Are You Effectively "Wired" to Reach Clients in Your Community?

The pregnancy care center target audience ('teens and 'twenties) are looking to the Internet for information. According to the Pew Internet group¹, "Today's American teens live in a world enveloped by communications technologies; the internet and cell phones have become a central force that fuels the rhythm of daily life -- 87% of those between the ages of 12 and 17 are online." If your center doesn't have a website based on the researched needs of this group, you could be missing a large segment of your targeted audience.

Misconceptions about Teens

To learn more about the particular ways to reach this "wired" audience, Jakob Neilson conducted a series of usability studies to determine how website designs can better cater to teenagers.² His results were unexpected. "When using websites, teenagers have a lower success rate than adults, and they're also easily bored. To work for teens, websites must be simple -- but not childish," Neilson concluded, "Many people think teens are technowizards who surf the Web with abandon. The sites that our teen users rated the highest for subjective satisfaction were sites with a relatively modest, clean design. They typically marked down overly glitzy sites as too difficult to use."

Web Surfing Skills

Neilson's study showed that teens are not sophisticated in their online research skills. Over the years Ramah International has found that clients mainly "key in" simple search terms like "abortion" or "pregnancy" and perhaps include their city or state. If you have a site, key in these terms on Google, Yahoo or MSN to determine where your site is listed. If you aren't listed in the first three pages of these major search engines, clients may not find your site. The graphic elements of your site must also be "search engine" friendly or your rankings will be impacted.

In addition, domain names must be easy for potential clients to remember. Our research has indicated that clients remember terms like "abortion" and "pregnancy." Your goal in advertising your site should be to give them a memorable website name. For example, they may not remember www.awomanspregnancycenter.net but they will remember www.pregnancy(your cityname).com. The easier your domain is to remember, the more likely the client will be to visit your site in the future.

Reinforcing your Message after the Visit

Teens dislike reading brochures and often you'll find these beautiful pieces in the trash after they leave your center. Amazingly these same clients will attentively read this information on a website if they know your website address! Your site can provide additional points on abortion that they may not have absorbed during your session. Present each client with a business card that lists your website and your center's e-mail address for easy access to additional information or to ask additional questions.

Websites Made Easy and Affordable

Ramah International's ongoing research of Internet pregnancy center clients has allowed us to develop a program to help centers reach these "wired" clients in an affordable manner. We work to help clients connect to your vital work. Our goal is to make site development easy, affordable, and effective.

All Website Packages Include:

• Many designs to choose from
• Customized to your color scheme
• Logo creation if needed
• Flash content
• Statistics reports daily, weekly, monthly
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) programming to ensure top ranking on all the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN Live) to assure that clients find your site.
• Effective website copy that can be easily modified to fit your center's range of services
• Domain name of your choosing
• Website hosting services
• Direct advice and support
• Standard time for website development: 2-4 weeks

It's no longer an option not to have a website to reach clients. Ramah is here to help you find these clients in an effective and affordable manner. The suggested donation for our website development services is $750 for the first year and $300 for subsequent years.

While many other groups offer pregnancy centers website design services, Ramah is one of the few that goes the extra level to help your site achieve ongoing high search engine ranking. Through a combination of design and programming, our sites enjoy top ranking in most areas. We handle all the site logistics and make changes in a timely manner so you can continue to be effective in reaching these hearts on a one-on-one basis.

We know your organization will benefit immensely from being featured on the Internet and trust that you will also be greatly blessed by the new clients you can reach for the Lord.

For more information contact Sydna Masse at Sydna@aol.com or call 866-807-2624