Senior living SEO is surrounded by myths and mystique. While there are a variety of reasons why, one is that people are too intimidated by the very notion of SEO to make time to learn what it is.
Then there is the fact that SEO “experts” frequently disagree with one another. Even Google team members give out wrong information.
Case in point…
Even Google struggles to understand Google
Google has always maintained that having keywords in your local descriptions didn’t make a difference to your SEO. We often share that information with clients who are working on their local strategy.
A few weeks ago, one of our single-site clients called us to ask if Google had changed their mind about it.
Now we make no claims to being SEO consultants. But as SEO copywriters, we know more than the average bear on the block. And we know Google has always maintained that keywords in descriptions don’t help with SEO.
Our client said it looked to him like that was changing.
He found an interesting tidbit on Improve your local ranking on Google, a good resource for getting found in local searches. The quote with advice from Google read:
“Think about the words customers would type to find your business, and make sure that your listing actually includes those keywords within it.”
Sure sounds like keywords in your local description make a difference, right? And it’s written by one of Google’s own peeps.
Turns out, it was just plain wrong.
Yep, Google got Google wrong. They’ve since corrected the information.
3 Common SEO Mistakes
What other SEO mistakes do we see?
Quite a few, really. And some have been around forever.
- Keyword density: Believe it or not, we still come across senior living providers who send us documents their SEO “expert” created. They want us to target a specific keyword density. Folks, this is.not.a.thing. It is a sign of an SEO expert whose not very…expert. Well-written content wins every time. While we do believe keywords are essential (and not everyone does), we don’t think you have to use them over and over and over and…
- Keyword jamming: Along the same lines as keyword density, is what we call keyword jamming. If you want to see our Senior Editor roll her eyes so hard her pupils vanish, pretend to be a new client. Tell her you’ll add all of the keywords on your list to every piece of content we create. Yep, people still think the more keywords, the better. We’ve had client who unknowingly hired black hat SEO consultants. They take our carefully researched and written blog articles and jam them full of keywords. No context, no strategy. Terrible visitor experience.
- Paying for links: It’s not unusual for myself or one of our editors to get spammy emails from SEO folks. Because we write for some of the country’s leading aging services providers, they want to pay us to work links in to our copy. Some are quite blatant in their pay us, and others are a bit more discreet. If someone asks you for money in exchange for a link or vice versa, your answer should always be a hard no. Don’t pay for or accept cash for links.
Did you miss this article, Black Hat SEO and Senior Living: Another Scam?
We talked about another scam a few of our senior living clients alerted us to back in early January. Give it a read as it’s another important one, too.
If your goal is to increase your rank using high quality senior living content, drop us a note. We’ll be happy to set up a time to talk.
Until next time,
Shelley