9 Ways to Get More People to Your Website

1. Make sure your site is worth visiting: easy to find, easy to use, up-to-date, appropriate for the people you want to visit.

2. Make a simple written promotion plan for your site, just like you would for a new program or event. Who do you want to reach? Who do you know who can help spread the word? What are the best media for reaching your targets?

3. Consider offering a game or contest. Invite visitors to give their e-mail addresses, then choose one winner a week to get a free t-shirt or water bottle or whatever's appropriate. (You should already be trying to capture e-mail addresses so you can add them to your free e-mail newsletter that also alerts them to new features on the site.)

4. List your Web address (and e-mail) on all your materials - letterhead, brochures, newsletter, forms, ads, videos, etc. And repeat it often in radio and TV interviews, at speeches, etc.

5. Make sure your "meta tag" and "title" - two items hidden at the top of the code in your Web site - work for you. Relevant keywords in your "meta tag" ensure that search engine spiders can figure out how to index your site properly. One of our Web clients, Equal Rights Advocates, is a women's law center. Their keywords: equal rights, women, law, lawyers, sexual harassment, discrimination, affirmative action, and so forth. A clear, enticing "title" - the first words that show up in a search engine's description -- encourages people to click through when they see your site in the search engine's list. (Ask your Webmaster, designer, or staff techie if you don't understand these terms.)

6. Register at all the key search engines: Yahoo, Excite, InfoSeek, Alta Vista, Lycos, HotBot, etc. (You can find a list at www.searchenginewatch.com.) And check from time to time to make sure you're still there.

7. Promote your site in related newsgroups and mailing lists. You can check at www.liszt.com and Yahoo for lists of lists.

8. Send out a press release when you launch your site or when you add important new pages, and follow it up with calls to key media. Try to get mentioned or reviewed in the local newspaper (many run weekly stories about the Internet), in trade papers, newsletters, etc. Ask the Webmasters at related Web sites to review and link your site.

9. If you're a local service organization, get included on the Web sites of the local newspaper and local directories, operated by the newspapers, chambers of commerce, or Internet service providers. Most large cities now have large sites run by City Search, Yahoo, Microsoft's Sidewalk, etc., featuring massive listings of movies, music, events, etc. Some of these also list local nonprofits, especially those providing services.


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