Don't squander your audience
[November 2007] If you have something to say, make sure you say it on your own website. If you don't publish your own news you risk losing visitors, audience, readers, and potential sponsors, funders, volunteers and clients.
Over recent months I've been doing a lot of research about community groups. I've been looking for interesting projects and initiatives that make use of Internet technology.
Time and again I find a reference to something a group has done, only to discover they don't mention it on their website.
If I search around more I may find it mentioned on news websites, on partner websites, or in passing on some random other website.
I end up frustrated. If I write about the interesting item on the Groupings blog, I probably link only to the website where I found the information. Sometimes, because good information just isn't available, I don't write about the initiative at all.
If your organisation has a website, then make sure it has a News page, and keep that page right up to date. Don't *remove* News when it grows a little old, but archive it so visitors can still find out what you've been doing.
For best results include a blog on your website. Blogging tools such as WordPress make it very simple to add news items and have them picked up by search engines and aggregators.
Interested parties can easily follow your activities, through a blog's RSS feed.
Blogging software automatically archives older material, keeping it available for researchers and curious members of the public.
If you don't publish your own news on your own website you're throwing away a valuable opportunity.
Don't be late to the party either. Bloggers in particular capture information very quickly once it appears, and publish it to their own blogs. If you don't publish your news for several days after it first appears elsewhere then you've missed your best opportunity to make the most of the publicity. Horse bolted. Stable door shut.
Websites endure; links endure. Your 'front page' news of October turns into 'archived' news of 2007. If someone links to your item at http://www.example.com/news and then the item moves to http://www.example.com/news/2007/10 you lose your readers, your potential friends and your allies.
Blogs have the advantage of giving each item its own permanent URL, known as a permalink.
If your organisation is active it has news.
If your organisation has news, publish it! Promptly!
If you've published news, give it a permalink and archive it!
Website tips contributed by Miraz Jordan, http://mactips.info/