Ever wonder why so many companies sponsor community organizations? It’s certainly not because of their big hearts and fat wallets. The truth is having a presence in the community is good for the bottom line.

But if you are like most small websites, with little or no advertising budget to work with, you might think the only sponsorship you can manage is to have your logo placed on some obscure links page well away from where users are likely to visit. And if you are really lucky that same logo might make its way to a photocopied brochure.

Does this sound familiar? Beyond the cost, there are serious problems with accurately measuring this type of sponsorship. Indeed for most businesses, an investment like this is simply a waste of good money they don’t have. As a marketing strategy it’s loser when you go in to anything knowing, you’ll get nothing in return.

But as a web entrepreneur, you can leverage your existing skills and knowledge to, not only help community organizations, but also drive traffic to your business.

Visit a few local sites that you believe may have many visitors and quality inbound links.

Amateur sports teams are a great place to start. They often enjoy high traffic and need a fresh look.

Ask yourself the following questions:
• Is this site any good?
• Is it updated often?
• Would it take much to make it better?

If the answer to all these questions is “no,” and you know you could quickly and easily make the site better, it may be time to make a new contact.

Sending a note to the existing webmaster is a mugs game. He or she will probably not appreciate hearing that the site they manage is sub-par. Instead put together a proposal and send it to the person in charge of marketing the team or, failing that, the president of the organization.

Offer to rebuild and transfer the hosting at no charge in exchange for the opportunity to advertise your services. It’s that simple.

The benefits to you are obvious. You are seen as a partner in the community and your web property becomes the primary advertiser on a site with high traffic and quality inbound links.

Seem like a lot of work? Well it’s not, when you consider the hours you might spend posting to Craigslist, MySpace and other forums for about the same kind of return on your investment.

How many organizations in your community have a built in audience and a poor website that you can leverage in the same way? I’ll bet there are lots.