Divide website creators into pairs, or as Head Coach identify appropriate resources for promotion. Develop a strategy to coordinate a system of sending individual email to contact the selected schools and institutions. Always try to ascertain the individual who will be able to be of most assistance, since the email request will be specifically addressed and sent to that person. Do not send to mailing lists. People prefer to receive email addressed to them individually. Indeed, many people delete emails which they received without their name on it. Appropriate methods of dissemination with peers, colleagues and the broader Internet can take the form of a Press Release (example listed later in this article) to Newspapers, Letter of Invitation to organizations and school communities, and Site Recommendation for specific distinctions. Press Releases are important to get the news about your project to newspapers and radio to attract an offline general population. Newsday in Education, USA Today, Internet Minute and Radio Net are excellent starting points. Letters of invitation for participation may be the most effective method of promoting a team's site. The replies received through this method of exchange are often the most rewarding to the team members. Applications for Educational Awards of Merit will yield desired increased exposure. Acceptance by organizations such as GII US, ThinkQuest and CyberAngels are good examples. Listing in Reference Sources and Search Engines will substantially increase numbers of student researchers who can access your resource. Be sure there is a team member to include Meta Tags in the coding of the page to improve the site's visibility in the search engines. Otherwise your listing may never be found. Never spam the search engines. Your listing will more likely be dropped from the search engine with multiple submits. Once you have invested in creating a web site that shares information, activities, projects and products of your team, school district or class, engaging and inviting broad-based multi-sector, multigenerational responses will enrich, inspire and motivate visitors. Site promotion is the next step for developing an ongoing, contagiously captivating web site evolution. May your site be seen by a burgeoning audience. If you build it they will come. Promote so it will live long and prosper . . . like the following press release. |