project marketing and internet exposure

[Gil Hardwick]

I will post the same blog over at Timothy's YAP4D web site as well since I am no so closely involved with your various projects.

What I have decided to do is establish a further West Africa presence at my own personal web site here: http://gilhardwick.org, which will highlight the good work you are all doing.

One of the features of the Internet that considerably enhances exposure is multiple web sites promoting the same or similr projects and cross-linked back to those projects.

The other thing that brings web pages up quickly in the major search engines is close matching of key words in the page header with its content in the body of the page.

When those pages are linked back again to the main project pages the number of hits they receive each day is exponentially increased. When you do that with well-established sites that are many years old and already receive a great many hits, then you really start to see some action.

I notice that Limbe and Muyuka are both near the active volcano, Mount Cameroon, for example. In Limbe there is a gorilla sanctuary as well. There is a great deal of interest there to attract attention.

Also I think the Niger Delta is as exciting. I grew up on the vast Murray-Darling Basin of South Western Australia, in the Riverina District, and my wife came from the great Pearl River Delta in Guangdong Province, China. In Western Australia I have been a member of the South West Catchments Council where I founded the Cape to Cape Catchments Group to help manage the water courses here in the southwest of Western Australia.

The enormous resource potential of such bioregional systems is unmistakable, not only in the natural features but in the people who live their and the opportunities they afford for long term sustainable development based especially on education and trade.

If you have a look at all the old shipping routes, for centuries the West Africa coastline has been extremely busy, and can be again. Australia with all its prosperity is a remote backwater by comparison.

So, what about it?

I am excited by the possibilities of what we can do to highlight the region and all your good work via the Internet.

Gil