In your busy job managing a pregnancy center, updating your website is likely the last thing you think about. Maybe you updated it several years ago and thought you wouldn’t have to worry about it again. Or maybe you have been wanting to update it but it’s hard to find the time.
Unfortunately, websites don’t keep. In addition to the standard maintenance and updates your website needs periodically, you should add to and update your website’s copy on a regular basis. Also, design styles change. And as you serve Gen Z and young millennials, an outdated website could actually turn away the women you’re trying to reach. If you would like to become an influencer, this podcast featuring international conference speaker Kurt Uhlir will give you the steps that you need to become one.
In this guide, we discuss five things you can do to update your client website to reach abortion-minded women in your community.
Five Things To Do To Update Your Client Website
Swap Out Your Photos
If you’re willing to examine your website with a critical eye, you’ll be able to make the necessary changes to get in front of women desperate for hope and help. It might be helpful to sit down with a younger Millennial or someone from Gen Z to help with this step. Ask them for their honest reactions to the photos and overall design of the site so you can make adjustments.
Avoid Using:
Baby Photos
If a woman is truly abortion-minded or abortion-determined, she will be turned off by photos of babies. This includes photos of things like your baby boutique and maternity clothes selection.
Sad or Dark Photos
You may think that you want the photos on your website to depict how women are feeling. But this goes against marketing best practices. We all seek out products or services that will help us feel differently about our circumstances. It’s why advertisers show cars in beautiful landscapes — this feeds into people’s desire for adventure. It’s why marketers don’t talk about the benefits of a certain brand of pizza — instead, they show happy families eating the pizza.
Pictures can powerfully paint the world people WANT to live in, even if that’s not their current reality. You can do the same on your site. By using pictures of empowered, confident, and happy women, you’ll convey the message that you can help lift women out of their scared, confused, or overwhelmed state of mind. Show women the hope you offer at your center through photos.
Move Donor Information To a Different Website
It’s okay for women to know you’re a nonprofit and funded by generous people in your community. It helps convey the care and support they’ll receive right in their own town.
However, because your messages to your donors and clients are so different, you’ll want to keep those separate.
In your donor communications, you likely talk about saving lives, impacting women for God’s Kingdom, and are open about your need for financial partners.
In your client communications, you talk primarily about the services you offer and also provide information about abortion (more on this later).
Both messages are fine-tuned for both unique audiences. Both messages also have the potential for turning off the wrong audience.
Avoid Adding:
Events
Most of your events are donor-focused and information about them should live on another website. Most of your communication about your events is likely predominantly pro-life and could easily turn women away before they have a chance to learn about how you can help.
Donation Information
In addition to event details, all information about donations, how to donate, how donations help, is not relevant to your clients and should live on a donor website. Again, overtly pro-life messaging will cause abortion-minded women to look elsewhere, taking away your opportunity to share life-affirming resources face-to-face.
Add And Rearrange Content
A huge aspect of updating your website is optimizing it for search terms. And a big indicator of your SEO success is how much content you have on your website.
We recommend a minimum of 300 words of content on each page of your website. This will signal to Google that you know what you’re talking about and give authority to your site and center. If you have less than that, Google will question your knowledge of the topic.
We also recommend optimizing each page for a primary keyword or keyword phrase. For example, if you offer ultrasound, you can have a whole page dedicated to providing information on that service, how ultrasounds are performed, what women should expect, and why getting an ultrasound is so important.
Avoid Using:
One topic per page
If you offer pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, and STD testing, separate all of those services out onto different pages. This will not only help your SEO, but also make it really easy for women to read more about what you do and how you can help.
Add a blog
If you aren’t already blogging, you should start one. It’s a great way to update your website by adding fresh content on a regular basis. This keeps Google’s web crawlers busy and will help you rank higher in search results. Feel stuck on what you should blog about? Think through questions your clients ask and answer those. Our content team would also love to help! Please reach out if you’re interested in getting a blog started.
Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
According to data from Google Analytics, “mobile devices drove 61% of visits to U.S. websites in 2020, up from 57% in 2019. Desktops were responsible for 35.7% of all visits in 2020, and tablets drove the remaining 3.3% of visitors.”
In other words, most people who view your website are doing so on their mobile devices. If your website isn’t designed to be viewed and accessed on a phone, your website is working against you instead of for you.
Ways to Update Your Website to Make it Mobile-Friendly:
Improve site speed
If the pages on your website load slowly, people won’t stick around to read. Bounce rates are higher on mobile devices where people expect sites to load at lightning speed.
Design for mobile
If your website hasn’t been updated in a while, it was likely designed for desktop viewers first. Because the rate of viewers on mobile devices is higher now (and on the rise every year), your website should really be designed for mobile users in mind first.
Include Abortion Information
This may sound counterintuitive. It may even sound like we’re asking you to go against the mission of your pregnancy center. But hear us out. This is perhaps the most important part of this resource.
Including abortion information on your site is not:
- An endorsement of abortion
- A way for women to find what they need to know about abortion so they can schedule an appointment
- The tipping point that will push women to decide to get an abortion
Including abortion information on your website puts you on the map…literally. If you want your website to show up for the very women you’re trying to reach, you have to write about abortion on your site.
Think about the terms women are searching for when they face an unplanned pregnancy:
- Where can I get an abortion?
- Abortion clinics near me
- Will my insurance pay for abortion?
- What do I need to do before an abortion?
Those are just a few of the search queries women use, and all of them include the word abortion. If you don’t have abortion information on your website, Google will never show your site to women who are searching for abortion near you.
And in 2021, that means they will never find you.
Many centers are afraid of what their donors or board members will think if they see abortion information on their websites. Part of your conversation needs to be what will happen if abortion information is NOT on your website.
Women will find details about abortion one way or another. By including information on your site, you have the ability to influence her decision and show her a better, more hopeful way, but only if you show up for her on Google.
How to include information on your site:
Write about abortion on your blog
Your blog is an excellent place to write about abortion because you can write fresh content and use women’s search terms as topics for the blogs.
Have an abortion page on your website
On this page, you can include information about the different abortion procedures, the abortion pill, and the risks and side effects associated with abortion. Make sure you cite your sources and use factual, commonly accepted information so Google doesn’t flag your site as giving false information.
Tip: Remember To Update Your Website Design Every 3-5 Years
Website designs change and go out of style, so it’s important to update your website design every few years. This will keep your site fresh, visually appealing, and focused on your target audience.
As always, we are here to help you with all of your marketing endeavors, especially when it comes to updating your website. We know how time-consuming and tedious updating a website can be, but we also understand how vital it is to your success. Let us do the work for you! Our team is ready and eager to help. Contact us today!
