Portal Pages - a powerful outreach strategy

The number of online webpages is staggering. At the beginning of 2003, Google was indexing over 3 billion. How can the average web users easily find the pages they need, without spending hours searching through search engine listings?

The answer is - find listings where someone else has already done the work, and has categorized and described only those pages which have quality and address the desired subject. This, of course, is how Yahoo! started, in those distant days at the beginning of the Internet. It has largely been superceded by the volunteer-edited DMoz and Zeal.com which provided the directory listings for a number of other search engines. About.com also aims to be a one-stop resource for a wide range of special interests.

However, often the best way to find a site is to search a portal page which is devoted to a single subject. Usually created as a labor of love by an enthusiast, such portals aim to be a one-stop resource to find every possible site (or individual page) of worth relating to the subject. Such one-stop portal sites exist for a vast range of subjects. The excellent Research Buzz newsletter reviews new portals each week, many on the most specialized and unusual topics you could imagine.

Portals for outreach

Portal sites can be vehicles for outreach. The strategy is this:

• Design an attractive one-subject portal on a subject which interests you and you have extensive knowledge about.
• Divide the subject into sub-subjects.
• Offer a good keyword search system, and also make it easy to browse through the hierarchy.
• Include a form-submission method for people to submit sites for inclusion. (All submissions should be for editorial consideration, and not automatic.)
• Possibly offer a weekly/monthly newsletter on the topic.
• Include additional links to evangelistic pages (whether specifically related to the topic or not).
• Promote the site widely so that it becomes regarded as a definitive topic resource.

This strategy is an extension of that explained for hobbies/affinity-groups. It can be applied to a town or region. A portal to help with young people's homework has great potential. If there are no other (or few) sites attempting to be one-stop portal resources on a chosen subject, then you have the opportunity to become a definitive worldwide reference resource! If a portal is perceived as a valuable one-stop resource, people will also use it as their browser start page.

Please send examples of outreach portal sites using this strategy.

Start Pages for searching

Although a well-produced portal page can be offered to users as a browser start page, a related approach is to offer a start page which is primarily a customized search option. For instance, a web evangelism team in Poland have created a multi-search page called Tutaj.net. It links to a wide range of valuable search resources and encyclopedias. They realised that most Internet cafes use a portal page or search engine such as Google as a preset start page. So the team have asked Internet cafes to set Tutaj.net as a start-page, and in return have put the Internet cafes on a listing within the site, so they get some free advertising. There are thousands of Internet cafes throughout Poland, and initial reaction by those approached has been very favorable. Among the many links offered on Tutaj.net are those bridge strategy outreach sites operated by the team. The system also allows them to post adverts relating to the city where the internet cafe is situated - for instance about a church outreach campaign. Approved churches can post links and content via a password-protected interface which then automatically appears on the start-page displayed in Internet cafes in their town.

Of course, the site is an ideal start page for private computer users also. This is an approach which could be replicated widely, in both English and other languages.

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