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Every Animal Deserves a Home: How to Improve Traffic in your Animal Shelters

Cute animals — is there anything more universally appealing? All your shelter’s residents need is a little help to show off their natural charm. There are three crucial things you need maximize in order to improve traffic in your animal shelter: Care, Cuteness and Exposure.
Care: keep the animals in peak physical and emotional health
Always abide by the Canadian Standards of Care in Animal Shelters. Aside from your legal obligation to provide humane care, well-cared for animals are happier. Comfortable conditions and enriching environment make dogs and cats less stressed and fearful and therefore more likely to make a successful transition to a permanent home.

Cuteness: make sure the unique personality of each animal is highlighted
This element goes hand-in-hand with maximizing care. Animals should be well-groomed and socialized — and any personality quirks or special needs noted. Create profiles of each animal to introduce it to potential adopters, both at the shelter and via media outlets. Every profile of course must feature a picture or pictures with the animal looking adorable. Reach out to local amateur and professional photographers; many will do photos of shelter pets free of charge as a community service.

Exposure: Get your happy and cute animals noticed!
Exposure is the most critical element of the equation — tell as many people as possible about your cute and happy animals! Reach out to pet supply stores or other retailers about having an adoption event in their local outlets. Get your pets featured in local newspapers, magazines or television shows.

Of course, the internet is an indispensable resource for showcasing your adoptable animals. You must list your animals on petfinder.com, as this is one of the most popular and trusted resources for people looking to adopt. You should also set up a website just for your shelter and take steps to maximize the site’s Google ranking. If you are new to search engine optimization (SEO) and analytics, take a look at this handy six-step guide to improving your non-profit’s Google ranking.