SALMON Health and Retirement is a senior living and retirement company with seven campuses across Massachusetts. They provide a wide range of services – from memory care to child development, to rehabilitation to adult day programs, retirement communities, assisted living, childcare centers, VNA, private and hospice care––and needed a website redesign to better showcase those services.
For over 65 years, SALMON Health and Retirement’s senior living and healthcare communities have earned the trust and confidence of seniors and their families across New England. Given their success, it was imperative their website reflected their accomplishments and established them as leaders in the industry.
That’s when 3 Media Web came in to help.
The Challenge: Improve User Experience and Increase Leads
SALMON Health and Retirement was encountering issues showing their true value and reaching their key demographic.
Occupancy at senior living communities has declined across the United States in recent years and, as a result, there was a need for SALMON Health and Retirement to increase occupancy rates by “out-competing” other senior living providers.
In a nutshell, the client’s challenges were two-fold:
- showing the company’s value
- and addressing website accessibility
Why A Website Redesign Was Needed
Previously, SALMON Health and Retirement used its Continuum of Care as a differentiator to show value over their competitors. Unfortunately, that didn’t appear to factor in users’ decision-making so the company’s value and expertise needed to be shown in another way.
On top of that, their old website design wasn’t fully optimized for users who may have difficulty reading small fonts or navigating the web in general. Improvements were needed on their site to make it easier to use and more accessible by seniors, who make up a significant portion of their audience.
The Solution: A Multi-Phase Website Redesign
The next step was for the 3 Media Web team to come up with a detailed website redesign project plan to bring the SALMON Health and Retirement site up to the company’s high standards.
To summarize, here’s what we had on our plate to complete the project:
- Differentiate SALMON Health and Retirement by showing value on the website
- Ensure the new website met the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1
- Prioritize information based on the key questions/concerns of site visitors, as well as:
- reduce the number of pages on the site
- then compile and improve the quality of the content
- Position SALMON Health and Retirement as an authority by allowing site visitors to access all the information on the site, but not in an overwhelming or distracting way
- Ensure the site “flows” from section to section with a consistent look and feel
To overcome their challenges, SALMON Health and Retirement worked with 3 Media Web’s website redesign services to help leverage the marketing potential of their website and differentiate themselves from the competition.
The Process: From Discovery To Development
As with all our clients, we held weekly meetings to discuss site details, ideas, goals, and objectives. We started the meetings during the discovery phase and continued them throughout the entire project.
During discovery, there was also ample competitor research performed. This allowed 3 Media Web to identify similar website designs that perform well and accomplish the goals SALMON Health and Retirement was trying to achieve. This was crucial to understanding what works and what doesn’t to attract customers in this industry.
Armed with a solid understanding of the competition and what it was going to take to build a superior website for SALMON Health and Retirement, we spent several months poring over details. No stone was left unturned. The team covered everything from Information Architecture to brainstorming and coming up with detailed wireframes, as well as taking SEO and accessibility into account.
After the discovery phase, 3 Media Web’s expert designers spent just over a month creating and perfecting the design of the new SALMON Health and Retirement site.
Once the design was complete, the 3 Media Web development team went to work building the site. They had a lengthy list of tasks to accomplish including:
- HTML development
- Accessibility audit
- Custom WordPress theme development
- Content entry
Following the development of the SALMON Health and Retirement website redesign, we began an extensive Quality Assurance (QA) phase to ensure the site was flawless and our client’s expectations would be exceeded. This entailed an internal QA performed by 3 Media Web, as well as having SALMON Health and Retirement perform a QA session of their own.
Lastly, we completed a second accessibility audit to ensure the new SALMON Health and Retirement site adhered to the latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
The Results: More Leads Equals A Big ROI For SALMON Health and Retirement
This was a massive project that took multiple phases to perfect—and it paid off. Just a week after launching, SALMON Health and Retirement was already seeing some results they were hoping for.
Despite being launched amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and a Google Core Update that happened immediately after launch, SALMON Health and Retirement has achieved its goal of increasing leads from customers who call SALMON Health and Retirement directly after visiting the site.
“Within the first week, of launch, phone calls from potential customers increased by 14-percent. On top of that, the average duration of calls increased by 17-percent, indicating increased conversion rates are on the horizon.”
Jess Hennessey — Director of Digital Marketing, 3 Media Web
In the new design, 3 Media Web shifted the messaging on the site to be more user-friendly, rather than a website geared towards a corporate level. Now, the new SALMON Health and Retirement site features copy, images, and site navigation which all address the user needs and search intent of customers.
It’s safe to say, SALMON Health and Retirement is reaping the benefits of a more streamlined site and seeing a big return on their website redesign investment.
To learn more about how 3 Media Web can breathe life into your company website, contact one of our team members today. Our experts are here to help.