Potential residents and their families are increasingly turning to the internet to aid in their search for a retirement community. Nearly every community has a website, and most employ lead-generating tactics on them (contact page, downloadable brochures, etc.). But there is always room for improvement. Over a period of three weeks, we’ll provide you with three actionable tips that you can use to improve your digital footprint.
This week, we’re issuing you a challenge to test your SEO.
If you’re doing any kind of digital marketing, you’ve heard the term “SEO” bandied about like a magic bullet; we’re here to tell you that it’s not. Creating quality SEO takes hard work, commitment and deep thought. It’s an art, not a science.
Let’s do an exercise. Open a new tab and go to Google. Now, search to find your community without using its name or the town in which it is located. How long did it take you to find it? How far down on the list was it? This exercise quickly shows that if your search engine optimization strategy is to reinforce your name and the town where your community is, you are missing potential leads.
When creating a website, think holistically about how a person would find each page via a search. If you are optimizing for the phrase “Independent Living Tacony PA,” how many searches do you think you’ll pick up? Tacony isn’t well-known to those outside of the Philadelphia area. Put yourself in the user’s shoes; he or she wants the best search results for the least amount of effort. A better search term to optimize for might be “Independent Living near Philadelphia” or “Southeastern PA Independent Living.”
This sort of deeper thinking is one of the factors that sets a truly great website apart. Critically thinking about the SEO of, not just the homepage, but of every page on the website will help increase leads that convert to sales. By being intensely curious about online consumer behavior, we have been able to identify areas of improvement for our clients’ websites and provide them with a digital strategy that puts them at a distinct advantage in an increasingly online world.
