For care homes and home care agencies that want to be found on Google by self-funding families, and by the carers they need to hire. Local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results: there is nothing to pay upfront, and you pay nothing until the results we agree with you in writing, before we start, have been met.
+121%more clicks a day from Google: 16 a day when the work began, 35 a day in October
“We’ve seen our online presence increase massively.”
Hastings, Protocol HealthcareHome care and healthcare staffing, Edgware, London
15 to 31 July against 1 to 18 October 2026. Source: Google Search Console.
Read the full storyProtocol Healthcare provides home care to families and supplies nurses and care staff to other providers, from offices in London and Bournemouth. Its new site went live on 15 July 2026. The figure below compares clicks a day from Google in the first fortnight of the work (15 to 31 July) with October so far (1 to 18 October, the latest complete data).
+103%
more clicks to the practice's site from Google
“I’ve tried a lot of other people, spent literally thousands, with really very little return.”
Bradley, BJR PsychotherapyPsychotherapy and counselling, Hove
June to July 2026, two months. Source: Google Search Console.
Read the full storyProtocol is the only care provider we have figures for so far. JNP Sidona, a small home care provider in Lewisham, south-east London, runs on a site we built, but it has one month of data, too little to compare. BJR Psychotherapy is a counselling practice, not a care provider. It is here because its clients also pay for themselves and find it through Google.
Often a son or daughter, not the person who needs the care, and sometimes against the clock. Age UK's 2023 research estimated that 3.3 million UK adults aged 40 to 60 already support an older parent. Among those expecting to take that on in future, 49% said they wouldn't know how to help a parent get care.
The CMA's advice to care homes starts from the same place: families may first find you through a search engine, or through a listing site you appear on. When a parent is in hospital, the clock is the hospital's. England's discharge guidance says a patient who no longer needs a hospital bed has no right to stay in one while waiting for their preferred care home or care package. Something else is offered in the meantime.
Self-funders are the families most likely to reach you this way. In England, anyone with savings over £23,250 gets no help from the council towards the cost of care and, as the NHS explains, can arrange it without involving the council. Council-funded care usually comes through the council, unless the person takes a direct payment and chooses a provider themselves.
There are a lot of them, and they pay more. The ONS estimates self-funders made up 37% of care home residents in England in 2022 to 2023, and 23% of people using home care and other community services. Which? reported LaingBuisson's 2024/25 averages for profit-making care homes for older people: £1,278 a week for a privately paid residential place, against £908 paid by councils. That gap is why the work is aimed at private enquiries first.
In England, your latest CQC rating, the date it was given, and where on CQC's website the report can be read. Regulation 20A applies to every website run by you or on your behalf, and the rating has to be displayed conspicuously. CQC says it can prosecute for a breach without serving a warning notice first.
Families use it. In a CQC survey published in 2018, 44% of people who had chosen care said the rating and the latest report were what influenced their choice of care home most.
Wales and Scotland have their own versions. Since 1 April 2025, care homes and domiciliary support services in Wales must display their Care Inspectorate Wales ratings on their website. Scottish services are graded by the Care Inspectorate from 6 (excellent) to 1 (unsatisfactory). The CMA's advice expects care homes there to show those grades, with a link to the report.
Care homes have a second rulebook. The CMA's consumer law advice for care homes for older people says key information should sit one click, at most, from your home page. That includes which kinds of funding you accept, and an indication of the weekly fees you charge self-funders, the full range, for each type of care. Families ask for it anyway. In our central London search for care homes near me, run on 20 October 2026, Google's People also ask box opened with "How much do care homes charge a week?"
So the rating and the fees are treated as page content. Keep CQC's widget, and put the rating, its date and a link to the report into the page's own words as well, changed the day a new report comes out. A stale rating in the text is its own risk: the CMA lists showing an older, better rating than your latest one as misleading.
On Google, and on carehome.co.uk or homecare.co.uk. You're on whichever of the two fits your service, paying or not: carehome.co.uk carries every CQC-registered care home, and homecare.co.uk says every UK home care agency is featured. Families can leave a review there either way.
Each site gives you a Review Score out of 10, built only from reviews published in the last 24 months. Half the score comes from the ratings. The other half rewards the number of positive reviews, counting up to 20 in two years, and carehome.co.uk also sets a target of a fifth of your registered beds. Both sites say the score influences where you appear in their search results (carehome.co.uk, homecare.co.uk), and a review stops counting once it is two years old.
Google's bar can be lower. In our central London search for care homes near me, the three homes in the map pack had 10, 11 and 13 Google reviews. Google tells businesses that a larger number of good reviews can help them rank locally, so a steady flow matters on Google as much as on the care sites.
Ask within each site's rules. carehome.co.uk only publishes reviews based on first-hand experience of care in the last 12 months, and never from staff. On your own website, the CMA warns against picking out glowing reviews that clash with your inspection report. Our part is a simple request to every family and a reply to each Google review. A good reply thanks the reviewer and keeps the details of anyone's care out of public view.
Because hiring from overseas has slowed sharply, more of your carers have to come from nearby, and many of them look for work on Google. 'Care jobs near me' alone averages about 6,600 UK searches a month on Keyword Planner figures. From 22 July 2025, the Home Office closed the care worker and senior care worker visas to new applicants from abroad. People already in the UK can still switch in until 22 July 2028.
Skills for Care estimates 30,000 international recruits joined direct care jobs in England's independent sector in 2025/26, down from 50,000 the year before, and about 2,000 from April to June 2026. Domiciliary care had the highest vacancy rate in the sector in 2025/26, at 8.7%, against 3.8% in residential care.
Applicants search for the job and the place, and they will use a page if you give them one. Protocol Healthcare's jobs pages went live in September 2026. In their first month, the care home jobs and healthcare assistant jobs pages earned over a quarter of all Protocol's clicks from Google, its case study shows.
Jobs get their own pages, because the two readers want different things. One wants the pay, the shifts and the travel. The other wants to know their mother will be safe. Each live vacancy can be marked up to appear in Google's job search results, one job to a page, and it has to come down once it's filled, because Google doesn't allow expired postings.
Five more pieces of work sit alongside those three. Profile upkeep, from photos to review replies, has its own page: Google Business Profile management. If your current site can't carry a fees page and separate jobs pages, a rebuild planned around what already ranks is quoted on its own.
Google has no category called care home. Homes are listed under options such as Nursing home, Retirement home or Aged care, and agencies under two separate ones, Home care service and Home health care service. We check what the providers above you use, then match yours to what you are registered to provide.
Residential, nursing, dementia and respite care in a home. Visiting, live-in and overnight care at home. Families search for each one by name, so each gets a page that says who it suits, what it costs and how soon it can start. How those pages are built.
One page on what care costs and how people pay: privately, through the council with any top-up, or with NHS-funded nursing care. For a care home it sits one click from the home page, as the CMA expects. Agencies get the same page, with hourly rates if you are happy to publish them.
If families never come to your office, Google's guidance expects the address hidden and the areas you cover set instead, reaching no further than about two hours' drive. A care home is the opposite. The address is the point, so the pin, the rooms and the garden do the work.
Your portal shows the clicks and calls Google sends you. Search Console also records the page each click landed on, so the care pages and the jobs pages can be counted apart, and a busy month traced to families, carers or both.
Local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results. There is nothing to pay upfront: you pay nothing until the results we agree with you in writing, before we start, have been met.
Websites, ads and social media are quoted separately after the free analysis. How pay on results works
Tell us your trade and area. We record a short video of where you rank, who is above you and what would have to change. It is yours to keep.
If your market is not winnable, we say so. If it is, we agree in writing what a result is and how it is measured, before anything starts.
Your Google Business Profile, the pages that need to rank, citations and reviews. One business per trade per area, so never your rival as well.
Clicks, calls and where you show up, in your own portal, straight from Google. You pay once the agreed results are met.
We don't publish a fee, because a care home with two rivals within a few miles and an agency up against dozens in a London borough are different jobs. Once the free analysis has mapped your patch, you get an exact figure. Local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results: nothing upfront, and nothing until the results we agree in writing, before we start, have been met. Only then does a monthly fee start, on no fixed contract, so ending it is your call. Walk away earlier and you are never billed. Websites, ads and social media are quoted separately.
No. Nobody can promise you a full home. Occupancy also turns on things no agency controls: your fees, your rating, how quickly enquiries are answered and how the visit goes. In CQC's 2018 survey, 72% of people who had chosen care said seeing the home for themselves influenced them most. What we fix in writing before we start is the result itself, how it will be measured, and that you pay nothing until it is met.
Not one competing with you. We never work for your direct rival, so after you sign, the homes or agencies chasing the same families near you are turned away. That matters most in home care: the government's review of CQC counted about 13,600 domiciliary care providers in 2024, up from about 9,700 in 2019. If one of them already works with us, the free analysis says so up front.
It depends on whether you want more private residents or clients, and whether your area has them. Self-funding varies by region: ONS estimates for 2022 to 2023 put self-funders at 47.5% of care home residents in the South East and 26.4% in the North East. Search mostly brings self-funders and people with a direct payment, while council placements are usually arranged by the council itself. If the analysis shows your area has too few private payers, we will say so.
Usually not, because the rating is public either way: it has to be on your website, and families can look it up on CQC's site. Re-inspection can also be a long wait. When the government's Dash review checked in July 2024, the average CQC rating was 3.9 years old. What helps is a clear, dated account of what has changed since. The CMA warns against claiming outstanding care when the latest report says otherwise, so the pages stick to things you can show.
Yes. Jobs pages are part of the SEO work: a page for each role, written for applicants, with each live vacancy marked up for Google's job search results. They sit apart from the pages for families, so their clicks can be counted separately. If staffing is what limits how many clients you can take, say so at the start, so the plan reflects it.
You're on one of them either way, because each lists providers whether or not they pay. And they rank: in our London search for home care near me on 20 October 2026, homecare.co.uk was the first ordinary result under the map. So the profile there should be accurate and its reviews current. The CMA's advice says details you give a listing site must be truthful, and corrected when you find they are wrong. Whether a paid upgrade is worth it is your call, and it is separate from our work.
Yes. Each home or branch has its own CQC rating, its own Google profile and its own reviews. For care home groups, the CMA's advice is that key information about each home should be a single click, at most, from that home's own page. So each location gets a page written about that place, not one page with the address swapped.
Tell us what kind of care you provide and roughly where. We record a short video and send it to you inside two working days. In it: where you appear when a nearby family searches, which homes or agencies outrank you, and the gaps between you, from review counts to a missing fees page. There is no charge for it, and it stays yours whichever way you go. If we think your area can't be won from where you stand, the video tells you that too.