Lets face it, in the home health and hospice sectors a lot of our client base comes from building good relationship with referring sources. It takes a lot of time and effort to build these relationships and they are usually worthwhile in keeping your census numbers high.

But should your agency be concerned with its online presence?

ABSOLUTELY.

S.E.O. is a popular phrase these days, but what is it really? Its Search Engine Optimization. Some of you may already be familiar with this stuff but its always a good idea to double check and make sure that everything is looking right for your agency. You don’t want to see your home health or hospice referrals going somewhere else because you had the wrong presence on the internet.

At the end of the day which provider a patient selects for their home health or hospice services is a decision that the individual or a loved one makes, its often a group decision. For this reason, you should spend a little bit of time making sure that your agency has the online presence to support the efforts of all your hard work building relationships with referral sources.  You want to make sure that when the decision makers hit the web that your presence supports the referral you received. This will make the decision making process  easier and put the patient and their loved ones at ease when they take the recommendation of your refereeing source.

Heres a tip to help your agency gain more visibility on the internet so that your recommendation to enrolling patient rate gets as high as possible.

You’re a great agency. People want to do business with you, but they can’t because they can’t find you. Making sure you get found lets people receive the higher quality of care that you deliver.

Location! Location! Location!

Your agency is a local business, so the first thing you should do is claim your business! “Google it” has become a go-to for anyone researching anything. So naturally, it makes sense to head on over and Google Your Business and claim your address. This will be the quickest way for your home health or hospice to get found when people in your service area are searching your service.

Here’s some things that search engine optimization experts recommend doing.

  • add a good description of your business and its services
  • make sure you pick the right categories for your business
  • you’ll want to add a good amount of photos
  • make sure to add a local phone number to your listing
  • add a good high resolution picture for your profile and cover image

Claiming your business on google is a HUGE first step to making sure your home health or hospice agency shows up in search results in your area. Now, this seems like a simple step, but its always a good idea to hop on google and make sure that its done properly for your business. It won’t take that much time and it’s definitely worth it to make sure that your agency shows up when people in your service area are “googling it.”

Search Engine Optimization doesn’t have to be as technical as it sounds. Some simple steps can help you achieve great results.

 

Check here for the next steps when we cover “on page” seo for your agency.

sources: https://searchengineland.com/local-seo-rank-local-business-218906