Key strategies in Web site promotion
Internet marketing consultants warn that, without proper marketing and promotion, Web sites can quickly become ineffective. “The truth is that Web site traffic building has its own set of PR needs and requires its own system of aggressive, attention-getting tactics,” says Charles Sayers, an Internet marketing consultant based in Acworth, Ga.
Specifically, Sayers says that local governments seeking to maximize the Web’s potential should first attempt to determine how many of their residents are actually online and how easily they can be reached. “Don’t rationalize the number. Don’t inflate your projections,” Sayers says. “Be conservative, and determine whether it’s a number you can live with.” Obviously, it does not make sense to invest resources in a Web site if only a minute percentage of residents actually has Internet access, Sayers says.
Once local governments have set up Web sites, they need to be sure their residents are aware of the resources on the site. Internet consultants advise cities and counties to take advantage of as many of the following Web site marketing and promotion strategies as possible.
Work the search engines.
Seasoned Web users turn to search engines like Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) and Excite! (www.excite.com) to help them find specific information on the Internet quickly. Essentially, they type in a subject, and the search engine brings back links they can click on for further information.
Local governments have a much better chance of appearing among the first links returned on the search engines if they use software programs designed to get their sites noticed. Web Site Traffic Builder, by Draper, Utah-based Intelliquis (www.intelliquis.com), for example, will register sites with more than 3,500 Internet search engines. Plus, it will automatically put sites in the appropriate category for each search engine. The software can be used to check a site’s position on the Internet’s eight most popular search engines. A similar program, WebPosition Gold, by Joplin, Mo.-based FirstPlace Software (www.webposition.com), claims to place sites high on the Web’s top search engines.
Link ’til you drop.
Probably the easiest, least expensive and most effective way to promote a site is to link it with every other noncompetitive page on the Internet that shares the same interest. Chester County, Pa., for example, exchanges links with a number of local and regional online directories, local businesses and search engines.
Enter as many Web site contests as possible.
Cities and counties should attempt to get their Web sites judged by many of the Cool Site of the Day/Week judging services. Sites that are judged worthy of an award are given the equivalent of a graphic blue ribbon that they can post online. The awarding service also provides a free link to the winning pages from its own home page — a perk that can literally generate thousands of visits to a new Web site, according to Sayers.
“Keep in mind that most people who will be surfing to your Web site don’t know the relative difficulty of earning different awards,” says Jim Wilson, a Web marketer with Los Angeles-based Virtual Promote. “All they see is that some people thought your site was good enough to win an award. Go ahead. Apply for everything.”
Establish a virtual press center.
Establishing a virtual press center is one of the most overlooked opportunities on the Web. Journalists are turning to the Internet to search for stories and develop new ideas. There is no reason why any city or county with a Web site should pass up an opportunity for free media exposure, says Craig Settles, a senior strategist for Berkeley, Calif.-based Successful Marketing Strategists.
Offer a branded news ticker.
News tickers are among the more innovative Web site promotion strategies being used today. Currently, a number of news organizations offer free, Web-based news feeds to any Web site interested in running those feeds. Individual.com (www.individual.com/network/headlines), for example, offers free news tickers, as does Moreover.com (www.moreover.com/site/products/webmaster).
Get posted in Web directories.
To boost visitation to their sites, a number of city and county governments have packaged themselves in easy-to-use directories. A number of Florida city and county governments, for example, get a link from Government Services Online (fcn.state.fl.us/fgsd_html/local.html). Local governments nationwide can get a link from State & Local Governments on the Internet (piperinfo.com/state/index.cfm).
Start a message board.
The Internet’s answer to the town square, message boards allow visitors to post messages in a dedicated domain, thereby building a community centered around the Web site. Thread-It, by Dorset, England-based yMonda ( www.ymonda.com), is a simple bulletin-board system offered as a free download.
Web Crossing, by San Francisco-based Web Crossing (www.webcrossing.com), is one of the most popular bulletin board software packages on the Internet. Value-added features of the software include a full-text search engine, archiving of messages, profanity filter, online help and a setup wizard that installs the software in about five minutes.
Another software package, Web Board, by Sebastopol, Calif.-based O’Reilly (www.webboard.com), offers quick customization templates to give bulletin boards a distinctive look and feel. It can support up to 255 discussions, and it has a chat module that allows users to page other users who are logged on, send private messages or invite a user to join a chat.
Start a newsletter.
An interesting and informative government newsletter can help establish an ongoing relationship with community members. At the NYC Chapter Association of Government Accountants’ Web site (members.aol.com/blumenie/main.htm), visitors can sign up online for an e-mail-delivered newsletter. And at Bayonne, N.J.’s Web site (www.bayonnenj.org), visitors can sign-up for e-mail alerts to be sent out any time the site is updated.
Offer classified ads.
An advertising staple of every newspaper in America, classified ads are also a big hit on the Internet. Some cities, such as Edgewood, Fla. (www.cityofedge-wood.org), and Monterey, Calif. (www.monterey.org), offer classified ads as a free service to draw more traffic to their sites. Both cities use ads to alert the community about government job openings.
Add a “recommend this site to a friend” button.
The maxim “Nothing is more valuable than word-of-mouth promotion” never rang truer than on the Internet. By clicking on the button, visitors can send the Web address in an e-mail message to friends. A twist on that idea is a “send this page” option that allows site visitors to send whole Web pages to friends.
Make the Web site truly global.
While many people have described the Internet as an “international marketplace,” only a handful of sites on the Web are truly global in reach. The reason: few sites have bothered to sport more than one language. Offering different versions of a site in a number of languages — along with other features that specifically appeal to various cultures — will ensure that a government site truly has a global appeal.
“Combining these tactics with a relentless persistence to build your site’s traffic will virtually guarantee that, within a few short weeks, your access counters (a software tool used to measure visits to a Web site) will start spinning like the gallon indicator on a 1950s gas pump,” Sayers says.
Joe Dysart is a speaker and Internet business consultant based in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He may be contacted by phone at (805) 379-3673, by e-mail at [email protected] and on the Web at www.digitalubiquity.com.
