SEO for Home Care Services

When people search for home care services in your local area, can they find you? SEO for home care services works to make sure that your home care agency gets seen on search engines. 

Home care industry

The home care industry is growing. The population of over 65 year olds is set to rise from 19% to 27% in the next 50 years. The industry’s contribution to the economy is up by 12%. Care Quality Commission-registered domiciliary care companies have almost doubled in the last 8 years. What that means for your home care agency is that there is higher competition for the potential customers who can afford or have funding for home care services.  

Why is SEO for home care important?

When people search for local services, they don’t scroll through many results. They are most likely to click on the top three results. With a bit of luck they might view ten results. These days, with AI overviews, those top three results may be the only results shown on the first page of results on a desktop computer. The rest are buried lower on the page, below AI overviews, ads, or Google map results. SEO for home care works to make sure that your page is one of those top results. 

What does SEO for home care include?

SEO services are different for local home care that is targeting one location vs competing for national search results. SEO packages can include keyword research, competitor strategy, Google Business profile optimisation, backlink building, citation building, on-page optimisation, technical audits, schema markup and advanced SEO, conversion rate optimisation, copywriting and PR.  

I’ve been working with healthcare clients for years. It’s an interesting sector to work with as it is rapidly changing and highly competitive. A bit like SEO itself as AI changes the SEO landscape. 

My focus is always on what the end result looks like, whether you want to increase brand awareness or want to increase inbound enquiries for your home care service. Most agencies I work with want the latter, they are looking to grow their home care business and so that’s how we measure the success of their campaigns. 

Most healthcare businesses work with me in the long term. SEO is a long term strategy, but that said, a critical one for most home care providers. The vast majority of home care providers I work with depend on Google search to bring them the most business. And regular client enquiries bring an excellent return on investment for the SEO outlay. SEO is a better investment in the long term vs advertising and social media, which can be more costly and time intensive. And just one or two new home care clients a year can cover the cost of SEO services.  

A good starting point for SEO is to conduct a technical audit to ensure that there are no underlying issues that are preventing the website from being indexed. There is no point in spending money on SEO for home care services, if there is a problem with the site. 

FAQs about SEO for home care

Can you guarantee results for home care searches?

No, I can’t. And I would advise caution if someone tells you that they can do so. Google is changing all the time. The competition is growing. There are too many factors that are outside the control of SEO. That said, I have worked with businesses for a long time and continued to achieve growth and increased enquiries for them. 

How long does it take to see results from SEO for home care?

That depends on your business and location. For local search, we can start to see results within 3-6 months. For a competitive industry like home care, national or global search, it can take longer, as much as a year or more.  

Can I pay for one-off SEO work?

You can, but I don’t recommend it. SEO is not a set it and forget it service. The algorithm is constantly changing and it requires monitoring. Content needs to be fresh. The brand reputation needs monitoring. And so on. 

Why is SEO so expensive?

I’ve written a whole blog about the cost of SEO. Good SEO takes time and skill. There are a lot of people promising big results for small outlay. I have often taken over sites from this type of agency, when it fails because they have used a cheap option or bad tactics which have caused damage to rankings. This remedial work can be very difficult to recover from. 

SEO for home care

In a competitive industry like home care it is more important than ever to make sure your home care business is front of mind when potential customers are looking for your services. SEO for home care can do that by improving your search engine results and ensuring your website appears at the top of the search results for relevant searches.