Senior Living Website Design: Does Yours Build Trust?

Your senior living website is your most important marketing asset, one that must build trust with prospects no matter where they are in their journey.

What’s the number one reason most people mistrust a website? Poor site design.

Luckily, your senior living website design is something within your control. A good design does cost money, but it’s a worthy investment.

Here’s the secret sauce to a senior living website that builds trust:

• Designed with the user in mind: Think simple navigation, highly intuitive feel, and accessible.
• Worthwhile content: Think engaging stories through words, visuals, and overall design and layout.
• Technically sound: Think mobile-friendly, fast, and secure.

Below, we take a deeper dive into each bullet point.

Senior living websites that build trust are designed with the user in mind.

Think accessible.

You want to create a senior living website that’s aesthetically pleasing and accessible. Making a website accessible isn’t simply the right thing to do. For some businesses, it’s also required.

Private businesses and nonprofits with 15 or more employees are subject to the website compliance guidelines defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This act likely covers most—if not all—senior living communities.

At a minimum, you must consider things like . . .

• Font size and color contrasts (e.g., can people distinguish what’s a link vs. regular text?)
• Whether all photos have appropriate alt text
• Whether the site is easy to navigate with adaptive technologies (like screen readers)

And that’s just the beginning.

Learn how we help our clients make accessible websites with UserWay.

Think custom.

We always urge our clients to avoid stock images. We can’t tell you how often we see the same images of older adults across different community websites.

You’ll have difficulty differentiating your site if you’re using the same canned images. Someone might even think they’re on your site because they recognize an image when, in reality, they’re on a competitor’s site that uses the same photos. Custom photography allows you to differentiate, enhance your brand, and better tell your community’s story.

You’ll also want to avoid website templates for various reasons, but the main one is it’s hard to create a custom experience from a template. (Here’s a longer list of why you should avoid templated websites.)

Think fresh.

Websites can grow stale and stagnant, especially in the senior living space. You’ll want to refresh your senior living website every two to three years (or even redesign it).

Senior living websites that build trust offer worthwhile content.

Content and design go hand-in-hand. You could have the best content in the world, but a poorly designed site will cause people to bounce before they fully experience it. On the flip side, a beautiful site will be nothing more than an empty shell if the content doesn’t pass muster.

So, let’s talk about content. The content on your senior living website should provide facts and connect with your audience’s emotions. The best way to accomplish the latter is through storytelling. Stories can attract, engage, and persuade your audience by showing them through words and visuals how your community can solve their problems and improve their lives.

To create compelling stories, you should follow some best practices. Use real photos and videos, a clear and conversational tone, emotional words and sensory details, and a simple, logical structure.

You can also use storytelling techniques to craft riveting narratives that resonate with your audience. Examples include the hero’s journey, the before-and-after, or the problem-solution.

With storytelling, you can create great content for your senior living website that sets it apart from the competition and helps convert anonymous traffic into tours.

Senior living websites that build trust are technically sound.

Your senior living website design must also consider technical aspects in addition to the overall look and feel. If you have one without the other, you won’t be able to deliver a great user experience.

Stuck on how to evaluate your site from a technical perspective? Begin by asking the following questions:

How speedy is your site?

Site speed is a crucial factor for user experience and SEO. A slow-loading site can frustrate your visitors and make them bounce. It can also affect your Google ranking, especially on mobile devices.

According to Think with Google, the probability of bounce increases by 32% as page load time goes from one second to three seconds. Get in the habit of checking your site speed and performance regularly. Optimize it by using tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix.

Here are some other ways to improve site speed:

• Compressing and resizing your images
• Minifying and combining your CSS and JavaScript files
• Enabling caching and GZIP compression
• Using a content delivery network (CDN)
• Removing unnecessary plugins or scripts

How does your site render across mobile devices?

You must optimize your senior living website for mobile devices. A mobile-friendly site is important to Google and to prospects, many of whom will be viewing your site on something other than a desktop.

Note: An independent website audit will give you and your team an overview of what’s working and what’s not, especially from a technical standpoint, including how well the site renders across mobile devices.

How’s your site’s security and privacy?

Site security and privacy are essential for building trust and credibility with visitors, residents, and their families. A secure site can protect your data and users’ data from hackers, malware, and phishing.

Some of the ways to improve your site security and privacy are:

• Installing an SSL certificate and switching to HTTPS
• Updating your software and plugins
• Using strong passwords and two-factor authentication
• Scanning your site for malware and vulnerabilities
• Creating and displaying a privacy policy and a cookie consent banner

Some items are invisible to site visitors or aren’t front and center (for example, privacy policies are usually linked in the footer). Although subtle, all are essential trust signals. Consider the privacy policy. When someone wants to read your privacy policy, your site will build trust when it’s super easy to find it.

We can help you develop a senior living website design that builds trust.

Your website is your community’s online hub. You can’t successfully compete if it’s not in top shape. Let us help. Start with our Total Online Presence Audit. Or get in touch and let’s chat about your website’s specific needs.