Setting Up A School Website: Getting The Word Out: "If you build it, they will come."

For one's website to be of any use, it must be visited by as many different people as possible. Since the Internet is a global network, any advertising of the website and its contents would also need to be global. The following ideas can be used to let p eople know what your school is doing on the WWW:

Join a variety of e-mail discussion lists (listserves). Without abusing the privilege of posting to the list, keep list members updated on progress of the site.
Post announcements to appropriate newsgroups. A partial list of those groups dealing with HTML authoring can be found here. Post announcements to newsgroups dealing with the content area of the project in question.
Commercial On-Line services: If you or your school subscribes to any of the on-line services, use their bulletin/message boards to get the word out. just watch the time on-line to keep your bill low.
BBS systems: many local BBSes have worldwide conferences that are used by people who also have Internet access. Post an announcement there too. (It has been a long time since this was composed. It seems BBSes are almost extinct now due to the popularity of the Internet. If you find one you like, support it well!
Print and electronic media: Let local newspapers and national magazines know what you and your school are doing on the Web. Invite local reporters to your classes to see your students in action, and include your school's URL on printed school documents.
Send e-mail that includes your school's URL. Place it in the signature file of your e-mail program. Register your school's URL with the Internet's most popular search engines.
Send your URL to popular K-12 websites such as Web 66 and Global Schoolnet. The latter of those sites has an entire directory devoted to setting up websites for schools!

Note: When posting to newsgroups, post only to those that are appropriate for the subject matter, and not to too many at one time. Abusing the newsgroups in this way is called "spamming," and it can result in much unpleasant e-mail. Be careful.

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