W EB P RESENCE S TRATEGIES
FOR S MALL C OMMUNITIES
AND L OCAL G OVERNMENTS
Module 2
Lesson B.
Getting Your Site
Noticed
L ESSON O BJECTIVES
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Basics of website promotion
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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
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5 proven techniques
Analyzing what you have
o
Importance of using analytics
o
Installing Google Analytics
o
Trends over time / top traffic sources / geographic
locations of hits
Sustaining interest among constituent groups
T HE I MPORTANCE OF M ARKETING
YOUR C OMMUNITY S ITE
•
“Build it and they will come”
doesn’t work!
o Many communities
assume traffic will start
flowing in once their
website is up and running
o There are over 200
MILLION websites out
there today – what will
set yours apart?
Source: Netcraft Web Server Survey
T HE M ANY F ACES OF W EBSITE M ARKETING –
H OW D OES YOUR S ITE G ET F OUND ?
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Search engines like Google that focus on keywords, titles, and
other factors are THE most important part for larger-scale
audiences
• Website analytics can help determine which keywords are
working and which ones aren’t
• Non-Search engine optimization techniques
• Locally, word of mouth plays a huge role
• Specific tools like email signatures or including your domain
name on all materials can spur additional traffic
Search Engine techniques are important, but are not the
ONLY way to generate traffic
R EGISTERING WITH S EARCH E NGINES
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In general, you don’t HAVE to register
with search engines – they should find
your site anyway
But, it doesn’t hurt to tell them exactly
what you think your site is about!
Google:
www.google.com/addurl/
Yahoo:
http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
Submissions to multiple sites:
www.submitexpress.com
www.addme.com
S EARCH E NGINE O PTIMIZATION
How Search Engines Find Your Site
•
1.
Search engine “spider” visits your site
•
Determines what the main themes are
2.
Your site information is then added to search engine index
3.
Search engine software finds your site when a specific term is
searched for
4.
Your site is “ranked” based on a number of determinants, including
keyword placement, link popularity, and site organization
How do these spiders “see” your site?
W HAT A S EARCH E NGINE S PIDER S EES
•
On any website, click “View” and then click “Source”
•
We see:
Spider sees:
So – how do you impress the spider
and get ranked highly?
5 T ECHNIQUES FOR S EARCH
E NGINE O PTIMIZATION (SEO)
1. Use appropriate keywords that are
highly searched for
2. Incorporate “title tags”
3. Incorporate “meta tags”
4. Name (or talk about) your pictures
5. Generate external links – create
content!
1. U SE A PPROPRIATE K EYWORDS
• You should have a consistent theme throughout your web
page
• This means repeating similar “keywords” on a page
(particularly the home page), as well as the rest of the site
• Each page in your website can use different keywords
• There are two basic categories of keywords:
• Broad Head
• Long Tail
T HEORY
•
•
•
OF THE
The “broad head” captures the very
popular search terms, BUT…
The “long tail” with more descriptive
terms may attract fewer – but more
appropriate – visitors
On the next slide we will use
www.adwords.google.com to suggest
some appropriate search terms related
to your community
Example
Broad head: retirement
Long tail: retirement community with
scenic views in Arizona
“L ONG TAIL” S EARCH
YOUR T URN
Finding Highly Ranked Keywords
•
Go to: www.adwords.google.com and click
on “Get Keyword Ideas”
•
Insert a potential keyword (do you want to
emphasize retirees? amenities?) and fill in the
spam filter
• Google gives you additional
keywords to consider – and tells
you which ones are most
popular!
• Consider both “broad head” and
“long tail”
• Put these into your site
W HERE TO I NSERT K EYWORDS
• As many places as possible!
• “Entry page” – the first page that a visitor sees
o Often directed here from search engines
o Try to keep the visitor’s attention (pictures?)
• You can emphasize text (even to a spider) by
bolding, italicizing, underlining.
• Don’t be afraid to use keywords in simple,
regular text as well.
2. I NCORPORATE T ITLE TAGS
•
Take a look at the upper left hand corner of any website (in the browser)
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Most amateur sites will just say “Home Page” or “New Page”
This title is important – it’s what the spider first sees! Use your community name
and something descriptive or something you want to emphasize (from your
keywords search)
Use different title tags for different pages that are part of your site
•
K EYWORDS
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These are the first thing Google looks at!
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Can insert in most templates / editors
IN T ITLE TAGS
Good: Community
name, welcome
message
Bad: “Home Page”
3. I NCORPORATE M ETA TAGS
• Typically done in a program like Dreamweaver or
SharePoint – need to have access to html code
• Meta Description – describes your community
• This shows up in search rankings! (Up to 250 characters)
• Meta Keywords – Lists common keywords associated
with your site. List plurals, common misspellings,
phrases, anything you can think of!
Meta tags for Maryville, TN Website
<meta name="Description" content="The City of Maryville, Tennessee web site." />
<meta name="Keywords" content="City of Maryville, Maryville, Tennessee, Blount County,
City Manager, Government, Foothills Fall Festival, Maryville City Schools, Maryville High
School, Maryville Middle School, Foothills Elementary, Foothills Intermediate, Sam Houston,
Fort Craig," />
T ITLE AND M ETA TAGS
Example of inserting this code in Yahoo!
SiteBuilder: Use Tools  Meta Tags
Then insert phrases you want
T ITLE AND M ETA TAGS
• These are Important!
• Google results pull directly from these tags
YOUR T URN
• Check out a few of your neighbors’
websites – what do they have as their
title and meta tags?
• Remember to use View  Source to see
the html code
• Write down what you would like to use
as your title, description, and keyword
tags
4. N AME YOUR P ICTURES
• Pictures are a large part of what makes a website user
friendly, but…
• Spiders don’t “see” pictures; they only see the names
or text beside the pictures.
• So, naming a picture “pic1.jpg” is not helpful to your ranking,
while “grandville_park1.jpg” is.
• Text that describes the picture can also be useful, if it
fits into the context of the web page.
• Some programs also allow you to use “alt” tags
o This shows up when your picture cannot / does not
Do the images on your site have
appropriate file names?
5. G ENERATE E XTERNAL L INKS –
C REATE C ONTENT
• Main priority — content
• Exchange links with other sites (state tourism dept /
development sites)
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Spiders crawl to these links to ensure relevance
• Write articles and make videos that link back to your
community site
V IDEO AND A RTICLE
M ARKETING
•
•
•
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External links are one of the primary drivers
of how Google ranks sites
So, the more “external” sites you can get to
link to you the better
Videos: use simple digital camera, windows
movie maker software & submit to:
• www.youtube.com
• www.revver.com
• www.realpeoplerealstuff.com
Articles: Write short articles relating to your
niche (4-500 words)
• www.ezinearticles.com
• www.goarticles.com
S QUIDOO …A G ATHERING P LACE
FOR C ONTENT
• Squidoo is a popular publishing platform
that allows you to create information
about your community
• “Lenses” – overview articles – gather
information on a topic
• Offer your perspective on something
• Why is your community a great place for
retirees?
• What amenities can your community offer
young people?
M ARKET YOUR S ITE WITH
FACEBOOK
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You need a personal Facebook account to set up a page for your
community
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Visit www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to create an official page
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Make sure to post a link on your website
o
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“Become a fan of Logan County”
Fill it up! Some applications for communities:
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Discussion boards
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Events
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Photos
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Video
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The Wall (this is the main focus)
A NALYZE W HAT YOU H AVE
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Websites are only useful if they are helping you accomplish your
community goals
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You should KNOW:
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How many hits you are getting a week / month
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Which keywords are being used to find your site
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Where most of your traffic is coming from (search, direct entry,
other links)
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Where (geographically) your hits are coming from
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G OOGLE A NALYTICS
• You can use FREE tools to keep record of your traffic and
how people are finding your site
• www.google.com/analytics
• Consists of code that you insert into your webpage, then
analyze later
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O PEN W EB A NALYTICS
Another FREE tool to keep track of your traffic and find out how people are finding you
www.openwebanalytics.com/
Consists of code that you insert into your webpage, then analyze later
Also has a “HeatMap” to see where visitors focus
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G OOGLE A NALYTICS
What can Google Analytics tell me?
• Traffic sources (referring sites, direct traffic,
search engines)
• Number of visits
• Number of page views / visit
• Trends over time
• Most popular pages
• Search terms used to reach your site
• Geographic map of where visitors come from
• “Bounce rates” – visitors who only look at a
single page and then immediately leave
H OW TO I NSERT G OOGLE
A NALYTICS
1) Create a Google Analytics account
– Use Google account email address (free)
– Enter your website’s domain name
– Enter contact information
– Agree to terms of service
H OW TO I NSERT G OOGLE
A NALYTICS
2) Find the “tracking code”
Google provides to your
own website
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Find profile (domain name)
for which you would like
to retrieve code.
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Click Edit on Settings
Column
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Click “Check Status” –
html code will show up
H OW TO I NSERT G OOGLE
A NALYTICS
3) Copy the provided code
– Highlight all of the code provided
– Right click and select “copy”
H OW TO I NSERT G OOGLE
A NALYTICS
4) Paste this code into EACH PAGE of your website
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Requires using the software program that created the website (SharePoint?
Sitebuilder? Office Live?)
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Immediately before the </body> tag (very end of page)
H OW TO I NSERT G OOGLE
A NALYTICS
5) Upload your updated site and ensure that data is
being collected
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The “alert” symbol will change to a check mark
6) After at least a full day of collecting data, “View
Report!”
G OOGLE A NALYTICS :
3 M OST U SEFUL F EATURES
1) Visits over time
– Did you change key words?
– Put in a new website feature?
– Get an external link?
– See what type of impact you had…
G OOGLE A NALYTICS :
3 M OST U SEFUL F EATURES
2)
Top Traffic Sources
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Direct Traffic / Referring Sites / Search Engines?
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Which keywords are people using to find you?
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What other sites are sending links your way?
G OOGLE A NALYTICS :
3 M OST U SEFUL F EATURES
3)
Geography of your visitors
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Are people finding you from within your state?
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Nearby states?
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How should you change your site to appeal to these
visitors?
A SSESSING YOUR W EBSITE
• There are tools available to help you
assess if your website has problems with
broken links, browser compatibility,
spelling
o www.scrubtheweb.com
o www.netmechanic.com
• Some also offer help with meta tags &
keywords and track your rankings on
search engines…for a fee
S USTAINING I NTEREST
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YOUR S ITE
Many community sites start out with many interested parties, but fade over
time
o
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IN
Seeing pictures from the 1990s or a calendar of events from 2005 doesn’t speak very
well for the site – or your community!
Some options to sustain interest:
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Rotating “Community Website Board” with positions and specific duties each year
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President – lays out quarterly meetings of board, handles major changes
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Secretary – changes calendar each month
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Membership chair – promotes site within community
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Discuss the site at regularly scheduled meetings (city council, chamber of commerce)
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Engage students in high school each year – have a class project to improve at least 1
section of the site
G ETTING L OCAL PARTICIPATION
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Marketing – make sure people know about the site!
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Presentations at Lion’s Club, senior citizen’s center, religious
organizations – let people know how others are viewing
their community
Cast Deep – get buy-in from as many different groups
as possible
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Getting interest from multiple constituents is essential –
avoid having one person who dominates the discussion
o
A “champion” from several different groups can help
support a variety of views on what should be emphasized
Community Website Board membership should
change on a regular basis
W HAT W E H OPE YOU C AME
AWAY W ITH …
•
An understanding of why website marketing is so
important
•
The importance of non-SEO techniques for website
marketing (especially locally!)
•
Basics of how the major search engines work
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5 techniques for SEO that you can implement in your own
site
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The importance of Google Analytics or other analytic
programs (and how to install them on your website)
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Some options for sustaining the community site after it is
up and running