Have you been hearing more than usual about search engines recently? Each of the Big 3 – Google, Yahoo! and Bing – has been making news over the past year. The latest is Google’s announcement about an update to its search methodology, which has been dubbed “Caffeine.”
The name Google isn’t going anywhere. Caffeine is simply an update that will enable faster, more accurate searches. Search results for “retirement communities” and “assisted living” in your market won’t drastically change right away when Google flips the switch. In some cases, our tests returned less “junk” in the top 10 results.
But here’s why Caffeine matters to you. With this update, Google is putting more emphasis on fresh content. The web is dominated by blogs and social networks; thousands of pages are added every day. Google’s traditional methodology wasn’t effectively capturing this content, but Caffeine does. Over the long run, fresh content will make the difference in search results for senior living community web sites.
My colleague Janel Wait reminds communities to think of web sites as living, breathing organisms that need to be constantly fed. If your community wants to be high in the natural search results, it’s no longer adequate to simply have a static web site. In addition to optimizing your web site for search engines, you need to regularly add pages with information on community activities, photos and videos, and insights about your community (read: fresh content for search engines to crawl).
Competition for top natural search rankings will only get more challenging. It’s important for your community to get accustomed to the best practices that sustain search engine visibility under the new standards. Moreover, you will be providing your web site visitors better information about your community!
Readers of this blog have been asking if blogging is good for marketing senior housing. Social media has exploded in recent years and definitely has impacted the way people communicate and gather information. It’s impacting how seniors interact, too. Most boomers and seniors who use social media read and occasionally comment on blogs, watch online video, listen to podcasts, read and contribute to online ratings, according to a study by Forrester Research. A growing number are joining social networking web sites such as Facebook. Retirement communities should not abandon tried-and-true tactics in reaching prospective residents, yet social media is a way for communities to enhance and build upon their efforts.
There are a number of ways retirement communities can use social media to generate awareness and visibility among a variety of audiences. However, you need a plan and a commitment. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc., can be very effective tools, but they are just that – tools.
- Do you want to engage seniors, adult children influencers or professional influencers?
- Do you want to “talk” or just listen to what people are saying and comment when appropriate?
- Managing your social media endeavors is the hardest part! Who is responsible for updates?
- If you blog, can you commit to posting at least once a week, if not more often? What’s the plan for responding to comments – positive and negative? How will you promote your blog?
Another question: What are the success measures? If you get involved in social media today, you probably won’t get many followers right away. However, success accrues over time and may occur in small doses across several forums. Social media monitoring and analytics are critical to seeing progress.
So, is blogging a good way to market a retirement community? I would broaden that question to ask if social media overall is a good way to market a retirement community. The base of seniors and boomers who use social media will continue to grow. The communities that are the early adopters will be the ones to benefit from the earliest returns. Social media can reinforce transparency, bring your community to life online and enable communities to engage decision makers in ways they couldn’t do just 2-3 years ago. Those are all incredible benefits. But there is a price – not necessarily in the form of a big price tag, but in time and a commitment to stick with it. If you are ready to make social media a routine part of your day, then it’s a great way to market a retirement community.
Last week Microsoft unveiled Bing, its new online search engine that it calls a “decision engine.” Bing replaces MSN Search and Live Search but offers more than just a new name. Search results are organized into categories. For example, search for “Alzheimer’s” and results are organized into articles, symptoms, tests, medication, treatment and prognosis. Users can also seamlessly tab between different types of content – web sites, images, videos, shopping, news and maps. When applicable, Bing provides local business listings (like Google).
The competitive landscape for search engines shapes up like this: Google way out in front; Bing/MSN, Yahoo! and Ask.com fighting for a very distant second place (by 60+ percentage points). Bing is showing early promise, but only time will tell. Has Google finally met its match with Bing? Watch this video and then try it out. What do you think?
Do you know the top two ways seniors use the Internet? Search engines and email. Pew Research (April 2008) confirms that 60% of seniors who are online use search engines. If your retirement community isn’t thinking about how easily prospective residents and their families can find you on Google, Yahoo or MSN, you are missing a huge opportunity.
GlynnDevins helps over 45 senior living communities maintain strong search engine visibility. The results have been exciting! Communities that buy the paid listings that appear around the perimeter of the search results page (paid search) immediately see a boost in web site traffic from search engines. Their percentage of new visitors jumps from eight percent to 20 percent!
While paid search advertising provides a great start, communities need to think about the main body of the search results page – the natural search results. People generally consider these listings more credible, and heat maps confirm that many more people look at the natural search results than the paid search results. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the technique behind getting your web site listed in the natural search results. The title of your site, headlines, body copy, tags, links between pages and navigation all play a role in SEO. Links from relevant, reputable, and at least semi-popular web sites are also important. In our experience, senior living communities that have a better natural search presence through SEO see another big boost in new visitors over those that are limited to just paid search. These new visitors – whether they be from paid or natural search listings – are converting into new leads for communities.
So ask yourself: Do I need search engines to work harder for my community?
How many times have you been approached about buying a listing in an online senior living / retirement community directory? These digital directories vary in level of sophistication, features and advertiser offerings. It’s hard to sort the good from the bad, but here are two things I consider when evaluating directories.
First – let’s remember the Golden Rule: a worthwhile directory listing is the one that generates good leads. So, regardless of what I say here, if you have a good lead source, keep it!
1. Does the directory listing include a link to your web site? If not – I usually throw it out. For whatever reason, some directories are more concerned with keeping people on their site instead of getting them to your site. They sort of recreate your site within their domain, collect info requests and send a report every month detailing how many leads their directory generated for your community. In my experience, many of those leads are low quality. When properly configured, free analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, can tell you if traffic referred from another web site generates leads, so you don’t need someone else to do that for you.
2. Is it a good resource? Is the directory easy to use? Does it include a good array of senior living options? Would someone looking for senior living communities in your market find the directory useful? Search “retirement communities” or “senior living” in your market and see which directories show up first. Usually it’s the ones with the most substance. You can bet those are likely sites your prospects visit. Then – see #1.
