6 LOCAL SEO Tips for Home Care Agency Owners and Marketers

Whether you are a client of LTCEP or not, here are some great tips on the topic of SEO that care help your search engine rankings. Keep in mind that if you are our clients and we have created your website, these are already done for you. If you are not our client, these tips can help! Don’t fall for the barrage of spam emails from “Professional SEO Companies” who promise to have you on the first page of Google in one week— for the low low price of $99. It’s a scam. We see it all day long.

Here are 6 quick tips on how you can increase your local SEO efforts.

1. Claim Your Google My Business Page

When you search for “HOME CARE” in your area, you will see Google My Business listings at the top of the results (see image below).

To claim your Google My Business page, do a quick search for your home care agency from Google Maps to see if Google has already added your home care agency.  If you find a Google My Business listing for your agency, click on ‘Manage This Page’ on the bottom right of the page. You will be asked to sign in with a Google account. If you don’t have a Google account you can set one up easily for free.

Once you have signed in, Google will ask you to verify that you are the business owner by either calling the phone number they have on file or by sending a postcard to the address they have on file with a code you will need to enter for confirmation.

We have found that verifying your address by postcard is the best way to ensure you have the ability to manage your Google My Business page.

If you can’t find a Google My Business page for your home care agency you may need to set one up. To set up your Google My Business page, go to google.com/places and click on ‘Get Started For Free’.

2. Fill Out Google My Business Page Completely and Accurately

Once you have claimed or created your Google My Business page you will want to make sure all of the information is completely filled out and there are no duplicate listings. If you find duplicate listings that you do not own, you will want to report them using the instructions found on Google’s support.

Take the time to make sure that your home care agency name, address, phone number, and website are correct. I’d recommend doing a Google search on your home care agency’s address and use the exact format that Google provides. 

Make sure you have added categories that best describe your home care agency (Home Health Care). Add photos, hours of operation and any additional details that would be helpful to customers.

3. Claim + Complete Local Business Directory (Citation) Listings

Claiming and removing duplicate business directory listings sends signals to search engines, helping them increase the degree of certainty they have about your home care business’ contact information.

Here is a list of the top 50 citations that we have found are valuable for home care agencies to claim.

50 Online Local Business Directories/Listings for Local Marketing

• Google
• Bing
• Yahoo!
• Yelp
• Facebook
• Better Business Bureau
• Angie’s List
• Merchant Circle
• LinkedIn
• YP.com
• Whitepages
• Superpages.com
• Yellowbook
• CitySearch
• MapQuest/Yext
• Local.com
• Foursquare
• CitySlick
• USDirectory.com
• Dex Media
• BizJournals.com
• TeleAtlas
• Discover Our Town
• EZ Local
• Kudzu
• CityVoter
• Manta
• UsCity
• Advice Local
• InfoUSA
• Infignos
• Get Fave
• My Huckleberry
• Yellowee
• MojoPages
• Brownbook
• Magic Yellow
• CitySquares
• Map Creator
• Judy’s Book 
• TripAdvisor
• Thumbtack
• YellowPagesGoesGreen.org
• Home Advisor
• ShowMeLocal
• ChamberofCommerce.com
• Yellowbot
• Hotfrog
• Brownbook
• InsiderPages

You can ask a service like ours at LTCEP to do this for you (and in most cases for our clients we have already done this), or you can do it yourself. Keep an excel spreadsheet of your work so that you have all of your usernames and passwords for these accounts.

4. Do Keyword Research

Use the RELATED SEARCHES feature at the bottom of each search page to learn how people are searching. When you enter a search for “home care”, look at the results at the bottom of the first page of Google to see what other consumers are searching for.

5. Optimize Your Homepage For A Specific Keyword

When Google crawls  your website, it does not see everything the same way we do. Instead of seeing pretty graphics and calls to action, search engines see raw HTML (the stuff that LTC Expert Publications does behind the scenes to make your site look good).

Google breaks down the structure of the HTML to determine what the page is about, and use cues in the content to help them determine if your pages should be served to a user that is searching for “home care in St. Louis”, as an example.

After you have done some keyword research, and have found the keyword with the most opportunity you will want to optimize your homepage for that keyword phrase.

If your site is built on WordPress, you can use the Yoast SEO plugin to check and optimize your content for specific keywords.

6. Add New Fresh Home Care Content Weekly

When it comes to fresh content, you aren’t confined to a single type of content or one area of your website. You can publish new pages in different formats and post them to different sections of your site. If you’re looking for a quick LOCAL SEO tip, try diversifying and adding several types of new content, such as SlideShares, video content, and new landing pages. These assets will lure search crawlers in and boost the number of pages you have indexed in Google and Bing. However, make sure you’re properly adding the right meta information to visual media formats, or else you might not get as much value from what you publish.

Your blog is a great place to start. You can create shareable pieces of content for your blog that constantly ping the search engines. A best practice is to publish at least one piece of content a day and a minimum of once per week.

If you have any questions about LOCAL SEO for Home Care Agencies, please contact us at LTC Expert Publications – 888-404-1513, or fill out our form for help here: http://www.ltcsocialmark.com/contact-us-about-elder-care-marketing/

• About
• Latest Posts

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN

Co-Owner, Author at LTC Expert Publications

Valerie VanBooven, Managing Partner/ Co-Owner of LTC Expert Publications

Valerie’s motto and favorite saying is: “Impact is not created by big budgets, impact is created by innovative marketing ideas!”

Valerie is a Registered Nurse and the author of three books, Aging Answers (2003), The Senior Solution (2007) and Priceless Caregiving (2009). Her adventure in internet marketing began as a self-promotion experiment and ended up becoming a full time marketing consulting business for the elder care market.

Valerie has appeared on national television (Today Show), has hosted her own local radio show, and has been interviewed for dozens of publications and radio shows across the country regarding her business and the business of elder care.

She fast became the foremost authority in driving sales via the internet, seminars, and e-mail for senior service providers and elder care entrepreneurs.While Valerie’s best known for her expertise in marketing, her students share that her biggest impact comes from her ability to make things happen quickly, even on a small budget.

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Latest posts by Valerie VanBooven RN BSN (see all)

• LTC Expert Publications Welcomes New Home Care Clients from Across the U.S. - April 13, 2016
• LTCEP Clients: Get the Most BANG Out of Home Care Reviews with SeniorServiceReviews.com - April 12, 2016
• 6 LOCAL SEO Tips for Home Care Agency Owners and Marketers - April 11, 2016

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