Mother Teresa was a force of nature and wholly unique. This strong and independent woman was born Gonxha (Agnes) Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Yugoslavia, on August 27, 1910. Though so much of her young life was centered in the Church, Mother Teresa later revealed that until she reached 18, she had never thought of being a nun.

During her early years, however, she was fascinated with stories of missionary life and service which led her to become one of the most influential women in history. The graphic below can be seen on Franciscan Media's new microsite which highlights a few milestones of her life.

In 1928, the future Mother Teresa began her religious life in Ireland, far from her family and the life she'd known, never seeing her mother again in this life, speaking a language few understood. During this period a sister novice remembered her as "very small, quiet and shy," and another member of the congregation described her as "ordinary."

Despite years of strenuous physical, emotional and spiritual work, she seemed unstoppable. Though frail and bent, with numerous ailments, she always returned to her work, to those who received her compassionate care for more than 50 years.

Until her death in 1997, MT continued her work among the poorest of the poor, depending on God for all of her needs. Honors too numerous to mention had come her way throughout the years, as the world stood astounded by her care for those usually deemed of little value. 

Client Background

Franciscan Media is a nonprofit Catholic media company based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Since 1893, the company has sought to inform and inspire Catholics and others across the country and throughout the world. For many years, their principal communication was St. Anthony Messenger—which is still the number one national Catholic family magazine.

Since the 1970's, the Cincinnati Franciscans expanded their media ministry to include parish handouts and books, audio recordings, and video production. In recent years, they have successfully built a booming digital and social media presence reaching millions of people each year. 

With the creation of the microsite, the company hoped to extend their reach and influence through honoring one of the most influential women in history. 

Goals

As with any client that we service, their success can only be measured by the goals that are set in place. Through the creation of the Mother Teresa microsite, Franciscan Media desired to achieve the following results:

1. Page 1 SERP Ranking: In order to achieve a page 1 ranking, we knew that the site had to be content-rich. The vision was to implement continuous scrolling which would allow for a simple user journey in addition to providing relevant, informative material for visitors.
2. Lead Capturing: With the immense amount of traffic that Franciscan Media receives on a monthly basis, we knew that the Mother Teresa microsite had to be a lead generating machine with a goal of 1,000 new contacts total. Two primary conversion points would allow us to do so.
3. Consistent Branding: Lastly, the site needed to keep consistent branding with Franciscan Media while also maintaining an autonomous experience for visitors. Something that can be tricky to pull off. 

Challenges

Going into this project, we knew that the site would be up against some fierce competition. The term "mother teresa" generates over 76 million search engine results with 450,000 searches every month. That means there is a significant amount of content to compete with. 

In addition to climbing what could be viewed as the Mount Everest of search terms, another factor that played into the success of this project was being able to compete with the official site of Mother Teresa. This indicated that the site's SEO strategy needed to be perfect.

So, how did we do?

Results

Page 1 ranking:

We (and our client of course) are happy to say that the microsite achieved each of the desired goals stated above and then some! The site currently ranks on page 1 of Google with over 150,000 views to the site itself. 

1,000 new contacts:

Although a page 1 ranking was critical to the success of this project, it wasn't the only achievement we were aiming for. The site also generated over 1,500 new contacts within the first 60 days surpassing our goal of 1,000. This is critical to our client's inbound program!

Clicks-to-submissions:

Another milestone that was reached but was not in the initial goals for this microsite was a clicks-to-submissions percentage of 40.3%. This metric is a good indication that the content of the site is relevant and visitors want to learn more. 

Happy clients are one of our most favorite things (aside from our office K9s of course). Through the completion of this site, our client stated the following about our work: 

"With the canonization of Mother Teresa looming we had less than 4 weeks to create a site that would retain our ranking against stiff competition. With NR Media Group's expert guidance we maintained page one ranking for some very valuable real estate during a highly watched event."

- Ray Taylor, Director of Sales & Marketing, Franciscan Media

See the full scroll-through of the site below or see for yourself here!

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