Today, digital marketing accounts for more than 50% of all senior housing inquiries. This means in order to be competitive, your digital marketing program must be high performing on all fronts.
An optimized website is a must-have for any senior living community, but thanks to Google’s constantly changing search algorithm and ranking system, content strategy has become a close runner-up.
Here are five of the most important content strategies you should incorporate into your marketing mix now to become more competitive:
1. Content Organization
Changes in the way search engines crawl websites have prompted a shift toward the way content is organized on websites. Whereas in years past, companies would blog on a range of topics, often unrelated, Google now looks for sites with continuity and linking structure, which helps crawlers identify you as an expert on a particular topic.
The emergence of the pillar page is the foundation of this new structure, which comprises a vast digital library of expert content organized around topic clusters and back-linking to a mother-ship resource page on the website.
Content marketing tip: Develop an annual content editorial calendar that specifies blog and video topics using long-tail keywords that relate to your area(s) of expertise and commit to a schedule of developing high-quality, relevant content.
Pillar pages on senior living websites helps organize expert content.
2. Content Utility
The days of blogging at whim—from National Donut Day to downsizing—are coming to an end. Today, the website pages and blogs that rank higher in search are expected to sell less and solve more. The expert content now favored by search engines today informs and educates, answers a question or solves a problem. In fact, Google has stated that “Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness” also known as E-A-T are among the top three considerations for determining the quality (hence, ranking) of a website. Most advertising flies in the face of expertise in favor of braggadocios claims. Yet the 2019 updates to Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines demonstrates that the basis of the E-A-T core algorithm update is rooted in quality content. Now, more than ever, in order to attain a high E-A-T rating, marketers must demonstrate knowledge, relevancy and consistency around an area of expertise.
Content marketing tip: incorporating keywords such as “according to [insert credible organization here]” helps Google identify your content as credible thereby boosting your E-A-T rating.
3. Content Offers
Frequently the goal of content to is generate a lead that kicks off some form of lead nurturing campaign. Prospects that are just beginning the discovery process may not be as ready and willing to take a tour, so marketers aim to start marketing as early in the customer journey as possible to gain a competitive advantage. Thus, the eBook serves an important role, dutifully capturing prospects’ attention with the promise of useful tips, techniques, resources and solutions that senior living prospects need.
Ebooks are designed to work as an “offer,” requiring prospects to supply an email address in order to download a digital brochure. How-to guides in particular have proven very effective at capturing names and email addresses since they offer a perceived value to consumers.
Expert content is expected to sell less and solve more.
4. Content Automation
Like clockwork, marketing automation streamlines the ongoing delivery of content to prospects throughout the senior living purchase journey. If you have ever submitted your email address to a website, chances are you are well into an email drip campaign that is hoping to convert you to a customer. That’s because the consumer goods industry has perfected this strategy. At this level, content strategy can become narrowly targeted to specific personas (audience segments) using messaging that is specific, relevant and timely, and customized by a prospect’s motivations in an effort to influence future residents wherever they may be in the customer journey.
On average, in senior living, it takes anywhere from 100 -132 days for a web-based inquiry to convert to a move-in. On-going lead nurturing using a marketing automation platform such as HubSpot can help shorten the sales cycle.
5. Blended Content
Marketers struggle to create content that stands out in some way and break through a sea of content “clutter.” It can be difficult to identify topics that have not already been covered by providers who have had a head start in the content category, so the pressure to create something new or more engaging prevails. Video tutorials using motion graphics offer an affordable solution to marketers hoping to reach consumers early in the journey and impart some small piece of knowledge that helps educate prospects of senior living. Video is also a key tactic used to shorten the sales cycle in senior living.
How Important is an E-A-T Rating in Senior Living?
According to experts, Google’s E-A-T update is applied primarily to medical and financial sites, which begs the question: Do web crawlers place senior living in the medical or housing industry? Given the vast majority of assisted living residents are treated for some form of chronic disease, both sides could be argued.
At the end of the day, the senior living community that consistently produces high quality content will outperform the competition in the digital space.