One of the questions we're most frequently asked is "How do I get more traffic to my website?" You've posted your content, you've told all your friends, and yet you are still seeing fewer visitors than you'd like. What can you do?

The answer is going to vary a bit for each website (different audiences, different goals, different content), but here are some ideas:

• Write original, well-researched content. This is probably the most important point to remember. As an environmental non-profit, you are an expert on a least one issue, so put your best foot forward and get your valuable information online. Read about Change.Org's Content Strategy here.
  
• Reach out to other organizations. Ask them to link to pages on your site. Comment on their blog articles where you can often include links back to your own website. This also gives you the chance to spread your knowledge about the topics you know about
  
• Remember Search Engine Optimization, or SEO as it's often called. There are a number of techniques you can employ to make your content more findable by search engines
  
• Send Email to Your Members. This includes both email newsletters, and email action alerts (donation asks, advocacy, event announcements). You can use email to drive traffic to your website by linking frequently to pages on your website
  
• Embrace Web Analytics. You probably already have Google Analytics installed on your site, but if not, it’s a really good idea. In the world of web analytics, you can start to analyze which parts of your site get more traffic than others and begin to make decisions about how to present your content in different ways. It definitely takes some time to learn, but the best place to start is to start tracking some basic metrics to establish baseline data
  
  

If you have already incorporated these ideas and still are not seeing results or you are curious about what else you can be doing, you will need to fully evaluate your online communications goals. It might be time for a website redesign, content re-writing, and/or a marketing or outreach campaign. In support of these activities, ONE/Northwest offers Strategy Consulting services to groups wanting to expand their base or engage their members in new ways.

Relationships Matter

It's also good to remember that quality is important too. Don't just chase higher and higher numbers, spend some time and cultivate meaningful relationships with your current site visitors and organization members. If you're a locally focused group working on a single issue (friends of the neighborhood creek for example), then you can't expect large numbers of site visitors, but those visitors are likely to be local and interested in your issue. If you're working to become the next big national movement, then obviously strength will come in numbers (although you can cultivate meaningful relationships as well).