Joyce has identified some key problems in our organization and is really trying to do something about it. I applaud her efforts. My suggestion is to focus only on two, or at most, three of the most pressing problems. I believe that promoting ALHN and obtaining volunteers are the most important issues in my opinion. I will only address myself to the issue of marketing ALHN in this email. I do have some ideas about how to recruit volunteers but I will comment on that in a week or so. Quoting Joyce: “*After 12 years of existence I still have people tell me that they've never heard of ALHN. ALHN has done a very poor job of getting it's name to mainstream genealogy researchers.”* To market ALHN we have to understand what our business is before we can market it. And, make no mistake about it; we are a company. Perhaps this is self evident to all of you but let’s go through the exercise anyhow. Our organization - We are virtual company. There are no bricks and mortar stores to promote our product – we exist only in an online world. We have a board of directors, a mission statement, and an unpaid work force. Our customers - are people who are interested in finding information about their ancestors and the times and places in which they lived. Our product - is historical information and/or how to obtain it. Our competitors - are companies that are very sophisticated and provide much of this same information. Why talk about competitors? Because if you don’t show up on the first two pages of a search on Google or other search engines your product will never be found. I could go on with this analogy but I’ll jump to the crucial point. The principal means we have of attracting people to our product is with our websites. I have done some analysis of the source code of some of the ALHN websites and from what I see there are a number of technical problems that are preventing us from competing effectively and getting our brand known. Those sites that I randomly selected from our network had poor keywords or in a number of cases no keywords at all. Some had the incorrect doctype and others had no doctype at all. Not having a doctype will prevent a page from validating. Validated HTML is important for search engine indexing. If our sites don’t get indexed properly by Google, Bing, etc. they don’t get found at all! Do a test for yourself. Open Google and type in the words “genealogy” and the name of your state or county in the search box. When the results appear go down the list one by one until you find your state website. Did you find it? Was it on the first two pages? All of those sites that you saw before you found your site are your competitors. If you didn’t find your website on the first two pages or even the 3rd or 4th pages, people will never know you exist unless they enter an extremely targeted search. Now, once a customer has found your site, do we have products that will interest them. What can we offer that our competitors don’t offer. Examine your competitors information. What can you offer that they don’t. Unless you have interesting and unique information customers won’t hang around. A year or two ago, I made a suggestion of developing a template for website construction that could be given to new volunteers who were not very computer literate. My idea was wildly misinterpreted by a few people and the criticism was so harsh that I gave up on even pursuing it. However, I can see by examining those randomly selected websites that I mentioned that there is a need for at least a review of website header information if we will ever hope to get people to learn about our organization. I might add that there is a need to have this clean meta tag information in the head of every web page on your site, not just the home page. The second point I want to make is that there is a real science in creating effective keywords that can in some instances differentiate your site from others. But, at a minimum there should be some keywords on every page. I would be happy to examine your website for clean html coding as my time allows. If you would prefer to do it yourself there are plenty of resources on the web. But in my opinion this issue is the single greatest problem we have in getting our brand known. Paul On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 9:08 PM, Joyce Gaston Reece <bjreece@bellsouth.net>wrote: > One of the agenda items for the current meeting is discussing how to get > more volunteers. Barbara Hutchinson has been appointed volunteer committee > chairperson. The focus of this group is to act as a buffer to recruit more > volunteers and to help them with getting web space, answering questions and > offering advice and ideas. As a matter of fact it comes up on the agenda > for tomorrow morning. Colleen, if you would like to volunteer for this > committee your input and help would be very appreciated. > > On the agenda following this item is 'marketing alhn'. After 12 years of > existence I still have people tell me that they've never heard of ALHN. > ALHN has done a very poor job of getting it's name to mainstream genealogy > researchers. Everyone should know about it. So just how we achieve this > is the subject of this discussion. IMO, one thing we really have to do is > to get volunteers to 'CARE' again. Some of us are complacent and haven't > updated our sites in years. When I've been to a site and thoroughly > researched it I have no reason to return if nothing new is ever posted. We > are the American Local History Network. Our goal is to get historical and > genealogical data to the public. It doesn't take a lot of effort to update > a site and add new data every couple of months. > > > > Joyce Gaston Reece,President > American Local History Network > www.alhn.org > -----Original Message----- > From: Colleen > Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 1:27 PM > To: alhn-general@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [ALHN-GENERAL] thoughts on clusters > > Hi Darlene, > > You wrote: "I'm not sure if this would work because we don't have > volunteers > to do 1 county in a lot of states much less a volunteer for a cluster of > counties. I think ALHN needs more work and more volunteers for this to be a > viable option for us." > > Although it's going against what I wrote in my first message, working from > the top down IS a good idea because empty states get filled with fewer > volunteers and data gets added more quickly. Hence, Joyce's idea is a good > one. > > However, and here is where I jump the fence, I agree with you because ALHN > does need more volunteers. But where is one to find them? I've looked > through most of the project's states and see that there just aren't that > many volunteers. > > So, what needs to happen? In my opinion, top down should most, if not all, > the states adopted. Working a state isn't much different than working a > single county, believe it or not. > > I guess what I'm really saying is use what you have (volunteers) and spread > them out to an effective use, work the states and THEN go after volunteers > again by publicizing. > > Colleen > > > > -----Original Message----- > >From: Darlene Anderson <darlene-anderson@hughes.net> > >Sent: Nov 8, 2013 8:31 AM > >To: alhn-general@rootsweb.com > >Subject: Re: [ALHN-GENERAL] thoughts on clusters > > > >Hi Colleen, > > > >Would you please clarify for me what you believe my opinion is? I just > want > >to be sure we're on the same page with the cluster idea so that there are > >not any misconceptions about what I said. Thanks! > > > >Make it a Great Genealogy Day! > > > >Darlene Anderson, Vice-President > >American Local History Network > >http://www.alhn.org/ > >State Coordinator for South Carolina-ALHN > >And Kentucky-ALHN! > > > > > >-----Original Message----- > >From: alhn-general-bounces@rootsweb.com > >[mailto:alhn-general-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Joyce Gaston > Reece > >Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 10:05 AM > >To: ALHN-GENERAL > >Subject: [ALHN-GENERAL] thoughts on clusters > > > >I see where Joyce and Darlene are headed with her opinions. > > > >A project I once belonged to had a problem enlisting volunteers and > decided > >to work from the top down -- volunteers will adopt entire states as > opposed > >to individual counties, in an effort to get all the states adopted. > >Definitely that's a cluster idea. That idea, however, didn't work. > > > >I gave up long ago trying to get volunteers to work on Alaska. Though I > >still have borough/census area pages up, I decided to forego volunteers > and > >do the work myself. It isn't for everyone, but when you talk about > >clustering... in my lowly opinion, working the state overall is simpler > >than working individual counties. I'm not alone in my belief here as > there > >is another state whose manager declares names in the million and has done > >the work alone. > > > >So, it's six of one / half dozen of another. > > > >I will add one thing -- as successful as ALHN is, I believe ALHN is sort > >of on the fringe of that other, well-established project. The only way to > >defeat 'that other project' is to out-do them, pure and simple. Build > ALHN > >so much that the traffic comes this way and not the other -- it's > uploading > >fresher data and out-trafficking the peer project. > > > >I had a point to make here and in this missive somewhere; I hope I made > it. > > > >Colleen > > > > > >-----Original Message----- > >>From: Darlene Anderson <darlene-anderson@hughes.net> > >>Sent: Nov 7, 2013 3:58 PM > >>To: alhn-board@rootsweb.com > >>Subject: Re: [ALHN-BOARD] thought > >> > >>I'm not sure if this would work because we don't have volunteers to do 1 > >>county in a lot of states much less a volunteer for a cluster of > counties. > >>I think ALHN needs more work and more volunteers for this to be a viable > >>option for us. Maybe if enough folks see that ALHN is changing we can > >>increase the county site volunteers. This is my hope anyway. And from > >>these volunteers, we can encourage them to take on more than 1 county to > >>create the cluster. For example, in Middle Tennessee, I volunteered for > >>Hickman and Maury and I could volunteer for Williamson and Dickson (not > >>volunteering yet though) and this would be a cluster. > >> > >>I don't know that we need an additional person to manage the cluster. > >>Maybe what we need to do first is write an article for the county cluster > >>project explaining what it is. Have a county coordinator maintain the web > >>sites and then ask for volunteers to help with transcribing documents, > >>taking photographs, and so on. Maybe a county transcriber, county indexer > >>(there are tons of books not indexed). We could pick up folks to > volunteer > >>for something other than doing web sites. > >> > >>Joyce, I think the idea might work. Just needs planning, ideas and so on. > >>My 2 cents worth. > >> > >>Make it a Great Genealogy Day! > >>Darlene Anderson, Vice-President > >>American Local History Network > >>http://www.alhn.org/ > >>State Coordinator for South Carolina-ALHN And Kentucky-ALHN! > >> > >> > >>-----Original Message----- > >>From: alhn-board-bounces@rootsweb.com > >>[mailto:alhn-board-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Joyce Gaston Reece > >>Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 5:16 PM > >>To: ALHN-BOARD R/W > >>Subject: [ALHN-BOARD] thought > >> > >>I ve been bouncing around a thought for awhile and thought to see what > >>you all thought. > >> > >>Rather than confine our state coordinators to seeking county sites we > >>offer regional sites. That may or may not work for all state > >>coordinators. But I know that here in southeast Tennessee it is a huge > >>mistake to confine research to one county. IE, we have one community now > >>in McMinn that was in three other counties first. The families in the > >>area show in records for all 4 counties. Early county lines in east TN > >>were constantly changing. We could offer clusters of counties???? Or at > >>least plant the idea as an option?? > >> > >> > >>Joyce Gaston Reece,President > >>American Local History Network > >>www.alhn.org > >> > >Joyce Gaston Reece,President > >American Local History Network > >www.alhn.org > > > >------------------------------- > >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > >ALHN-GENERAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > >quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > > > > > >------------------------------- > >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > >ALHN-GENERAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > >quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ALHN-GENERAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ALHN-GENERAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Paul, Thank you very much for these comments and we WILL take your suggestions into consideration during our discussions on this subject. Joyce Gaston Reece,President American Local History Network www.alhn.org -----Original Message----- From: Paul Puente Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 6:10 AM To: alhn-general@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [ALHN-GENERAL] thoughts on clusters Joyce has identified some key problems in our organization and is really trying to do something about it. I applaud her efforts. My suggestion is to focus only on two, or at most, three of the most pressing problems. I believe that promoting ALHN and obtaining volunteers are the most important issues in my opinion. I will only address myself to the issue of marketing ALHN in this email. I do have some ideas about how to recruit volunteers but I will comment on that in a week or so. Quoting Joyce: “*After 12 years of existence I still have people tell me that they've never heard of ALHN. ALHN has done a very poor job of getting it's name to mainstream genealogy researchers.”* To market ALHN we have to understand what our business is before we can market it. And, make no mistake about it; we are a company. Perhaps this is self evident to all of you but let’s go through the exercise anyhow. Our organization - We are virtual company. There are no bricks and mortar stores to promote our product – we exist only in an online world. We have a board of directors, a mission statement, and an unpaid work force. Our customers - are people who are interested in finding information about their ancestors and the times and places in which they lived. Our product - is historical information and/or how to obtain it. Our competitors - are companies that are very sophisticated and provide much of this same information. Why talk about competitors? Because if you don’t show up on the first two pages of a search on Google or other search engines your product will never be found. I could go on with this analogy but I’ll jump to the crucial point. The principal means we have of attracting people to our product is with our websites. I have done some analysis of the source code of some of the ALHN websites and from what I see there are a number of technical problems that are preventing us from competing effectively and getting our brand known. Those sites that I randomly selected from our network had poor keywords or in a number of cases no keywords at all. Some had the incorrect doctype and others had no doctype at all. Not having a doctype will prevent a page from validating. Validated HTML is important for search engine indexing. If our sites don’t get indexed properly by Google, Bing, etc. they don’t get found at all! Do a test for yourself. Open Google and type in the words “genealogy” and the name of your state or county in the search box. When the results appear go down the list one by one until you find your state website. Did you find it? Was it on the first two pages? All of those sites that you saw before you found your site are your competitors. If you didn’t find your website on the first two pages or even the 3rd or 4th pages, people will never know you exist unless they enter an extremely targeted search. Now, once a customer has found your site, do we have products that will interest them. What can we offer that our competitors don’t offer. Examine your competitors information. What can you offer that they don’t. Unless you have interesting and unique information customers won’t hang around. A year or two ago, I made a suggestion of developing a template for website construction that could be given to new volunteers who were not very computer literate. My idea was wildly misinterpreted by a few people and the criticism was so harsh that I gave up on even pursuing it. However, I can see by examining those randomly selected websites that I mentioned that there is a need for at least a review of website header information if we will ever hope to get people to learn about our organization. I might add that there is a need to have this clean meta tag information in the head of every web page on your site, not just the home page. The second point I want to make is that there is a real science in creating effective keywords that can in some instances differentiate your site from others. But, at a minimum there should be some keywords on every page. I would be happy to examine your website for clean html coding as my time allows. If you would prefer to do it yourself there are plenty of resources on the web. But in my opinion this issue is the single greatest problem we have in getting our brand known. Paul On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 9:08 PM, Joyce Gaston Reece <bjreece@bellsouth.net>wrote: > One of the agenda items for the current meeting is discussing how to get > more volunteers. Barbara Hutchinson has been appointed volunteer > committee > chairperson. The focus of this group is to act as a buffer to recruit > more > volunteers and to help them with getting web space, answering questions > and > offering advice and ideas. As a matter of fact it comes up on the agenda > for tomorrow morning. Colleen, if you would like to volunteer for this > committee your input and help would be very appreciated. > > On the agenda following this item is 'marketing alhn'. After 12 years of > existence I still have people tell me that they've never heard of ALHN. > ALHN has done a very poor job of getting it's name to mainstream genealogy > researchers. Everyone should know about it. So just how we achieve > this > is the subject of this discussion. IMO, one thing we really have to do is > to get volunteers to 'CARE' again. Some of us are complacent and haven't > updated our sites in years. When I've been to a site and thoroughly > researched it I have no reason to return if nothing new is ever posted. > We > are the American Local History Network. Our goal is to get historical and > genealogical data to the public. It doesn't take a lot of effort to > update > a site and add new data every couple of months. > > > > Joyce Gaston Reece,President > American Local History Network > www.alhn.org > -----Original Message----- > From: Colleen > Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 1:27 PM > To: alhn-general@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [ALHN-GENERAL] thoughts on clusters > > Hi Darlene, > > You wrote: "I'm not sure if this would work because we don't have > volunteers > to do 1 county in a lot of states much less a volunteer for a cluster of > counties. I think ALHN needs more work and more volunteers for this to be > a > viable option for us." > > Although it's going against what I wrote in my first message, working from > the top down IS a good idea because empty states get filled with fewer > volunteers and data gets added more quickly. Hence, Joyce's idea is a > good > one. > > However, and here is where I jump the fence, I agree with you because ALHN > does need more volunteers. But where is one to find them? I've looked > through most of the project's states and see that there just aren't that > many volunteers. > > So, what needs to happen? In my opinion, top down should most, if not > all, > the states adopted. Working a state isn't much different than working a > single county, believe it or not. > > I guess what I'm really saying is use what you have (volunteers) and > spread > them out to an effective use, work the states and THEN go after volunteers > again by publicizing. > > Colleen > > > > -----Original Message----- > >From: Darlene Anderson <darlene-anderson@hughes.net> > >Sent: Nov 8, 2013 8:31 AM > >To: alhn-general@rootsweb.com > >Subject: Re: [ALHN-GENERAL] thoughts on clusters > > > >Hi Colleen, > > > >Would you please clarify for me what you believe my opinion is? I just > want > >to be sure we're on the same page with the cluster idea so that there are > >not any misconceptions about what I said. Thanks! > > > >Make it a Great Genealogy Day! > > > >Darlene Anderson, Vice-President > >American Local History Network > >http://www.alhn.org/ > >State Coordinator for South Carolina-ALHN > >And Kentucky-ALHN! > > > > > >-----Original Message----- > >From: alhn-general-bounces@rootsweb.com > >[mailto:alhn-general-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Joyce Gaston > Reece > >Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 10:05 AM > >To: ALHN-GENERAL > >Subject: [ALHN-GENERAL] thoughts on clusters > > > >I see where Joyce and Darlene are headed with her opinions. > > > >A project I once belonged to had a problem enlisting volunteers and > decided > >to work from the top down -- volunteers will adopt entire states as > opposed > >to individual counties, in an effort to get all the states adopted. > >Definitely that's a cluster idea. That idea, however, didn't work. > > > >I gave up long ago trying to get volunteers to work on Alaska. Though I > >still have borough/census area pages up, I decided to forego volunteers > and > >do the work myself. It isn't for everyone, but when you talk about > >clustering... in my lowly opinion, working the state overall is simpler > >than working individual counties. I'm not alone in my belief here as > there > >is another state whose manager declares names in the million and has done > >the work alone. > > > >So, it's six of one / half dozen of another. > > > >I will add one thing -- as successful as ALHN is, I believe ALHN is sort > >of on the fringe of that other, well-established project. The only way > >to > >defeat 'that other project' is to out-do them, pure and simple. Build > ALHN > >so much that the traffic comes this way and not the other -- it's > uploading > >fresher data and out-trafficking the peer project. > > > >I had a point to make here and in this missive somewhere; I hope I made > it. > > > >Colleen > > > > > >-----Original Message----- > >>From: Darlene Anderson <darlene-anderson@hughes.net> > >>Sent: Nov 7, 2013 3:58 PM > >>To: alhn-board@rootsweb.com > >>Subject: Re: [ALHN-BOARD] thought > >> > >>I'm not sure if this would work because we don't have volunteers to do 1 > >>county in a lot of states much less a volunteer for a cluster of > counties. > >>I think ALHN needs more work and more volunteers for this to be a viable > >>option for us. Maybe if enough folks see that ALHN is changing we can > >>increase the county site volunteers. This is my hope anyway. And from > >>these volunteers, we can encourage them to take on more than 1 county to > >>create the cluster. For example, in Middle Tennessee, I volunteered for > >>Hickman and Maury and I could volunteer for Williamson and Dickson (not > >>volunteering yet though) and this would be a cluster. > >> > >>I don't know that we need an additional person to manage the cluster. > >>Maybe what we need to do first is write an article for the county > >>cluster > >>project explaining what it is. Have a county coordinator maintain the > >>web > >>sites and then ask for volunteers to help with transcribing documents, > >>taking photographs, and so on. Maybe a county transcriber, county > >>indexer > >>(there are tons of books not indexed). We could pick up folks to > volunteer > >>for something other than doing web sites. > >> > >>Joyce, I think the idea might work. Just needs planning, ideas and so > >>on. > >>My 2 cents worth. > >> > >>Make it a Great Genealogy Day! > >>Darlene Anderson, Vice-President > >>American Local History Network > >>http://www.alhn.org/ > >>State Coordinator for South Carolina-ALHN And Kentucky-ALHN! > >> > >> > >>-----Original Message----- > >>From: alhn-board-bounces@rootsweb.com > >>[mailto:alhn-board-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Joyce Gaston Reece > >>Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 5:16 PM > >>To: ALHN-BOARD R/W > >>Subject: [ALHN-BOARD] thought > >> > >>I ve been bouncing around a thought for awhile and thought to see what > >>you all thought. > >> > >>Rather than confine our state coordinators to seeking county sites we > >>offer regional sites. That may or may not work for all state > >>coordinators. But I know that here in southeast Tennessee it is a huge > >>mistake to confine research to one county. IE, we have one community > >>now > >>in McMinn that was in three other counties first. The families in the > >>area show in records for all 4 counties. Early county lines in east TN > >>were constantly changing. We could offer clusters of counties???? Or > >>at > >>least plant the idea as an option?? > >> > >> > >>Joyce Gaston Reece,President > >>American Local History Network > >>www.alhn.org > >> > >Joyce Gaston Reece,President > >American Local History Network > >www.alhn.org > > > >------------------------------- > >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > >ALHN-GENERAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > >quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > > > > > >------------------------------- > >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > >ALHN-GENERAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > >quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ALHN-GENERAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ALHN-GENERAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ALHN-GENERAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message