What Makes for Good Senior Living SEO?
This week’s question is one we receive often: what makes for good senior living SEO?
We know some of our senior living community partners have outside agencies they use to help them stay ahead of the pack… And, unfortunately, we’ve also talked with many folks who’ve been taken to the cleaners by less than scrupulous SEO companies.
The SCS team is made up of certified SEO copywriters. In addition to our hands-on experience in the industry, we are writers who’ve taken the extra step to learn about SEO.
One thing we like to do once or twice each year is to talk with the SEO folks who work with each of our clients. It is typically this time of year when we do that.
So as we were jumping on those calls over the last month or so, I asked each one of the SEO folks what they think are the keys to good senior living SEO.
Here’s what they had to say…
Solid Senior Living SEO Strategies
- Helpful, Quality Content: Without any prompting from yours truly, quality content was what we heard most often. (Not to brag…ok I guess it is bragging… but ours has been described as “ridiculously good” and “hands-down the best in the industry” by a few folks in the know with the analytics to back it up.) The fluffy, 200-word stuff written by the content mills is a waste of your Tubmans. Our industry is too complex for that. Creating fewer pieces of longer, helpful content is better than lots of short, junky stuff. (My interpretation of what the SEO guys were saying.)
- Well-Written Titles: We’ve all fallen victim to those crazy link-baiting titles on Facebook. It is soooo annoying when the article doesn’t live up to the title isn’t it? An outdated SEO trick is to pack your title full of keywords. We now know that Google doesn’t fall for that. What they want you to do is craft a well-written title that is descriptive of the article. User experience matters. Don’t drive up your bounce rate by trying to create tricky titles.
- Bounce Rate: And speaking of bounce rate, keeping yours low sends a signal to Google that your content is good stuff. When people stay on your site longer, you have more opportunity to pull them in and create a relationship. While not all of our clients share their analytics with us (boo hoo), those that do tell us their time on site is between 7 and 10 minutes when visitors enter through one of our pieces of content. (That compares with 3 minutes or less for a few of our national providers who write some content themselves. Big difference right?)
- Site Speed: I gotta confess… I’m one of those impatient people who jumps ship if the site I’m trying to explore doesn’t immediately load. My favorite hobbies are home and garden anything… So I always have a project or two going. When I’m searching for resources, I almost always end up on a lifestyle blogger’s site. Unfortunately, many of them have popular sites but use super slow hosting companies. They miss a lot of visitors like me because their sites take too darn long to load. If you want to check your site speed, Page Speed Insights from Google Developers is a great way to do so.
- Links: I hesitate to include this because it sends people off to do crazy things to try to earn links. Quality content helps attract links. But link building also requires strategy. Don’t fall for black hat tricks. If you don’t have a partnership with a reputable SEO agency, let us know and we can hook you up.
So as you plan your last half of the year, keep these tips in mind. And if you don’t have the in-house resources to create quality, helpful content for seniors and families, let us know. It’s all we do so we’re pretty darn good at it!
Photo Courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net