful way to do so. 

Normandy Mae's FundRazr was easy to set up despite what we were going through. I was able to quickly share it with everyone I knew and they in turn were able to share our story with others. The most amazing thing happened, love took over. A community formed and we no longer felt alone even though we were very far away from home. 

Within 24 hours over 10 thousand dollars were raised. We were amazed and filled with peace. We were able to pay all outstanding hospital bills in Central America, get Normandy stable enough to travel and move our entire family stateside to a Children's Hospital in FL. 

We are so grateful for the resources FundRazr offered our family!" - Bethany Remsberg June 2012

Thursday, May 31, 2012

FundRazr Downtime Thursdays

Is it Thursday already? Time for this week's edition of#DowntimeThursdays

Scheduled Downtime: 
Tonight, from 11:00 pm to approximately 11:10 pm PDT, FundRazr payments may be interrupted by scheduled maintenance at PayPal. 

During that period, payers may encounter the following error codes: 10001, 10626, 10417, or 1000. If you attempt a transaction during this period and it fails, wait 15 minutes and try again.

Please accept our apologies in advance for any inconvenience the temporary outage may cause. And please know that payments via FundRazr will be up and running again normally at the end of the interruption. 

------------------------
This will be the first in a series of weekly interruptions in PayPal transaction processing every Thursday during the month of June. Here's the complete list:


• Thursday, May 31

11:00 pm - 11:10 pm PDT
Database Maintenance: All merchants may experience a slight increase in declines. For more details and the various API errors that may increase during this work, go to https://www.x.com/node/308280.

• Thursday, June 7

11:00 pm - 11:30 pm PDT
History Maintenance: Transactions older than 30 days will not be available to reference (Reference Transactions, Refunds, Voids, etc). They will not appear under history and will not be included in the download log during this maintenance period. Transactions referenced that are older than 30 days will fail.

• Thursday, June 14

11:00 pm - 11:10 pm PDT
API Maintenance: The majority of API requests will be unsuccessful. PayPal API calls will fail with a variety of errors. In addition, the PayPal.com site will also be unavailable. For more details on this event, go tohttps://www.x.com/content/planned-downtime-during-jun-14-maintenance-pp-live-2666

• Thursday, June 21

11:00 pm - 11:30 pm PDT 
IPN Maintenance: Instant Payment Notifications will be delayed while a database is being upgraded. Once maintenance is complete, the majority of the IPN will be re-sent. In addition, the MassPay feature and functionality via thewww.paypal.com site will be unavailable. For more details on this event, go tohttps://www.x.com/content/jun-21-maintenance-pp-live-2674 

Monday, May 28, 2012

Facebook Fundraising

Another amazing testimonial:
"My sister directed me to FundRazr, and to be honest, I was a little uncertain about using a fundraising website.  There is something about asking for money that is very, very difficult.  I knew, however, that I could not accomplish my goals on my own, and so I decided to give it a try.  It was a very easy process.  Within ten minutes, I had my fundraiser established (in my case, raising money so my family can attend a conference to learn more about my son's rare genetic disorder) and posted to my Facebook account.  And from there, it spread.  My post was shared by friends and family, and in under a day, my fundraising goal had been met and exceeded.  Many of the donors were people who did not know me, or my son personally.  All these people, loved ones and strangers, came together and demonstrated such amazing generosity,  I was, and am, very moved by it all.  My experience with FundRazr was not what I expected.  It was so much better." -Kristy Greenbrier 

Kristy is one of thousands of people who have achieved their fundraising goals using FundRazr.  We are the world's best online fundraising software because we are closely integrated with both PayPal and Facebook.  Learn more at http://fundrazr.com

We are here to help you fundraise.
We suggest you start with reading these posts: