Maximizing Your Web Site’s Reach

In high school, everyone wants so to be popular. On the Internet, things are no different. Individuals and businesses invest many resources to maximize their site’s reach on the Web. Luckily, Alkaline can help you tackle many of the hurdles you’ll face in increasing your reach.

Let’s look at three different ways you can use Alkaline to increase your reach: newsfeeds, newsletters, and social networks.

Newsfeeds

Newsfeeds (also know as XML, Atom, or RSS feeds) are summaries of what’s been recently added and updated on your Web site. People use newsreaders such as Google Reader and NetNewsWire to subscribe to the newsfeeds of their favorite Web sites so they know when new content is available. Typically, newsfeeds only provide a summary of the content, forcing interested users to clickthrough to read the entire article, view the full-size image, and so on. (If sell advertising on your Web site, posting only summaries can be very advantageous.)

Alkaline automatically generates a newsfeed based on your latest posts and images. You simply need to publicize it, so that your readers know when new content is available on your site. Alkaline automatically notifies compatible Web browsers that a newsfeed is available, but you should also link to your newsfeed on your Web site (link to file atom.php). You can also configure Alkaline to automatically summarize posts by choosing Settings > Configuration and checking “Only include post summaries.”

Newsletters

Many people don’t use newsreaders, but they shouldn’t be kept out of the loop when you post new content. Fortunately, third-party Web services such as Mailchimp can automatically generate newsletters on your behalf. You can sign-up for free, and start a new “RSS-driven campaign.” This will allow you to use the newsfeed Alkaline automatically generates as the source of your newsletter. You can configure your newsletter to be sent daily, weekly, or monthly.

Social networks

Unfortunately, most people won’t subscribe to newsletters, even if they truly enjoy your Web site, because their email inboxes are already hard enough to manage. A good way to reach these people—especially younger individuals—is through social networks. Alkaline offers drag-and-drop extension support for the four most influential social networks: Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and Tumblr. The extensions are free of charge and can be downloaded from Alkaline Labs, our official extension-publishing house.

If you or your business already has an account on one or more of these services, you can use your preexisting account and link it to your Alkaline-powered Web site. If you don’t have social network accounts, consider registering for them in you or your business’s name. Each extension will walk you through the painless account-linking process. You can cherry pick individual content items to appear on your social network account or have Alkaline automatically send all recently-created content as it’s published.

Depending on how often your Web site is updated, notifying fans of new content is two-thirds of the battle of maintaining and increasing your popularity on the Internet. Drawing new visitors to your Web site can be time-consuming and expensive, so make the most you can of repeat visitors.