How we increased care home tour enquiries by 400%
Somerset Care needed a website that was intuitive, informative, and supported their customers during a time when they may be feeling emotional and vulnerable. Before Cognique got involved, this wasn’t the case.
1.Challenge
Somerset Care’s former website didn’t align with their values or promote their full range of services.
As one of the largest not-for-profit care companies in the UK, Somerset Care turned to Cognique because they needed a website that conveyed their commitment to customer empathy and quality service. They also wanted their website to reflect their full range of care services to suit individual needs – much more than just care homes.
Somerset Care’s pain points
- Their website was difficult to manage and update because it was built on an outdated CMS.
- The website was complicated to navigate, making users feel frustrated and lost.
- The content focused on care homes and ignored their other care services.
- The website wasn’t designed for mobile devices.
- The website didn’t meet WCAG standards (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).
- Overall, the old website created a negative user experience.
2.Approach
Understanding the website users and their online behaviour was the clear place to start.
People reaching out to Somerset Care are often at an emotional and overwhelming time in their lives. The last thing they needed to face was a difficult to navigate website. To understand how Somerset Care’s new website would meet their needs, we used a combination of website and SEO research.
A lot of the existing website content was duplicated and outdated, and many pages containing key information were not clearly accessible. Our research helped us design and build a website that was easy to navigate and intuitive to use, gently guiding users through their journey.
Website research
- User interviews & surveys
- Analysis of real user journeys through the website
- Industry and competitor research
- Website page structure and navigation analysis
SEO research
- Technical SEO audit
- Keyword research
- Keyword gap analysis
- Competitor analysis
3.Results
More tour bookings, more enquiries, and more traffic: a new website built for purpose.
The new website showcases all the different services Somerset Care offer. Each page has been designed to make key information easy to find. We created a new advice section featuring FAQs and helpful articles – which has the added benefit of supporting ongoing SEO and content campaigns.
As one of Somerset Care’s largest user groups are the elderly and those with cognitive or visual impairments, it was also very important the new website met WCAG standards. The website is fully accessible, with a screen reader, adjustable colour contrasts, and more.
Since the launch, Somerset Care have benefited from a series of SEO campaigns, which have generated an increase in care home enquiries and tour bookings.
Overall results to date
- +173% overall conversions
- +400% care home tour bookings
- +169% care home enquiries
Understanding their users
To create a website that will enhance the user experience during an emotional and vulnerable time, it was crucial we fully understood their audience. Through research, online behaviour analysis, surveys, and user interviews we gained valuable insights that influenced the entire design of this website.
Intuitive care home search
The care home search page was an obvious frustration before, so we designed and built the ability to search by postcode allowing users to find their local care home. We also added various filters allowing users to easily see which care homes offer the level of care they need.
Informative, but clear
To give their users all of the answers they needed, each care home page had to house a lot of information. From our research we knew the areas of importance and designed the pages with that in mind, grouping all of the content in relevant tabs. A simple way to show a lot of text, without feeling text-heavy.
What do I do next?
Before, Somerset Care would get a lot of phone calls, most of them asking the same things about “what do I do now?”. We made sure we designed the ‘next steps’ in an intuitive way so no matter what stage the user was at, they knew where to go next. Book a Tour enquiries quadrupled.
Mobile-first design
The majority of Somerset Care’s users were on a mobile phone so we designed the mobile website along-side the desktop version. Through simple navigation and creative prompts we were able to show all of the necessary information without the experience becoming overwhelming.
Highlighting all services
One of Somerset care’s main frustrations was most people were unaware of all the care services they offered as the old website focused only on care homes. We designed a mega menu that would highlight and educate their users on all of their services.
Informative, impartial SEO
The opportunity for their SEO strategy was inspired by their informative, impartial approach to care. We designed an ‘Advice’ section that would become home to a whole library of informative articles that focused on common questions and more importantly popular keywords their audience were searching for.
Accessible to all
It was very important to Somerset Care their website was accessible. We integrated it with a tool that made their website accessible to everyone, no matter their needs. From features such as screen reader and font size change, to text spacing and contrast change, the website ticked all of the accessibility boxes.
