Many senior care organizations have Resources pages on their websites, to help visitors research related topics of interest on issues of important to them. Resources pages are a good idea as they demonstrate your interest in providing your audience with information that is relevant to them, even if this information doesn’t necessarily lead them to utilize your services. If someone finds information they’re looking for on your site, they’ll remember it and pass along your site as a good place to find relevant information on issues important to seniors, their families and their caregivers. This not only creates goodwill and a potential pool of new customers, it may also move you up in the search rankings when people are searching for the services you provide.

If you have lots of links to other websites on your site, you may get “invitations” from organizations asking you to add a link to their website. These “invitations” should be heavily scrutinized. First, many of these invitations are scams, sent only for the purpose of building traffic on their own sites, which may or may not have a legitimate purpose. At the very least, their primary purpose is mercenary, not altruistic. Second, even if the invitation is legitimate, not every site is going to be relevant to your audience. The minute you start sharing information that is no longer relevant to your audience, your trustworthiness as an organization seeking to provide valuable information is tarnished, which may lead to people questioning your entire organization.

One common ploy to increase SEO on their own websites that people use is called “broken link building.” The person trying to get you to add their link to your website will sent you an email pointing out a broken link on your site. This could be because the page no longer exists, or it may merely be a temporary issue. The email may look something like this:

Hi Julie,
What a great website you have! It’s full of great information and is a wonderful resource! I wanted to notify you about a broken link on your page in case you weren’t aware of it. This link on your Resources page, goes to a 404 Error message: [LINK]
I’ve included a link to a useful page on [topic] that you could replace the broken link with if you’re interested in updating your website: [LINK]
Regards,
Jim

Because the information they provide is accurate and they’re flattering you, you’re tempted to feel the motivation for their email is legitimate. You may even feel it’s impolite not to respond to someone who’s done you a favor. But, in reality, the sender has used a software program that alerts him to broken links on sites he’s targeting. He then sends a mass email (often using many different pseudonyms and originating email addresses) to hundreds of companies hoping enough take the bait to add the link to their sites and boost his own search rankings.

While some of these requests are legitimate and the links they want you to add are worthwhile, others are not. For example, you may receive a request from individuals or groups trying to bring a class action lawsuit against a company. (You’ve probably seen the commercials on TV asking if you’ve been injured by such-and-such a drug, if you have mesothelioma, or if a loved one has been injured in a nursing home). You should know that, in these cases, there is most likely no such person as “Jim” and their motivation for pointing our your broken link is to get your to include their link on your site. Don’t fall for it.

Checking the links on your website on a regular basis to ensure they work is a good practice even you don’t get these types of invitations – nothing is more frustrating to a web user than clicking on a link to a page that doesn’t exist.

If you don’t currently have a Resources page on your website and would like to include one, let us help you create your own Online Information Center.