Mid-Michigan Food Bank declared winner of internet marketing contest

Okemos-based online marketing firm, Netvantage Marketing, announces The Mid-Michigan Food Bank as the winner of their recent contest, which offered pro-bono services for a Michigan non-profit organization.

As the winning organization, the Mid-Michigan Food Bank will receive six months of search engine optimization services including keyword selection, link building, article writing and submission, and coding recommendations. Additionally, Netvantage will perform web analytics consulting to help the organization better understand how their site is working, and how to improve its performance.

"We chose the Mid-Michigan Food Bank because they have a tremendous impact on our community, and that this organization could best benefit from our services," said Adam Henige, Netvantage Marketing Managing Partner.

The Mid Michigan Food Bank is a division of the Mid-Michigan Red Cross. For the past 25 years, the organization has aided hunger prevention in mid-Michigan by supplying salvaged food to area non-profit agencies serving the hungry and the homeless. The organization warehouses, inspects, and delivers food in seven Michigan counties.

"We just changed our name from The American Red Cross Regional Food Distribution Center to the Mid-Michigan Food Bank, and America's Second Harvest has just changed their name to Feeding America. So - we have branding issues!" said Mid-Michigan Food Bank's Community Relations Coordinator, Alison Bono. "I am really excited about this opportunity. We are really under-staffed when it comes to our online communication efforts."

The food bank has several events planned in the next few months that will direct greater traffic to their website. September is Hunger Action Month and Sam's Clubs in Michigan will host food drives on Sept. 27. In the Lansing area, the Eastwood and Edgewood Sam's clubs compete against each other as the East Lansing - Lansing food Fight. Additionally, the Mid-Michigan Food Bank will host an "Empty Bowls" event on Oct. 14. A $20 donation offers event-goers a handcrafted bowl donated by local artists, and soup and beverage donated by local restaurants. All proceeds assist feeding the hungry through the Mid-Michigan Food Bank.

"Many non-profit organizations build nice web sites to communicate their mission and message" said Joe Ford, who is Managing Partner of Netvantage Marketing along with Henige. "It is important for these organizations to be able to learn how to drive more visitors to these sites in order to fully maximize the potential of the web as a communication medium." With the help of Netvantage Marketing, the food bank's increased web presence will help direct needed donors and volunteers to the website, whose assistance is vital to the success of the organization.

Ford and Henige hope that through their assistance to the Mid-Michigan Food Bank, other non-profit groups will realize the importance of search engine optimization. "To be a successful organization, just having a web site isn't enough," said Henige. "If you can't be found by search engines, you're requiring people to know your name or your web address. So if they're looking for a need, and not a specific organization, that user is going to go somewhere else."

http://netvantagemarketing.com/] Netvantage Marketing[/url] is a Michigan search engine optimization, pay per click management and web analytics consulting company based in Okemos. For more information, you can reach the Netvantage office by phone at 517-853-5838 or on the web at http://netvantagemarketing.com.