More for you...

[Editor's note: This article is aimed at our anonymous visitors... enjoy!]

Simple, effective communication... desired…  attempted…  elusive…

To fully explore the subject of “More for you”, I would need to know who you are and what you need.  Who are you and how many hats do you wear? Work?  Family? Community volunteer?  Local activist?

What do you need?

Unless you find another link that you want to explore first, please consider clicking on the most accurate answer below when you leave this page.  You will find helpful information and easy do-it-yourself tools for filling gaps in communication for business, nonprofit, and/or personal needs.

• Placemat advertiser?
• Local volunteer?
• Local nonprofit leader?
  • For the most part, just review the local volunteer information and recruit/empower as needed.
• Consultant?
  • You might need publicity for yourself or one of your clients.  Local4All’s online presence works in many ways.  For best results, click on the link and check out all three options.
• Friends of Carl’s…
  • If I pointed you to this page, there has to be a reason… most likely one of the other roles listed above fits you… a business owner, nonprofit leader, a volunteer, or somewhere in between.  Feel free to explore all the options at www.local4all.com or give me a call.
  • If you just stumbled across this page, trust that it was God’s way of helping others through the two of us together – maybe tomorrow, next week, next year.  See my cheatsheet at the very end of this post and share either this article or the cheatsheet as you think best.  Both?  That’s cool, too!

Pricing, FREE or low-cost? Thanks to the power and flexibility of the Internet, we can offer many online solutions completely free of cost, targeted to your nearest zip code and surrounding communities.

• Calendar – free do-it-yourself form.  Hourly rates apply if you want us to do it for you. Barter may be available to nonprofit organizations
• Classifieds – free do-it-yourself form.
• Online mapping – free do-it-yourself form.
• Business advertising – three levels in our Community Sponsor program
• Keywords – see below.  Call me for more information.

All forms can be found here.

Keywords: a simple Local4All solution/tool that may be VERY helpful when you need it most. Keywords are the key to quick and easy findability.

Examples: http://cc.local4all.com,  http://m18.local4all.com

What I have proposed to you so far is to get your ‘communication‘ somewhere on the Internet for free or at a very low cost.  So now, we need to have an easy way for others to find it?  How about reducing the search to fifteen seconds every time?  That’s what keywords allow you to do… to direct someone to an exact web page whether it’s on the Local4All site or elsewhere.

While I can’t guarantee that you will remember ALL your keywords all the time, I know that, in almost all cases, there are alternate ways to find the same information within a minute or two.  Over time and by using keywords a few times, you are more likely to remember them without looking at a cheatsheet (illustration below), post-it note, or that ever-elusive scrap of paper in your wallet or purse.

Examples:

• cc.local4all.com – “cc” is my keyword for the Crooked Creek Triathlon and the web page it points to is an ‘events’ page on our calendar.  Essentially, it covers anything a triathlete needs to know about the Crooked Creek Triathlon including a location map, also created using a free Local4All form.
• cctri.local4all.com – an alternative to cc.local4all.com and easier to remember for some folks because it has an extra three letters “tri” for ‘Triathlon’ within the keyword.
• m18.local4all.com – a shortcut to the Triathlon location map.  The numerical portion of “m18″ was assigned to this map and is uniquely associated with this map in our database along with the latitude, longitude, title, and description.
  • In eight years of being Race Director, I can’t remember giving anyone directions to the park, not once.  Nor did I ever hear of a complaint because an athlete couldn’t find their way.  It works!

• 16226m.local4all.com – because Crooked Creek Park is in the Ford City zip code area, a list of maps for the Ford City area includes both the zip code and an “m” for maps in a code that is interpreted as a search for maps in that zip code.  Any USA zip code can be easily searched in the same way.  In all cases, results of the search include the surrounding area.
• 16226.local4all.com – Our Ford City page has links to maps, events, and other information for the surrounding area.  As before, any USA zip code can be used as a ‘keyword’ to find the related Local4All community page.
• fordcity.pa.local4all.com – Our Ford City page in a way that works for anyone who doesn’t know the zip code… why make someone look it up if we can accomplish the same results an easier way?

Too many keywords to remember?  Me too!

Creating a simple reminder card:

I call the result(s) of this process my ‘cheat sheet’ for lack of a better term but it’s not cheating at all.  Business card size, each ‘cheat sheet’ has room for the 8 links that matter most to me plus a label like “Carl’s Cheat Sheet”.  Formatted in MS Word to create 10 reminder cards on one page, simple substitution of your keywords for mine allow you to create your own ‘cheat sheets’… one for your Rolodex, one to stick up on the refrigerator at home, and eight more to hand out to friends, family, and co-workers.  You can separate them using scissors or a paper cutter.  Carl’s Cheatsheet Template