How was your Mother’s Day? Tough going? Don’t feel like talking about it? That’s OK. You’re not alone. Many women trying to adopt feel that way. Mother’s Day is one of those holidays that reminds you of what you don’t have and leaves you feeling down in the dumps.
But now that it’s come and gone, it’s time to re-group and and move your adoption plan forward — and more specifically, to find news ways to get your parent profile noticed. After all, next to word of mouth, your profile is the best tool you have to reach out to a prospective birthmother and find a match.
Here are 11 ways to make your profile stand out and increase your chances of holding a baby in your arms instead of yearning for one next Mother’s Day.
Create a video
When it comes make an impact, nothing beats a video. While a printed profile will give a prospective birthmother a snapshot of your life, an adoption video will offers many, many snapshots — a much fuller portrait of your life. Throw in tons of photos and upbeat music and you’ve got yourself one engaging interactive tool that draws viewers in and showcases your story.
Build a website or blog
When prospective birthparents want to learn about open adoption or find adoptive parents for their baby, where’s the first place they go? Online. Having an adoption website is no longer optional for couples hoping to adopt. It’s essential. A website will give you an around-the-clock presence and let you capture your unique personality in words and pictures.
Join a parent profile service
If you don’t have the budget to create your own website, there are plenty of other places you can post your profile, including an adoption profile website like ours. Leveraging the power of a site’s search engine optimisation can help you stand out from the crowd and get noticed at a fraction of the cost of building your own website.
Use eye-catching photos
When you’re online, you have mere seconds to make an impression. If you don’t grab a prospective birthmother’s attention right away, you may not get another chance. That’s why you need to differentiate yourself with large, striking photos. Not only do they create impact, they draw in users to the rest of your profile. Most people will make a decision based solely on strength of your photos so make sure they, and the captions, tell a compelling story about you.
Make your points quickly
People don’t read on the web. They scan, skim and skip. But whether it’s an adoption profile or anything else, they all start at the same place: at the beginning. As a result, it’s important to hit the ground running with your letter. Empathy is good. But don’t waste too much of your prime real estate by telling a prospective birthmother she’s about to make a difficult decision. She knows that. Get to the point. Tell her what she really wants to know: about who you are and what kind future you can offer her baby.
Include a section about openness
Openness is a tricky topic that means different things to different people. No wonder many couples hoping to adopt avoid any mention of it in their letter. Unsure about what to say, they sidestep it entirely by saying nothing. What they forget is the majority of prospective birthmothers want some level of openness. That’s why they’ve chosen open adoption. So one way to get noticed is to write about the kind of relationship you’re looking to have with a prospective birthmother — and then deliver on it after the placement.
Employ good design
Your adoption profile photos and letter are important but if the layout of your page is busy or hard to navigate, prospective birthparents could get distracted and move on to another one. Good design doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler and cleaner it is the better. As you’re putting together your profile, make sure that the focus always stays on you, not on all the fancy bells and whistles in the background.
Make sure your profile loads quickly
When people go online, they want answers — instantly. And there’s nothing worse than making them to wait to get them. If your profile takes a while to load up, prospective birthmothers aren’t going to stick around and wait for it to appear, no matter how good it is. Having a fast-loading profile will prevent prospective birthmothers from giving up on you. But more importantly, it will also help you the edge with search engine rankings since Google likes sites that show up quickly as well.
Share your story on social networks
Posting your parent profile online is only the first step in your adoption networking campaign. You still have to make sure people find it. That’s where social networking comes in. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr are a ways to differentiate yourself with prospective birthmothers and get the word out about your desire to adopt. Each one is relatively easy to use — and free, too. The only investment is your time.
Launch an advertising campaign
If your website isn’t getting the traffic you’re hoping for — and the truth is, it’s hard unless you add fresh, relevant content on a regular basis — advertising on Google and Facebok is another way to extend your reach and make your profile stand out. Just make sure that the keywords you pick are targeted (“Atlanta Georgia couple hoping to adopt baby” rather than “adoption”) and that you build a campaign gradually through trial and error rather than blow all of your budget at once.
Post links on forums, blogs and directories
Looking for an easy way to get yourself out there? Add it to an online directory, join a discussion group or post a comment on a blogs. Just make sure that they’re relevant to prospective birthmothers. Posting a link to your profile and asking people to share it will get you instantly kicked out of most discussion forums. But including it as part of your signature while you take part in the conversation is fair game.
From creating a website to social networking, there are many ways for you and your online profile to stand out and get noticed by a prospective birthmother. Find the platforms that work best for you and create a strategy to get the best return on your time and investment.
What are you doing to get your adoption profile noticed? How are you reaching out to prospective birthmothers? Leave your comments in the section below.