Association sites are an excellent source of professional and contact information. Are you familiar with associations in your industry? Finding them is as easy as Googling for <industry name> <location name> association.

How would you research an unfamiliar association site? When I research an association site, I am interested in pages with lists of members and in contact information (that will let me look up additional background).

Here are nine simple Google search templates I use when researching an association site:

1. site:association.org “gmail.com”
2. site:association.org “gmail.com” “yahoo.com”
3. site:association.org <some company email extensions>
4. site:association.org filetype:xlsx
5. site:association.org member directory
6. site:association.org search for members
7. site:association.org roster
8. site:association.org attendee list
9. site:association.org Bob Mary Lisa (or other names)

Depending on the association, these strings can unveil some treasures.

You can pick a few Association sites using the Custom Search Engine "Diversity Associations", http://bit.ly/DiversityAssociationsCSE. Then, try the nine templates above, and see what you would find!