Challenge: How to SEO a site with almost no content

[katandmouse]

Wondering what you all would recommend for SEO on this site:

www.gudville.com

Most of their content is behind a login. Basically there are 5 pages open to Google and to anyone without that login, and they are not open to doing it differently at this time. Once in, there will be a lot of sharing with Facebook friends that will include invitations to join them in their causes.

Love to hear all your recommendations.

Kathy

[smokin_ace]

From my side I will recommend to add some more text on front page, otherwise it will not be so easy to achive high rankings by highly competetive keywords.

• Title tag is very simple and not informative. It can be something like this:  
  "Gudville - Discover, lead and support causes you care about"
• Add meta keywords and meta description

Cheers,

Russel

[MarkScully]

Meta-Keywords have no impact on ranking though.

Kathy, you will need to add more content to the pages that are public. Focus on the specific keywords you wish to rank for and improve the on-page SEO for these terms.

Also, from what I can see, there are no backlinks pointing to the site. You should focus on attracting links from high authority websites within the sector.

[smokin_ace]

Hey Mark if you still think that meta keywords have no impact on rankings then you are wrong. Actually meta keywords became a part of on-page optimization again and as a proof for that Google has lunched Google Tag Manager.

At the same time everything what belongs to on page optimization has an impact on rankings.

Cheers,

Russel

[edwardrj]

I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of Google Tag Manager. The meta keyword tag is ignored except in cases of site search.

To OP:

Social media is going to be your main source of traffic here, IMO. It doesn't mean you should completely ignore natural search optimization, but that the best way to drive traffic to your site is through social media. The rankings will come with traffic/shares/backlinks.

[katandmouse]

Thanks guys. I should probably clarify. I do know what to do on the site itself. And I have several ideas on what to do to build inbound links( in which social will play a large part) as I realize that is their only hope of ranking. I plan to target universities that have social good programs to try and get on their radar as one example. I'll also be looking for guest blogging opportunities on related sites. And we'll also be doing Facebook campaigns. The whole site is social and is built around the concept of social good sharing. So as we get users, the buzz will happen because the system invites it. But I'm looking for ways to get Google to notice even without that happening yet.

Clearly, given that there is no content to speak of, inbound links and social shares, tweets and the likes are critical. But, given the competition and the lack of content, this is a very difficult task. Love to hear any creative ideas to do so if you have them.

We've been recommending more content, but they won't listen. So I plan to share your comments here in the form of an audit report and in the hopes of getting them to comply. If anyone has any good supporting data to prove the data, I'd love to see that as well. Thanks for backing me on the need for more content! Keep those recommendations coming! Thanks.