How to promote your Group / Community / Website

Promotion basically means increasing the exposure of your content, so that:

• people know it is there (tell them about it, e.g. via the Invite a Friend feature)

• people can find it when they look
  (e.g. by clicking on the house link on your Group Info page,
  in the Webpages listing; or by using Search Engines)

Note that whilst Search Engines do send out automatic spiders or robots to periodically scour the Web for sites, it is more efficient for you to simply tell them where you are, e.g. Add your URL to Google

Other points to consider re promotion:

• Put your website address (URL) on your business cards, stationery and publications, e.g. newsletters
• Get other sites to link to you, e.g. Add Your Link to Vicnet
• Submit your URL to Search Engines e.g. Add your URL to Google
• Australian Internet magazines such as internet.au and Australian Net Guide often look for new Australian sites to mention to their readers. Include your site among them.
• You can also make announcements on appropriate newsgroups and distribution and discussion lists, both in Australia and internationally.
• Launch your website publicly
• Join a webring of similar sites. Webrings are links to related websites in a chain or list. Webrings help Internet users find sites on the same subject matter. They can be regional or subject-specific.
• Use META tags in the HTML Headers of your webpages

See also:

• Logging directly into mc2 from another Website
• Linking directly to your community at mc2
• Further Resources for Website Builders

Online Marketing - an Overview
No matter how much time you are planning to spend on marketing of your web site, its important to create a simple marketing plan to ensure that you keep a record of your marketing activities, and also as a reminder to consider all the relevant aspects of online marketing. Use this overview as an outline for your marketing plan: Online Marketing - an Overview

But before you promote it, you must ensure you've got something worth promoting! I.e. you must have compelling content - a reason for people to read your Webpage or take an active part in your group.

• Provide as much information about your group and its activities as possible

• Make your group sound interesting! For Members Only groups (the default), this is all potential members will be able to see, before deciding whether to join or not

• Include keywords in your description (that are relevant and specific), so people can find your group when searching. These don't have to be as a list, they can be incorporated into the sentences that form your descriptive text.

• If you can, include META tags in the HTML code of your webpages, with keywords and a description. Search Engines often look for these when compiling their index of sites. Example tags:

  <META Name="description" Content="my connected community (mc2) is an interactive space where online communities are created. Funded by the Victorian Government & coordinated by Vicnet">

  <META Name="keywords" Content="mc2, communities, my, connected, community, my connected community, mmv, multimedia victoria, interactive, community networking, vicnet, victoria, australia, government">

See also:

• META Tag Analyzer
• How to make your group a success
• How to make your group active and successful

How to create a house link on your Group Info page When you Create a Community or Edit your Group Settings, there is a URL of Group Website field where you can enter a link to your Website. If you complete this field, the house link to your site appears on the Group Info page. You can use this feature to promote any URL, regardless of whether you: used the Webpage Generator to create your Group Webpage (this will also generate a house icon in the Webpages listing) created your own Webpage with prior knowledge of HTML (or using an HTML Editor like Dreamweaver), then uploaded the files to your Webspace via the Group Files feature or FTP have an existing Website on another server, e.g. www.your_own_domain_name.com See also: URL of Group Website Creating the little house icon/link for your Homepage

In the mc² Glossary: Webpage Website Webspace HTML FTP Upload URL

See also: More on Search Engines (Glossary Definition) Promote your site on Vicnet Vicnet Search Page Internet Search Tools Add your URL to Google Help with Google Search Search Engine Watch

<<< Return to Information for Website Builders

Site Map | Code of Conduct  |  Privacy Policy  |  Disclaimer  |  Copyright © Vicnet 2000 - 2008
My Connected Community (mc²) is funded by the Victorian Government and coordinated by Vicnet