SEO, or search engine optimization, is the foundation of most online marketing these days. If you’re a senior living operator and you want clients to find your site, you need to incorporate SEO as part of your ongoing marketing strategy.
Believe it or not, your website is the best marketing asset you have and can serve as a virtual sales rep for your company. SEO helps optimize your site so seniors and their families who are seeking information about independent or assisted living can find their way there more easily. Through SEO, you increase both the quantity and quality of traffic through organic search engine results; ramp up your conversions; and generate more leads.
While mastering SEO techniques can seem complicated, it’s essential knowledge for marketing teams, so let us show you how SEO can help you develop a website that works for your senior living business.
Websites use SEO to make it easier for Google’s search engine to understand, categorize, and index their site, and then to send users there when they type in their search query. But it’s important to create your webpages with users, not search engines, in mind. Google will drop your ranking if you use the same keyword or phrase too many times, so stick to four to six uses per post.
On-page SEO: Content is king
The art of search engine optimization has two elements; the first, on-page SEO, refers to all the aspects you set up on your site, including the structure of headers and sub heads, the ALT tags you add to photos and images, the keywords you feature in your content; and the internal links you add that point back to pages on your own site.
SEO-friendly content is the most important thing for having a website to generate new leads for your senior living community, business or service. Without content like blogs and press releases, your site will have a hard time retaining visitors or ranking on Google search results. But the keywords within that content are also highly important.
To generate highly specific keywords tailored to your target clientele — seniors and their families — use the Google Ads Keywords tool, or platforms like Ubersuggest and Seed Keywords, to find senior living keywords with a high-search volume but low-search competition. You can also generate keyword ideas organically by assessing your current website copy. If your business is located in a specific region, add local modifiers to your keywords.
Off-page SEO: Keep them coming back
SEO’s second element is off-page SEO, which means placing content elsewhere that drives traffic back to your senior living business’s website. Google measures the relevance and popularity of your website based on how many times you’re mentioned and linked to on the internet, so it’s helpful to use backlinks, which link to your business’s website from other websites.
The more backlinks you have, especially from prominent websites, the more prominent you’ll be in search results. Pivot can help your site appear or rank higher in online directories. We can also help you optimize your Google Business listing for Google’s Local Pack, Local Finder, and Maps, as well as organic search results.
Once you have optimized your site for SEO, make sure to monitor your traffic using Google Analytics, then adjust your copy and linking accordingly. Sixty-seven percent of adults 65 and over are online today; SEO can help you connect with more of them.
Can we help you with SEO, content creation or another marketing challenge? Call us at (303) 499-9291 or contact us.