Kindful – Nonprofit CRM SEO Case Study
How Kindful saw a 100% Increase in Search Traffic by Implementing Papaya Search's SEO Plan
Meet Koby Langner
“Every team needs someone like Bobby who is an industry expert. We’re lucky to have him. Our weekly meetings have been instrumental to getting us going in the right direction and obtaining our website’s fullest potential.”
Koby Langner
Digital Marketing Coordinator
Over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the United States serve various constituencies from homeless populations or school children to rescued animals or art aficionados. And at the helm of these organizations are passionate, busy, mission-driven people.
Nonprofit staff often use multiple platforms to track their expenses, manage donor information, communicate with supporters, and conduct sales. It’s a blistering amount of data to juggle that has little to do with serving the organization’s actual mission.
For this reason, Kindful exists.
Kindful is donor management software that integrates the everyday tools that allow nonprofit professionals the freedom to spend less time focused on their data and more time providing excellent services to society.
That sense of purpose attracted Koby Langner to the world of charitable service. Before joining Kindful in 2019, he worked in the altruistic trenches of education nonprofits. He learned much of the field there before stepping into the role of Marketing Coordinator for Kindful. Today, he serves as the Digital Marketing Manager.
Koby Langner and Kindful believe in their CRM (Customer Relationship Management). Their platform manages donor data while saving customers time and costs.
Kindful connects open platforms and closes time-wasting gaps. They offer a clean interface and powerful, user-friendly tools that lessen the administrative burdens of data management.
Koby explained that: “We believe in our product. We’ve seen the results and heard the feedback. We know because of Kindful and Bloomerang (their parent company), nonprofit professionals are saving time and money.”
Kindful's Struggle
Kindful helps nonprofits focus their resources more fully on their mission. The average staff spends valuable time juggling donor data across several platforms.
Koby says, “Our software allows staff to streamline their efforts and focus more on their mission. We want to get the message out that we can help them.”
The nonprofit professionals who needed this product weren’t getting that message because Kindful’s online reach was underperforming. And, if potential clients weren’t being reached by Kindful, there were plenty of competitors ready to claim the relationship and revenue.
Kindful’s design team is quite knowledgeable of the nonprofit sector and web design. They launched a beautiful new website in Fall 2019. Unfortunately, the relaunch didn’t include a sound SEO strategy. The absence of this strategy impacted their mobile-friendly score. In fact, at a score of 15 (out of 100), it was failing badly.
Luckily, the Kindful team knows they have a solid problem-solving product. Thus, Koby and the team had no reservations or ego against seeking help from experts to make their product better.
“Kindful and Bloomerang want to be the leading fundraising and donor management software providers in the nonprofit sector. It’s a huge deal that Kindful wasn’t reaching potential clients. There are big names in our sector who do good work. But, we believe in the power of our product,” Koby said.
Papaya Search's Solution
Kindful secured the help and expertise of Papaya Search. The Marketing team immediately saw that they’d gained a valuable and experienced partner. We performed an SEO audit of Kindful’s website and walked Koby through the results. We focused on the overall technical health of the site.
“SEO changes so much. You have to have someone on the team who is up-to-date on best practices. It changes every month. Papaya Search is our expert and makes sure we have the knowledge to reach the full potential of our site,” Koby said.
The SEO audit revealed several areas of opportunity. Papaya Search guided speed improvements and made recommendations on schema markup development and Core Web Vitals. We used Keyword Gap Analysis to examine Kindful’s keywords compared to those of competitors.
Papaya Search also provided tips and feedback to help Kindful optimize its content. And together, we implemented a plan to develop and organize that content.
Koby explained that “Papaya Search gave us ideas for a content strategy like creating a glossary for non-profit professionals, pillar pages, and leveraging internal linking. These strategies and other improvements led to unprecedented growth in organic traffic and even more conversions from that traffic.”
Growth, growth, and more growth
“SEO has been one of the largest points of growth for us over the last year and a half. It corresponds with our new website and having a solid SEO strategy. In large part, it’s thanks to Papaya Search efforts and ideas.”
And what about that failing mobile score? It’s now at 75. It is an indication that things will keep improving for Kindful as it seeks to dominate the nonprofit donor software sector!
“I’ve recommended Bobby and his team to other digital marketing professionals because he’s been a mentor to me. He’s taught me how to be a search engine optimizer. He’s an experienced industry expert. He’s been huge for Kindful and me.”
Kindful’s Results
Why Papaya Search?
In early 2021, Bloomerang, a leading donor management agency, acquired Kindful. The companies share a competitive drive to become the top fundraising and donor management software platform in the nonprofit sector. Koby recognizes that the Kindful team’s success depends on their ability to assemble the best tools and the right combination of skills. They found the right teammate: Papaya Search.
1. Dedication to your team
Kindful already had talented people and a clean website. What they lacked was an SEO point-person. Enter Papaya Search. We tailored a transparent strategy to meet targets and make a measurable ROI.
“They work with and on your team. Papaya Search shares best practices and ideas to sell your products and strengthen your team’s understanding and use of SEO.”
2. Quality Care
The team at Papaya Search has over 30 combined years of experience. Their clients range from mom and pop shops to large national corporations, but the level of service and care is always specific, customized, and goal-driven. Papaya Search does not over-promise SEO/SEM outcomes but instead prioritizes their client’s improvement and growth.
3. Creative Input
Kindful’s clients are predominantly in the nonprofit sector and have different needs than for-profit entities. Papaya Search contributes to content strategies that make an impact in this industry. For example, we suggested Kindful develop a nonprofit glossary for their site to benefit their SEO.
“I’ve recommended Bobby and his team to other digital marketing professionals because he’s been a mentor to me. He’s taught me me how to be a search engine optimizer. He’s an experienced industry expert. He’s been huge for me and Kindful.”
Koby Langner,
Digital Marketing Coordinator
