Marketing Your Senior Service on the Internet

Over the past 2 years of learning the magical "how to's" of Internet marketing, I've made many mistakes. But out of those mistakes, I've learned critical improvements for WorkingCaregiver.com . There's more to learn but I'm proud to say that the Internet and it's search engines do not intimidate me like it did a year ago! Over the few years; I've attended classes on Internet marketing, cutting edge technology, and hired a consultant to help me learn their expertise!

I must admit, just because my background is high-tech does not make me technical. Like you, I had to learn the grueling ends and outs of the Internet. I offer you hope that you too can increase visibility and marketing know how when increasing your senior services visibility to family caregivers and seniors online.

You may be thinking - why is the Internet so important to my business? What I learned in researching elder care, 33% of all caregivers and seniors seek help through this mechanism. There are two other places they go when reaching out and you may already know the answer to that. But let's focus on the leader - Internet Search Engines!

Here's a few website design mistakes I learned upfront:

1. Having a Flash page as a home page or the first viewing page visitors come to when they click on your website address. While this looks appealing.. it's disaster for search engines. Why? Family caregivers and seniors who are perusing the web for information can’t stand them. The Flash page gets in the way of information. You may be losing more than half of the information seekers because they will leave your site before the flash page is loaded - they opt out of seeing your sales presentation because it's taking too long to load. And search engines don't like Flash pages. The Internet mammoth is only interested in content and in delivering information to seekers or searchers. I know for myself, when I come to a home page using Flash... I opt out by clicking "BACK".

2. Copy sells - Family caregivers don't have time to wade through a lot of graphics, click throughs to another page, and pictures. This all takes time to load. And we all know caregivers have limited amount of time. Besides, search engines love content. The more the better. And the more frequently added, the more it loves to visit the website. And as a senior service provider, you want frequent visits from search engines... the higher your ranking when searchers are looking for specific keywords.

Let me add that the average time a surfer spends on a Website is about six seconds. So, don’t waste their time by making the reader wait, and wait, and click and wait to read content they desparately need. Remember to place the article, in it's entirety, on one page, even if your reader must scroll to read everything. I've learned that by scrolling, readers will stay. They don't want to wait for a page to load and load.

3. Use more attention getting headlines - Your readers, family caregivers and seniors, will get pulled in and STAY (very imporant) if headlines are appealing and address their pain. Readers are looking for answers, tips, and tidbits of information to help make their lives easier and more balanced. And they're seeking help.. lots of help. In your headlines, give something 'Free", or "How to", or "Tips". Try a "Discount".

Consider these - they will drive and hold more seekers, searchers, and readers! After all... if the reader finds your copy or content rewarding, they will end up buying your service. The more value up front, the more return they perceive getting for the money spent on your service.

More on the Internet Marketing for Senior Services soon! Thank you for visiting.
Carol Marak at WorkingCaregiver.com - Carol@workingcaregiver.com