As dedicated animal shelter and rescue volunteers or staff, you likely already know: One of the most powerful tools in finding pets new homes is utilizing online platforms like Adopt a Pet to connect with potential adopters. Optimizing your pet and organization information on Adopt a Pet can help your pets get adopted with less time and effort for you, so you can focus on other critical work.
As we optimize our website, how your pet info displays to adopters changes. Now's a great time to look at your pets on Adopt a Pet through the eyes of an adopter...
"How do I look?" - Your Adoptable Pets
Look at your pets public pages on both a computer and a mobile device. Is its info easy to understand from a first-time pet owner's perspective? Adopters can get to a pet page in a few ways. You can too:
A) Go to www.adoptapet.com select pet type, type your zip code, and click Get Started, click on pet.
B) Click on the pet in a Pet List embedded on your shelter or rescue's website.
C) Click on the pet's link sent in an email or shared on social media.
Where we get your info
Each pet page on Adopt a Pet displays individual pet info AND your organization's account info.
Pet info comes from either your software importing it, or you using our Add Pet form.
Your account info comes from your My Shelter/Rescue Info
How to optimize your info for adopters
Our research and UX teams are constantly talking to our website users and potential adopters. Many adopters struggle with making a decision about what pet to inquire about due to too limited information. Many also struggle with understanding how to meet and adopt a pet, since adoption steps can vary so greatly from pet to pet.
While providing up-to-date info and keeping it as brief as possible is important for all fields, below are the three top areas our research suggests you should focus on first. Update them all here: My Shelter/Rescue Info
1. Contact Info for adopters
Adopt a Pet requires your shelter/rescue account has a valid public email address or phone, or both. It displays on each pet's details page.
Pro tip: If you add pets directly to to Adopt a Pet (not using software), you can use our "Pet Contacts" feature to assign a different email and/or phone on specific pets. For example, you could create a Pet Contact for dog inquiries, and a second one for Cat inquiries. Then select that Pet Contact when you add or edit each pet.
2. Online adoption application link
This link is highlighted right under each pets Ask About Me button. You can use a link that goes directly to your application, or to your website's Adoption Process or Address/Hours page.
Pro Tip: How to link to more than one application.
3. Adoption Fees
This is the most-requested information. We recommend you type info about your adoption fees into your Additional info about your adoption process field like what is included in the fee, provide the exact fee in the Default Adoption Fee fields (in My Shelter/Rescue Info) and/or on each pet.
Fees must be whole numbers. Example:
You can also enter a different adoption fee on a single pet. A fee entered (or imported from your software) on a single pet overrides just that pet's default fee.
For example, if your default adult dog fee is $75 but Fido's fee is $50, you can edit Fido's fee on his page by editing him from your My Pet List.
4. More ways to improve adoption interest
- Be positive and transparent: Here's more on Writing pet descriptions that appeal to adopters.
- Write compelling pet descriptions: Short on time? Try using ChatGPT to write pet bios.
- New week, new 1st pet photo: Have a pet who's been adoptable and listed for more than a week? Try a new photo for the pet's first photo. Do that each week. Try a silly one. One with a person. Anything new. Because whatever photo you used for a week, no matter how great, didn't attract the right adopter... Yet!