In the senior living industry, the way you present your community can make or break your search performance. Sure, “We’re a Life Plan Community” or “We’re a CCRC” sounds snazzy, but what if people aren’t searching for those exact terms? 

To support traffic on your website and a competitive online brand, you must understand what the data says about keyword performance for your audience, location, and niche. We dig into current keyword data below and provide some tips for keyword best practices in your industry.

What Does the Data Say About Senior Living Community Keywords?

First, you should know that data changes all the time and can vary by location. It's important to use tools such as Google Trends to understand what relevant keywords are trending for your audience and geolocation as you create content strategies for your community website or blog.

To help you understand the dynamic nature of keywords, let's consider a few common options related to the senior living niche.

When comparing the terms "senior living community" and "independent living community" in August 2024, Google Trends indicates that "independent living community" drives more national interest and searches. However, in West Virginia and Minnesota, "senior living community" is a more common search. This is important information because if you're marketing a community in one of those states, you might want to prioritize "senior living community" as a key term.

What about more specific niche terms, such as "CCRC" or "life plan"? Naturally, these terms might have much lower search rates than broader terms, such as "independent living." However, someone who knows enough to search for a "life plan community" has likely done some research and is further along in the sales funnel. These are the types of terms you may want to include in conversion copy meant for people who are close to making a decision about moving into a community.

Using Google Trends to compare "CCRC" and "life plan" as search terms in August 2024 results in "life plan" being the clear winner. That's not surprising, since that phrase can mean other things. Changing the term to "life plan community" results in CCRC winning out, especially in states such as California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York and Florida. 

However, those figures are still based on very low numbers of searches compared to terms such as "independent living community."

The takeaways here are:

• Conduct due diligence when using keywords. 
• Pay attention to trends, and alter keyword strategies as needed.
• Don't be so tied to your preferred terminology that you don't use terms your audience is searching for.

Where Should You Put Keywords Once You Find Them?

Once you know what terms your audience is using to search for content like yours, it's time to include them in your online content. Ensure you diversify your lingo! Sprinkle in terms such as “senior living community,” “retirement community,” “CCRC", and “Life Plan Community” throughout your site. Even if your brand identity prefers specific terminology, get creative and find ways to include these variations on your site.

Some great locations for keywords include:

• In page titles and subheadings: These are seen by search engines as locations that provide valuable information about the intent and topic of the page.
• Throughout Frequently Asked Questions: Put these on a single page or at the bottom of various pages to provide additional information.
• In blog posts. This makes it easier to work in tangential keywords because you can write about some things that aren't 100% related to your services. 
• On landing and services pages: The first and final paragraphs of content are especially good locations.
• On About Us pages or any other additional pages of your website: Include keywords anywhere in the copy.

This strategy widens your net, ensuring more potential residents and their families discover your community, no matter what keywords they use when they use Google or other search engines. 

Just ensure you aren't overdoing the keywords. Peppering diverse and natural phrases throughout your content is good. Stuffing every possible version of phrases into content while sacrificing readability isn't helpful. 

Get Help With Online Marketing Strategies

Keywords are just one factor in a quality marketing strategy. By partnering with an experienced team such as FIVE19, you can balance the many tasks and considerations that go into digital marketing and help improve outcomes for your community.

Curious about how FIVE19 can put your community in front of your ideal prospects? Connect with us!