Making the site

I’m starting to track, in a very low-tech way, how well Helpalot.org shows up when you search for some keywords.

Goede doelen

• Dec 27th 2007: page 21, item 3
• March 30th 2008: page 10, item 2

Goed doel

• Dec 27th 2007: page 28, item 5
• March 30th 2008: page 7, item 10

Charity project

• Dec 27th 2007: I didn’t track it..
• March 30th 2008: page 10, item 3

The growth of the site on these dates
December 27, 2007: 190 users, 81 projects

March 30, 2008: 210 users, 210 users, 97 projects

These figures show Helpalot is still rather small, but it also shows that there is growth.

In theory there is a feedback loop that should help us. The more people find and use Helpalot, the more content we have for Google to index and this increases the chances of people finding relevant information on Helpalot and clicking the search links. This increases the ranking for us on Google, making us more findable. And that’s without making use of external databases or seeking media attention.

The problem is that at the moment we only have a piece of the long tail of charities, and that will be somewhat relevant to some people. It would be better to have a cluster of projects around a theme or location, to make the site highly relevant for some people. That would kick off the feedback loop a bit stronger I suspect. So while all are welcome, we try to focus on getting more projects based in the Netherlands and perhaps it’s also a good idea to focus on projects in a certain category. Any suggestions?

I implemented a new feature of Google Docs; you can create forms using it.

Untill we have created a good feedback form in our own design, I’ve implemented the Google Docs form at our contact page.

Yes, I know I-frames are ugly, but it’s just a test to see if the feedback form has a use like this. If we get a lot of feedback there, we’ll create a form of our own.

Good to know for nonprofits; what do wealthy donors want from Nonprofits?

To bring one thing up; they like to have control over how much e-mail they get. Give them more options than all or no e-mails.
http://nonprofit.about.com/od/onlinefundraising/a/wealthywired.htm

You can search for projects on this new meta-website:

http://mashup.socialactions.com

More information on that project over here:
http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/mashup-social-actions

I am, along with many others, working with Peter from SocialActions to try to improve this tool to make it easier for people to search through the social sites like Helpalot.org.

Some updates on Helpalot:

• Small lay-out changes on the homepage
• The overview and search result pages contain more information and have improved lay-out.