If You Want People to Find Your Site Don’t “Click Here”
April 15, 2010
The phrase “click here” can be seen everywhere on the web, but you still shouldn’t use it. Search engines crawl all over the web trying to find the best phrases to describe a site, so when someone comes to their site and types in a couple of words it is likely to bring up the site that the person wanted.
One way that Google and other sites do this is by “reading” links. When they see a link they “assume” that the words that are linking to that site have a lot to do with that site. So if you have on your site click here for more information. Google and other search engines are just going to assume that your site has a lot to do with “click”s and “information”. It would be better to actually write out what you are linking to (i.e. Producer Handbook with Tips for Public TV). Now Google knows that the website www.nativetelecom.org/produce_handbook has to do with “tips” “public TV” and “producer”s. So now when someone goes to a search engine and types in “Producer Handbook with tips for Public TV” or something similar, it is likely to pull up one of the NAPT Producer Handbook pages on the first page of results.
Everytime you say “click here” instead of what you are linking to, you have lost another opportunity to improve the listing of your site on the words that really describe your content.
More Information About Your Website
April 14, 2010
View of Visits in the US to NAPT Sites in Google Analytics
Google Analytics can give you all sorts of information about who is coming to your site, so that you can better tailor your site for them. Not only does it give you number of visitors, visits and pageviews, but it also lets you know where they are visiting from, how long they are sticking around and even more. It is really easy to set-up and they have step by step instructions on how to add the code to your site.
A few tips before you set up your account: Make sure you know how many URLs (i.e. airos.org, nativetelecom.org) are pointing at your server/site before you create a profile for it and put the code near the bottom of the code for your template or page. Also, be patient. It will take a few days (at least) for the information to start showing up in your account.
I’ve set this up on site with and without templates and it works great for both.
They’re Tweeting About You — See What They Are Saying
April 13, 2010
If you want to know who is tweeting about you (and not just retweets), just go to http://backtweets.com and enter your URL. It even can tell you when someone uses a service like bit.ly to shorten the link for sharing. It’s a real great way to see what on your site is generating a buzz.
Google Grants – Free Ads on Google
April 12, 2010
If you are a non-profit make sure to apply for Google Grants. You get free text ads in Google search. Last year we got over $30,000 in free ads. More info at www.google.com/grants
Attending Nonprofit Technology Conference
April 8, 2010
Learning new media resources at the 10th Annual Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) in Atlanta. Looking forward to sharing the info I learn here on this blogs for others to use.
