Multiple sites offer multiple benefits:
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Focused communication.
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Audience-appropriate language, look-and-feel and functionality.
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Clearly articulated call to action.
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Increased visibility from search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN).
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Ability to showcase content expertise.
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Easier development of Web 2.0 interactions.
Best Practices: Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH)
The ASPH main website, www.asph.org, is geared toward its 40 member schools. As a resource for its member schools, ASPH aims to advance professional and graduate education, research, and service in public health. To that end, ASPH needs to reach prospective students on the path to public health careers. It used multiple sites to target its messages:
To raise awareness among the public, potential students, and academic advisers, ASPH developed www.WhatIsPublicHealth.org. The site was designed to engage each visitor and to disseminate information quickly and clearly: What is public health? How does it impact on our lives? What careers are available? The site ranks #1 on Google searches for “What is public health?” as well as “public health careers” and “careers in public health."
Designed to engage students of public health directly, www.ThisIsPublicHealth.org showcases the impact of public health in our daily lives. Students created real-life examples, which were uploaded to Flikr and YouTube. A sticker campaign helped develop rich and deep content. Easy-to-follow instructions lead visitors to “Join the Campaign."
To help interested students, parents, or guidance counselors navigate public health career paths, www.PathwaystoPublicHealth.org includes real-world student case studies, curricula, a resource clearinghouse, and career information. The site also encourages visitors to submit resources for inclusion in the clearinghouse, polls, and statistics.
Optimizing a multiple-site strategy
For best results, each of the sites link to the others. In the case of ASPH, a potential student can follow connected content based on his/her interests. The four sites also position ASPH as the “go-to” resource for understanding the public health career path. Finally, the focused content on each site supports search engine optimization results that bring targeted audiences to the ASPH sites via Google and others.
Find out if multiple sites are right for you
A multiple-site strategy is helping ASPH meet its communication goals and support its mission. Whether a similar approach is right for your organization depends on many factors. Ask the public health experts at NetReach to evaluate your needs and goals and suggest an Internet strategy to increase your Net results.