Archive for the ‘Online Media’ Category

Selecting Keyphrases for Your Assisted Living Website

Thursday, July 1st, 2010 by Angela Stringfellow

Selecting the appropriate keyphrases is the first step in a successful SEO strategy. It’s an easy process, even if you’re doing your own SEO.

The first mistake many website owners make is to choose the most obvious keyphrase. For example, deciding to optimize your website for the term “assisted living” without first conducting any research. In many cases, a broad term like assisted living isn’t the best choice. For example, if your company runs one facility in one location, you’ll spend a lot of valuable time trying to optimize for a highly competitive term that won’t offer you the most benefit.

A few easy steps can help you determine the most appropriate keyphrases for your assisted living website.

  1. Make a list of possible keywords and keyphrases. Include geographical terms, such as Bellevue assisted living or Washington assisted living. Senior care is a very localized industry, and geographical terms are usually easier to rank for. If you have multiple facilities in different cities or different areas, you can optimize a page on your website for each geographic location. In order to simplify the process, research keyphrases for one area at a time.
  2. Use a tool, such as Google AdWords Keyword Tool or SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool (free registration required) to find the most frequently searched for keyphrases on your list. For example, a search for Bellevue assisted living on the Google Keyword Tool shows that there are 1,300 average monthly searches for that term. Also listed are closely related terms, which may give you more ideas. Narrow down your list to those with 1,000 or more monthly searches.
  3. Use Google’s search page to find out how many relevant websites appear in the search engine results page for each keyphrase. Using the example of assisted living, we find 1,200,000 results. Bellevue assisted living brings up 139,000 results.

In general, it’s easier to rank for terms with less competition. But you should also consider the quality of the competition by looking at the first page or two of Google search results. If you see low-quality or spammy sites in the top 10 or 20 results, it might be easy to beat those sites for ranking.

You should also consider the number of searches a term is getting. Obviously, the more searches, the greater your chances are of having visitors click through to your site. However, with greater search volume comes greater competition, so finding the right balance is key. There’s no hard or fast rule, and it really depends on your goals. For a longer keyphrase or a geographically-focused term, close to 1,000 or more monthly searches is a good number. For broad, general terms, you should look for a considerably higher search volume.

You can always hire an outside SEO agency to conduct research and optimize your site, and it’s likely that they would use a much more complex process to determine the best keyphrases for your assisted living website. But if you’re going the do-it-yourself route, these few simple steps can help you select keyphrases that will bring you good results.

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Marketing Budgets Shift to Online Media

Friday, June 18th, 2010 by Angela Stringfellow

marketing budgets shift to online mediaIn December 2009 and January 2010, Econsultancy, in cooperation with ExactTarget, conducted a survey of 1,000 marketers from the United States and the United Kingdom. The study aimed to identify marketing budget increases for 2010 and the allocation of marketing budgets across media channels. They found that nearly half of respondents (46%) planned to increase their overall marketing budgets in 2010, and two-thirds (66%) planned to allocate more funds to digital media.

More interesting, though, is the number of marketers who reported plans to actually shift some of their budget from traditional to digital channels — 28%. Why? Well, for one, it’s easier to track results from digital media than from traditional advertising. It’s significantly less complex to obtain definitive numbers of leads generated from an online ad, using simple tracking mechanisms, than it is to determine how many leads were generated from a print ad.

The study also found that companies who consider their brand reputation an important measure of marketing effectiveness were the most likely to be shifting more marketing dollars to digital media.

The blog Online Marketing cites several studies, all of which also indicate a shift to online media usage. For example, Strong Mail’s 2010 Marketing Trends survey showed that 90% of 1,000 respondents planned to increase or maintain their online media spend in 2010, with social media marketing and email campaigns topping the priority list. Among offline marketing tactics, trade shows and events are still considered strong contenders.

Our prediction? We’ll continue to see marketers shifting their traditional advertising dollars to the more controllable and measurable online marketing tactics as companies learn how easy and effective internet lead generation can be.

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5 Easy Ways to Ramp Up Your Website Content

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 by Angela Stringfellow

Websites have come a long way from the standard brochure-style sites of the past. Websites now have the capability to be engaging and interactive — and it’s these sites, known as “sticky” websites, that tend to keep visitors around and coming back. It’s possible that many of your competitors still feature the standby, brochure-style site offering essential information on an attractive (or unattractive) background. Adding a little engaging content is all it could take for your website to stand out from the crowd.

Here are a few easy and inexpensive ways to ramp up your content:

  1. Host a blog. Your blog can be hosted on your domain, or on a free platform, like Wordpress or Blogger. It’s generally a better idea, from an SEO perspective, to host your blog on your own domain, because the constantly updated content and any links that are attracted will boost your site’s rankings. If your website is designed using Wordpress or Joomla, hosting a blog within your own domain is easy. If you have an HTML site, you may need the assistance of a web developer to set it up, and if you don’t want to deal with that, you can simply sign up for a free Wordpress or Blogger account and link to it from your main website.World Wide Web
  2. Feature articles on topical content. Many website owners make the mistake of providing information related to their business, but not their industry. People browse the web searching for information — give it to them. The more keyword-rich content your site has, the better your search engine positioning. And guess what? The next person looking for information on “paying for assisted living” could come to your website, have their question answered, and learn about your facility in the process.
  3. Let your visitors make your content viral. Use a service such as Add This to create buttons for your visitors to share your content (all that topical content from #2) on Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, and more. If your content is good, your visitors will literally build backlinks for you while driving traffic to your site.
  4. Don’t be afraid to link out to relevant sources. Linking snippets of your content out to relevant, reputable, and valuable resources isn’t bad. Many website owners get hung up on the importance of inbound links and become fearful that outbound links will hurt you. Choose your outbound links carefully, with the mindset that your goal is to provide value to your site visitors, and link only to relevant pages. Outbound links to the appropriate sources can actually help establish your credibility and authority.
  5. Link your content to relevant pages within your own website. This practice makes it easy for your web visitors to quickly navigate around your site as they read and look for information. If one of your pages is optimized for the key phrase ”activities of daily living“, and you use the phrase in another article, use the phrase as anchor text and link it to your optimized page. Links from within your own site don’t carry as much weight as links from another website, but they don’t hurt you, either.

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Posted in Assisted Living Marketing, Home Care Marketing, Nursing Home Marketing, Online Media, Senior Housing Marketing | No Comments »

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 by Angela Stringfellow

We showed you in an earlier post that your target audience is using social media. SocialMediaExaminer.com’s 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report provides similar information and further outlines exactly how marketers are using social media to grow business.

The report reveals that over 90% of marketers are using social media, and among them, 56% are spending more than six hours per week and 30% are spending eleven or more hours per week on social media, although many have been using it for only a short time (a few months).

The report answers many of the common questions marketers have about using social media, but perhaps most importantly, names the benefits of social media from a marketing perspective. The benefits include:

  • Increased exposure
  • Increased traffic or subscribers
  • Forging new business partnerships
  • Improving search engine rankings
  • Generating leads
  • Sales
  • Reduction in marketing costs

Increased exposure, lead generation, and improved search engine rankings are arguably the most important benefits for senior living marketers. 85% of respondents said that social media helped to increase exposure for their business. 54% said it helped to improve their search engine rankings, and 52% said social media helps generate qualified leads. Increased exposure is somewhat intangible, but search engine rankings and leads are concrete benefits that are pretty easy to measure.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogs led the pack of most-used social media tools. For marketers who have been employing social media for years, YouTube and other online video also becomes an important component — and 73% of overall respondents said they plan to increase their online video usage in the future.

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Assisted Living Websites: Steer Clear of “Do-It-Yourself” Design

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 by Angela Stringfellow

Web DesignAs caregivers become more internet-saavy, professionally-designed websites become increasingly important as part of an overall marketing strategy. More and more, caregivers turn to the internet first in their search for assisted living communities, so your website literally becomes the first impression you make on potential residents.

While some do-it-yourself websites, like GoDaddy’s Website Tonight, can look attractive, most lack the design flair, functionality and optimization that only a professional designer can offer.

Professional Design with Do-It-Yourself Content

Newer design platforms offer built-in functionality that make it easy for website owners to update their own content, without any design knowledge. Joomla, for example, is a content management system that allows non-designers to add pages and content to a website through a back-end administrative panel that works much like a standard text editor (such as Microsoft Word). A similar option is to have a website built around Wordpress, a popular blogging platform that most non-designers find very easy to use.

With both of these options, a designer would create the overall look and feel of your website, complete with a navigational structure.  You and your staff can then easily add additional content pages, upload photos of your facility and events, and even post regular blogs about happenings in your building. No design knowledge is necessary; the pages you add will automatically be formatted in the same style as the rest of your website.

Consider Your ROI

Sticker shock is a real possibility when getting quotes for professional web design. Think of it in terms of a return on your investment: How many leads would you need to generate from your site in order to cover the cost of your investment? The number is probably small.

Your commitment to quality will be obvious when it’s clear to your website visitors that you’ve invested in making a great first impression.

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Posted in Assisted Living Marketing, Online Media | 2 Comments »

Social Media Marketing for Long-Term Care

Monday, April 12th, 2010 by Angela Stringfellow

If you think social media marketing is out of scope for assisted living, nursing homes, and other long-term care facilities and providers, think again. According to the Assisted Living Federation of America, “New research shows that companies with the highest levels of social media activity averaged an 18 percent jump in revenue over the past year.”

Check out these detailed findings on Pingdom, which breaks down the average social media usage by age as well as age distribution by site. Although it might come as a surprise, the 35 to 44 year age demographic actually dominates social media usage. 35 to 44 is a key demographic for senior living homes and long-term care providers, because these adults are reaching the age when they’ll begin to take a more active role in their parents’ health care. Some adults in this demographic may already be serving as primary caregivers — and decision-makers — for aging parents or disabled spouses.

So how can you target your social media efforts?

Social media is such a broad area, it’s easy for even more experienced internet-users to get lost in the sea of possibilities. Pingdom’s post mentions a few noteworthy findings:Facebook

  • 61% of Facebook users are 35 and older; average user is 38 years old
  • 64% of Twitter users are 35 and older; average user is 39 years old
  • Average LinkedIn user is 44 years old

These three sites are a great place to launch your social media efforts. In addition to building exposure for your website, a social media presence enhances brand recognition and provides an easy way to engage your audience. Log on, build a profile, and start interacting with your potential customers. Look for more tips from us in the coming weeks on maximizing your usage of social media tools.

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Posted in Assisted Living Marketing, Home Care Marketing, Nursing Home Marketing, Online Media, Senior Housing Marketing | 3 Comments »

How do niche websites make it?

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 by Chris Rodde

Today the Wall Street Journal ran an article about how some niche websites are bucking the downward trends hitting other online publishers. Sites like SB Nation and the Health Central Network are seeing spikes in visitors and revenue.

Of course in online publishing, all that really matters is SEO & distribution. Given that Google’s search algorithms favor large highly authoritative sites,  how are these smaller sites making it?

focus

focus

I believe its all about focus. Focus gives niche sites a certain advantage in their topical areas. Niche sites will have a wealth of content about a particular topic winning visitors across the full spectrum of keywords related to their topic.

Niche sites have 2 other advantages over a big portal: a lower cost structure and a targeted audience. Niche sites typically employ freelance writers at a rate much lower than sites like Yahoo or the New York Times, which allows them to run lean. Niche sites also often have a better idea of who is visiting their site which can lead to higher ad prices.

What is your favorite niche site?

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