Google have a fantastic grants program for non-profits in certain countries:

http://www.google.com/grants/index.html
USA, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK

Any Mapmakers in these countries who are non-profits can apply, but it's a pretty slow process.

Though this grant program Google has given Green Map lots of free Google Adwords (the ads that show up down the side when you search for stuff on Google) and we can use these to bring people to GreenMap.org. So Tom (the other Tom), Annie & Kali have all been putting together some great Adwords and in just a few days have increased the number of people coming to the website by over 100 a day!

So we now want to get some of these Google ads bringing people directly to your profile pages and map pages on GreenMap.org

To encourage everyone to register on the website and add a Map Profile, this offer of free Google Adwords is available to Mapmakers who have registered AND added a Map profile. If you're not sure how to add a map, just let me know.

So if you would like an advert you need to think of the most catchy way to bring people to your page, and think of the keywords that they will type into Google. Who do you want to target? Tourists? People who live there? Do you want people to go to your map page or profile page?

Google has very strict rules about the adverts. As Wendy said in her earlier email, the first line of the advert is the headline, and has to be 25 characters or less, including spaces.

The second and third lines have to be 35 characters or less.

The last line is just a link to the website.

Having the word 'free' is always a good way to pull people in, and the ad should definitely include the name of your area.

So an example for an imaginary map of Edinburgh, Scotland:

Free Map of Edinburgh
Explore Edinburgh's environment
with this local Green Map

Some keywords: edinburgh, map, green, environment, recycling, parks, edinburgh walks, edinburgh bike paths,

If your project is new and your focus is on getting more people involved:

Help Map Edinburgh
Volunteers wanted to create a
Community Green Map of Edinburgh

Some keywords: volunteer edinburgh, community work edinburgh, mapmaking edinburgh, community service edinburgh, voluntary work edinburgh, environmental volunteer, green volunteer, environmental internship, mapping internship

These are just some very rough ideas... Much more information on writing a successful ad is available at http://www.google.com/grants/information.html

If you would like an advert:

1. Email the text for the advert
2. Tell us which page on GreenMap.org you want it to link to (your profile or map)
3. Email a list of the keywords

Let me know if you have any questions,