Understanding How Links Work

At the SEO workshop at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service, there were quite a few questions about how links work and how to get other sites to place the code to link to your site.

Here's a great article that explains how the html link code works.

Driving Volunteers to Your Website Workshop

It's exciting to take the concepts of Search Engine Optimization and Marketing for volunteer recruitment to a larger audience at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service. The presentation for the Driving Volunteers to your Website workshop can be found here.

Great Example of Link Request Email

I was reading an article in SEO Chat, and I came across a well written link request/building email that I wanted to share. Here it is modified for those who want to recruit folks looking for volunteer opportunities online:

“I have created a web site for our Volunteer Center called www.volunteercenter.org, which could be very valuable to your students looking for volunteer opportunities or their graduation requirements. It is a free site with volunteer opportunity listings and information about local nonprofits who need volunteers. If you find time, please visit our site, and consider linking to it from your site, as it would certainly be a resource for your students. Any feedback would be much appreciated! Thanks for your time and have a nice day!”

Most folks starting out requesting links on a new site ask for 100 links per day for 5 days. That's where the tip sheet I created for how to get your volunteers help in building links to your website comes in handy. Use your volunteers to build traffic to your site!

Cleaning Up your Volunteer Email List

We all hate to do it, but it has to be done - updating and cleaning up your volunteer email list. If you're using a provider like Constant Contact, hopefully folks have been opting themselves out of your emails if they aren't interested. If you're mass emailing folks in some other fashion, you'll have to periodically clean up your list.

Where to start!!

First, start with your bouncebacks. If you have a postal email address for those volunteers, send them a postcard asking them if they still want to receive notifications about volunteer opportunities and events with a note to email you with their new address, or give you a call.

Second, if you're using an mass email program, pull a report of the folks on your list who are not opening your email. Most mass email programs charge per email address you're sending to, and you don't want to waste $ on folks who aren't interested in your message.

And finally, go ahead and send your old list an email asking if they would like to continue receiving information from you. You can have them register on 1-800-Volunteer.org, or respond back to you with their new email address.