Museums often conduct surveys to see how visitors have heard about the museum. These can be useful in evaluating the effectiveness of a museum’s website. If a survey suggests that the Internet was not a source of information about the museum, then the website probably has a low Page Rank and is not showing up on the first page of a topical search. As a museum curator, you want to ensure that your museum is easily found by search engines. Here are some tips:
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Design: You website should have a professional design that mirrors the museum’s mission. Start with a WordPress website and select an appropriate theme. There are hundreds to choose from, many of them free. Decide and on the look and feel of the site, and design each page to make a single point. Use numerous calls to action to entice visitors to leave their name and address, enabling you to add them to your mailing list. Such enticements might include a discount coupon for the gift shop or access to an interesting video. Use a logical menu structure in which related pages are organized in a silo fashion.
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Content: A museum must provide content of the highest quality. Any defects will be jarring. You will probably want to hire a professional writer to create and/or edit your content. It is important to include search keywords on each page, so that search engines can index your site properly. Remember you are not writing scholarly articles, so keep your sentences simple and punchy. Include interesting photos and videos to spice up the content.
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Backlinks: A major component of search engine optimization is the creating of backlinks to your site. These backlinks should originate in sites of high Page Rank that cover subjects similar to yours. Such an authoritative site will increase your Page Rank, and thus move you forward within the search engine results pages. You can check backlinks to your site using an Internet tool to report on the identity and Page Rank of each linking site. It is important not to indiscriminately place links on unrelated websites, as search engines like Google may judge them to be link spam and downgrade your Page Rank accordingly.
If you follow these easy steps, you will have a very good chance of achieving a high page rank. Google rewards sites with high educational content, which is a perfect match for a museum website.