What we
do for Gold Level Members
Creation
of your "Dear Birthmother" webpage.
We
will publish your letter of introduction
("Dear Birthparent(s)" letter) on Adoption
Online.com using our standard web
page format. Text of reasonable length
will be accepted for publication, we
suggest the equivalent of two typed
8½ by 11 inch
pages. You may provide this letter
by US mail or electronically (preferably
in Microsoft Word format).
Adoption
professionals commonly advise that these
detailed letters include occupation(s),
hobbies, personality styles, religious
affiliation, family configuration, home
environment, and anything else you feel
provides an accurate portrait of the type
of life you will provide for a child.
It may be helpful to refer to letters
currently posted on Adoption Online.com
for examples.
Remember,
you will be communicating to a woman (or
a couple) who is considering an adoption
plan for a baby. You should be as clear
as possible, and honest.
In
addition to your letter, the web page
will contain:
- 4
photographs (more available for additional
fee)
- contact
information for you and/or your adoption
professional (e-mail, phone,
etc.)
- survey
form where birthparents can give
you valuable feedback on your webpage
Your
webpage will be added to our service
within 7 -10 business days after receipt
of all necessary materials at
our
office. Once posted, you may make small
changes to your listing, at no additional
charge, if you decide that it is necessary.
Our "Find A Family" search
engine.
A
potential Birthparent finds your listing
on Adoption Online.com by using our
unique search feature, "Find a Family". We specifically designed this search
engine so that each search term displayed
leads to at least one prospective adoptive
family. With "Find a Family" we've eliminated
dissappointing searches that yeild zero
results.
You
may choose up to 10 search terms
to uniquely identify your listing.
Please provide your search term choices
upon
registering.
You
should visit the Find
A Family page to see the search
terms currently in use. If you should
think of an appropriate search term
not currently in use, please let
us know, we'd be happy to create
a new
classification for you at no additional
charge. You can choose search terms
from whatever categories you'd like
and do not have to be listed in every
category.
Those
who wish to adopt a special needs child,
toddler or older child may use extra
search terms in addition to the regular
10 term maximum. In other words,
if you select "hoping to adopt an older
child" as a search term it is in
addition to your 10 search term
maximum as stated above (i.e. you will
have 11 terms under which your letter
will be found).
We
reserve the right to combine your new
search terms with existing terms if,
in our opinion, no value is added by
the new term you propose. For example,
the proposed term "Location: USA" will
be rejected since 98% of our clients
and Birthmothers come from the US,
and therefore, this term does not uniquely
differentiate you from others.
The
following are examples of
search terms:
- Category:
Family Type and Adoption Wishes
- Families
with children
- Families
without children
- Single
parent families
- Multiracial
families
- Families
wanting to adopt multiracial children
- Families
wanting to adopt twins
- Families
wanting to adopt special needs children
- Families
wanting to adopt older children
- Category:
Area, State or Country
- Area
of the world in which you live
- Area
of the country in which you live
- State
in which you live
- Type
of pet you have (Dog, Cat, Horse
etc.)
- Hobbies
(Music, Arts & Crafts etc.)
- Recreation
(Sports, Music, Travel etc.)
- Category:
Lifestyle, Religion or Heritage
- Lifestyle
(Live in the Country, City, Seacoast
etc.)
- Religion
(Catholic, Jewish, Christian, etc.)
- Heritage
(Native American, Irish, etc.)
The
order in which your name(s) appear
in the category listings will be changed
on a regular basis to provide a fairness
impossible to attain by traditional
advertising methods (newspapers, for
example).
When
a potential Birthparent gets the results
of a "Find A Family" search, he/she
will see a "thumbnail" (small)
version of your main photo along with
several lines of descriptive text
next to your name. This descriptive
text is written by you. The descriptive
text should be designed to draw a potential
Birthparents attention, and can be
a synopsis of your listing or whatever
you think will be effective. Please
include this text when you join Adoption
Online.com. See
our descriptive
text example to see specifically
how this works.
Photos
Added to your "Dear Birthmother" webpage.
The
basic Gold level listing includes 4
photographs on your webpage. More
photographs may be added for a small
additional fee. You should submit photographs
of yourself, your
home,
pets or anything
else you
feel will enhance your listing. Our
experience has shown that listings
with multiple photographs tend to have
more positive results. This is because
the Birthparent is better able to picture
the kind of life his/her child will
have when you are chosen as the adoptive
family.
All
photos will appear directly on your
letter. Please refer to our example
listing to see exactly how this
works.
We
have placed thousands of photos on
the internet since 1995. Our ability
to make your photos look their best
on
the
Internet is limited by the quality
of the image you provide to us. When
you submit your photographs please
keep
the following
in mind:
- Avoid
sending copies of photographs made
on a color copier. There is very
little we can do to make these look
good on the Internet.
- Choose
photographs that are not too dark,
and that do not have shadows on peoples
faces.
- Photos
submitted electronically must be
in .jpg format, using a compression
ratio of no greater than 90%. Our
office has a high speed internet
connection and plenty of disk space,
sending large, high quality files
is not a problem and is encouraged!
Additonal
sugestions for selecting your photographs
can be found in
this article.
Additional
included services.
In
addition to our extensive advertising
and promotional activities, our services
to you include:
- FREE submission
of your page to the top Internet
search engines including Google,
Yahoo and MSN.
- FREE "Client
Chat", a place where you can share
news, support and advice with other
Clients. "Client Chat" is also the
method we use to tell you about important
news and information and share the
success stories of our clients.
- Immediate
notification of adoption opportunities
that we learn about.
- Minor
changes and modifications to your
listing are free. Such changes constitute
editing a few sentences, modifying
descriptive text or changing search
terms. More extensive changes are
performed for a fee.
- Prompt
customer service by phone or E-mail
to answer questions, resolve problems,
or anything else.
- Minor
photo-retouching and enhancing such
as redeye removal, cropping, color
optimization for web viewing etc.
Gold
Level optional features available
for an additional fee:
- Additional
photos (beyond the 4 that come with
Gold Level membership) can
be added to your webpage at anytime
for a one time
fee
per photo.
- Featured
Waiting Family photo-placement is
available on over 100 of
our web pages including the Adoption
Online home page, Find
A Family search page and
the Birthparent
resources page. What
is Featured Family? A
small (thumbnail) version of
your main
photo is shown
in our "Featured Waiting Families"
section on over 100 of our web
pages. Photos are shown on equal
basis for all Gold
level
members
who
choose this service. Gold level
members photos will be shown
twice as often as those of Bronze
members.
Your photo clicks directly to
your individual listing on Adoption
Online.
You
can expect that in 3
months your photo will
be displayed a minimum of 10,000*
times. This translates to a cost
of just 0.005 cents every time
your photo is shown.
If
you pay by credit card we will
automatically
renew your thumbnail account
for an additional month
of showings each month until
you tell us to stop or you cancel
your membership, whichever
comes
first.
(*Minimum
10,000 showings in 3 months is
a good faith estimate based on
the average number of visits
to these pages over the past
2 years assuming 25 members participate
in this extra service. The actual
number of views you receive will
vary with the number of visitors
to these pages and number of
members choosing this extra service.
There is no guarantee your photo
will be shown the minimum number
of times)
Promotional Activities
Adoption
Online.com believes that there is a
child for everyone wanting to adopt,
it's just a matter of time and adequate
exposure. Our goal is to attract as
many
Birthparents to your web page as possible.
We do this using a variety of methods
which include:
- Internet
advertising of our websites (linking,
banner ads and search engines).
- Multiple
domain names that point to Adoption
Online.com (dearbirthparent.com, open-adoption.com, abortioninformation.com, etc.)
- Ads
in magazines and trade journals.
- Networking
with Adoption professionals.
- Interviews
and articles published in newspapers
and magazines.
- A
press
release describing Adoption Online.com
is distributed to news services, magazines
and adoption agencies nationwide.
- Word-of-mouth
advertising from satisfied clients and
Birthparents
We
encourage all of our clients to spread
the word as well! You might consider notifying
your local newspapers and television news
stations in order to obtain maximum exposure
for yourself, in your area.
Policies and other important information
As
you develop your letter, please keep in
mind that all of our clients have worked
long and hard on their letters. Each represents
a heartfelt statement of their hopes,
dreams and desires. While we encourage
you to view these letters so that you
may better understand how to construct
your own, please do not copy material
directly from client letters. If it is
discovered that your letter contains material
copied from others, it will be removed
from our service immediately. Under these
circumstances, you will be offered an
opportunity to revise your letter, however,
a reinstallation fee of $100 must be paid
before your revised listing will be restored.
Refer
to our policies section for more information.
Join Adoption Online
OK,
I'm ready to sign up, how
much does Gold membership cost?
Not sure which membership
level best meets your needs?
Take a look at our comprehensive comparison
chart.
What we Don't Do
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