You probably got into this line of work because you recognize the value of human life. This is an idea to keep front and center, even in the world of business and marketing. Jeremiah 1:5 states, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you…” The concept of humans being made in the Imago Dei (image of God) goes back to Genesis 1:27 and is reaffirmed in the New Testament in James 3:9. I reached out to Jacob Barr of iRapture.com to see how to properly apply this to creating websites for pregnancy centers. He provided six solid tips that will show your site’s visitors that you love and value them beyond words.
1. Identify Your Target Audiences
Notice this says audiences and not audience. That’s because you have different people with different backgrounds and mindsets visiting your pregnancy center website. Why do we have four gospels? In part, because the gospel writers were writing for different audiences. Though they had a unified goal, Matthew was writing for Jews and Mark was writing for Gentiles, particularly Romans.
In the same sense, your goal is to drive traffic to the counseling room. But in order to be effective, you need to recognize the distinctions between audiences. When creating websites for pregnancy centers, you must distinguish between life-minded visitors and abortion-minded/abortion-vulnerable visitors. There are certainly exceptions, but most of your visitors will probably be between ages 20 and 29.
For more on branding messages to varied audiences, see Jake’s article, Pregnancy Center Website Marketing Guide.
2. Choosing the Right Pictures
Closely related to knowing your audiences is knowing which pictures to choose for your pregnancy center website. You’ve probably seen pregnancy centers over the years using images that depict a depressed, struggling woman. Jake recommends using pictures that focus more on where the woman wants to be, rather than her current state. She knows how she feels and doesn’t need that reminder as she’s looking for help.
Again, think of who the audience is. Are you targeting women who may be trying to finish school? A woman deep in thought? A woman with a fulfilling career? Instead of portraying the negative emotions she’s currently battling, you could use images to show her that with the right help, she can still have her baby and achieve her goals.
3. Consider Unique Challenges
Jake mentioned that content creation can be a unique challenge when creating a pregnancy center website. This challenge is related to our previous topic of audiences. You have to be clear on whether you’re speaking to a potential client or a potential donor. And this brings up the issue of abortion-minded vs. life-minded again. The potential donor browsing your website is going to be far more life-minded than the woman considering an abortion. Therefore, Jake advised not to attempt to target both groups on the same website with the same content.
– Jacob Barr, iRapture.com
4. Stand Out from the Competition
How many times have you used Google already today? You’re not alone. The search engine and media giant is serious about giving its users the best experience possible. The thing is, they don’t know who the experts are ahead of time.
High-quality content– Google is constantly crawling pages, looking for authoritative content on every topic there is. It’s that high-quality, helpful content that makes it clear to Google who the experts are in each area.
Keyword targeting– Google ranks sites higher when they are actively answering questions and targeting their content for keyword search phrases. If your content doesn’t provide answers, the user will back click, raising your “bounce rate” and lowering your ranking.
SSL certificate– If you don’t have an SSL certificate yet, you may have already noticed a substantial drop in your traffic. Check out our recent article on why you need one and how to get it.
Taking these actions can go a long way in establishing trust, credibility, and rapport with your potential clients.
5. Have a Growing Number of Pages
Jake pointed out that the number of pages your website has at its inception is not nearly as important as having a growing number of pages. You should focus on the topics on which your particular pregnancy has expertise and shoot for a few pages on each topic. One way to look at it is to have one article per angle on each topic.
– Jacob Barr, iRapture.com
6. Use the A, B, C Team Approach
Now that you know who your audiences are and what you need to do, how do you create all that content? Another useful recommendation from Jake is to utilize an A, B, C team approach to your content creation. He broke it down like this:
A team– This is the team of pregnancy center staff members who have a) the desire, b) the energy, and c) the skills to write their own content. You should have these articles reviewed and edited by another person prior to posting.
B team– This team consists of volunteers who write articles for the website periodically. Again, Jake recommends a skilled editor for the review process.
C team– This is your stable of vendors who interview experts and conduct research. They may work as freelance writers, which means you need a budget to operate this type of team. One way to use your C team is to have them interview your staff members and use them as the experts in the article. This will increase your credibility and reputation as an authority on the subject matter.
No Experience Creating a Pregnancy Center Website?
Even with all this information, creating websites for pregnancy centers can be a daunting task. Jake knows those difficulties because he experienced them when making his first pregnancy center website in 2000. Since then, he and his staff have learned a lot. They’ve created over 400 pregnancy center website and have been featured speakers at various pro-life conferences. If you’re just not sure where to start, call up the subject matter experts at iRapture.com at (877) 488-799 or e-mail ([email protected])[mailto:[email protected]].
Author
Mark Lilly is a freelance content writer standing for truth in marketing. See more from Mark on Twitter.
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