Increase the chances of potential pet owners and donors finding your animal shelter or rescue group online. If you look at the traffic statistics for your shelter’s website, you may be surprised at the different ways visitors to your site find you. Get listed on as many animal rescue and animal shelter directories as possible.
You can find directories for your city, county, and state. Enter “animal shelter” or “animal rescue”+ “your city, state” or “your county, state,” etc. Also get listed in any special pet-related resources, such as annual publications for pet lovers for your state or community. For example, here in New Mexico, the specialty pet resource called PETroglyphs lists shelters, rescues, events, legislation, etc., for the whole state.
If you operate a rescue for a specific breed of dog, find any listings online for those groups and enter your shelter or rescue name.
Or, if you are a safe haven for pets that need to escape from domestic violence, get listed on those directories. An example of a safe haven list is the Online Directory of Safe Havens for Animals™ Programs These shelters provide a safe place for pets while their owners escape domestic abuse. Very important — if you provide this service, please add your shelter’s name.
Volunteers, especially kids, could help the their local shelters find more guides and directories and actually submit the shelter’s listing.
Be sure to include the city and state with your shelter’s name.
Following are national directories of animal shelters:
No-Kill Organizations by States
Animal Shelter directory (US)
Animal Shelter Directory (Canada)MuttCats Pet Shelter Directory
Petfinder.com (many shelters use this site as their adoption pages)
Animal Shelter & Rescue Program Directory Listings
Dog Rescue Directory from SitStay.com