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Driving Traffic to Your Website For State Level Tax and Budget Organizations

Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

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Page 1: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Driving Traffic to Your Website

For State Level Tax and Budget Organizations

Page 2: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Ways to Drive Traffic Search Engines Social Media Blogs Email Lists

Page 3: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Search Engines: Some Perspective

The Big Three - 90%

The Big One – 60%

Roughly 10B

Page 4: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Search Engines: How do they Work? Index

Spiders

Page RankCheck your pagerank:http://pr.blogflux.com/

Learn more about pagerank: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

SERPs

Page 5: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Traffic from Search: Spotlight on Poverty 1st quarter 2008: 32 visitors from search

engines per day 2nd quarter 2008 (through May): 55 visitors

from search per day Sky is the limit 6,000/day From 0-1,200/day in 9 months

Page 6: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Three StrategiesFor Driving Traffic from Search Engines

Content

Technical Setup

Outreach

Page 7: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Content should be…

Timely

Updated Regularly - Spiders

High Quality – For Humans

Linkbait is Good - Lists, Statistics, Humor 36 Million Americans are Living in Poverty

Page 8: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Content should also…

Include appropriate keywords

Keyword Analyzerhttps://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Poverty vs. Low Income?

Page 9: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Why Analyze Keywords?

Page 10: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Technical

Make sure you don’t have any broken linkshttp://validator.w3.org/checklink

Name pages and images correctly Name internal links appropriately Have as many internal links as possible These are just basics, learn more:

http://www.wordsinarow.com/seo-technical-points.html

Page 11: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Outreach

Generating high-quality incoming links Similar Sites with High Pagerank Web directories Press release syndication services

Page 12: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

High Quality Incoming Links

Sites that rank well for your keywords Wikipedia Poverty.com Census Similar Organizations Other High Traffic Sites

Especially when you choose the hypertext

Page 13: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Web Directories Like the phone book, but there are hundreds of

them… Google Yahoo MSN/Live The Open Directory Project Alexa NetInsert Do an Addurl search on Google

Page 14: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Add Your URL to Google

Page 15: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Press Release Syndication Variety

Purpose

Make sure you always include a link back to your website, preferably to a specific page that is relevant to the release

Page 17: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

I Newswire Press Release Submission

Page 18: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

In Review The most important thing to search engines is the

number and quality of incoming links to your site. Three sources for these are similar websites, link directories and press release syndication services.

People will find your website on search engines by searching for specific keywords and search phrases. Once you have determined which keywords you want to focus on you can optimize specifically for those words both by modifying your content and by making technical changes to your website.

Page 19: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Social Media Social media describes the online technologies and practices that people use to

share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other.

User Generated Content – Little or no editorial control

People no longer rely exclusively on traditional media for their news and information Approaching 50%

Find your audience where they already are, go where they go

Comparison with NYT and WaPo

Even the NY Times is participating Blogrunner 50 Blogs

Page 20: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Blogrunner

Page 21: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Reach of Social Media

Page 22: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Types of Social Media Social News

Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Mixx, Propeller

Social NetworkingFacebook, Myspace, Change, Twitter

Social BookmarkingDelicious, Furl, Simpy, Google Bookmarker

Page 23: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Social News What are Social News sites?

How do they work?

The three best general interest social news sites are Reddit, Digg, and Stumbleupon

For a list of other social news sites that can be of use to nonprofits and foundations, please visit http://thehatchergroup.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/social-media-sites-of-value-to-nonprofits-and-foundations/

Page 24: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Digg.com

Page 25: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Driving Traffic with Social Media

Page 26: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Sources of Traffic – 2 Months

Page 27: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Social Networking

Social Networking refers towebsites where individuals or organizations create aprofile in order to makeconnections, share linksand communicate

Page 28: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Social Networks Change.org

Myspace.com

Facebook.com

Twitter.com

Page 29: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

NonProfit Pages Message “Fans” Fans can “Share” the page Branding Links, Videos, Photos Legitimacy Friends can’t directly invite

Page 30: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

The One Campaign’s Facebook Group – 30,000 Members and Growing

Page 31: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Social Bookmarking Tagging

Searching

It is worthwhile to tag your best content on a variety of social bookmarking sites

Resources, lists, documents, etc.

Large spike in traffic is possible, but unlikely

Mostly useful for attracting people who are very interested and for generating links with keywords of your choice

Page 32: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Social Bookmarking Sites

Tons of them

Onlywire… the only social bookmarking siteyou need

Page 33: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Social Media in Review Social News - Social news refers to websites where users are

able to vote individual content submissions up or down. Anyone can submit content, and anyone can vote.

Social Networking - Social Networking refers to websites where individuals or organizations create a profile in order to make connections, share links and communicate.

Social Bookmarking – Sites where users can bookmark websites, tag them with keywords and search for other sites by keywords. Creates a “folksonomy” in which people, rather than editors, are choosing how content is labeled and discovered.

Page 34: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Blog Outreach Traffic

Survey

90% are voters, 81% have written an elected official and 78% have donated to a campaign or cause online in the last 6 months

More direct connection to readers. Unlike a faceless newspaper columnist, people feel a direct connection to bloggers they read.

For our purposes today, we’ll be talking about things you can do to get bloggers to link to your website and write about your issues.

Page 35: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Successful Blog OutreachA few hours of personal emails to bloggers generated dozens of links to a No Child Left Inside Coalition video.

http://www.treehuggingfamily.com/no-child-left-inside/ http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/environmentandenergy/archive/2008/04/15/best-hill-environmental-rally-ever.aspx http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_outdoors/2008/04/kids-go-outside.html http://www.politickermd.com/editormd/1806/photos-sarbanes-takes-nature-bill-hill http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5157 http://eco-chick.com/2008/04/15/no-child-left-inside/ http://www.eenrblog.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=932 http://northtexaskids.blogspot.com/2008/04/no-child-left-inside-get-em-outside.html http://www.thelohasian.com/2008/04/no-child-left-inside-initiative.html http://www.theseminal.com/2008/04/14/the-need-for-environmental-education/ http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/14/11929/1778/928/495362 http://www.rifuture.org/showDiary.do?diaryId=2377 http://greenerloudoun.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/kids-can-id-corporate-logos-but-not-nature/ http://green4u.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/commentary-environmental-education/ http://www.diversitytv.net/2008/get-em-outside/ http://randomvid.blogsome.com/ http://ummyeah.com/page/Get_em_Outside http://androidsinlove.com/site/?p=912 http://www.cherryflava.com/cherryflava/2008/04/who-knew---kids.html http://wolfman-k.com/post/31775593 http://justinclupper.blogspot.com/2008/04/should-brand-managers-be-so-proud.html http://ideonexus.com/2008/04/15/science-etcetera-marsday-20080415/ http://www.greenrightnow.com/2008/04/16/no-child-left-inside-act-gaining-momentum/

Page 36: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Finding Bloggers in your Subject Area

Technorati.comTracks over 100 million blogs

Authority1 incoming link = 1 authority pointAny site with authority under 50 or so is not

worth reaching out to, unless it is a very specific topic

Page 37: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Technorati Go to http://technorati.com Search for a keyword related to your issue

(e.g. poverty), then click to “blogs” tab Your results page will show: 345 blogs about

poverty These are all bloggers who have self-

identified their site as an poverty blog Be Selective http://blogsearch.google.com is useful as well

Page 38: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Technorati Screenshot

Page 39: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Do these things…

Provide everything they’ll need to blog about your issue.

Two way street

Timely, relevant and interesting

Join the dialogue

Treat them as individuals.

Link to them, especially when they link to you

Learn more: http://thehatchergroup.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/nine-tips-for-reaching-out-to-bloggers/

Page 40: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Blog Outreach in Review Unique and Growing Audience

Great for Search Engines

Use Technorati and Google Blogsearch to Find Appropriate Bloggers

Focus on the Relationship, Not the Link

Page 41: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Email Lists Driving Traffic to your Most Important Content

Timing

Subject Line

Above the Fold

Short

Teaser and Link

Page 42: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Example Email

Page 43: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Growing Your List Beyond the Scope of this Presentation

Design

Viral Campaigns

List Rentals/Purchases

Page 44: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Related Blogs http://defeatpoverty.com/ http://millionsofmouths.com/blog/nfblog/ http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/poverty/ http://psdblog.worldbank.org/ http://edpro-weblog.net/news http://makewealthhistory.org/ http://endpovertyblog.org/ http://grameenfoundation.wordpress.com/ http://www.one.org/blog/ http://thefaceofhunger.stophungernow.org/ http://larryjamesurbandaily.blogspot.com/ http://www.oneweekjob.com/

Page 45: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Related Websites http://spotlightonpovery.org http://www.aarp.org/money/lowincomehelp/ http://www.pubpol.duke.edu/centers/child/ http://www.cbpp.org/ http://www.clasp.org/ http://www.ctrforpovertysolutions.org/ http://www.centeronhunger.org/ http://www.povertyinamerica.psu.edu/ http://povertycenter.cwru.edu/ http://www.epinet.org/

Page 46: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Short Term Things to Do Exchange links with similar websites Analyze your site for keywords Submit your site to search engines and web

directories, using your keywords Start submitting content to social news

websites Start a group or page on Facebook Research relevant bloggers and start

reaching out to them

Page 47: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Longer Term Things to Do Put together an email outreach strategy Develop lasting relationships with bloggers Develop a powerful profile on social news

sites Submit press releases to syndication services Keep generating those high-quality incoming

links

Page 48: Driving Traffic to State Tax/Budget Policy Websites

Learn More:

http://thehatchergroup.wordpress.com

Questions?

Contact Josh Nelson at The Hatcher Group

Phone: 301-656-0644Web: http://thehatchergroup.com

Email: [email protected]