What do you look for in a cat adoption website?

The volunteer who rescued our second kitten Barnaby has now founded her own rescue group. Me and my boyfriend are a little short on money right now (he is between jobs), so we cannot make a donation, but she told us once that managing everything through facebook is hard and I offered to design a wordpress-based website (easy to uodate) for her, obviously for free.

Designing well performing and beautiful websites is part of my job, but I really want to go the extra mile in regard to content.

Hers is a really small group, they rescue cat and kittens from the street, care for them, heal them (one of the volunteer is a vet), spay/neuter and put them up for adoption.

Here in Italy the quality of this kind of websites is incredibly low, they all look like some 2005 teenager's myspace page, and I'd really like for this one to stand out. I'm doing a bit of research but I'm lost.

So: do you know any good website of animal rescue groups? I'm not going to copy the design, what I'm looking for is:
Well structured, easy to find, pertinent information;
Sections and pages that are an absolute must, or even a nice to have;
In general, what do you look for in a rescue association in order to trust them and to accept that they know their business? In general, what gives you a good vibe when you are looking to adopt a cat?

Any input is appreciated!

Thank you very much, I really want to do a good job.

The things I like to see on rescue websites are, by sections:

- About the rescue - who founded it, who is involved, how it helps the community, TNR/spay and neuter programs. If they rescue from one particular neighbourhood or operate in a larger area.

- How the cats are cared for - specify they're spayed/neutered, what vaccinations they come with, how they're housed (caged/cageless/foster homes), how they're socialized. You can add to this section what their policies or beliefs are, such as on spaying and neutering and declawing. Articles or links that address declawing to educate prospective adopters would be great.

- Adoptable cats and their little profiles

- Their adoption fees, how to adopt, the adoption procedure (ie. one of my local humane societies says that if you have other pets in the home, they need to come visit adoptive animals with the whole human family too; a rescue I got Kismet from wrote on their site you'll have a phone interview, and then you'll visit the cat in its foster home but to bring a carrier and be ready to take the cat home right then if it works out)

- How to contact, visit, help, volunteer, and donate to them

- Any special events they may be having, like fundraisers or adoptathons

If they have enough help and someone has the time a few times a week, I think a blog is a great touch. It's not mandatory, but it's an excuse to post pictures and advertise for the cats and it helps spread the day-to-day tasks of rescue, etc. Facebook is something that's very easy to follow, so having a Facebook page can help a lot too since posts can be shared faster and more easily!

l love this shelter, l've got cats from here before, as have other family members, and they're great! The huge kitty catios are much better than our city humane society.

Anyway, back to the website.

This is theirs:

http://www.lanarkanimals.ca/

lt's pretty comprehensive, and the front page is loaded with main information for those people who stop by to look but don't scroll through it.

Others have given great advice!  The one thing I'll add is how you take the pictures.  People want to see pictures of happy animals, not sad ones.  I read an article once about the differences the pictures make in pet adoption, and they showed the same animal in different poses and I have to admit I can see how it would make a difference. 

^ This is absolutely true. I have two photographer friends who volunteer with humane societies to take pictures, and the difference is night and day. People who just work in the shelter and have a point and shoot camera tend to end up choosing terrible angles, using flash that drowns everything out, they take pictures while the animals are in cages, and they look closed in, their eyes are glowing and squinting, and they look generally unhappy. The impression it gives is unfriendly.

When someone asked about why a cat had been in foster care for 3 years with the rescue Kismet came from, the volunteer replying said "the foster family has been unable to give us a better photo of her, and people gauge through the photos". The only photo they had of said cat was of her starting to walk up to the camera, squinty eyed and half snarly because the flash only illuminated right on her face.

http://www.colonycats.org/

http://www.catwelfareohio.com/

These are two of them in my area,  all of the rescues seem to use the same basic format.  The second one always seem to make an effort to highlight black kitties because here anyway  they often get left behind when it comes to adoptions.

Thank you guys you are GREAT!

@chiarabab   l hope you drop back in and show us the end result. l'd love to see your work 

Andrya said:

 
@chiarabab   l hope you drop back in and show us the end result. l'd love to see your work 

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I most definitely will! Of course it will be all in italian and it will be ready in a few months... I'll have to work on it at night.