Top Tips on Driving Traffic to Your Website
Andy Lubansky,
04/30/2009
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EmailAt the 2009 NTEN Conference in late April, Allan Pressel shared a list of nearly 50 items that organizations may want to consider when thinking about overall web presence. He covered topics like online fundraising strategies, email list management, and social networking, but his main focus was on web users finding your organization.
You may have the most fantastic website in the world, but all your hard work will be wasted if you don't get any site visitors! Here are just a few tips to make sure web surfers are able to find your website and to make sure they keep coming back!
- Create compelling content that includes text and images. This one may seem obvious, but visitors will return if they enjoy the first visit.
- Include a short description of your organization on the homepage. Don't assume all visitors know who you are.
- Publish your URL at every opportunity. Include it in your email signature, on printed materials and even on your voicemail greeting.
- Register multiple versions of your website (.org, .com, .net, etc). That way if someone accidentally types .com after your nonprofit site name, they’ll still be directed to your site. It’s cheap and easy.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - get your site to the top of search rankings!
- There are really only three search engines that matter: Google, Yahoo, and MSN
- Include metatags in your HTML
- Description of your organization - keep it short
- Keywords
- Be familiar with links to and from your website. Links from other websites to your site will help with search engine rankings. To see a list of which sites link to your site, head to Google and enter "Link: www.yourwebsite.org"
- Other SEO ideas: Add a blog to your site, avoid splash pages, use alternative text on all images, create a site map and register with the Open Directory Project
- Register with Guidestar
- This is where foundations and other funders go to find information about nonprofits
- It’s also used by Donor Advised Funds when deciding where to give their donations
- Only 8% of nonprofits have registered and it’s free!
- If you’ve already registered, make sure it’s still accurate
- Social Networking - build it into your web presence. See our story about Clay Shirky's Keynote Address at the 2009 NTEN Conference
- Be the information source for your choice of mission - people will seek you out if you've got the best information!
Adapted from a presentation and resource list presented by Allan Pressel of Charity Finders at the 2009 NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference, April 2009.
nice tips
Very nice seo tips, thanks for sharing, it could be more specific about some topics as the social bookmarking or the blog creation but it's still nice to read:)
Great Site
This is a great site the article has been very very helpful and i would recommend it, and some good points have been made here, this what blogging should be about.
Hey, that’s an awesome
Hey, that’s an awesome article. I’m certainly not a technical person but the article was really understandable by me. Unlike most of the articles on the internet. Thanks for the information. Cheers
SEO
These are solid tips, especially concerning having a branded company image when you post your website.
More and more Google is searching for "real" branded corporations, small businesses, and companies to help increase online revenue and bolster the economy. A lot of customers experience fraud online even through finding websites on Google. Since anyone can do SEO, any website (even fraudulent ones) have the same opportunity to gain thousands of visitors through Google. Their legitimacy falters and it creates a bad reputation for search engines.
As the future wanes, Google will keep modifying their algorithm in order to eliminate scams and bad links.
SEO is the key.
I agree with you. A lot of people think that if they have good content they will automatically rank at the top of search engines. The sad reality is that this is not true. A website must be optimized to rank at the top of search engine results. You can find a lot of resources on the internet that teaches you how SEO is done. It is a good idea to pay a professional to do this, but you can optimize your own website if you study hard enough.
Keywords in titles
One more tip I would add: Use keywords in your titles, particularly at the beginning of them. I have seen articles get ranked for some long tail keywords based largely on this optimization practice alone. Any SEO New York company would agree with this tip, I'm sure.
Seo
Seo works, but it should be done in parrallel with social and video marketing as well as PR and other forms of marketing
regards James
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