greyhatdude
Regular Member
- Sep 13, 2008
- 377
- 257
heifer.org
...is what you might call the market leader of our "niche". It is a massive nonprofit organization that spends over $20m a year on marketing including the publishing of a monthly magazine. The original title to this post was going to be "How would you clone this site" but now, after doing some writng for this post, I've changed my mind and I'm leaning more towards gradually but completely cloning their entire marketing campaign. Damn, I think I need to buy a full version of Traffic Travis or Market Samurai... and write it off, too. WAIT. I wonder if I can get software donated to us. Guess I have to crank out a few emails and flat out ask.
SEO and Analytics
To begin with, the nonprofit I'm volunteering with has an old website that they built using Frontpage, and they rank #1 for several lucrative search terms but they have no idea how they do it. They also have not done a press release or had any media coverage in years, yet they receive more than enough donatons to keep them afloat. I'm starting to compile a list of local reporters via twitter, and will have to go out and buy newspapers this week to figure out which reporters to focus my attention on. I'm installing google analytics on the site tonight and will watch it for a month before I make any changes regarding SEO, but I think that cloning heifers marketing campaign and backlinks would be a good boost for them.
Multimedia
We're also starting a youtube series and might reach out to the flickr community by arranging photo walks through local farms and communities. We hope to eventually give a DVD compilation of the images and video to our biggest donors. It will take a solid year to create this product since it will basically be a documentary. I have a friend who recently shot a documentary in Africa and think he might be interested in building his portfolio. Also have a relative in film school who might be interested in shooting a short one immediately. If he's not interested then I'll reach out to local students. Hmmm....
CMS
I think heifer.org was built from scratch and does not run on a CMS. Can anyone verify this? I've already ported the content of this nonprofits site to a live Wordpress subdomain on my own site, so the directors of the nonprofit can see the site as I work on it. I am modifying a free WP theme since I am most familiar with Wordpress. I'm installing plugins that will integrate it with Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. I'm used to using All-In-One SEO so I am using that SEO plugin. Statpress and security plugins, too. I need a solid Form plugin, we're running with Mailchimp due to its abundance of plugins and tutorials, and I would like to install a catalog similar to the one found on heifer.org/site/lookup.asp?c=edJRKQNiFiG&b=204586 but I have never been happy with any of the shopping cart plugins I've worked with. I can't remember which ones of the top of my head, so I'll post a follow up regarding that, but I'd like to know if anyone thinks there is a (preferably free) shopping cart plugin that replicates that catalogs functionality? I'll look into it myself but figured that posting here was the best way to get an answer quickly.
I am responsible for absolutely everything to do with the website and social media marketing except for the actual written content, and I have free reign but no budget whatsoever.
Any ongoing advice, suggestions and/or debate would be appreciated, on all aspects of this, that's why I posted in the lounge.
...is what you might call the market leader of our "niche". It is a massive nonprofit organization that spends over $20m a year on marketing including the publishing of a monthly magazine. The original title to this post was going to be "How would you clone this site" but now, after doing some writng for this post, I've changed my mind and I'm leaning more towards gradually but completely cloning their entire marketing campaign. Damn, I think I need to buy a full version of Traffic Travis or Market Samurai... and write it off, too. WAIT. I wonder if I can get software donated to us. Guess I have to crank out a few emails and flat out ask.
SEO and Analytics
To begin with, the nonprofit I'm volunteering with has an old website that they built using Frontpage, and they rank #1 for several lucrative search terms but they have no idea how they do it. They also have not done a press release or had any media coverage in years, yet they receive more than enough donatons to keep them afloat. I'm starting to compile a list of local reporters via twitter, and will have to go out and buy newspapers this week to figure out which reporters to focus my attention on. I'm installing google analytics on the site tonight and will watch it for a month before I make any changes regarding SEO, but I think that cloning heifers marketing campaign and backlinks would be a good boost for them.
Multimedia
We're also starting a youtube series and might reach out to the flickr community by arranging photo walks through local farms and communities. We hope to eventually give a DVD compilation of the images and video to our biggest donors. It will take a solid year to create this product since it will basically be a documentary. I have a friend who recently shot a documentary in Africa and think he might be interested in building his portfolio. Also have a relative in film school who might be interested in shooting a short one immediately. If he's not interested then I'll reach out to local students. Hmmm....
CMS
I think heifer.org was built from scratch and does not run on a CMS. Can anyone verify this? I've already ported the content of this nonprofits site to a live Wordpress subdomain on my own site, so the directors of the nonprofit can see the site as I work on it. I am modifying a free WP theme since I am most familiar with Wordpress. I'm installing plugins that will integrate it with Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. I'm used to using All-In-One SEO so I am using that SEO plugin. Statpress and security plugins, too. I need a solid Form plugin, we're running with Mailchimp due to its abundance of plugins and tutorials, and I would like to install a catalog similar to the one found on heifer.org/site/lookup.asp?c=edJRKQNiFiG&b=204586 but I have never been happy with any of the shopping cart plugins I've worked with. I can't remember which ones of the top of my head, so I'll post a follow up regarding that, but I'd like to know if anyone thinks there is a (preferably free) shopping cart plugin that replicates that catalogs functionality? I'll look into it myself but figured that posting here was the best way to get an answer quickly.
I am responsible for absolutely everything to do with the website and social media marketing except for the actual written content, and I have free reign but no budget whatsoever.
Any ongoing advice, suggestions and/or debate would be appreciated, on all aspects of this, that's why I posted in the lounge.
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