The National Trust has seen the biggest increase in online searches over the last year, analysis has found.

The heritage charity’s search engine performance saw it retain top spot, with traffic increasing by a fifth.

British Heart Foundation saw the next steepest increase in searches, followed by Cancer Research UK, RPSCA and the Woodland Trust.

In moving up from third spot to second the British Heart Foundation saw 50% growth in online searches for its websites.

The Woodland Trust saw growth of 64% over the year.

The research is based on organic search traffic using keywords for charities’ websites, URLs and subfolders get each month to assess growth or decline.

“These brands are the ones to watch. They’re on the rise with the biggest growth in the market. said marketing firm Salience, which has carried out the research.

“Whatever they’re doing, search engines are loving it and you’ll want to work out what that is and emulate their strategies, fast.”

Biggest fallers

Meanwhile, the charity to see the biggest drop in online traffic scores was RSPB.

The second largest drop was recorded for the Royal British Legion, followed by Save the Children, Unicef and Children in Need.

“On the opposite end of the spectrum, these brands have had the biggest traffic score drops,” said Saliance.

“They’re likely to have been punished by a search algorithm update or have let things slide over the course of the year. Either way, learn from their mistakes.”

Saliance says that the varied performance of charity’s websites comes amid a 24% increase in overall traffic scores across all charities.

“If the market’s growing, you should be too,” the marketing firm warns charities.

“If its shrinking, you need a precise and targeted search strategy.”

Online visibility versus 'authority'

The research also looks at charities’ performance in terms of online visibility versus ‘authority’, which refers to the stature and reputation of a website among users.

A website’s ‘authority’ is best achieved “through high quality links gained through topical and brand-relevant digital PR. Not spammy link building,” said Saliance.

Charities with high visibility but low authority include Oxfam, the British Red Cross and Shelter.

“These websites have strong traffic scores in spite of a lack of trusted links and press coverage,” said Saliance.

Strong visibility and ‘authority’ charities include all the top five performers in terms of search engine growth, including the National Trust.

“Hats off to these guys,” said Saliance.

“They’ve built their house right and have the search marketing strategy to expand.”

Sleeping giants

Using visibility versus ‘authority’ scores Saliance has identified charities that could be “sleeping giants” online.

Charities to have high ‘authority’ but low traffic scores include NSPCC, drinkaware.co.uk, Breast Cancer Now, Samaritans and Peta.

Saliance says that they have “some on-site issues” holding them back but the potential to attract interest from search engine users. These issues could be in content, structure or technology.

“These brands could benefit most from resolving their on-site tech and structural issues. Identification of those problems, and dealing with them in a priority order, should be their key objective,” said the marketing firm.

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