Welcome to the Internet & Media Strategies for nonprofits blog. This blog will have topics and tips that I am using or testing out. The internet is constantly evolving and new ideas and approaches give us all new opportunities.
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Denise Davies
My name is Denise Davies and I work with nonprofits to plan and implement internet and media strategies that are effective in growing your audience, increasing donations, building your network, creating a credible web presence and providing education and training to use Internet and media tools effectively.
If you have any questions or suggestions please do send in a comment. You can keep in contact also by signing up on the right for our email newsletter.
Here are a few suggestions that I have found to be useful in organizing and writing the content for your website.
These are useful when you are first building your website or if you are doing a redesign.
First – decide on the structure and hierarchy of the website. What are your top level pages? Your website navigation will depend on how well you organize the information. Make your top level headings general enough that you will be able to continue using this structure – and add additional pages as you need them as sub pages.
I will be using MS WORD as an example of the word processing program to use as this is most common. If you are using something else look for similar tools that you can use.
Start a new document in MS Word
Click on VIEW – and put a check mark next to “Document Map” – this will then show you on the left a view of your document as a map.
Click on FORMAT – STYLES – and this will show a pane on the right side of your document with a list of styles.
Next – type in all the top level pages and sub pages. Just use normal text and dont bother adding any formatting.
Then click on a top level page – and highlight HEADING 1 on the styles menu and click on it. This assigns the level 1 style to this and you will see that heading appear on your Document Map.
Continue doing this for all the Level 1 headings (the top level of your structure)
Then do the same thing for all the SUB PAGES – assign them as a Level 2 style.
Now you have a view on the document map on the left pane, and you can easily click and access the specific pages.
You now can easily move through the document and add content on the pages.
A couple of other useful things
Add a Table of Contents at the top of the document. This will be a good view for people who see the print out.
Do the editing and draft of your content in MS Word – and then add this to the draft view of your new website. Read it again to see for any fine tuning needed on the editing.
Remember that it is a good idea to review and update your website on a regular basis. This helps with your website traffic, and makes sure that your website stays current with your activities.
Please contact me with any suggestions and tips that you have.
I think each of the points is valuable but the one that I want to discuss today is his Law number 7 — “Law of Facebook Groups”
Facebook Groups are the best way to grow your network on facebook with people who share common interests.
Click on GROUPS – this might be on the bottom of your browser screen on the left – or click on the “f” icon on the bottom left and see it on the full list – and you should see it on the list of applications. Book mark it so the icon shows up for easy click in the future.
You will see 2 columns on the GROUP page. The left column are the groups that people in your network have joined. The right column are groups that you have joined. For each of the groups you will see a brief description and the number of members and any recent activity.
Look at the LEFT column (groups recently joined by your network) – click on the “see all” at the top right of the column – and then browse through this list. You can click on a group, review the overview section, look at the number of members, and see the types of things in their discussion forum and events etc. If you are interested in the topic – click on the JOIN THIS GROUP on the top right column.
Now that you are a member of the group – follow the discussions, post your own comments and questions — all of these activities will show up on your own profile and increase your visibility.
The next step is to GROW your own list of friends – click on a person who is a member of the group – and click on the “Add as friend” – You can write a short email e.g. “We are both members of the xxxx group and I would like to invite you to be a facebook friend.” You can copy and paste this – and personalize it with “Dear FIRSTNAME” - If the person agrees – you will get a notice that they have added you as a Facebook friend. Send them a thank you. These activities will help you to grow your network with people who share a common interest.
Invite other people to join the group – this will also help your visibility and your network – and it will also help your friends to find an interesting group.
In addition to using the “groups recently joined by your network” — you can do a SEARCH in groups on any topic and review the list of groups. Follow the same steps.
If you have any additional suggestions please feel free to send your comments or questions.
Online webinars are a very cost effective way of attending seminars, and learning something new. Webinars let you build your knowledge and network without the expense of travel.
The IFC Online is the world’s first global, virtual fundraising conference. Taking place completely over the internet, the event will deliver three days of live, interactive, workshops and plenaries to a world-wide audience of fundraisers.
Featuring an incredible line-up of expert speakers in the field of new media fundraising, the IFC Online is a must for anyone interested in raising funds online and building constituency through email, SMS and Web 2.0.
During IFC Online, our presenters will not only share online teaching and learning techniques, but facilitate a lively dialogue with a community of participants. The result: the sharing of practical ideas that each participant can immediately integrate into their fundraising strategy, and an instant network of peers that serves as an ongoing resource to all members of the IFC Online community.
A PDF is a useful format – it saves the formatting of a document so that you can be sure that the person receiving it is viewing it correctly and that they cannot make changes to it.
Try Primo PDF – this is a free PDF creator software. You can download it here –> http://www.primopdf.com/
Click on the free download
Install the software on your computer
After you have installed it – try it out. For example – open up a WORD document Spreadsheet, or powerpoint file
Then click on FILE – PRINT — and you will see PRIMO PDF as one of your listed printers.
Select PRIMO PDF as your printer, click on BROWSE and decide on where you want to save your PDF file
Primo PDF Screenshot
Primo PDF Screenshot
Click on the CREATE button – and in a few seconds (depending on the file size) – you will see your PDF file.
You can use PDF files on your website, to send by email, to provide to your printing company when you are creating flyers or other publications.
You can also create a PDF from a web page following the same process. This is useful for saving an exact view of a web page to review later.
Please send any suggestions on other PDF software that you have tried and your comments.
Bloggers and Social Networks can provide a powerful channel for getting the word out to raise support and awareness for specific causes. For example this campaign for “Bloggers Unite for Hunger and Hope” BlogCatalog members and Heifer International are partnering to call for the end of world hunger and start of hope on April 29. Their appeal is to join thousands of other bloggers and write a post about world hunger on April 29.You can make a difference. If you are a blogger you can participate in the campaign.
Now you have started your blog and are excited about the topics you are going to discuss. You want to increase the number of visitors and responses to your blog.
Here are a few tips that will help to increase your readership:
Content and postings – make regular postings – at least once per week.
Review your stats – the blog software includes a basic statistics on visitors to your blog. However there is not a great level of detail. I would recommend also adding some other statistics counter. I use www.statcounter.com — you can get more details on where the visitors come from, what their path is, if they are first time or repeat visitors. Your stats over time will show you which topics generated the most interest and continue to bring you visitors. Experiment with different titles and topics until you see a pattern of interest.
Add “tags” and “categories” to your postings. The tags are the most effective indexing words – and you should use tags that are words in your postings – as well as additional tags that you think people will be posting on.
Add a link to your blog in your email signature, your facebook page, your linked in profile, your website, your twitter profile, your email newsletter, your online articles, and any other online profiles that you may have.
Spend some time seeing how you can post in one place and have it appear via RSS feeds and widgets on the different locations. This way you will end up doing less work – always a good thing
Read and comment on OTHER blogs and social networks. – and be sure that you are showing your blog in your signature. Your participation brings people from their blog over to your blog for more information
These are just some of the ways that you can increase your blog readership. Send me your favorite methods for increasing your blog traffic and we will all grow. Fill in the comment form to reply.
As you are browsing and researching on the Internet you often come across an article or page that you want to email to a friend or colleague. Some sites provide you with a link to “send by email” and of course you can always use the browser or copy and paste the link into an email.
Here is a handy tool that you can use on ANY page. There is a very simple download and install and it is added on as a tool on your browser bar.
Email This – from Clickability is available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Download and install it and follow the instructions to add it as a button on your browser tool bar. This tool makes it very easy to share pages and articles with your friends.
This will save you time and make it easier to share.
Everyone is inundated by information. We want to keep track of things and have a lot of different websites and links to follow. I use these tools to help organize information and have easy access through one click. There are many great tools from Google that can make your computer life easier to manage. It may take you a little time to get these setup but it will save you lots of time in the future.
To get started with any of these you need a google account. If you don’t have one yet go to http://www.google.com and register – or login if you already have an account. Then click on MORE to see the list of different applications and tools that are available.
Google Home Page “iGoogle”
I use Google as my home page and have set it up to display news, links, and updates from other websites. To add this you select “iGoogle”. Then select a theme, and decide on what main categories you want. If you set this in your browser to be your home page – you can easily get to this at any time by clicking on the HOME icon in your browser. Add world time, calendar, your bookmark links, and customize it to show the latest RSS updates from your favorite blogs. The page is very customizable and you can drag and move blocs into different locations on the page.
Google Tool Bar
The tool bar you will see along the top of your browser window. You can select with check boxes different buttons that you want to appear on the google toolbar. Add maps, search, google docs, google analytics and a selection of other google tools with one click access. One thing that saves me a lot of time on the Google Toolbar is the AUTO FILL – which fills out the basic contact information that you use when you fill out a form online. One click saves that typing in your name and address on different forms. You are always able to edit the information after you add it to a form.
Google Desktop
This tool alone has saved me hours and hours of time. Basically you are getting your own mini search engine that indexes the files on your own computer. When you first install Google Desktop you select the types of files you want to index – your documents, email and specific folders. Then when you want to find something you just click the CTRL key 2 times and a little search window comes up – you type in a few words and in just a couple of seconds it shows you the files or emails that has those words. You don’t need to remember exactly where you put things and even when you are an organized person with organized folders and sub folders you don’t need to navigate to get to the location.
When you review your website traffic statistics do you notice that some of that traffic comes from other countries? or maybe even from different parts of your own country that you consider are outside of your target market?
Perhaps you have always thought of your business or organization serving the local area where you live and that those other visitors to your website are not of interest to you.
There are some things that you can do to localize and appear more frequently in local listings – for example you can set up your business page on google maps; you can register your site with local portals; you can include town and city names in your key words and describe your target area in the content page.
However I would like to explore some ways that you can consider to benefit from the greater geographic coverage that the Interent provides.
First of all – what information do your visitors find MOST interesting. Which are your most popular pages? Review the products and services that you offer now.
Offer an online teleseminar webinar – there is no barrier to a person attending a teleseminar or webinar from anywhere in the world. For some systems they only need a phone. Others provide Voice over IP where attendance can be via the web so there is not even the cost of a phone call. Select a teleseminar system that enables you to record the call and you can have this on your website.
Digital information products – to build your non-local market – consider creating information products that can be delivered by a download once a person has paid. This removes the problems of shipping, packaging and can happen directly from your website without your direct intervention. Your research will give you some hints about the types of products that will be of interest – and you can specifically aim at building that audience no matter where they are located. Here are some examples of digital information products:
Teleseminar registration or downloading recording
EBooks
Tutorials and “How to”
Affiliate products – you may not want to create the information products yourself. Look for affiliate products that you can sell from your website. You can browse Click bank and Commission Junction to select products that would be of interest to your target audience.
These are just a few ideas on expanding your business or developing revenue streams that you may not have considered as a “local” organization or business.
To discuss specific ideas on creating information products for your business contact me at Aleph Consulting
Growing the number of first time visitors, and building return visits to your website can be done using several approaches. Here are a few methods that will help you to increase the traffic to your website.
Website Keywords and Search Engines. Look at your website and check if the “title” “description” and “keywords” meta tags are added to your website pages. These are important in making sure your website is indexed by search engines like Google and Yahoo. In the text of your page – especially your home page – use the words that best describe you and the needs of your target audience as part of the body text. After all this is done – register the site with Google, Yahoo and other major search engines. All these have free submission forms but there is no guarantee how long it will take. Keep reviewing your statistics and you will see when you start getting traffic from search engines. Look at the keywords people are using to find your site and refine these keywords on your pages.
Email Newsletters and Announcements. Tell the people on your list(s) about your website and what they can find there and why they should visit. Add a signup form on the site and some incentive for people to sign up for your newsletter. Your newsletter and announcements will really build your RETURN visits to the website. Remember that people may visit thousands of websites and even if they like you on their first visit – they need to be reminded to return.
Links. Links from other websites to you build credibility and also improve your position in the search engines. These are called in-bound links. If you have a resource or links page on your site – you can link out to useful sites – and then contact the other website owner and ask them to link to you. If you have affiliates, partners, sponsors, or other relationships – send them the link to your website, your logo and a key phrase and ask if they will add your link to their website.
Signature File. Add your website address to your email signature file. Make this also an organization policy and have everyone create a standard signature file that includes the website link. Include the website address also in any paper correspondence, flyers, brochures, advertisements, articles and PR and of course your business card.
Online Social Networks. Create your own presence on the large social networking sites such as Facebook page and group and LinkedIN. Participate in the groups and discussion forums and include your website as part of your profile.
Using these methods you can increase the traffic to your website – but do remember that your website must be engaging and interesting to the person and have some appropriate calls to action – or your efforts will bring traffic but not help you in achieving your objectives.
When you review your 
