The first step in conducting Search Engine optimization is to determine what keywords your potential clients and employees might be using. By the term “keyword” we include both search terms of a single word as well as “keyphrases” of two or three words. It’s equally important to remember to “localize” your search terms.. using the “city” or “state” your service area covers.

It’s a good idea to focus on at least five or six keywords, but no more than a dozen. When you get rolling, you may want to extend this to addtional keywords.

There are 4 steps to this keyword research process. We will go over these 4 steps in our next post.

When putting together a Senior Services Marketing plan for the Internet, you must always first consider the search behavior of your audience - seniors, boomers, adult children, and family members - when developing content for your website, blog, article. 

Some business owners understand website metadata - and others do not. Primarily, the more relevant your site’s content is to a specific query, the higher it will rank. Metadata is best described - is data about data, allows you to describe your website - largely for the benefit of search engines, as some of them index websites according to your metadata.

If your website is for a senior home care agency, your metadata might include terms such as ‘elder care’, ‘home care, ’senior care’, ‘home health’, ’senior services’, ‘companionship’, ‘personal care’, ‘private duty assistance’, ‘non-medical home care’ or any other terms that best describe a senior home care agency.

To optimize your position on organic search engines’ results screens you need to ensure your title tag(s) is descriptive to senior home care and that you use keywords in the body of your document as well as in your metadata.

Search engine optimization relevance requirements are constantly evolving. Organic search optimization, also known as natural search optimization, is a continuing process which allows a web site to gain free listings within the major search engines without incurring ongoing marketing costs. Organic search listings deliver countless millions in sales to the Web’s most successful online retailers. Unfortunately most senior services’ web sites are not properly designed to reach their market.

In addition to understanding search engines, search directories and search sites, there are other important definitions that will help you navigate the world of search engines.

Organic or Natural Search Results - Organic search results are the pages that are returned when you search for a term. These are non-paid results.

Paid Search Results or Search Engine Marketing (SEM, Pay per Click or PPC) - Paid search results are exemplified by Google Adwords that appear to the right of organic search results. These ads are paid for by companies that for particular keywords that searchers use when conducting organic searches. Because the keyword is supposed to be relevant to the search, the ads are presumed to be more effective.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Search engine optimization refers to the efforts of companies to improve the ranking of their site on organic search results for particular keywords. These keywords are chosen strategically to position their company relative to their competitors and are then used throughout the pages that the company is trying to optimize for higher rankings.