Care home review ratings now showing in Google search results

People searching for a care home in Google search results, can now see at a glance, a care home’s rating and how many reviews it has.

Looking for a care home for a relative or a friend can be an arduous and time-consuming business as well as being very emotional due to it being a huge life change.

carehome.co.uk teams up with Google

Now carehome.co.uk, the leading care home reviews website, has made things even easier, by teaming up with Google so people can quickly see a care home’s average review rating.

Oli Blackwell, technical director of carehome.co.uk, said: “We are very pleased to take advantage of a recent Google update that enables service based businesses such as care homes to use their reviews from third party review websites, like carehome.co.uk, to generate a rating against their own listing in Google’s search results. We expect to see a significant impact to the Click Through Rate, for care homes which enable this feature.”

The best way to find out the quality and standard of a care home is to ask the residents who live there. carehome.co.uk features reviews from the residents, their family members and their friends giving a clear and accurate picture of the care home in terms of its staff, the rooms, cleanliness, facilities, care, management and whether residents are treated with dignity.

There are currently over 35,000 reviews of care homes on carehome.co.uk making it the go to site for anyone looking for a care home.

Trust factor

For care home providers, having their homes given star ratings by Google, is a definite bonus. As many people now search for care homes online, the first place they will look is Google. Highly rated care homes on Google can expect to get more traffic than those with no ratings due to the trust factor.

Des Kelly, who is chair of the Centre for Policy on Ageing, having spent 13 years prior to that at the helm of the National Care Forum, has called it a “positive initiative” saying: “I think it's vital for the public to have a wide range of ways to get authoritative information on care services.”

Care providers can ensure their home get these valuable star ratings by using carehome.co.uk’s review widget which also displays their latest carehome.co.uk reviews on their own website.

Mr Blackwell added: “The widget is very quick and easy to add to your website, and once embedded on your website the widget will automatically display your latest new reviews. Groups can create separate review widgets for each of their locations on their website.”

Once the carehome.co.uk review widget is embedded on the care provider’s website, Google will then display their carehome.co.uk average review rating.

'Vital for residents to review care homes'

Saskia Pearlstone, marketing co-ordinator for Somerset Care, was the first care home provider to trial the widget and the integration service with Google. She said: “Using the review widget was a straightforward decision for us. We have 30 care homes in Somerset and on the Isle of Wight and it is important that people are clear about the options available to them.

“Enabling people to easily see how our care homes have been rated goes with the whole ethos and values of Somerset Care which are customers, care and candour.

“It is absolutely vital that there is a system for people to review the provision that they are part of.

“It is a huge lifestyle change for people when they move into a care home so it is important for them to have as much information as possible.”

The rating displayed in Google search results which is out of five uses part of the provider’s carehome.co.uk review score.

The carehome.co.uk review score which is out of 10 is based on the average rating out of five and the number of positive reviews out of five.

For more information on carehome.co.uk’s review widget go to www.carehome.co.uk/reviews/widget/