A question we often receive from newer clients is why we repeatedly write about some of the same topics on their senior living blogs.
It comes up when we are drafting editorial calendars and clients spot the trend.
It’s a great question to ask and the short answer is: topic clusters.
Topic clusters help to position your community as an expert, while also sending a signal to Google that you are a boss on the topic.
In general, senior living blogs are a great way to attract older adults and their families to your site.
They’ll find you during all stages of the buying process if you have a solid strategy for developing your editorial calendar. (A content map is vital, too.)
A strategy we often employ is to create a topic cluster. We use blog articles to drive traffic on topics families search for most often.
Senior Living Blogs and Topic clusters
To be clear, we don’t write about the same topic from the same angle over and over.
For example, if we are trying to showcase a community’s rockstar dining program we come at it from different angles.
One might be a story on how a new resident’s health has improved since her diet is better.
Another article might focus on how nutritional needs change as we age, and a third might be one eating well for one.
Each post is informational and meaningful on it’s own, but also contributes to an overall knowledge cluster.
The senior living industry is so complex, that there are opportunities for creating topic clusters on a variety of topics. Nutrition, exercise, brain health, engagement, and much more.
Planning Your Editorial Calendar
Because most of our clients prefer to work pretty far in advance, we generally plan content six months at a time.
We have a content map for each client that we track by quarter.
Once we identify topic clusters to target, we strategize on ways to create calendars in a way that builds those clusters in a consistent manner.
It takes a considerable amount of upfront organizing, and a good bit of on-going follow up to see what topics are connecting and which ones aren’t.
Think about the questions and concerns seniors and their families share with you. Those are the topics you should be writing about when you update your blog each week.
If you need help determining topics, this article and this one might be of interest.
Drop us a note if you need help strategizing or creating content.
SCCS will have a rare opening in our blog subscription calendar toward the end of 2020.
We’ll be happy to see if there is an opportunity for us to work together in the new year!
p.s…. how excited are we all to be getting closer to saying good-bye to 2020?
Until next time,