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.

When marketing on the web, either via website or blog - it’s important to localize your keywords! Why? Simply put, the decision makers and consumers of your products/services are typically looking for businesses in their local communities.. unless, of course, they are buying online.

If you provide a senior service that requires “hands-on” delivery or face-to-face contact, such as home care, home health, medical treatment or clinic, remodelers, durable medical equipment, visiting physicians, geriatric case management, physical therapy, or rehabilitation - you will definitely want to Localize your content on the Internet.

Now when I say “content” that can be pages on your website, articles, posts on your blogs, etc. - any type of “text” information that is submited for search engine indexing… make sure your local city is in the meta tags, text within the article or post, keywords, and at times add it to the title of the document or page.

Some say that Localization will not garner you automatic rankings on search engines.. a lot of variables will effect that - but when a consumer finds your content it wil appear more relevant to them. There are ways to make your website more “localized” and that will the subject matter for our next topic.

Carebuzz leaves on thought with you to contemplate.. Updating the content of you site, blog, article, it’s important to include unique content specifically focused on your local business - which is critcal to your online sucess.

Happy holidays!!!  More to come..

Carol @ Carebuzz

Our last question for the interview with Denise Brown at Caregiving.com.

If a family is living away from mom or dad, do you recommend the aging parent/relative continue living at home? I know there are variable circumstances. My in-laws for example, are ages 90 and 84 - still living at home but it’s beginning to wear on them.. we are looking for ways to make home at place to stay.. but they want to move to an assisted living facility.. thinking they would be less isolated.. and not have to drive so much. 

Denise Brown: It’s a great question. I think each situation varies. It’s important to consider what an aging family wants as well as what is realistic. Distance certainly adds another difficult dimension–it’s impossible to know, day by day, how an aging relative is truly fairing at home simply because you aren’t there to witness any difficulties.

For some families, the idea of assisted living or nursing home is out-of-the-question. For others, it’s a terrific option. In your in-laws situation, they seem to have a realistic perspective on what they can and can’t manage, which is so very helpful.

I suggest family caregivers (with their care recipients, as appropriate) made decisions based on knowledge and facts, rather than assumptions. For instance, when living at home begins to become a challenge, family caregivers may jump to the conclusion that a nursing home is needed, rather than exploring help from home care agencies and social service providers as well as researching the availability of adaptive devices and gadgets (which can make a huge difference!). For instance, one family caregiver worried about her grandmother, who lived alone after her husband died. Her grandmother’s greatest struggle was with meal preparation. The family caregiver was able to find a kitchen gadget that easily removed lids from cans (such as soup cans) which, amazingly, was her grandmother’s greatest obstacle during dinner preparation.

It’s important to understand how well an aging relative lives on their own. I recommend family caregivers visit for several days and shadow their care recipients to gain a better perspective on when/how their aging relative needs help. If the assistance needed is greater than what can be provided through services and equipment, then it’s time to look at alternative housing alternatives.

A geriatric care manager (GCM) can be a wonderful resource when making the decision about housing options. A GCM, often a nurse or social worker, can complete an in-home assessment and make appropriate recommendations. And, in a situation when you’re wondering what’s best for an aging relative, an objective, trained third-party can be a godsend. To find a CGM, visit caremanager.org.

Do CEOs, Business owners, and Presidents of companies really have the time to do this? An interesting article in Business Week talks about how some CEOs and business organizations are using these tools to stay in touch. Business Week says “the best chief executives are nothing if not efficient, and what’s more efficient than 140-character memos?” That’s their take on Twitter.

The article features Digg’s CEO Kevin Rose. The story includes the number of people he follows (102) and the whopping number of followers.. over 61,000! So, who has the time, you ask?

Business Week goes on to say that Twitter is microblogging - the latest tech tool to enter the C-suite. CEOs and employees broadcast company updates, use the tool to share a personal side of their lives with employees, and network with other executives. Many CEOs have begun to make tweets part of their daily routine. And it’s not just the Silicon Valley crowd—chief executives in marketing, publishing, and retail are also populating the site.

Carebuzz has been on Twitter for over 2 months and this story gives me more ideas for how to use Twitter not only for our company but for our clients! What about you? Are you the type of CEO or business owner who is efficient enough to use these social media tools? If not, why not?

And there’s blogging, very similar to tweeting.. but of course, a larger scale. Keeps your potiential clients up to date on what your company and services are all about and best of all, keeps your name in front of them when searching on the web.