By Welton Hong, founder and CEO, Senior Care Marketing Max
Home care agencies spend a tremendous amount of time and money generating leads. They advertise, build referral relationships and attend networking events.
But there is a critical piece of the marketing equation that too many agencies overlook: What happens after someone finds you?
In home care, offline marketing is still king. I generally think of the marketing mix as roughly 80% offline and 20% online. But there is an important caveat: Whether someone discovers your agency through a physician referral, a personal recommendation, a networking relationship, or an advertisement or a Google search, they will almost always visit your website.
If your website looks dated, loads slowly or fails to explain who you are and why your agency is different, prospective clients have little reason to choose you over another provider. One of the biggest mistakes I see is an agency continuing to invest in advertising and other marketing while sending those prospects to a subpar website.
The website’s job is not necessarily to make someone call you immediately. Its job is to nurture the lead and give that person enough confidence to take the next step.
Make It Easy to Contact You
Start with the most basic conversion principle: Make it extremely easy for people to contact you.
Your phone number should have a prominent position in the upper-right portion of your website and should remain accessible as visitors scroll down the page — it should also remain fixed somewhere at the top on mobile devices, as well.
On mobile, this is where a “tap to call” feature becomes important. A visitor using a smartphone should be able to tap your phone number and immediately initiate a call.
It sounds simple, but these small usability decisions can have a direct impact on how many website visitors become inquiries.
Speed Matters More Than You Think
Website speed affects both user experience and search visibility. If a website takes too long to load, people leave. And Google uses page experience signals as part of its search systems, so performance can also affect how easily prospective clients find you.
There is an easy way to see how your website is performing. Go to Google’s PageSpeed Insights, enter your website address and let the test run. You’ll receive performance data along with recommendations for improvement.
Pay particular attention to the Core Web Vitals assessment. The report also provides scores and information related to performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO. Send the results to your web developer and ask them to address the problems identified by Google.
There is another consideration that is becoming increasingly important: AI accessibility. Search behavior is changing, and people are increasingly using AI platforms to research businesses and services. Your website needs to be accessible to AI-powered systems that crawl and interpret websites. I’ve seen franchise websites that for some reason block AI crawlers. Whether that is intentional or simply the result of someone not understanding the implications, it can potentially prevent those businesses from appearing in AI-generated recommendations.
Tell Visitors Why They Should Choose You
Think about what consumers do when they’re considering a major purchase. They visit multiple websites. They’re conducting due diligence. They’re trying to understand what makes one company different from another.
Home care is no different.
Don’t make prospective clients dig through five pages of your website to figure out why they should choose you.
Your unique selling proposition should communicate what distinguishes your agency. Perhaps you specialize in a particular type of care, have an unusually rigorous caregiver-selection process, offer exceptional communication with families or have a distinctive approach to matching caregivers with clients. Whatever genuinely differentiates you, make it visible — and be sure you can back up your claims.
Build Your Credibility
Reviews are among the most powerful forms of social proof available to a home care agency. If your agency has positive reviews on platforms such as Google, Facebook and Yelp, consider displaying them on your website through a review widget.
If you don’t have a widget installed, there are still plenty of ways to showcase testimonials. Old-school approaches work, too. Scan thank-you cards from families and display them on your site, with their permission, of course.
The objective is to demonstrate that real people have trusted your organization.
And that brings me to one of the most important themes in home care marketing: faces build trust.
Too many home care websites are filled with stock photography but don’t show the actual people behind the agency. That can feel impersonal, especially when it’s a business that sends people to someone’s home, helping a loved one.
Put More Video on Your Website
A short business-profile video can accomplish something that paragraphs of website copy cannot. Prospective clients can see you, hear you and get a sense of your personality.
I recommend keeping these videos short — around one minute. You don’t need a Hollywood production. You need an authentic presentation that shows who you are, what you do and why your agency is different.
Producing this kind of video doesn’t necessarily require spending thousands of dollars. Services such as SmartShoot.com allow businesses to post video-production projects and receive bids from local videographers. A simple one-minute business-profile video might cost about $700, depending on the project and market.
That can be a relatively small investment for an asset that can live on your website and be used in your broader marketing.
Don’t Neglect the About Us Page
Your About Us page is another conversion opportunity.
It should answer basic questions: Who are you? What does your agency do? How are you different? Why should a family trust you?
And once again, show the people.
I regularly visit home care websites where I can find plenty of information about services but almost nothing about the people running the company. That’s a problem. Home care is an intensely personal service. Families aren’t simply purchasing a commodity. They’re entrusting someone’s care to another human being.
Give them an opportunity to see who you are.
Answer Questions
Every home care agency should have a comprehensive FAQ section.
Think about the questions prospective clients ask during their first conversations with your agency, which may include:
- How much does home care cost?
- What services do you provide?
- How quickly can care begin?
- How do you select caregivers?
- What happens if a caregiver calls out?
- Do you provide overnight care?
- How do you communicate with family members?
Answer those questions on your website.
The more useful information you provide, the more trust you establish before the prospect ever picks up the phone. FAQs are also valuable because they give search engines and AI systems clear, structured information about your business and the services you provide.
Another tip: Never let a marketing agency sell you an expensive “AI add-on” by claiming that AI requires an entirely separate layer of SEO magic. There is plenty of legitimate work involved in optimizing content for search and AI discovery but be skeptical of vendors who use AI as a buzzword to justify charges for essentially the same underlying work.
Recognize That Not Everyone Is Ready to Call
One of the biggest mistakes in website strategy is assuming every visitor is ready to pick up the phone.
Many aren’t.
The decision to bring someone into a parent’s home can be emotionally complicated. In many cases, an adult child is trying to determine whether Mom or Dad actually needs home care in the first place. That decision can take days, weeks or longer.
Your website should accommodate that journey.
One effective tool is a downloadable guide that helps families understand the issues they’re facing. You might create a guide explaining the signs that an aging parent may need assistance, how to evaluate home care agencies, what questions to ask before hiring a caregiver or how to understand the costs involved.
These don’t have to be elaborate publications. With today’s AI tools, agencies can develop useful educational resources much more efficiently than they could in the past. The important thing is that the information genuinely helps the family.
You’re not just trying to capture a phone call. You’re building trust over time.
Be Careful with Chatbots
Generally speaking, the more ways you give people to become leads, the better. But there is a distinction between lead capture and human connection.
Personally, I’m a fan of AI chatbots on home care websites because they can feel cold when a family member may be looking for empathy and reassurance. It’s for that same reason I’m not a fan of AI answering services, either.
If a real person is communicating with someone through chat, that’s different. But simply putting a robotic chat window on a website doesn’t necessarily improve the experience.
Home care is personal. Your website should feel personal, too.
Give Visitors a Complete Picture of Your Services
Finally, make sure your website provides a clear overview of everything you offer.
A prospective client shouldn’t have to hunt through your navigation to understand whether you provide companion care, personal care, dementia care, respite care, overnight care or other services relevant to their situation. Clearly explain your offerings and connect them to the problems families are trying to solve.
The goal is to answer the prospect’s questions, establish credibility, demonstrate how you are different and make it easy for someone to decide to call you.
Welton Hong is the founder and CEO of Senior Care Marketing Max, a division of Ring Ring Marketing, which has helped hundreds of home care agencies grow their revenue through proven online marketing strategies. Visit SeniorCareMarketingMax.com and follow the company on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and X.
