The Role of Your Website in Increasing Occupancy at Care Homes

Will Roberts | 12 May 2025

Your care home’s website is more than just an online presence. In fact, 97% of customers visit a business’ website before visiting in-person. This means that your website is the first meaningful interaction families will have with your care home – so make sure to build trust and ease their anxieties in the highly sensitive process they’re going through.

An intuitive and well-optimised website will not only help you stay competitive in today’s online-first world, it will also establish trust and answer your family’s / resident’s questions before they even come to you. Essentially, you’ve already brought them halfway down the sales funnel with your website, and all that’s left is to give them the final assurance when they visit your facility in-person.

Let’s look at a few reasons why having a website can help you successfully increase your occupancy rates.

1. First Impressions Count

Research has repeatedly shown that an average website visitor forms an opinion about your website within 50 milliseconds of first visiting it. This split-second decision determines whether they will continue to browse or leave your website and move on to the next care provider.

But what determines this instant impression? Well, 94% of these first impressions are related to the website’s design. Clean and modern layouts, calming colour schemes (particularly blues and greens), and legible fonts with ample white space are all factors that establish credibility and a positive first impression.

For a care home, it’s even more important to establish that trust instantly because families who are looking for care facilities want reassurance that their loved ones will be in safe, competent hands. As such, an outdated website can be a negative signal.

Two men are sitting at a table in an office environment. The man on the left is smiling and wearing glasses and a blue shirt. A laptop and notepad are in front of him.

2. Clear, Compassionate Messaging

As a care provider, you’re already aware that families are often dealing with guilt, anxiety, and uncertainty when making the decision to leave loved ones in a care home. And your website should acknowledge these emotions with compassion and provide reassurance.

In this regard, the kind of language you use matters a lot. For example:

Use emotion-based phrases like “peace of mind,” “a home, not just a facility,” or “personalised care”
Address fears directly and acknowledge common concerns (for example, “We understand how overwhelming this decision can be”)
Avoid jargon and replace clinical terms like “dementia care unit” with “a supportive community for memory care”

This shift in language from features to feelings makes a big difference!

Two adults in a room with a brick wall, writing on large sticky notes attached to a glass surface. One person is focused on writing, while the other looks at the notes.

3. Show the Human Side of Your Care

Stock photos of generic, happy seniors are immediately recognisable and come across as inauthentic. Instead, invest in a professional photographer and capture genuine interactions between caregivers and residents, your facility’s living spaces, and the activities you provide.

Some practical ways to do that are to post “A Day in the Life” series, bios of caregivers with their photos to humanise the team, or sharing video testimonials of residents and families to highlight their experiences in their own words.

4. Make It Easy to Get in Touch

Online friction is a very important factor in determining which service provider to choose. If families struggle to reach you, they’ll bounce.

That means they’ll leave your website without taking any action and move on to a competitor. In fact, without any visible contact information, visitors are 44% more likely to leave a website.

So what can you do? Here are some best practices to help potential clients contact you more easily:

Place your contact details in multiple locations, not just the ‘Contact Us’ page
Include a prominent phone number in your header with clearly stated working hours
Offer multiple contact channels (phone, email, form, live chat)
Set clear expectations for response times
Shorten forms and ask for only the most essential details – form completion rates drop with every additional field that leads need to fill out

5. Highlight Availability and Services Clearly

Being transparent about what you offer – and what you don’t – can help families quickly determine whether your care home meets their requirements or not.

Many caregivers worry that adding pricing will discourage enquiries, but the opposite is often true. Being ambiguous about availability, room types, pricing, and services is a red flag for families and shows a lack of confidence in your own services.

Here’s what you should consider showing on your website:

Service Information	Why It Matters
Types of care provided (residential, nursing, dementia, respite) and what each care level includes	Helps families quickly determine suitability
Room availability or waiting list status	Creates urgency and saves time for all parties
Room types and features	Allows families to mentally picture the living space
Fee structure or price ranges	Helps families determine financial fit before enquiring, even if you’ve just provided a ballpark figure
Staff-to-resident ratios	Demonstrates care quality and personalised attention
CQC/regulatory ratings	Builds credibility through third-party validation

A woman sits at a table with a laptop, looking at a person across from her. The background shows a door and glass wall with partial text "Meet.

A man sitting at a desk is smiling while looking at a computer monitor in an office setting with a green wall and a plant in the background.

A person is sitting at a desk in an office, looking at a computer screen intently. The background includes office furniture and equipment.

6. Include Testimonials and Case Studies

As many as 98% of customers say that they refer to online reviews before making a purchase decision, and many even refer to reviews over product descriptions.

This is because third-party validation offers powerful social proof and acts as the most trusted form of digital marketing.

Case studies are also a powerful way to highlight how you’ve helped families with specific needs and they provide a real-world view of the value of your solutions in a way that generic marketing can not.

Here are some tips for including social proof effectively on your website:

Feature diverse perspectives (people from different ethnic backgrounds, different care needs, residents themselves, families)
If permission is granted, include full names and photos of those giving the review
Prioritise testimonials that focus on specific aspects of your care services rather than generic compliments
Try to include video testimonials as they have a 4.7 times higher engagement rate
Embed Google, TrustPilot, or Yelp reviews as these live feeds of 5-star ratings can instantly boost your credibility

7. Focus on Local SEO

Local SEO strategies increase your business’ visibility in your vicinity, and most searches for care homes include location terms. For example, when users search for “dementia care near me” or “care homes in Bradford”, Google will show them a list of available options near them or in the specified locality.

And if your website has been optimised for overall SEO, has an optimised Google Business Profile, has an embedded map, incorporates local SEO keywords, and is optimised for mobile – among other strategies – you’ll have a greater chance of appearing in local search results.

You can use free tools like AnswerThePublic or freemium ones like SEMRush to build an effective local SEO strategy for your care home.

A screenshot of a website analytics dashboard shows 223 total clicks, 17.6K total impressions, a 1.3% average click-through rate, and an average position of 25.2 over the last 6 months, reflecting the impact of applying 5 essential SEO copywriting tips for 2020.

8. Offer Virtual Tours or Video Walkthroughs

Virtual tours and video walkthroughs allow families to tour the facility without needing to be there in person. This allows clients to transcend distance limitations, mobility challenges, or time constraints.

Here’s how to implement this type of care home marketing:

Film a guided walkthrough with narration, showing bedrooms, recreational facilities, and common areas such as dining areas and gardens
Highlight safety features such as grab rails, emergency call systems, and secured gardens
Share the videos on YouTube and incorporate relevant keywords to optimise the video titles

9. Speed and Accessibility Matter

The need for instant gratification and speed in delivery are seeping into every industry. According to Google’s data, if a webpage’s load time increases from 1 to 5 seconds, 90% of visitors will bounce.

For care homes, your audience includes people who are stressed or older people with limited patience for technical difficulties. That’s why it’s important to optimise your website’s speed.

Test your website’s loading speed with Google’s PageSpeed Insights and aim for the website to load in under 3 seconds, with 2 seconds being the ideal time.

Your website’s accessibility is another metric which will help you increase your occupancy rates. Simplify menus with phrases like “Our Care Services” instead of “Our Offerings”, enable ALT text to describe images for screen readers, and make sure colour contrasts are sufficient enough for people with compromised eyesight.

10. Track, Test and Improve

Tools like Google Analytics and Hotjar can help you analyse your website and see which pages users are frequenting the most, at what points they’re dropping off, and how they’re interacting with your forms and CTA buttons.

For example, if your analytics tool reveals that your visitors visit your “Our Team” page before making any enquiries, you can expand that page with more detailed profiles to build trust and credibility.

You could also run A/B tests to check two different versions of a headline or image to see which one performs better.

Conclusion

You must remember that behind every website visit is a family facing one of life’s most difficult decisions. Your website must be thoughtful, transparent, and human-centred to drive conversions and build trust.

Optimise your care home website using the ten tips provided above or contact WebBox to arrange a discovery call to help you highlight the care you provide and convert visitors into high occupancy!