We have seen in the previous article “It is a Dog Eat Dog Nonprofit World” that the romantic and idealized notion that many of us carry around that the nonprofit world is a better place to be, may be flawed. Instead of cooperation, we encounter competition; instead of collaboration we encounter self-will; and instead of dedication to mission, we find adoption of cut-throat business practices.

There are, however, many ways that a nonprofit can thrive in this environment. It means acknowledging that the resources of philanthropy are a finite amount of money. It entails a commitment to recognize opportunities and develop strategies for turning them into successful projects.

1. Fundraise twelve months a year, not just in November and December.

2. Sponsor fundraisers that can be repeated year after year, and which people look forward to.

3. Disarm your competition by joining with them in joint ventures where you all benefit by creating a better overall charitable climate.

4. Start using some proven techniques from the commercial sector to attract and retain talented personnel.

5. Become actively involved in your professional associations, whether they are fundraising associations, or “trade” associations.

6. Be the leader in initiating a collaborative meeting of the nonprofits in your market area. Host the first meeting at your offices, and get commitments from the attendees to attend regular conferences in the future. Better the devil you know.

7. Join fundraising programs that give your organization a unique offering, and provide a needed service to your constituency.

8. Try thinking more as if you were in the commercial sector competing for people, money, sales, recognition, and providing superior customer service.

9. Upgrade your office equipment to provide the efficiencies that will allow you to save money by making everybody’s job easier.

10. Redo your website to reflect your comfort with technology. Get webhosting here.

11. Hold regular meetings with your community to get their observations about how you are doing, and their suggestions about what other things you could do.

12. Use technology to network. Join online social networks like LinkedIn and Care2.

13. Play fair with your competition, and be direct with them when you think they have not played fair with you.

14. Position your organization to develop and promote your brand.

15. Develop a short term and a long term strategic plan that includes a chapter on how you are going to survive in this new highly competitive environment for nonprofits.

16. Consider partnering with companies in the commercial sector for your mutual benefit.

17. Re-evaluate how you look at activities which might be considered unrelated to your specific mission.

18. Update your accounting program to allow you to monitor projects, programs, employees, and growth.

19. Associate your organization with good outside talent, including accounting and legal.

20. Be alert to situations which would warrant the issuing of a public service announcement for free inclusion in newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and TV.

21. Become known as a good citizen by sponsoring open meetings, adopting a section of road, or providing free services in the schools.

According to the Urban Institute, the ranks of registered nonprofits have swelled from 1.2 million to 1.4 million, up 17 percent in the last five years. Some of those new nonprofits have your organization in their sites. Additionally, with the diminution of funding from the Federal Government, nonprofits have to scramble just to stay even. Some may do so at your expense. That makes it urgent that you look at yourself as existing in a competitive world, and that you make plans to address it.

A domain name is the name which appears as your internet address that links the world to your website. Having your domain name match as closely as possible to your product ensures that you will have many more hits as people search for goods or services related to yours. The Internet is booming with more and more houses connecting every day and more and more businesses going online. Your website needs to be easily found and easily remembered.

The domain name that you will use will normally consist of worlds that are related to your product. In the past these names have been restricted to letters A to Z and numbers 0 to 9. Normally the only other character that has been allowed to be used was the hyphen. This means that non-English speaking users were a little restricted in their dmain name which has led to a wider variety of characters being introduced now. This system is known as the IDN or Internationalized domain name.

Having a website address that links other people and businesses alike easily to your product or service enables you to be found without much difficulty. Often if you are providing something where competition is fierce if you are difficult to locate people will automatically jump to the next option. The value of having a domain name that links to you straight away means that you will normally be the first in the long list of returned hits.

People do not want to remember complex or clever names therefore having your domain name that relates to what you do means that it will be easy to recall when the time arises. Although it is good to have something quirky and different, it is perhaps better to leave this to the content of your website rather than to naming it in this manner. It also shows some professionalism if your name relates to your business.

The importance of having your domain name relate to your product or service can be seen in the price paid for these names by individuals or companies. Sometimes millions of dollars are paid for these addresses as the internet grows and competition becomes fiercer for advertising space. Your choice of website address essentially means that you have greatly increased your hit count for your site as people search the Internet for your product.

Companies that register these website addresses often have search engine type facilities that allow you a quick and convenient way of scanning already registered names in order to find your perfect one. The value of having your own website address opens your business up to the world. Unlike a local newspaper or television advert, the internet allows global advertising so when someone looks for a product online, if yours is relative to what you offer you should be one of the first returned hits.

When you register to have your own domain name you should also be able to get email addresses using these names for everyone in your company. This is further advertising for you and makes it easier for others to remember how to get in touch with you as opposed to remembering which service provider you use instead. It also means that your name is carried with you wherever you go in the world, making relocation easy without having to disrupt your business.

Having a website address that easily relates to your business means that you will be easy to find and easy to remember. It allows you international exposure and the means to expand globally without the expense and inconvenience of having to source advertising outlets around the world. It helps to produce a more professional image for you and for your business.

For a place to go for inexpensive webhosting, go here.

The reason that most people fail online is that they simply can not attract enough traffic to their web site and as we all know, No Traffic = No Sales. So just how can you get more traffic to your web site and how much is it going to cost you? The answer is zero, zilch, nada, nothing, also known as “Free”. So here they are, my Top 10 FREE Traffic Generation Tips:

1. Write and submit articles. Write quality unique new articles, not articles that are rehashed or provide no insight to readers.

2. Write and submit press releases. This is nearly as good as publishing articles.

3. Write and ping blogs. Always link back to your website with your blog posts. Make multiple blogs and have them all link back to one primary site.

4. Make sure that your web site is listed in DMOZ: http://dmoz.org

5. Advertise your web site in the appropriate categories on http://craigslist.org. Post your ads in the largest most populated cities in the world.

6. Use your signature (with your web site URL) in niche related discussion boards and forums that you frequently visit if they allow signatures.

7. Review related products on http://Amazon.com. You can try and direct some customers to your web site from your competitors by providing your own web site URL if the product is similar.

8. Review websites in your niche on http://Alexa.com to try to direct some of their traffic to your web site by including a reference back to your site.

9. Review some related products on http://epinion.com

10. If you buy a product that you actually like, then leave a testimonial (with your web site URL). You should get some traffic from that web site if your testimonial is left with a URL.

These traffic generation tips are provided to you courtesy of John Spohr, M.S.M. of The Wealth Formula.

Also see 18 Ways to Promote Your Business or Website.

If you were to open a convenience store, you would think long and hard about the store’s location. It would not make much sense to open it in a remote area with few customers. When you start a website, every person with online access is a potential customer. Have you ever wondered how many people actually use the Internet? Is it a few hundred thousand, a few million or more?

According to the Internet World Stats website, out of a total 6.5 billion people on the planet, about 1/6-th of them go online. That is a staggering 1 billion people! Obviously those who could potentially access your website is less than that since for example not everyone speaks the same language. If you are developing a website in English then you have access to at least 330 million people considering just North America. Of course there are many more English speaking countries so that number is much larger (<a href=”http://the_english_dept.tripod.com/esc.html”>link.</a>)

In addition, consider that there is still the other 5 billion of the population that does not have online access. Every year more people get access to the Internet as the infrastructure is improving worldwide while the cost of access is decreasing. It might be that growth in North America is slowing down but it is increasing rapidly in less developed countries (<a href=”http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm”>link.</a>)

I hope these numbers help you realize a couple of important points. First, if your website does not get much traffic at first don’t give up. You just haven’t reached all of your potential customers. This brings me to my second point. Marketing is important to success and I hope that you now understand why. In a later article, I will discuss how to properly market your website in order to drive traffic to it. For the time being just take some time to comprehend what a vast economy the Internet really is and the opportunities that exist therein.

Following are five ways that can help increase your rankings in the search engines and gain much needed exposure.

These are exceptional tools when used right. It can be used with great success when dealing with MLM, affiliate marketing and home based business opportunities. One of the best ways to use traffic exchanges is to create your own separate landing page for the product or opportunity you’re promoting. Always try to stand out from the crowd by using something other than what all the other affiliates are using. You can build your own landing pages for free on several websites.  Then by simply enticing other surfers with some free information and using an autoresponder to capture their name and email address you can quickly build your own opt-in list of interested prospects. Getresponse.com is a good option, and has a paid and free option.

While this may seem time consuming, it really doesn’t have to be. There are hundreds of article directories floating around with articles written by experts in almost every field. Infogoround is a very good one. Simply use them within the guidelines prescribed by the directory and author, add a few lines from yourself as an introduction and throw in an ad and you’ve got yourself a newsletter.

Write and Submit Your Own Articles

As the previous point shows, there are many hundreds of article directories out there and literally thousands of web sites, ezines and newsletter publishers looking for new and unique content every day. In Isnare.com you can submit 5 articles to thousands of directories for $10.

By writing your own articles and including a link back to your site you’re not only branding yourself as an expert but also creating valuable back links to your site. This is a huge factor when it comes to search engine rankings which bring the best free traffic.

By joining online forums you can also gain back links to your site by posting comments and using a sig file with your links in it.

Beware though that most forums frown on blatant advertising. You have to attempt to add something of worth with your posts or you may get banned. Adlandpro is one of the best online communities to promote your business.

This may actually be the most difficult tactic. You must find sites that are in the same niche as yours but not necessarily in direct competition.

You also have to find sites that already have a good ranking in the search engines for this to be effective.

Always approach any site owner with grace and dignity. Be tactful and courteous. Remember, you attract more flies with honey than vinegar.

Use all five of these tactics on a regular basis and you’ll surely see a climb in traffic and search engine ranking.