Here are some useful things to consider for directing traffic to your Website - including current patrons as well as new potential audiences.

RealNames Keywords - who can remember all of the URLs these days? Wouldn't it be great if you could just type in the name of what you were looking for and the site would appear in your browser? Well, now thanks to RealNames, it does with most of the newer (4.0+) versions of Netscape and InternetExplorer. For a yearly fee of $100.00 you can register your theater's name with the Keywords Solution People (RealNames). With your registration, people can now just type in your theater's name and get to the site AND you show up in a number of the meta searches such as dogpile.com. To find out more visit RealNames.

GoTo.Com - GoTo is one of the Web's most popular search engines and they've just entered into an agreement to provide their listings to America OnLine and Netscape. The difference between GoTo and other search engines is that they allow you to bid on your placement in search results. You might want to consider placing a bid with GoTo for a few cents to ensure that when a user types in your theater's name at GoTo, AOL or Netscape, that your site is the first that the user will see. You can get to GoTo by visiting www.goto.com.

If either of these needs further explanation, give Andy Propst a call at 718-477-0072 or email him at info@americantheaterweb.com.

The following two items are free ways that you can attract visitors and retain their names. They're common sense, but important practices.

Promote Your Site's Address in Everything - You'd never think of producing a brochure, flyer, playbill, ad or other piece of printed material without your phone number, would you? Why should your Web site's address be any different? Include it in everything that you send out -- who knows someone might keep a flyer because of the artwork and return to it later and decide to log on to your site.

Always Request Email Addresses - When requesting information from subscribers or on surveys, ask them for their email addresses, making it clear that the information is for your theater's use only. It gives you a much more cost effective way of reaching your patrons with late-breaking news.

Here's one final way, that we think is a great way to reach new theater lovers:

Advertise on ATW - This is our only piece of shameless promotion, but why not run a banner ad on ATW? We have literally thousands of theatergoers dropping by each day. We can target your ad to people who are visiting areas on the site that pertain to your region, and through January 31, 2001, we are offering non-profit theaters a discounted rate of $10.00 per 1,000 impressions. That's one cent for each pair of eyeballs that sees your ad. Theaters that have advertised on ATW have seen a terrific rate of people clicking through to their sites so you will get knew audiences with the advertising. For more information email info@americantheaterweb.com.

See also:

  Using ATW and Its Features

  Some Basics About Web Sites