The guide
Work four channels, in order of how fast they pay back: paid social to reach local families before they start searching, local search and your Google Business Profile to catch the ones already looking, reviews and reputation to convert those comparing you, and referral relationships with discharge teams and GPs. Before adding any of them, make sure you can say where your current enquiries come from, because otherwise you are guessing about what to add.
Updated August 2026
More enquiries come from working a few channels well, in the right order. In brief:
First things first
Check the conversion side before spending anything.
Enquiries are thin
If enquiries genuinely are thin on the ground, volume is the constraint. Read on.
Where they come from
Several places at once, which is why single-channel homes plateau.
Care England and Log my Care surveyed 1,000 UK families who had recently arranged care and found 55 per cent started with NHS or local authority directories, 40 per cent used online searches and 38 per cent relied on word of mouth.
Those add to more than a hundred because families use more than one. The family who eventually rings you may have found you on a directory, checked you on Google, read your reviews and asked a neighbour, all before dialling. Attribution in this sector is genuinely hard, which is an argument for working several channels rather than for working none.
The four channels
Work them in order of how fast they pay back.
Fastest to produce enquiries, because it reaches families before they search. Ofcom's Online Nation 2025 report found Facebook and Messenger were used by 93 per cent of online UK adults in May 2025. The close family members making these decisions are there daily. What it asks of you is honest creative. An advert that looks like an advert gets scrolled past; a real morning in your home, filmed with consent, does not. Our pillar on whether Meta ads genuinely work for care homes covers what separates the two.
The cheapest visibility a home can own, and it compounds. Google Search was used by 82 per cent of online UK adults in the month, and a large share of care searches are local and on a phone. Whitespark's 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors study, which surveyed 47 local search specialists, put Google Business Profile signals at 32 per cent of local pack ranking weight, the single largest category, with review signals second at 20 per cent. A complete, current profile with real photographs and answered reviews is the highest-return hour a manager can spend.
This is what converts the family who has already found you. Review signals rose from 16 per cent to 20 per cent of local pack influence between 2023 and 2026 in the same Whitespark study, so this is both a trust lever and a ranking one. Ask families who have had a good experience to say so, on Google and on your directory profile, and reply to every review including the difficult ones.
Slowest to build, warmest when they arrive. Discharge teams, GPs, community nurses and local authority brokerage produce enquiries that are already halfway to a decision. They depend on you being reliably reachable and able to take an admission at short notice, which is an operational commitment more than a marketing one.
Directories
Keep them, and do not expect them to be the whole answer. Directories work for a specific job: catching a family who has already decided to look and is comparing. carehome.co.uk alone carries around 16,500 listings and roughly 15 million visits a year, and for many homes it is the largest single source of referrals through to their own site.
The ceiling is that you appear beside every comparable home in the area, on a page you do not control. Our piece on the routes to filling beds beyond a directory listing sets out the alternatives honestly.
What to do first
Four steps, cheapest first.
Start recording every enquiry and where it came from. Costs nothing, changes every later decision.
Bring the Google Business Profile fully up to date: category, photographs, opening details, and reply to every review.
Ask five recent families for a review, and one for permission to tell their story properly.
Add one paid channel, done properly, rather than three done occasionally.
Timescales
Judge each on its own timescale rather than expecting all of them to report back in a fortnight.
Reaches families before they search.
Improvements often show in weeks.
They take longer, and they compound.
The slowest to build, and they last longest.
The wider picture is in our pillar on how to increase care home occupancy.
Common questions
Work four channels in order of how fast they pay back: paid social to reach local families before they search, local search and your Google Business Profile to catch those already searching, reviews and reputation to convert the ones comparing you, and referral relationships with discharge teams and GPs. Before adding any of them, make sure you can trace where your current enquiries come from.
Several places at once. UK research with 1,000 families who recently arranged care found 55 per cent started with NHS or local authority directories, 40 per cent used online searches and 38 per cent relied on word of mouth. Most families use more than one route, which is why homes that rely on a single channel plateau.
Paid social advertising, usually Meta, because it reaches local families before they start searching rather than waiting for them to look. It can produce enquiries within days. Local search and reputation work take longer and compound.
Check the conversion rate first. If enquiries are arriving and not becoming move-ins, more volume produces more waste. If very few are arriving at all, volume is genuinely the constraint.
Paid social can produce enquiries within days. Google Business Profile improvements often show within weeks. Search visibility and reputation take months. Referral relationships take months and last longest.
Keep reading
