Open Letter to the South African Animal Rescue and Welfare Community
The Hopeful Initiative has now been up and running for two months. The nucleus of the resource base is in place, the systems and policies have been implemented and tested, and it is now important to answer two questions fundamental to the success of the Initiative:
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Why Hopeful?
I do not need to tell you of the crisis facing domestic animals in this country. The economic crisis, the emigration epidemic, public ignorance and apathy, and a legal system that is poorly written and enforced, all contribute to a situation of enormous urgency for animals and animal lovers. While there are many who do sterling work ‘on the ground’, each with their particular point of focus, the Internet presence is somewhat lacking. The only website having an Alexa ranking of any significance is barkingmad.co.za, and this is mainly because of their ‘click for sponsorship’ campaign, which this week will hopefully bring about the desired result after all the hard work by Tracy and co. Barkingmad.co.za is currently ranked, as I type this, at #165 874, which means that it currently gets the most traffic of any SA animal rescue or welfare organisation. Alexa ranks websites (there are about 70 Million) in order of their traffic volume – Google is number 1 since it gets more traffic than anyone else. The higher the Alexa number, the less traffic you’re getting. Here are the rankings of some other prominent SA animal organisations: NSPCA (#947 293), SPCACT (#1 012 873) Wetnose (#1 275 237), Puppy Haven (#1 146 769), African Tails (#2 156 665), AACL (#1 738 219), HAWS (#1 315 240), all of which have been around for some time.
The Hopeful ranking, after just 8 weeks, is #568 968 (Check on the left for the latest Hopeful Alexa ranking). It means that only ONE site is getting more traffic than we are, and all of this traffic is organic, meaning that it is natural traffic, not the result of a special promotion. And we have not started yet with the tactics that will get us even more traffic. More about that later in this letter.
We need to realise, however, that compared to the big players, none of the animal organisations are even close to the ranking they need to have to compete with the likes of Junk Mail (#9 381), Gumtree (#1 466), TheClassifieds (#88 798) and Locanto (#79 072). The result is that when someone types “Puppies” into a Search Engine, and Google is the most popular by far, no animal website will even get a look-in. And if you’re not on the first page of Google, you probably won’t be seen…
If we are to take traffic away from Junk Mail, who advertise 18 000 animals a month in their online facility, we must do something different.
2. How will Hopeful Help?
The Hopeful Initiative is an online facility, and more and more South Africans are becoming aware of the Internet’s scope and potential. Hopeful is not a new organisation, and it has no intentions of becoming so. It is a set of free services and systems that will enable Animal Rescue and Welfare in SA to home more animals. The people involved are from many walks of life, but at the core is Internet expertise.
Success on the Web is not determined by how ‘pretty’ a website is, nor how ‘clever’ it may be. I have seen many sites fail because they focused on these two elements to their own detriment. The factors are many and complex, and it will serve no purpose to explain them here save to say that there are ‘on-page’ factors and ‘off-page’ factors, and that we know how to make both work.
It is important, however, to explain what does not work and why the current web infrastructure in SA is not helping the animals.
When there are many small sites, all focused on their particular local communities or speciality, they dilute the traffic volume, with the result that no single site becomes large enough or important enough to attract Search Engines to the extent that they will be featured among the first few search results. The sheer volume of the Junk Mail ads is part of the reason why they have such a high ranking. We did some research regarding their ‘on-page’ factors and guess what? They have not done very much optimisation because they simply do not need to. Why is this important, you ask? It’s important because it tells us two things about the way forward: we need to ‘go big or go home’, and there is a way in because they have left a door open.
The second problem with the current animal rescue/welfare web infrastructure is that for the most part, we are preaching to the choir. The email networks, while they often spread quite wide because of the viral nature of the network, are still limited in size and scope by the fact that those to whom the emails are sent are animal lovers. We need to reach the general public – there is a need to educate, to inform, to expose, but more importantly to get their eyes to see the homeless animals. Search Engine traffic will multiply the current exposure by 100, and then a thousand… When we are getting 5000 visitors a day, imagine how many animals will find homes!
To achieve the above, we need to do the following:
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ALL Animal welfare organisations are invited to place their animals on the Hopeful Virtual Shelter: http://hopeful.ws/homeless There is a strict set of policies and procedures governing this process, and with good reason: there is a need to protect the animals’ interests, and we believe that vaccinations and deworming prior to release to the adopter (no animals may be purchased) as well as sterilisation and home checks are in the animals’ interests. Anyone wishing to operate as a Homer on the Hopeful Network must either be known to the animal rescue and welfare community or work through an existing Homer until such time as a level of understanding and mutual trust has been reached. This includes the SPCA, AACL and any other organisation needing a resource to let the public know what animals are available in the Shelters. Since you will be doing home checks, there is no additional risk, and since you are taking responsibility for the animal’s well-being, all we are providing is a channel, a window into your shelter, so to speak, that will benefit the animals. Our security procedures are bullet-proof – there are three phases, the final one being the submission of the animals’ details and a photo, and unless all our criteria are met, the animal simply does not get seen. We have also taken the majority of the work away from those who wish to have their animals on the Hopeful Network. The registration process takes 20 minutes in total, and the form for submission of animals takes less than a minute to complete. Attach picture, send the email, and you’re done. We do everything else. We are NOT a free-for-all classifieds advertising site – only responsible Homers are admitted. Pictures and info regarding the animals are then sent out on the informal distribution network known as the Animails and in addition every animal is placed on the Hopeful Facebook group.
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The Hopeful Blog is the Voice of the Homeless Animal in SA. We encourage guest writers as long as the subject matter is relevant to domestic animals. There is a need for articles educating people regarding the treatment of animals, behavioural aspects, veterinary advice, and any others that will help to increase awareness and help solve our current problems. Get involved – you do not need to be a Pulitzer Prize winner, just speak your mind…
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We are in the process of creating web pages like this one: http://hopeful.ws/intro/lookingforpup.htm They are designed specifically to attract Search Engines, and the idea is to get people to click on the banner at the bottom after they have read the short, 300 – 350 word article. It does not matter if they do, however – the page will redirect to the shelter within 1.5 minutes, which is how long it takes to read the article. We can move this process along faster if the members of Hopeful write articles – our target is 200 pages for now, which means that if everyone in Hopeful writes one article, we will be ready…
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The current animal rescue and welfare operations in SA need your help. There is much you can do given a little time and enthusiasm, and the requirements are wide-ranging, from computer-related tasks to home checks, and believe me the work is rewarding. There is nothing quite like finding a dog, cat or horse a home. Sign up as a Homer, a Networker, or a Homer, and help us change the lives of thousands of homeless animals around the country.
A Light in their Darkness,
Derek
Hopeful Homeless
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