I've recently set up a discussion board on my website which I want to promote to teachers and other educators, specifically those in Virginia. Essentially, the K-12 education boards I've found are horrible in both content and structure, so I'm hoping this would be a bit better. My question, however, is what are some possible methods of promoting it? It has sections pertaining to each subject area, educational issues, and continuing education. Essentially, I want to expand upon this discussion board and create an entire site to benefit the state's educators. Unfortunately, all this will be wasted if no one goes there. I'm open to suggestions! Thanks, Matt
If you have a state teacher's union or education association, that would be a good place to start. A mention in the newspaper/newsletter would generate some traffic, then word of mouth (or keyboard) could take over.
I've been using Google AdWords to promote the website of my circle dance (folk dancing in a circle) group. I find it a fascinating process, and suspect it could work for you. 1. Write a 70-character (maximum) description of the site. 2. Choose any number of search terms (one to hundreds; 20-or-so is suggested). 3. Choose a geographical area (or nationwide). 4. Choose an amount you're willing to spend per month. Can be as low as $5. Google runs your ad (the 2 lines + the URL) some of the time alongside the searches when people search for any of your terms. If people don't click on your URL link, there is no charge. If they do, you pay something, which is dependent on your budget and your competition. As little as a few pennies, as much as a dollar (or more). You can get comprehensive daily reports on the number of searches made for each search term, and the number of click throughs for each. And you can adjust your search terms accordingly. If "Virginia education" is getting a lot of searches but few click-throughs, you can remove it. If "Virginia K-12" is getting very few searches, but a high percentage of click-throughs, you try to come up with other comparable terms. I've fine-tuned my dance AdWords to where it is getting about 1,000 search hits a week (had been as high as 20,000 with other, less-specific search terms) -- just in my geographical area -- and a couple of dozen click-throughs . . . and, bottom line, 2 or 3 new people in our group every month . . . and that's well worth $20 to us. Of course it's no sure thing. A friend who published an R. Crumb cookbook tried it. "R. Crumb" gets over 100,000 searches a week, and "magic brownies" double that . . . but these people don't buy cookbooks . . . so he spent about $200 and gave up. John Bear www.circledancing.com
