How do homecare.co.uk searches work?

Being visible in searches is of central importance when attracting care seekers to your home care company.

Having an attractive profile is helpful, and a unique description is essential for improving your ranking on search engines such as Google. Thousands of people use homecare.co.uk’s search feature each year to search for home care for themselves or a loved one.

This article will explain how that search works and how to improve your chances of being seen by care seekers.

How can my home care company be found in searches?

When you set up your profile, you give information about your company that can help care seekers to find you in searches.

Care seekers can search for home care providers based on:

• Location
• Home care provider name
• Group/owner name
• Manager name

Care seekers can add additional filters to narrow searches down to the type of care they are looking for, including:

• Live-in care, nursing care, elderly care or dementia care
• CQC rated Good or Outstanding providers
• Only those with a Review Score of 9.5 or above
• Only home care providers with reviews
• Winners of the most recent homecare.co.uk awards
• Profiles with a video
• Home care providers opening soon

Any categories you tick will result in your profile appearing as a result when care seekers include them as criteria in their search. The more information you include, the more relevant searches your profile will appear in.

How does search ranking work?

Search ranking is the order in which home care providers profiles are listed. When somebody searches for home care in any given area on homecare.co.uk, they will see a list of potential providers.

The higher up your profile is on this list, the more likely it is that somebody will click on it.

At the very top are featured profiles. Up to five home care providers can pay to have their profile featured.

Next come upgraded profiles ranked in order of their review score. Your subscription level (Platinum/Premium/Enhanced) and your review score will both affect where you rank.

At the bottom of the list are Basic profiles which are listed in a random order. Review score does not affect Basic profiles’ ranking.

How can I improve my ranking?

As explained above, your ranking is affected by your review score and your homecare.co.uk subscription. Therefore, you can improve your position in searches by:

• Improving your review score. There is more information on how to encourage service users and their loved ones to leave reviews here. There is also guidance on our new Invite to Review feature, enabling you to send links to review on your social media and by email, here.
• Upgrading your subscription; see price list here.