Chamber Website Development

By Bryan Long, Relationship Manager

Is your chamber of commerce or business association website doing all it can to promote your members? Could you be improving member retention, generating more leads for members, producing more revenue, or even increasing event attendance with a more powerful website and online membership directory?

The single biggest reason businesses join your organization is to gain more business.  Through networking, professional learning opportunities and the exposure gained...

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What is the one thing your Chamber of Commerce website can't do? Lose a prospective member of course!

If your website is the 24/7/365 salesperson it's supposed to be, you need to make sure there is no chance a prospect is going to walk away because they can't find your join button. This button will lead your site visitor to your defined target page to be a member. The resulting page can also serve as a sales pitch to why they should become a member and what the ROI is for membership.  Here is an...

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By Joe Scaggs, National Sales Manager for WebLink Digital Media

Recently, The Schapiro Group, an Atlanta-based strategic consulting firm, released a national survey of 2,000 adults that indicated significant benefits for businesses active in their local Chamber of Commerce. The full results of the survey can be viewed on the ACCE website, but I’ll try to be helpful and cover a few of the highlights for small businesses.   

When a small business is active in a Chamber of Commerce:

• Consumers are 49%...

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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about vendor vs. partner relationships in regard to associations and their members. Today I want to expand on that and talk about how a redesign for your association’s website can help support your efforts.

Of course, having a website is important. But having an effective website can mean more members, more engaged members, higher retention, and more non-dues revenue.

Are you considering a new association website? Here are six tips for establishing a website that...

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by Aaron Cox, Membership Management Specialist

I have seen the puzzled look on the faces of board members, volunteers and sadly even staff at chambers of commerce and business associations when asked the question, “Do you know anyone else that would benefit from membership in your organization?”

While referrals are one of the best ways to generate new membership sales, existing members often understand the value they receive from the organization but can’t always readily see the same benefits for...Read More » »

In a blog post last week, I shared part of my presentation from the Florida Association of Chamber Professionals 90th Annual Meeting, titled "Social Media Strategy for Impacting Member Sales & Retention."

In that post I discussed how tools like the Facebook Like button and others can help make your chamber's website content more "sharable" to encourage your members, fans and followers to post your content on other networks.

How can you get them to share your content, though?  Well...let's give... Read More » »

We know that one of the main reasons companies join chambers of commerce is to increase their business.  And the exposure your members gain via your website is the single largest way you can promote them and drive traffic to their business.

The value that members receive from exposure on - and traffic from - your chamber’s website often justifies their membership renewal each year.  And, that value can be used to acquire new members, plus generate non-dues revenue through website advertising.

With...Read More » »

Recently, the Thousand Oaks-Westlake Village Regional Chamber of Commerce changed is name to the Greater Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce to create broader appeal for the region it serves.  Read a brief article about this change here.

While the new name is certainly a bit easier to type and say, I was curious as to how those various place names could potentially drive traffic to the chamber's website.

Using Google's Keyword Tool, I looked for the monthly search volume for each of the areas...Read More » »

Since WebLink International works exclusively with chambers of commerce, business associations and membership organizations, I get to see and use chamber websites every day.  And, since I managed the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce website for eight years, I remember all the challenges of keeping a chamber website up to date and relevant.

Recently, I was asked what things most chambers of commerce could do to improve their sites. I thought this topic would make a great "top 10" list for the WebLink...Read More » »

WebLink is proud to announce the winners of our big contest conducted at the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) Convention in Raleigh, NC.   Please read on to see if any of your peers were winners.

iPod touch Garmin Nuvi GPS system
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WebLink International will host a webinar on July 22 titled "Top 5 Reasons to Use Member Segmentation to Drive Your Marketing Strategy."  Cathi Hight of Hight Performance Group and Mike Bryan, WebLink's vice president of marketing will demonstrate ways you can use technology to learn more about your members.

This webinar will show you ways to use your membership management software plus your website and survey data to analyze and define your ideal target market for members. You'll learn how...Read More » »

A while back I posted about Five ways your chamber can use Twitter. With the recent increase in chambers of commerce using Twitter, I've seen some great examples of how chambers can use Twitter.  I thought I'd share some of them with you.

Promote your members

Several chambers of commerce use Twitter to announce when local businesses join.  Below is an example from the Stillwater OK Chamber. In this example, they are also providing the member's address and a link to their website.   You...Read More » »

Times are tough, money is tight, and No One is spending money right now.   Well the first two points are certainly true, but the latter is not.  The truth is; everyone is more selective in how and where they spend their money, but they ARE spending money.  Your members are looking to make the most of their dollars and get a clear Return on Investment (ROI) from your chamber.  You are in the right place at exactly the right time to make money with your website and provide tremendous value AND...Read More » »

Our clients and prospects continue to ask about blogging.  Should we blog? How do we blog? What would we blog about?  How will it benefit us and our members?    I’ll get into more detail below, but first let me say “YES,” chambers should blog. 

1.    Communication that engages your members.   Just a few years ago, we were saying “every chamber needs a website.”  Now it’s “every chamber needs blog.”   Your current members are becoming more tech savvy every day.  And, the young professionals you hope...

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Next up on the "List of Best and Worst practices for designing a high traffic website" is the use of keywords in the beginning of a page.

The beginning of the document can be really important when it comes to what is indexed by the search engines.  According to the guys at WebConfs.com, this might not play as big a role as the other keyword-related topics, but still is important.

Once again, we'll stay home for our example and use the WebLink Case Studies page.

Screen Capture from WebLink... Read More » »