I am the founder of a community that, I believe, is unique on the Internet. Probably, because it is a niche subject area within the academic field of humanities.
It is a forum where the general public may pose questions to a panel (roughly 200) of academic biblical scholars from around the world.
Recently, we have been developing AskBibleScholars.com in order to reach a broader audience (off-Reddit and into the wider Internet).
We do not have much knowledge nor experience in marketing web sites.
If you have any guidance, then we would be very appreciative.
I am not in marketing, and neither is my degree.
But this sticks out to me as something interesting, mostly because I am not religious. But I am interested in what religious texts actually say, and not what is said/repeated in religious ceremonies.
To market your community to the correct audience (I.e. not internet trolls) you’d need some statements if you don’t already have them. Like what is your intended purpose, what are your goals/vision. From there, you can tease out your audience. This will help you decide how to increase visibility of your community. You can advertise to your audience through ads, email lists, other social media. Your strategy, is really dependent on defining these things. Every cybersecurity tech startup has the same playbook: start company, establish a blog. Publish a ton of blogs/articles with appropriate keywords/hashtags all over LinkedIn, twitter, whatever, then get visibility and eventually customers.
Example; If you’re focused on being more academic, I’d imagine you’d target universities or colleges, start regional clubs, or put up fliers with a QR code for people to find you. My university is heavy on using Discord as a communication tool. Every community, club, and even individual classes has a discord channel. Many people dislike discord from a privacy perspective, but many people enjoy it too. There’s QR code fliers all over campus advertising clubs, tutoring, etc.
Disappointed. title made me think this was gonna be a convo about advertising beehaw.
I’m pretty relieved that it’s not! Beehaw is a good community because it’s small and has standards about who is welcome. Marketing the site would go against that principle.
I mean disappointed as in I was expecting to hear pros and cons for both. I don’t really care one way or another.
One thing I noticed is that the site doesn’t have any mission statement or “about us” (that I could find). That’s an opportunity to include not just information about yourselves, but also to communicate to potential users when they’re looking for a trustworthy source on this topic. That “about us” or “our mission” page with declarative statements is what search engines will pull teaser blurbs from much of the time.
Something else that I picked up from my last SEO coaching is that you’ll be more likely to be seen if there are other places that point back to you. With ~200 people contributing to answering questions, if even half of them linked back to the site from their own blogs, channels, or sites you’re likely to see a difference in your search ranking. It’s a bonus that folks who are looking at those contributor’s pages will have the ability to come right to your space as well.
One thing I noticed is that the site doesn’t have any mission statement or “about us”…
Good point. I’ll work on that.
if even half of them linked back to the site from their own blogs, channels, or sites you’re likely to see a difference in your search ranking.
Great idea! Thanks!
If there is no budget, you would need to go to communities who might be interested in asking such questions.
Christian adjacent forums / subreddits (I know…) / Facebook groups.
On the other side, I think some atheists might want to know what Bible said about something in order to refute them.
If there is some budget, then:
- link building, ask related websites if they would like to put a link at their related sites to increase discovery
- Adword but I imagine Bible related keywords would be prohibitively expensive