The purpose of the thesis was to study search engine optimization (SEO) and implement some SEO techniques onto the website of Toijalan Vauhti ry. Toijalan Vauhti ry is a general association and it was founded in 1907. Toijalan Vauhti ry organizes sports activities, including e.g. athletics and skiing, for thousands of people throughout the year. The Internet is an important tool for information retrieval. It affords companies and associations an opportunity to increase the coverage of their activities, services and products. Consequently it can be seen, that no corporation or association should lose the potential of the Internet.

The aim of the thesis is to identify the starting situation of the website of Toijalan Vauhti ry in terms of SEO, to design and implement SEO techniques and to use Google Analytics in order to monitor the impact of SEO on the coverage of the website. This thesis can be described as an action research, which analyzes the technical issues concerning SEO, as well the significance of SEO relative to the communication of the association. The theoretical framework of SEO is built based on electronic and printed sources that deal with the issue. The reports of Google Analytics are used as a support in the implementation process of SEO and as research data.

During a short, five-month-long period under examination the popularity and the coverage of the website of Toijalan Vauhti ry has been improved with the implementation of the SEO techniques. Thanks to the analysis of the starting situation of the website more effective development of the website is possible also in the future. One key observation of the thesis is the need for continuous development and updating of the websites as search engines constantly change the requirements that the websites should meet in order to improve and maximize their coverage. When developing the websites of Toijalan Vauhti ry in the future more attention will be paid on the simplistic form of the links and web page addresses. In this way, the target is to increase the amount of links and to improve the navigation on the website from the perspective of the user.