{"id":7881,"date":"2026-06-30T03:53:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T10:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/?p=7881"},"modified":"2026-06-29T11:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T18:23:10","slug":"ai-search-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2026\/06\/ai-search-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t let AI bury your nonprofit in search results; here&#8217;s what to do."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/wizard-e1696535876596.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"211\" height=\"203\" src=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/wizard-e1696535876596.jpg\" alt=\"a simplistic drawing of a wizard\" class=\"wp-image-1920\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The rise of AI-powered search engines is already adversely affecting search results for nonprofits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Web sites are still critically important to get your message out, just as important as what you do on social media, and your nonprofit needs to make sure your nonprofit&#8217;s web site isn&#8217;t getting buried in search results: you need to make sure potential volunteers, potential donors, the press, politicians, even critics, can find you easily online when they are using certain keywords, not just your nonprofit&#8217;s name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Things that help a web site to be favored by search engines powered by artificial intelligence:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Clearly written headings that adhere to HTML hierarchies (H1, H2, H3, etc.).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Logical structure of information on a page.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Plain language.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Short paragraphs (but the number doesn&#8217;t matter &#8211; don&#8217;t eliminate essential content in pursuit of shorter pages!).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Clear and comprehensive content.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Bullet points.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Descriptive summaries.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Alt text on photos and images.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Page titles in the HTML.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Words on your home page you want people to use to find you (the name of your city, the name of your state, the word <em>volunteer<\/em>, words relating to your mission, words like <em>help<\/em> and <em>impact<\/em>, etc.).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nonprofits that have web sites that follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/\">W3C accessibility standards<\/a> &#8211; that remembered that people with disabilities also use the Internet &#8211; already have a strong advantage over those that don&#8217;t when it comes to being favored by AI searches, as do those organizations that use plain language and words on their home page they want search engines to use to find their organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Go to a variety of search engines, like Google, Duck Duck Go and Brave Search, and use the words you want people to use to find your nonprofit, like <em>volunteer with refugees Louisville<\/em>. Did you nonprofit come up in the search results for the words you used? Was it first after the sites that paid for placement? If not, you have work to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Don&#8217;t just take the word of your web site manager that all of this has been done: YOU, as executive director, as board president, as marketing manager, should ask that person to show you examples of this on the nonprofit&#8217;s web site, if you don&#8217;t know how to look at HTML yourself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also see: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2026\/02\/design-checklist\/\">Design Checklist: What to Review Before Publishing a Communications Product<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2022\/01\/focus-on-content-as-much-as-design\/\">Focus on content as much as design!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2024\/07\/web-sites-still-matter\/\">Web Sites Still Matter<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotebroad.com\/webdevo\/construct.shtml\">Web Site Construction &amp; Content Suggestions for Nonprofits, NGOs and small government offices<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotebroad.com\/volunteer\/volunteers_on_web.shtml\">The Information About &amp; For Volunteers You Should Have on Your Web Site<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2018\/01\/humanrights\/\">Accessibility: a human rights &amp; a digital divide issue too many ignore<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2014\/01\/diversity\/\">accessibility, diversity &amp; virtual volunteering<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" src=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/donate_icon_small.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4685\" style=\"width:60px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotebroad.com\/\">my web site<\/a>&nbsp;and would like to&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotebroad.com\/me\/payme.shtml\">support<\/a>&nbsp;the time that went into&nbsp;researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work),&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotebroad.com\/me\/payme.shtml\"><strong>here is how you can help<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The rise of AI-powered search engines is already adversely affecting search results for nonprofits. Web sites are still critically important to get your message out, just as important as what you do on social media, and your nonprofit needs to make sure your nonprofit&#8217;s web site isn&#8217;t getting buried in search results: you need to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[2372,294,346],"class_list":["post-7881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-relationsoutreach","category-tech-tools","tag-findability","tag-marketing","tag-outreach"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3fFJB-237","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7881"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7895,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7881\/revisions\/7895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}