“#1 Page Ranking Guaranteed! Double Your Website Traffic in 30 Days!”
Have you ever received marketing emails or calls that make these kinds of promises? If you’re struggling for your home care company to rank on a search engine like Google or frustrated that competitors seem to be getting more business, engaging with companies that make these types of promises can be tempting.
Unfortunately, these promises are highly unrealistic.
To learn more about an effective home care SEO strategy and why SEO makes a difference for home care agencies, we went straight to three of corecubed’s home care SEO experts: Stacie Gillespie, Director of Search Marketing, and Connor Crowe and La’Shay Willis, SEO Specialists.
Q: What is SEO and why is it important?
A: SEO, or search engine optimization, helps increase:
- The exposure and visibility of a website.
- The quality and quantity of website traffic.
SEO is important because it helps people looking for home care services find your agency when entering a search term or phrase into a website browser.
Q: Why is SEO more important now than ever to home care and senior care companies?
A: With the combination of events happening in the world today – from the coronavirus to the economic downturn – driving qualified traffic to your website is vitally important. Where home care agencies have typically used face-to-face outreach to build awareness and grow their business, this option is no longer possible in the short term. Because of this, there is an accelerated need for home care SEO and digital marketing as a whole – PPC, website optimization, and an improved online presence – in order to gain wide exposure to people who are looking for home care.
PRO TIP: For consumers who are looking for reviews, testimonials, or information about specific services, SEO helps guide and direct them to specific parts of your agency’s website that can provide them with the information and resources they need.
Q: What can and can’t SEO do? What type of expectations should an agency have when launching a campaign?
A: SEO isn’t the cure-all for marketing efforts; rather, it’s one part of the bigger picture. SEO is designed to drive qualified leads – the right people at the right time – to your website. Once on your site, SEO can’t force those people to call you or submit a contact form. Instead, an experienced home care SEO partner will go a step further and make on-page and metadata updates that will help lead people to contact forms and other avenues of on-site outreach, and encourage them to take the next step. Once on your site, a user-friendly, well organized and intelligent website design can keep people engaged and interested in taking the time to actually submit their contact information, or pick up the phone to place a call.
PRO TIP: Don’t rely on a home care SEO partner who only focuses on search results and promises to increase traffic. SEO is so much more than that. Home care companies should partner with an agency that:
- Conducts extensive keyword research for your market area to determine what keywords consumers are using to search for the services you provide, and recommends which keywords will produce the most organic traffic for your site.
- Monitors heatmaps of your website pages to understand how people are interacting with your site and what can be implemented to improve user experience and conversions (website form fills or phone calls to your agency).
- Analyzes and understands what your competitors are doing well, or not well, and uses that intel to improve results for your website.
- Makes sure that your site is performing as well as possible.
- Works to build qualified backlinks.
Q: Is SEO a long-term commitment? Is SEO work ever finished?
A: Yes, and absolutely not. There are no guarantees with SEO. Home care agencies may feel like they have figured out a small piece of it, and they may even see some benefits, but then Google will introduce a new algorithm that will throw everything off. Doing SEO well is a full-time job. Agencies can’t have an employee who is already wearing multiple hats also do a thorough job of managing SEO. It’s far too specialized. Because of this, it’s important to partner with SEO experts, like those at corecubed. Each member of our SEO team holds degrees in digital marketing from accredited universities, and has also achieved multiple Google certifications, helping corecubed earn the Google Partner designation. Our team lives and breathes home care SEO and we’re constantly working to stay on top of Google updates, industry changes, and more.
PRO TIP: Let the experts focus on SEO so that your agency and your caregivers can focus on their expertise: providing exceptional home care. Work as a team toward a common goal, growing the business and increasing qualified leads.
Q: What is PPC, why is it important, and how does it fit into an SEO strategy?
A: SEO and PPC go hand in hand. They are both working toward achieving the same end goal: bringing more qualified traffic to a website. PPC stands for Pay Per Click. With PPC, a home care agency pays a small fee each time their ad is clicked on in the search results associated with a specified keyword; for example, “home care in Baltimore.” PPC will help your agency get to the top of search results quicker than SEO ever can. Bumping up PPC when SEO is struggling can help push an agency higher in rankings until organic performance improves. This can be especially important for new brands or new sites because it takes time for Google to recognize your agency, crawl your site, and to show your agency in search results. PPC can give you that initial bump until SEO really catches on.
PRO TIP: If you choose to run both SEO and PPC campaigns, best practice is to have the same agency managing both. This is because there are many insights to be shared between the two. Without constant, daily communication between SEO and PPC teams, there is potential for missed opportunities.
Q: What are keywords and how do they impact SEO?
A: Keywords are the words (often referred to as the search terms) people use to find certain services and products. Home care SEO experts know the importance of targeting keywords that have a high search volume – i.e. the words and phrases people are actually using to find home care services. Equipped with this information, an SEO team will look for ways to add these words and phrases to a home care agency’s site, enabling these pages to be found more often in a search.
PRO TIP: The home care SEO team at corecubed has found that using long tail keywords specific to an agency’s region bring greater search results than those that are generic. For example, rather than trying to rank for “home care,” agencies should try to rank for phrases such as “home care in Syracuse.”
Q: How does the content on my agency’s website impact an SEO strategy?
A: SEO is the driving factor and user experience is the converting factor. If your agency’s website hasn’t been updated in over a decade, there’s a strong chance that the people coming to your site may have a terrible user experience. This leads to a high bounce rate – getting to the site and quickly leaving. For Google, this is a red flag that the site is not user-friendly, not updated regularly, and does not contain the information people are looking for; these days, Google is hyper-focused on search intent. In contrast, having a well-designed site that is updated with new content regularly, and that is backed by a robust SEO strategy, encourages Google to show a website in organic search results more often and ultimately drives more organic traffic to the site. Google wants to see that you are active, participating and listening to your audience.
PRO TIP: Don’t forget about the things that can impact SEO that are not on your website. Keep your agency’s Google My Business listing updated and current, manage the agency’s online reputation on third party sites, and maintain the agency’s presence on social media.
Q: I expect to see results after an SEO strategy is implemented?
A: It can take six months to really see true SEO results and a significant increase in the amount of organic traffic. Organic traffic is the number one driver for qualified traffic on websites because it captures people when they’re searching for a solution to their issue – Mom needs help at home. Existing websites may see progress in fewer months, and it can take a bit longer on a new site. Building a comprehensive home care SEO strategy involves researching keywords and competitors; it isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. Truly setting yourself up for success takes time and consistent effort.
Q: What does corecubed do to ensure a successful SEO/PPC campaign?
A: Each member of the SEO team specializes in specific areas of digital marketing. It’s our job to understand (to the best of our ability) what Google is thinking and to stay on top of trends and changes in not just the digital marketing world, but also in the home care industry. We are very hands-on with each of our clients. We’re constantly analyzing and tweaking in order to optimize campaigns and bring clients the best results. We get to know the client and their goals, as well as the agency’s website and what’s been done on the site. We analyze how changes impact a site in ranking for SEO. We constantly question what else can be done in order to improve rankings. As a team of experts, we aren’t just satisfied with a high-level view and high-level tasks; we get into the nooks and crannies, making sure that we’re using the right keywords, in the right places, based on how Google reads webpages. We look at what will help your agency, what competitors are doing, and we create a home care SEO and PPC strategy based on this knowledge.
Q: Why is corecubed the best choice for home care SEO and PPC?
A: By working with corecubed, you’re truly partnering with a team of experts who not only know SEO and PPC, but who also have deep experience and knowledge of the home care industry. As a niche in home marketing agency, this puts us at a distinct advantage, an advantage that we pass on to our clients. Additionally, clients never have to be concerned that SEO or PPC work is outsourced. Our team manages everything, providing clients with detailed reports and a cohesive strategy. We don’t function on autopilot; if we see something that can benefit a client, we do it.
If your home care agency could benefit from partnering with an SEO expert who also knows the home care industry inside and out, reach out to corecubed today at 800.370.6580 x1, and learn how to get clients for home care services with a digital marketing strategy.