Are you searching for ways to compete with national franchises with your own private home care company?
How can you compete with their large ad campaigns, or their sophisticated SEO programs?
Many private home care companies, especially those starting up, struggle to make themselves known in their efforts to gain new clients. There are ways to do so.
I am not pushing local SEO (search engine optimization) as the only method, or even the first way to market your home care agency. Personal networking should be first on your list – this can be through business networking groups that you belong to, and by giving local talks to community groups in your area, for example.
Compete in SEO with the big guys
But you can compete with the big guys through a regular SEO program. This is rather involved for a small business, and there are SEO programs for home care businesses that start at around $300 per month, up to $1,500 or more. Of course, the less expensive ones are only minimal programs, and their results are doubtful. I don’t think you’ll see good results from them.
Many of your prospects who need a home care agency just don’t know of any offhand. So they start with an internet search.
Search Engine Journal says,
We know that a clear majority of the world that has access to the internet is visiting Google at least once a day to get information.
If your home care company can come up on the coveted “three pack” of search results at the top of the page, you can grab much of the traffic.
What kind of website for SEO?
If you are small, or just starting out, you can build your website at Weebly or Wix, pay only $15 a month or so, and design a simple site yourself. You can start a blog on these sites, which is the way to put up lots of articles over time. However, a more serious approach, such as using the popular WordPress platform, would allow various SEO plugins to assist your SEO. A more sophisticated website would also allow you more all-around options, as well.
Another benefit of a larger system such as WordPress would be that if you upgrade your website in some way, you won’t lose your articles. You just switch themes.
SEO stragegy of national home care companies
The national home care agencies’ strategy with regard to SEO is typically to provide a subpage on their main website for each franchise. If there is only one subpage for each franchise, the SEO strength is limited. However, if each franchise is given a whole series of blog posts and subpages within that franchises’ area, the SEO advantage is much greater.
But if you’re a privately-owned company, how can you compete?
Two of the main indicators for SEO for years, have been 1) quality of content, and lots of it, and 2) inbound links and mentions. If you like to write, and can write quickly, you might want to write an article every week. Be patient, since Google will take at least three months before showing you results, and six for better results. They want to make sure you are going to be consistent and reliable. So be patient.
White hat vs. black
For years, opportunists have used black hat techniques to gain link juice for their clients. For example, keyword stuffing was an old trick. Those days are fading, as Google is catching on to their tricks. If you try those questionable techniques, you will eventually get slapped by Google. I knew a man who ran a phone consulting company whose phone stopped ringing the morning that Google introduced its latest algorithm. And many SEO specialists have changed or altered their careers over recent years because they could no longer take advantage of Google’s weaknesses. So beware who you hire.
If you want to do your own SEO, plan to learn a lot, since the techniques are always becoming more sophisticated. So, look for books that are the most recent. You might want to check out Amazon’s SEO offerings.
Do you want to hire someone to improve your home care agency’s SEO listing? Call us at the number on the top of the page for a monthly SEO program, or contact us.
If you liked this article, why not read, “Does your home care blog stink at SEO?”
