How to Create Content that boomers, seniors and family caregivers want and need! Do you know? “Probably, after all we sell to them everyday!” Right? Knowing what online customers want from content is a tough one and the first key is to acknowledge that you probably don’t know. There are a couple of ways of filtering through information and getting to what your customers’ goals are. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Do user research because you need to understanding their perspective (where they’re coming from), if they’re talking to your competitors and what messages will convert. The good news is you will be able to tell what content users are most interested in.  First place to start is looking at your web analytics.

Metrics to include:

- click throughs

- page views

- site visits

- unique visitors

- conversion rates

- bounce rates

- visitor loyalty and how recent they came to site

I use Google analytics for my website/blog. It’s loaded with a lot of information on visitors, traffic sources and how many views a page or blog post has received during a specific period of time.

2. Perform Google search ranking research using the keyword terms for the content. Where is the content showing up on the page rank? It seems I’m constantly doing search rankings on my content. It’s a good way to validate if online users are finding the content too.

3. Another metric I keep an eye on is social media. I use an application called Hootsuite – it tracks all re-tweets and shows me the most popular content – receiving most clicks.

This is a good place to start when researching user goals and to get an understanding of what they want.

To learn more about what I do click on help content stand out and engage with seniors & family caregivers.

Make Web Content Sing

To complete the assessment of your website content, the audit using a spreadsheet, it’s time to measure the effectiveness and quality of the senior care content. In Kristina Halvorson’s book, CONTENT STRATEGY, she says,”Your findings from this analysis provide insight to whether or not the content is useful, usable, enjoyable, and persuasive to your audience.” Halvorson recommends using the following questions to answer in your qualitative analysis:

- What does the content say?

- Is the content accurate?

- Is the content useful?

- Is the content used by your audience?

- Is the content written by professionals?

- Is the content user-friendly?

I add:

- Does you content drive action?

- What purpose does your content serve? (to answer a question, pain, educate or simply give quick “how to” tips)

To get an accurate reading of what the content says, listen to it by reading carefully what it is telling you. Make note and record the topic of each page and list it on the spreadsheet. This is more accurate way to gain a good understanding.

If your content is out of date, then it’s inaccurate and will confuse your readers.

To discover if your content is useful to your audience, ask yourself: does it give value to your user and business?

Next step is to take a look at your visits in the analytics reports. Consider hiring an analytics professional or expert to help you determine the metrics to gain the right insights into what users are looking for on your site.

Lastly, when reading the content ask yourself if it is easy to read and meeting the needs of seniors and family caregivers when researching for products or services that you offer. And then ask if the content is meeting their needs.

I can help you with the full or partial assessment. Drop a note to Carol@carebuzz.com. Thank you.

To learn more about what I do click on help content stand out and engage with seniors & family caregivers.

Senior care providers are actively publishing content on the web because they want to get noticed and be seen as an expert in their industry by their target audiences. In two of my latest articles, Differentiate Through Story and Why Compelling Content is Needed when Marketing to Seniors you learned that the web is a crowded place and in order to get customers’ attention, care companies need to be unique.

Organize your content

Before writing another blog post or article, take a step back to determine what you’ve published so far. In other words, get organized. In order to have a clear idea of what you want to publish, you need to know what is on the website now. Then you can determine if your content is meeting the business objectives.  Most clients tell me, “we want our audience to notice us and get good search engine rankings.” Let’s tackle the first one; get noticed.

We know why you want to get noticed but do you know what you want the audience to do once they notice you? What clear steps does your online content drive them to do? To know who you are? Trust you? Learn more about the products/services you offer? See you as the leader in your field?

I like using a spreadsheet to build out the content assessment tool. It’s the first step to getting a clear idea about the published content and whether it is doing what you want it to do; get noticed by your audience. It can feel overwhelming at first but once you start it begins to flow.

In Kristina Halvorson’s book, CONTENT STRATEGY, she refers to a blog post written by Jeff Veen (Small Batch) on how to conduct an audit for the website content. Juicy stuff.

Start with the homepage. Identify the major sections of your site: about us, services, contact, our communities, senior resources, living choices, blog. Add ‘about us’ to your spreadsheet, now click on the ‘about us’ button on your website. For that page, record the sub-pages listed in a column of the spreadsheet under ‘about us’. Follow every link and navigate as far as you can through the site, recording the data about every page on it. Go to the next section ‘services’ and do the same adding all pages and links to them from the homepage.

Be sure you note the kind of content that is linked to each page like PDF, checklists, forms, etc.

Build out the spreadsheet listing your top level categories (sections of the homepage) and then subcategories (modules that are listed under each section of the homepage). The webpage will have a lot of content and it needs to be organized to know exactly what you have and where it lives. Be sure you label or number each piece of content adding its url to the spreadsheet, so that you can refer to it later in planning if you use it for other projects.

See a sample audit spreadsheet here.

I will continue this topic in future posts. As additional posts are written, information will be given on specifically what to do next and why. As we move forward, you will have a clear understanding of what content you have, where it is located, its usefulness and finally, additional ways to reimagine it.

Email Carol@Carebuzz.com if you have questions.

The core of a company’s online brand is content. Because of it’s significance you have to make it prominent, useful, appropriate and more than any thing; stand out. When it comes to writing content for your website, blog, newsletter, eBook, etc. what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

It’s hard, time consuming, effortful and challenging. Yes, it can be all that if your mindset is uninspired. When it comes to online content, you cannot have the belief that “it’s hard work and I just don’t have the time”. How do you expect to STAND ABOVE the competitors? That attitude will not inspire savvy online users and buyers of senior care. And isn’t this the reason you care about being noticed online?

Let’s take a look at how to make writing content more fun, inspiring and exciting to you; the company, and more engaging, entertaining, interesting and connecting for your customers.

Inspiration starts now.

Instead of loading the web with more checklists, signs of, ways to, how to know, etc. Yes, yes, those do have a place in your content but there’s something much more powerful and it’s what your customers are looking for.. can you guess? You’re right! They want to know more about other people like them who are dealing with the same issues they care about and to learn how these ordinary people (like them) solved their problems by using your services or products. The families who are searching for help on the web want to know why you should be trusted and how you helped others just like them. They don’t care too much about features and benefits all that much. People involved with elder care especially if the care recipient is Mom or Dad, the family member wants to know who you are, what’s your story, what makes you/company services dependable & reliable, and why you think you help family members immersed in caregiving.

Mainly, they want to know if you have heart and can you feel them?

Okay, first question is “Where to go when writing for the web? Do online research?” NOPE. That’s not where to go to get that luscious, rich content that keeps people salivating and wanting to learn more about you. Guess where?

To the people your company serves this moment; your clients, employees, and the experts who are an integral part of the company. What’s their story?

Here’s an example; let’s say you are a senior living community and struggling with “what should go on the home page”. Instead of talking about how great and beautiful the community is, get stories from the people who help run the lovely community and have them talk about the things they do to help make the incoming residents feel wanted and at home. Remember, your new residents are aging seniors who are leaving their home of many years behind. Home; their safe haven, their family memories, their life. For most seniors, this is a very sad day. They don’t want to be greeted with champagne. They want a hug and someone to greet them with a gentle smile and to spend time with them. I know… my Dad was one who left his home of 55+ years.  A very sad day for him. It will always tug my heart strings remembering his tears.

Do you feel that? Can you relate? That’s what your readers want more of and hear how you help their Mom & Dad make that hard adjustment.

Read my last post on How to Differentiate – you’ll get a few questions to ask when writing inspiring content. If you still think it’s too much work, contact me – Carol@Carebuzz.com. I can handle it for you.

How to Be Distinct

It’s hard for senior care companies to stand out on the crowded web. To get the attention of potential buyers and customers, you’ve got to be different… to stand above. A great solution is create a unique identity and unique brand. “Uh, how do we do that if we are a hospital or assisted living community.. if we offer the same services as our local competitors? Use smoke and mirrors?” Good question. The best way to differentiate is to create interesting material that captures the attention of your audience and it is so interesting and educational that they will want to share it. Take a look at your competition; what are they sharing on and offline? Do they sound like you in their marketing material?

But before you start creating “stuff” for the web like a blog, articles, newsletter, Ebook; you have to figure out who your customers are and what problems they have that your company and products solve. Let’s step back even further before figuring out who your customers are and what they need. Let’s dig into who you are first and figure out what your voice is. As Joe Pulizzi, author and content marketing leader, says “Before you can truly understand your customers, you have to understand yourself”.

How to figure out what’s unique about you, what differentiates you?

This is the first step in creating a story about you, your employees, and the company. If your audience reads information on your website, will it sound like your competitor? A good place to start: think through the following questions. Take some time to think back to the beginning, what story do you remember when it began? The time you felt a spark in your heart and knew you would be the one to change something. You could do it differently and better. You had the answers.

The following questions will help you discover the unique corporate voice that will define and clarify who you are:

- How you started and why

- People you serve and results

- What are you improving in the industry you’re in

- How do you see the future playing out

- Why are you involved

- What is your passion

- What do you stand for

The answers will help you strategically place your company as the forerunner in your industry. Its the basis for the relationship want to create with your customers, and all the things that go into your brand.

I help companies like you tell their unique story… let me show you how. Contact me at (512) 423-4098 or Carol@Carebuzz.com.

Be happy.