How
to get success with an Institutional Website, NGO or GO?
By
Soren Breiting, ALLeMarketingTips.com
This is a short instruction in what aspects to take into
account when setting up an institutional website, whether
it is a website of an NGO or a GO, or a private enterprise.
You can also use it to improve your existing website.
1.
Everything should be viewed and evaluated with the eyes
of the visitor: "What´s in for me" as
the main benchmark for a successful website. That is pertaining
to the copy and to the content: "You will here find
...." is a better and more inviting statement at
the home page, than: "We are the main organisation
of ......"
2. Most visitors on the Internet are searching for information,
so please provide them with that.
3. Concentrate content on themes, because that will make
you a better way to the attractive top search positions
at the main search engines and to be included in some
directories, (Google, MSN, Yahoo, AltaVista, Open Directory
etc.). Site-Build-It
is the best approach to fulfill that requirement (http://contact.sitesell.com/webmaster/)
4. Make navigation easy and transparent on all pages.
5. Have a search facility, best on all pages. FreeFind.com
offers a free and useful service. I use it on my private
webpage about stock
photos: www.azfotos.com . In addition to the search
facility for the visitor it gives you a record of what
people have actually been searching for, and in that way
you can prioritise the kind of stuff people would like
to find on your website when you revise your website.
6. Try to organise the content of your website quite "flat",
meaning the visitor does not have to dig too deep into
your website to find what he/she is searching after. Most
visitors will at best not go further deep than to the
3rd level. This is the same with "spidering"
search engines.
7. Have your contact information visible on your home
page (first page), including address, phone, fax, email,
may be even postal giro, bank account etc. - All to makes
it more easy for people quickly to find the kind of information
they need about your organisation.
8. Make it easy for visitors to find information on people,
their phone numbers and email address. The same is the
case for sub-departments of the organisation.
9. Keep each resource in only one place and make many
links to them around on other pages.
Keep your website updated.
10. Make it visible when you have provided new material
at the website. ChangeDetect will do it automatically,
see www.stockphotos-online.com
The mentioned www.FreeFind.com also gives the possibility
for visitors to search for the latest updates.
11. Make your website SIMPLE and quick loading. Avoid
heavy graphics, flash movies etc. They will not help your
visitors, but only help them click away. If you use graphics,
you have to optimise them for the smallest amount of file
size. WebGarage.com can do that for you. Else use ImageReady
from Adobe.
12. Keep your web copy short e.g. use a new paragraph
for every 4th line. Make bullet points. Make longer reports
available also as simple text pages ready for print outs,
or as compressed Adobe pdf files.
13. Offer an electronic newsletter (ezine). This is a
MUST. Make a clear privacy statement of how you will handle
the email addresses you collect (don´t sell them,
etc.). Offer an incentive for people if they sign up.
www.yourmailinglistprovider.com offers a free service
for a newsletter. Just remember to make back ups of the
email addresses in case the server goes down. Treat you
email list as pure gold and don´t misuse the subscribers.
Give them helpful information, and don´t try to
"sell" your message too much. Collect email
addresses every time you bring many people together with
an interests in what your organisation have to offer.
Register your newsletter with the most important directories
of newsletters, e.g. www.listz.com
14. Make your website interactive, by giving visitors
easy access to send you emails (remember to answer quickly),
use guest book and bulletin board, and publish some of
the best contributions after the writer´s permission.
15. Manage to have at least your entrance page with a
simple domain name, like www.iucn.org or www.ensi.org
or www.conservation.com. If you have a big organisation
as your host, then buy one or more good domain names and
get e.g. free hosting to these with easy click through
to the main website. www.directnic.com is offering free
hosting for domains registered by themself, and they are
among the cheapest. See how I have used this service as
an entry to my website, by looking at www.muuuv.com
Look at the bottom of the page to see how many entrance
website domains I use.
16. It is not enough to have a good virtual address by
having an intuitive domain name on the internet. You also
have to be registered properly in search engines and directories.
First I will underline the importance of the right META
Tags before you try to submit, see below.
17. To have a good registration in search engines, you
need to put some efforts in having the right key words
in your titles and headlines, and in your meta tags. These
are instructions for the "spiders" of the spidering
search engines, invisible for the normal surfer. You can
take a good homepage, and look after "source"
in the pull down menu "Show" at the top in your
browser. In the socalled "HEAD" section at the
top of the web page in source format, where you will see
all the html code, you should be able to find the META
TAGS content="keywords" and content="description".
The
short advise is to use your main keywords related to the
content of your specific webpage in the headlines of your
text (both at top and at botton) and here and there in
the text. Include them in link texts if possible. And
them include the most important in the title for the whole
page and in the meta tags for content and keywords. When
you have prepared and uploaded a page you can have your
meta tags checked free at www.ScrubTheWeb.com This is
a great help. In most search engines it is the description
of the meta tags which is shown after a seach, so keep
it inviting, too.
18. Submit your website and main pages to the biggest
search engines. Free services are available, e.g. www.ScrubTheWeb.com,
but manually submission is often the best. Submit to AltaVista
manually. Resubmit every 3rd month to keep the registration.
19. Develop good descriptive and compelling descriptions
for your whole website and submit it also to the main
directories, like Yahoo. Follow all instructions before
in the preparation. Clap your hands when you get a proper
postion in Yahoo etc.!
20.
Exchange links with other organisations. Include your
important key word in your link text.
21. Make it easy for people to link to you. Provide them
with a variety of banners and logos and with simple instructions
concerning the html code.
22. Trade communication about your organisation, and not
least your ezine with other organisations with ezines.
23. Provide interesting short articles with links back
to you website and offer them to other ezines for free.
Keep them focussed and easy to put into practise. End
with a few lines of the author and the website of the
organisation.
24. Try to follow the main changes at the Internet by
reading a few newsletters. Don´t be afraid of using
time on the commercially focussed newsletters as they
are often reacting quickly to important changes in people´s
behaviour on the Internet and on new trends and ideas.
This
article is wirtten by Soren Breiting,
ALLeMarketingtips.com
. Soren is also the editor of the ezine Stock
Photo News (www.StockPhotoNews.com)
- The first Modern eZine combining Stock Photography and
Marketing.
You
are welcome to bring this article for FREE in your newsletter
or post it at your website as long as you keep everything
intact, including the information about the author and
all links.
Soren Breiting
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