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| Increasing Hits on Your
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One of the key items that people
have in their minds regarding their website is
increasing the traffic and number of "hits".
Here
are a few things to consider:
1 - What are the needs of your
target audience? Who visits your
website? What are their needs? When you are
thinking about your target audience think beyond your
client base. Your target audiences may also
include your board, volunteers, potential and current
donors, members of the community and the media.
Each of these may need different types of
information. For some organizations you also may
cater to the interests of different age groups - maybe a
"kids" section would be useful and of course this might
have very different language and visual appeal for that
age group.
2 -
How do you learn about the visitors to your
website? Check with your webmaster about
the website statistics. These may come from your
hosting server, or they may be added on with special
coding from sources such as statcounter.com or Google
Analytics. You can see more information
about these on my
blog.
3 -
Survey and ask your visitors. Surveys can
provide you with useful feedback. You could post
your survey link on your website, your blog, or send it
out to your email list. If you are using
Constant Contact to manage your email newsletter, there
is also a survey module that you can try out. Or
you could use survey software such as "Survey Monkey"
that has very reasonable pricing (or free) depending on
the size of your survey. If you keep the survey
short you may be pleasantly surprised at the good
response you get.
4 - Team up with another
organization. If you share common interests
it may be useful for two organizations to team up
and write a short article that will be included in the
other's email newsletter. Of course the link
should be with your article to go back to your
website. Both organizations can benefit by
reaching a new email list. Your list members
also benefit by getting useful information. Be
sure to include information about how they can sign up
for YOUR email list.
5 - Building traffic is not
just about hits. Getting more hits on your
website is just part of the objective. Ultimately
you want people to DO something - e.g. sign up for some
information, attend a seminar, donate, volunteer, buy
something etc. Be sure that you have clear "Calls
to Action" on your website. Remember that people often
need to develop a relationship with you and regular
contact before they will take a large step in
action. This develops over time so send regular
communications and build the relationship over
time.
For more information on building traffic to
your website see articles on the blog http://alephconsulting.wordpress.com
Your
comments and feedback are welcome on any of the
articles.
To try out
Constant Contact for a free 60 day trial click
here. Constant Contact has many tools
including email newsletters, online surveys, and auto
responders that will help you to build regular
correspondence with your email list.
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Please contact us with any of your
questions and comments.
Sincerely,
Denise Davies
Aleph Inc.
http://www.alephconsulting.org
Website
http://alephconsulting.wordpress.com
- Blog
davies@alephinc.com
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