Tavis Yeung answers:
Keep Visitors Coming Back
Don’t just market to new visitors; market to return visitors as well! There are a number of ways to do this:
Update your web site at least once a month!
Make sure ALL departments are using the web site to communicate. Not just the marketing staff but, also, your volunteer manager, anyone who works with clients, your fund-raising staff, etc.
Have a place on the home page for announcements, upcoming events, links to blog updates, etc., so that a visitor to the home page can immediately see what’s new.
Create a subscription-based email newsletter to promote updates to your web site.
Create a way to allow people to receive updates about your web site via their RSS readers. For instance, you could create a blog at a free site like Forumer (it’s what I use for my blog) that you use only to announce events, new services, updates to your web site, etc., and then link these announcements to appropriate places on your web site. Then, anyone who wants to can put your web site announcement blog into their RSS reader, and automatically receive updates whenever you post such (the RSS feed address for the Jayne Blog: is http://blogs.forumer.com/rss.php?u=jcravens).
The key to successful Internet marketing is to accept that it is a never-ending, integrated process. New web sites and online discussion groups emerge and disappear regularly. You need to track with regular searches new sites with whom to link and new lists on which to announce your organization and its service. To market efficiently and effectively online your entire staff has to immerse itself, at least to some degree, in using the Internet regularly as part of their work.
Other resources from Jayne Cravens and Coyote Communications:
Promoting Your Nonprofit Online
Advice that goes well beyond just Web sites — it talks about email, online communities, podcasts, webcasts, and more.
Don’t Just Ask for Money!
Something much more should happen if someone clicks on your web site’s “Help Us” link than a message that asks only for money.
Mission-Based Groups Need Use the Web to Show Accountability
There has never been a better time for mission-based organizations to use technology to show their transparency and credibility, and to teach the media and general public about the resources needed to address critical human and environmental needs.
Handling Online Criticism
Online criticism of a nonprofit organization, even by its own supporters, is inevitable. How a nonprofit organization handles online criticism speaks volumes about that organization, for weeks, months, and maybe even years to come. There’s no way to avoid it, but there are ways to address criticism that can help an organization to be perceived as even more trustworthy and worth supporting.
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