The Effective Philanthropy Resource Site Showdown – [a graphic novel data analysis]

This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at freshspectrum.com.

The digital world is filled with underutilized data. I created this experimental data analysis as a way to show how datasets embraced by the SEO world can be valuable evaluation resources.

If the analysis leaves you with more questions. At the end of the post you will find a link to a Tableau Public dashboard I created in the process. I encourage you to explore away.

Sites compared in this analysis:

The effective philanthropy resource site showdown. Put on your google thinking caps and let's look at some data.

Let's meet our contestants. grantcraft.org, cep.org, unitedphilforum.org, ncfp.org, geofunders.org, rockpa.org, epip.org

Now for the data. We'll be looking at search related data acquired through ahrefs.com
Backlinks: pages linking directly to the domains of interest. n=22,910
Keywords: words and phrases where the domains of interest appear in the top 20 Google search results. n=32,710

Finding 1 keywords and traffic. ncfp shows u in Google for the most keywords. It also likely draws the most search engine traffic.

Overall this looks like more keywords will correlate with more traffic. But rockpa.org and cep.org are exceptions.
This could be due to these sites ranking on higher ranking keywords, or simply ranking higher.

Okay, so before you comment. Yes! Of course more views and more search rankings are now how anyone would measure success.
Let's dig deeper and look at the actual keywords.

This this view we see keywords, ranking, and dots comparing the different sites. And the results are filtered by keyword.
As we can see here, very few of the keywords ranked mention data.

Suprisingly (at least to me) there is also very little in the way of "evaluation" keywords showing up in the rankings. And only 4 of the 7 sites are represented.
If they don't talk a lot about evaluation and data, what do they talk about?

Oooh, they talk in terms of "impact."
CEP, geofunders, and grantcraft not so much. But rockpa, definitely.

How about a super relevant topic like "equity"?
Certainly more than evaluation!
Looks like ncfp has a popular resource on racial equity lens. Curiosity will have me search this one later (fakequity).
No rockpa or epip.

So how about landing pages?
Searching "center for effective philanthropy" will give you cep.org in the 1st position.
Search cep and cep.org is in the 7th position. Way more searches go for cep each month, but maybe for other reasons.

One way to drive traffic, systematically profiling other organizations. Most of rockpa's top landing pages fit this role.

Keywords go in Google.
Backlinks connect other sites to your site.
While keywords connect with web search language, Backlinks build authority. Good links from trustworthy sources show that you're trustworthy too.

In terms of high authority/high traffic backlinks, candid.org stands out. It's the parent organization for grantcraft, and the result of a merger between guidestar and the foundation center.
In the wide world of resource sites there are countless examples of websites that borrow authority from parent organizations.

Sometimes a link might look nice in a report, but it could just live in the small print. Unlikely to ever be clicked, but still lending a bit of authority.

Sites designed to share resources often power entries in highly trusted sites like wikipedia. And this ultimately feeds back authority.

I think my favorite thing about backlinks is that they can uncover under the radar traffic sources. Those types of websites also offer really good partnership potential for future campaigns.

So after all of that, which site is the best?

I have no idea.
Sites with not-for-profit missions can't be evaluated in the same way as business sites or fundraising campaigns.
Sometimes the goal is really to connect with a specific small niche audience. Other times the goal is to provide information on obscure topics that will never draw much in the way of search engine traffic.

But here is what I do know.
There are big useful data sources that are vastly underutilized.
A single Tableau Desktop license can boost the analysis potential.
In this analysis, I have only skimmed the surface of what is possible.
Evidence is always better in context, traditional analytics approaches lack the ability to analyze comparison sites.

And if you're running a site like this, here is my advice.

Don't try to create a resource.

Create THE resource.

The resource everyone else will want to link.

Collaborate (don't compete) with friends and partners. Shared authority boosts authority.

Don't create just a single post. Create a series. Systematically cover lots of ground. Depth is created with lots of little posts.

Your keywords are a reflection. If you are not ranking in areas you believe are critical, maybe you need to change strategy. Google is a frame by which the public experiences your work.

Want to take a deeper dive into this data?
I've shared my work on Tableau Public. Go here for the link.

freshspectrum.com/effectivephilanthropy

You can see it here, or click this link to peruse it on Tableau’s site.