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Websites for care homes & retirement living

Families choose you from your website, usually before they ever pick up the phone, and usually at the hardest moment of their lives.

An unusual qualification

I spend every Friday with your residents’ peers

For nine years I’ve run a weekly technology clinic at Wadswick Green in Corsham, these days for Rangeford Villages. Two hours a week, every week, sitting with residents in their eighties and nineties while they show me exactly what confuses them.

That turns out to be unusually good training for building a website. I know what font size actually gets read, which words send people back to the previous page, and how much patience somebody has before they give up and ring a competitor.

Most agencies building care home websites have never met a resident. I sit down with between six and twelve of them every single week, and have done for nine years.

Rated 5 out of 5

“Having Ollie here is a necessity, so many of us depend on him, we simply wouldn’t manage without him!”

Judy Harriman, 85
Resident, Wadswick Green

As told to Care Talk, November 2023

Who is really reading it

Three audiences, one website

Care home websites usually fail because they’re written for one reader. There are always three.

The adult son or daughter

Usually the one searching, often at eleven at night, frequently upset and always short of time. They want fees, availability, location, CQC rating and a photograph that looks like a home rather than a hospital. Hide any of that and they leave.

The prospective resident

Reading on a tablet with the text enlarged. They want to know about the food, the garden, whether they can bring the cat and what there is to do on a Wednesday. Big type, plain words, generous spacing.

Professional referrers

Social workers, discharge teams and GPs checking capacity and specialisms quickly. They need facts fast: what care you provide, what you don’t, and one direct number that reaches a human.

What we build in

The things that turn a visit into an enquiry

Photography that shows the real place

Rooms, gardens, the dining room mid-lunch, staff who work there. Never stock images of models pretending to be residents. Families spot it instantly.

Book a visit online

A family can arrange a look round at midnight without waiting for office hours. This alone captures enquiries most homes are quietly losing.

Honest, findable information on fees

Even a range, or “from £X”, builds more trust than a page telling people to ring. Families reward openness and are suspicious of its absence.

CQC rating and accreditations

Your rating, your registrations and your memberships shown clearly rather than buried on an “about” page nobody reaches.

Life at the home, not just the building

The activities calendar, the newsletter, the day trips, the Christmas concert. Families are choosing a life for someone, not a room.

Genuinely accessible

Large readable type, strong contrast, keyboard navigation and screen-reader support. For this audience accessibility is not a box to tick, it is the whole job.

Two things at once

A website, and a tech clinic for your residents

Plenty of the homes and villages I talk to end up taking both. The website brings the families in, and the weekly clinic gives the residents already living with you something they genuinely value.

It also means I’m on site regularly, which makes keeping the website current far easier: new photographs, this month’s activities, a fresh testimonial from a family.

Already trusted in the sector

Nine years running the Wadswick Green clinic
Featured in Care Talk, November 2023
Featured by Rangeford Villages
Working with residents aged 70 to 95 every week
Comfortable with village compliance requirements

Questions

What managers ask

We’re part of a group. Can you work within brand guidelines?

Yes. If there’s a group brand, template or tone of voice document, I’ll work inside it. If there isn’t, I’ll build something consistent enough that a second home could use it later without starting again.

Should we really publish our fees?

My honest view is yes, at least as a range. Families researching at midnight are comparing four or five homes, and the ones with no pricing get dropped first. A “fees from” figure with a clear explanation of what’s included wins more enquiries than it loses.

Can you help with the photography?

I’ll tell you exactly what shots are needed and when to take them. Light matters more than equipment. For a home of any size I’d recommend a professional for a half day, and I’ll brief them.

Who keeps it up to date afterwards?

Whichever you prefer. It’s built so your activities coordinator can add news and photographs without touching anything technical, and I’m there for anything larger. Nothing is locked away from you.

Do you understand the regulatory side?

Enough to build it properly: CQC ratings displayed correctly, accessibility taken seriously, and claims kept to what you can evidence. I’m not a compliance consultant, and I’ll say so where something needs your registered manager’s sign-off.

Let’s look at your website together

I’ll go through it with you honestly and tell you the three things that would make the biggest difference, whether or not you use me.