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senior living marketing

Senior Living Websites: 6 Questions to Ask Digital Agencies

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Almost anyone can “build” senior living websites, thanks to YouTube tutorials and free website templates. But that doesn’t mean the website will work from a sales and marketing perspective. Why? Because an effective website needs a strong strategy that shows an understanding of the senior living industry.

Here are six strategy questions to ask agencies before choosing one to build your senior living website.

1. How will you drive the right prospects to my website?

Not all traffic is good traffic. The right digital agency will ask YOU about your ideal prospect: who they are, what they care about, how they search. If the agency doesn’t demonstrate a keen interest in your senior living community’s buyer personas, walk away. Otherwise, you might end up with a generic “one size fits all” website that doesn’t attract targeted traffic.

2. How will you attract ideal prospects to my senior living website?

Your digital partner should conduct keyword research. In addition, the agency should have experience with search engine optimization (SEO) for senior living. This involves understanding…

  • The search terms that prospects use when looking for senior living options
  • How often each term is searched monthly
  • How difficult it is to rank for these prized terms
  • Where you and your competitors currently stack up

Note: Senior living SEO is also a skill. Don’t be shy about asking the agency to show results that they can quantify.

3. What is your strategy to turn anonymous website visitors into contacts and leads?

Driving qualified prospects to your senior living website is just the beginning. The website also has to convert visitors into tours and move-ins. Ask the agency how they plan to accomplish this.

4. How will you nurture the early stage leads to keep them engaged?

If you generate 100 form requests, you might have 10 that will make a decision in the next 30 to 60 days. The other 90% of these contacts are “not ready.” But if you put all 100 into your senior living sales CRM, your sales team will get frustrated. They will disqualify most of the leads and move them to cold since the leads are not ready. The chances of the sales team ever returning to those “not ready” leads are slim as well.

What a good agency partner will do is make sure you have a good lead scoring plan in place. The urgent leads will go to sales. The not-ready leads will be nurtured until they are ready.

5. How will you get the right information to the right prospect at the right time?

Prospects are in different stages within their journey. Again, your digital partner should be able to identify where each prospect is and provide relevant content for each stage. Having high quality blogs and premium content (e.g., guides, checklists, and e-books) aligned with your keyword strategy is incredibly important.

6. How well does your digital partner understand your sales process?

A strategic partner will be able to articulate your prospect’s journey from the point they begin their research online through their path to conversion and move-in. Marketing strategy must be aligned with sales strategy. Most digital agencies only understand marketing, but that is not enough. Understanding the discovery, advancing, and closing process is critical in designing the right experience for prospects and for the sales team.

Bottom line: Don’t hand over the keys to your senior living website to just any ol’ agency.

Remember, building a new senior living website is going to require an investment of scarce resources: time and marketing budget. Operators expect to see results, which is why you need to make a good decision when choosing the right strategic partner.

The Senior Living SMART team has years of experience on the operator side of the industry. We understand buyer personas. Not only that, we’re experts in digital marketing. Let’s chat about your website project.

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senior living marketing

Senior Living Websites: Why Do a Website Audit?

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My dad would always tell me, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And when it came to my 1979 beat up Dodge Aspen, his advice made perfect sense. But when it comes to your senior living website, you must anticipate the broken bits (ideally, before they happen or just as they’re happening) so you can nip them in the proverbial bud.

How?

By conducting regular website audits.

Why do a website audit? Here are three reasons why you need to make this a part of your ongoing web marketing strategy:

1. Improved website performance will lead to better user experience (and happier users make for happier leads/customers).

Even your website needs a yearly physical to see how the systems are running. A website audit will help you determine your website’s technical performance. Think framework and infrastructure, page speed/load time, and navigation—all of which affects the user experience (UX). When auditing your site, pay close attention to the following:

  • Is your website mobile-friendly? According to @similiarweb, mobile drives 56% of all traffic.
  • Is your website error free? Dead ends and broken links can be frustrating to the user.
  • Is your page size below 9.5 mb? The heavier the site page, the slower the load time.
  • Do your web pages load within three seconds? Any slower and visitors will abandon your site, reducing conversions and sales.

2. Enhancing your search engine optimization (SEO) means your site stands a better chance of coming up in organic searches.

By conducting an SEO site checkup, you’ll be able to identify any missed SEO opportunities and remedy any mistakes.

  • Does your website have XML sitemap files? This tells Google and other search engines what pages on your site you want crawled and indexed.
  • Do you have a title tag and how long is it? The title tag is an HTML title that is used to briefly and accurately describe the topic and theme of an online listing. Your title tag should be no longer than 65 characters in length.
  • Are your page titles optimized? Remember, 60% of all organic clicks go to the top three organic search results. Optimize your page titles and use a compelling meta description to get off on the right foot.
  • Are you reviewing your keywords? Look at your keyword performance. Find out which keywords are giving you the biggest gains in traffic and leads and make sure you are adding relevant content to your website that targets those keywords.

3. Reviewing and tweaking conversion paths will help you boost overall visitor-to-leads and leads-to-customers.

A website audit enables you to re-evaluate your lead generation and conversion funnels.

  • Are you providing high quality content on your website that provides value to your prospects? Companies that blog get 55% more web traffic and 70% more leads than those that don’t. Blogging is the best way to reach your target audience with useful, educational information they’re out there looking for. Not to mention how much it helps your search rankings.
  • Do you have a variety of content that appeals to all your different prospects (e.g., potential resident, adult child), including where they are in their journey (e.g., research, planning)? Understanding your buyers by developing (and regularly revisiting!) personas will help you create targeted content that speaks to them and gets them to act.
  • Do you have a system of following up with your leads and keeping them engaged in your content and brand? Calls-to-action, marketing offers, and landing pages play a major role in the performance of your website.

Let’s Audit Your Website!

Ready to find out how your senior living website is doing? Get started here.

Website Pet Peeves

Website Pet Peeves

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87% of those looking into senior living options start their search by visiting community websites and 37% of those prospects will eliminate a community from consideration purely based on the quality of the website. When prospects visit your website, they are looking for answer to four key questions:

Price – “Can I Afford It?”

According to a “Social Silver Surfers” report by Creating Results, the #1 pet peeve of our prospects (The Silent Generation & The Older Boomer) is the lack of pricing transparency. They want to know how much it will cost, what’s included, and how senior living is funded. The problem is that most providers do not provide any pricing information on their website because they want to establish value before quoting price and they do not want their competitors to have that information. The reality is that competitors can get pricing with mystery shopping. The lack of transparency on pricing drives prospects off of your website and over to a paid referral agency/ lead generator online sources who will provide your pricing and the pricing of your competitors (who they may not have even been exploring) and your lead is now shared with 4 -6 competitors. Here are three solutions to keep your website visitors on your site:

  • Offer your starting at pricing for each apartment style as a downloadable pdf so you collect contact information needed to follow up and establish value.
  • Offer a downloadable cost comparison worksheet with everything included in your community completed and the same expenses for staying at home for the prospect to complete to establish value & collect contact information.
  • Offer a downloadable guide to funding solutions as an opt-in with information that provides an overview to the Veteran’s Aid & Attendance benefit, Life Insurance conversion, Long Term Care Insurance, Medicare & Medicaid. You provide a valuable guide and in exchange, collect contact information to convert a website visitor into a lead.

Housing – “Where Will I Live?”

According to the same study by Creating Results, the #2 pet peeve about senior living websites is that floor plans are either not available, are illegible or incomplete. According to Jayne Sallerson, COO of Sherpa, the majority of website visitors are in the “planning” or “thinking” stages and are not yet ready to take an action such as calling, completing an online form or scheduling a tour – but they do want a sneak peak before they are ready to tour. Here are three solutions to consider:

  • Create a gallery of images that are easy for prospects to sort through and explore on the website. Be sure to represent common areas and a variety of apartment styles.
  • Create a library of clear, legible floor plans and make them available to download.
  • My favorite solution is to create a virtual video tour that allows prospects to explore your community while collecting data and analytics and turning website visitors into prospects. (link to SMARTTour video on the SLS website)

Amenities – “What Will I Do?”

The “Social, Silver Surfers” survey reveals that the third pet peeve of senior living prospects is that the information on the website is outdated. Providing information about the community lifestyle is important but must be monitored, maintained and stay current. Posting pictures of residents and families enjoying special events, providing menu and activity calendar samples and posting upcoming events adds value to your website, keeps prospects on your site, reduces “bounce rate” and brings them back to the site as they move through their decision process.

Care – “Will I Be Cared For?”

For 18% of website visitors, care considerations are the primary interest. Any reassurance that you can provide about the quality of care, survey results, testimonials, staff training, security & safety specifics and any niche programs offered should be included in your website. One of our Senior Living SMART Members started using a hiring tool that measured job applicants against the attributes of their best performers in each department and scored them according to their “cultural fit” reducing turnover from 70% to 17%. This type of information is compelling and reassuring to families and prospects and should be included on the website!

Free Download

Members can access the ‘Website Pet Peeves’ survey report, or non-members may download the resource by filling out form below:


 

 

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