Jenn’s Question of the Month: Why have two separate websites?

My name is Jennifer Breymaier and I am with the Extend Team here at Heartbeat International. I have been with Extend for almost five years and I truly love working with each of you every day, partnering with you and doing all that we can to provide you with tools to help strengthen your online presence and reach more women in need.

We receive many important questions every day here at Extend! I wanted to take the time to highlight one of those questions we get each month to make sure that you have the information you need to successfully build connections with those you are trying to reach as a pregnancy help organization.

A very popular question we receive that I am focusing on this month is, “Why have two separate websites?” The simple response - you have two very different audiences.

Audience 1: Your Clients

It is crucial to have a website focused on those who are looking for information regarding pregnancy help. A website to encourage and help those who may be scared or confused, find the strength they need to make decisions that their future depends on. It is important to center this site around the people who are seeking help, facts, or looking into services you offer that may be of help to them. Leading women to information and facts on topics such as pregnancy, parenting, adoption, abortion, etc. to make sure that they know all their options and what comes along with each of these choices. They may not be aware that you offer classes, clothing, and other services that can help them throughout their pregnancy and beyond. They may not know how to reach you or the easiest way to get ahold of you. This website is your tool to bring light to these services. Your website is often the first place people go to learn more about you, so make sure that you have a website dedicated to anyone looking for help no matter what stage of life they are currently in. 

Audience 2: Your Supporters

Now to switch gears, think about a very different audience that you have as a pregnancy help organization – Your supporters, your volunteers, and donors. Those looking to support pregnant mothers in need and wanting to know things about you as a pregnancy center, like what your mission is, what your goals are, how they can get involved, who makes up your team and why you are passionate about this mission. 

Having a separate site to focus on events you have upcoming, ways they can support mothers in need, and how to help bring encouragement to everyone that walks through your door; this allows you to make all this information easily accessible to those who want to support you. Your second website helps you to focus on important information for your supporters and not worry about taking up crucial space on your client-focused website but still make that vital connection with your supporters.

Keep It Simple

Having two separate websites to acknowledge all the different information you would want to share with your client-focused audience and your supporter-focused audience will allow you to differentiate your websites to help avoid confusion and to allow each audience to easily find the important information they are seeking. As a pregnancy help organization you have so much crucial information to get to both your client audience and your supporter audience. An overloaded website that includes large amounts of information that makes it hard for someone to find what they are looking for can turn someone away quickly. Two sites can allow you to keep these topics simple, clean, and understandable.