A new website built to fill empty beds
Crossways is a warm, family-run residential home in Lindfield with an outstanding local reputation, but a website that was not turning that reputation into enquiries. We rebuilt it as a fast, search-optimised enquiry engine, then put SEO and PPC behind it to bring families to the door.
Residential care home · Website, SEO & PPC · Lindfield, West Sussex
- Home
- Residential & respite care, 65+
- Beds
- 25
- Area served
- Lindfield, Haywards Heath, Mid Sussex
- CQC rating
01 — The brief
Great care, not enough enquiries
Families choosing a care home almost always start online, often in a hurry and at a stressful moment. Crossways had the care, the reputation and the word-of-mouth, but its old website was slow, hard to find in search, and gave families no easy way to ask about a room or book a visit.
Meanwhile every empty bed was quietly costing the home money. The brief was simple: turn the home’s real-world reputation into a steady stream of online enquiries, and shorten the time a free room sits empty.
Great care, an invisible website. The reputation was there; the enquiries were not.
02 — Our approach
One enquiry engine, four moving parts
We treated the website as a single enquiry engine, not a brochure, and wrapped our own care-sector technology around it: a CQC-enriched grader to benchmark it, local SEO to be found, and PPC landing pages to capture paid demand.
A new, search-built website
A fast, modern site engineered to convert, so it is effortless for a family to take the next step, on any device, day or night.
- Server-rendered for instant loading and strong rankings
- Click-to-call, callback forms, live room availability and an AI assistant on every page
- Helpful funding tools that answer real questions and capture the enquiry
Benchmarked with our CQC website grader
Our website grader scores a care site against what actually wins enquiries, so every decision was evidence-led, not guesswork.
- Scored against the things that drive care enquiries
- Uses CQC-enriched data on the local market to set the bar
- Re-graded as we built, so nothing shipped below standard
Local SEO that targets real searches
Families do not search for “a care home”. They search by town and by type of care, so we built a page for each.
- A dedicated, optimised page for every town and every care type
- Technical SEO and structured data so Google trusts the site
- A growing blog answering the questions families actually ask
PPC landing pages that capture demand
For urgent, high-intent searches, paid clicks land on focused pages built to convert, with every enquiry tracked.
- A dedicated landing page per campaign, built to convert
- Budget aimed only at searches that lead to visits
- Every call and form measured back to the click
What we built · Tools
Tools that turn questions into enquiries
The website does more than look good. It answers the questions families are already Googling, with interactive tools that give a genuinely helpful answer and capture an enquiry at the same time, on desktop and on mobile.
Answers on demand
Dedicated AI chat, built around Crossways
An AI assistant trained on Crossways itself, its care types, visiting arrangements, fees guidance and live room availability. It answers in the warm tone of the home, around the clock, on every page of the site.
How families use it
- 1A family opens the chat bubble on any page, at any hour, most do it in the evening once the house is quiet.
- 2They ask anything, from "do you offer respite?" to "can we visit on a Sunday?", and get an instant, accurate answer grounded in Crossways’ own information.
- 3When the conversation warms up, the chat offers a callback request, which lands in the enquiry inbox with the family’s details.
Why it works
Families research care at 10pm, after work and after visiting hours. The chat answers when the office cannot, so no question, and no family, is lost to an unanswered evening.
The gateway effect
Every conversation keeps a researching family on the Crossways site instead of bouncing back to Google, and turns anonymous readers into named, high-intent enquiries.
Paying for care
Care funding calculator
A four-step guide to the biggest question in care: who pays. It covers all four UK nations, models the real means test, and shows each family a personalised split between what they pay, what the council pays, and where the NHS can help.
How families use it
- 1The family picks their UK nation, the rules differ in each, then answers a few plain-English questions about savings, property and income.
- 2The calculator applies the real capital thresholds and shows their likely funding position, no jargon, no forms.
- 3They can email themselves the results, which captures a warm, named enquiry with full context for the home to follow up.
Why it works
Funding is the first and most stressful question every family has, and almost no care home answers it. Being the home that answers it honestly earns the trust that decides shortlists.
The gateway effect
Thousands of families search "who pays for care" every month. This tool gives Crossways a page that competes for all of that traffic and meets families at the very start of their journey, before they have shortlisted anyone.
Paying for care
Deferred payment calculator
Answers the question that stalls more care decisions than any other: do we have to sell the house? It models a Deferred Payment Agreement, whether the family is likely to qualify, how much of the fee could be secured against the home, and how the amount grows over time at the real interest rate.
How families use it
- 1The family answers the eligibility questions, permanent move, home ownership, who still lives in the property, savings position.
- 2They enter the property value and the share owned, and the calculator shows how much of the weekly fee could be deferred.
- 3They see the honest picture, including how the deferred amount builds, so they can plan with confidence rather than fear.
Why it works
The fear of losing the family home freezes decisions for months. Confronting it with real, honest numbers removes the single biggest blocker between an enquiry and a move-in.
The gateway effect
Almost no care home even mentions deferred payments. Owning this rare, genuinely useful answer wins long-tail searches and marks Crossways out as the home that tells families the truth about money.
Benefits and funding
Attendance Allowance checker
A one-minute eligibility check for the benefit most families have never heard of: a tax-free, non-means-tested payment for over-66s who need help, worth up to £108.55 a week. The checker also knows the special rules that fast-track terminally ill applicants.
How families use it
- 1Five yes-or-no questions: age, health conditions, and whether help is needed during the day or night.
- 2The checker shows instantly whether a claim looks likely, and at which weekly rate.
- 3It then walks the family through the next steps to actually make the claim.
Why it works
Handing a family a genuine win, money they are entitled to but were never told about, before any sales conversation, builds the kind of goodwill no brochure can buy.
The gateway effect
Benefit searches reach far beyond people actively choosing a care home, so this page introduces Crossways to families years before they need it, and they remember who helped.
Local support
Local council funding guide
Everything a family needs to deal with West Sussex County Council in one place: the adult social care team’s direct contact details, the exact council pages families actually need, and a plain-English explanation of the means test thresholds that decide who pays.
How families use it
- 1The family sees their council, its adult social care phone number and website, without hunting through a maze of council pages.
- 2The means test is explained with the real numbers: the £23,250 upper limit and £14,250 lower limit, and what happens between them.
- 3Direct links take them straight to the right council page for a financial assessment, so they arrive informed.
Why it works
Council funding is a fog for most families. The home that clears the fog becomes the trusted guide, and trusted guides get the enquiry when the decision comes.
The gateway effect
Localised, genuinely useful council content wins the local searches families make early in their research, and keeps them on the Crossways site rather than lost in council websites.
Health and wellbeing
Is it time to think about care?
A gentle, completely private eight-question self-check for families quietly worrying about a parent. It bands everyday signs, struggles with washing, falls, missed medication, isolation, into an honest suggestion about whether it is time to talk to someone. Nothing is stored, and it is clearly framed as a prompt, not a diagnosis.
How families use it
- 1The family answers eight questions honestly, Often, Sometimes or Rarely, about the person they are worried about.
- 2The checklist bands the answers into a warm, honest reading of how their loved one is coping.
- 3It suggests sensible next steps: talk it through with the home, arrange a visit, or speak to a GP if health is the worry.
Why it works
It meets families at the very first worry, months before anyone types "care homes near me". A private, pressure-free answer at that moment builds a depth of trust no advert can reach.
The gateway effect
This is the earliest touchpoint a care home can own. Families arrive from worry-driven searches long before they are shortlisting, and Crossways is the name attached to the help they found.
Paying for care
What will care cost?
An instant, honest answer to the question families are most afraid to ask. It starts from Crossways’ real guide fees, lets the family adjust to their own situation, savings, property, Attendance Allowance, and shows the weekly, monthly and yearly cost alongside who is likely to pay it.
How families use it
- 1The family picks residential or respite care and sees the guide weekly fee, which they can replace with their own quote.
- 2They add savings, property and any Attendance Allowance, and the estimator applies the England means test.
- 3They get the full picture, cost per week, month and year, plus whether the council is likely to contribute, and one tap to request a personalised fee.
Why it works
Most care homes hide their prices, so the home that is transparent wins the trust conversation instantly. Families reward the honesty with the enquiry.
The gateway effect
Cost searches carry the highest intent of any care query. This page captures them with real numbers, and its "get a personalised fee" step converts that intent into named enquiries.
Live availability
Live room availability
A live availability badge, "2 rooms available", shown across the whole site, the pop-up and the landing pages. Behind it sits a private one-tap update panel: the manager opens a link on their phone, taps the current status, and every surface updates instantly. No logins, no developer, no stale information.
How families use it
- 1The manager opens their private update link, on a phone, in seconds, whenever availability changes.
- 2One tap sets the status, rooms available, limited, currently full, with an optional room count and note.
- 3The website badge, enquiry pop-up and marketing landing pages all update at the same moment.
Why it works
"Do you have space?" is the first question every family asks. Answering it before the phone call means the calls that do come are from families the home can actually help.
The gateway effect
Live availability adds honest urgency, a family seeing "2 rooms available" acts today rather than next month, and it makes every ad and landing page more believable than a competitor’s silence.
What we built · Local SEO
A page for every local search
A family does not search for “care home”. They search for “residential care in Haywards Heath” or “respite care near Burgess Hill”. So we built a dedicated, optimised page for every town and every type of care we offer, the searches that actually bring enquiries.
How families see it
- 1A family types a real search, "residential care in Haywards Heath" or "respite care near Burgess Hill", not just "care home".
- 2They land on a page built for exactly that search: their town in the heading, the right type of care, what Crossways offers for it, and honest answers to the questions that come next, including funding.
- 3Everything they need to act is on the same page, the phone number, the enquiry form and the funding tools, no hunting through a generic homepage.
Why it works
Local, specific searches are lower competition and far higher intent than "care home". A page that answers the exact question a family asked beats a generic homepage every time, and with a page for every town and every care type, Crossways has a front door on each of the searches that actually bring enquiries.
On Google
Each page carries its own optimised title and meta description, FAQ schema and LocalBusiness structured data, so Google understands precisely which searches it belongs in. And when a new search is worth owning, the team creates the page from the admin console, with locally grounded content, live in minutes with no developer involved.
The searches these pages compete for
- residential care in haywards heath
- respite care near burgess hill
- care home in cuckfield
- respite care lindfield
- residential care horsham
- care home balcombe
crosswayscarehome.co.uk › haywards-heath › residential-care
Residential Care in Haywards Heath | Crossways
Residential care for older people in Haywards Heath and the surrounding area, from Crossways Residential Care Home in Lindfield, West Sussex.
One page, one search, one front door. There is a page like this for every town and care type.
By the numbers
25
Local landing pages
One for every town and care type, new pages live from the admin in minutes
21
Articles migrated & live
Every original blog URL preserved, zero broken links
8
Family tools on the site
Calculators, checkers, AI chat and live room availability
40
Five-star family reviews
A 5.0 average, curated from carehome.co.uk
Pages and articles are a live count. The site is newly launched, and live traffic and enquiry figures will be published here as they land.
03 — Why it pays
The cost of an empty bed
For a care home, marketing is not a cost, it is the cheapest bed-filler there is. The maths is simple and it is the home’s own.
- A single residential room at roughly £1,200 a week is over £60,000 of income a year.
- Every week that room sits empty is income the home never gets back.
- Filling one room just a few weeks sooner can pay for a full year of website, SEO and PPC, several times over.
What success looks like
More online enquiries every month
A predictable flow of callback requests and visit bookings from search, not just word of mouth.
Page-one local rankings
Visible for the high-intent “care home in…” searches families make in the area.
Fewer days to fill a free room
A shorter gap between a room becoming free and a new resident moving in.
Targets for the campaign. Live figures will be added here as the data comes in.
“From the first conversation, TRG understood our home and what matters to the families who come to us. The new website finally reflects the care we give, and it makes it easy for people to get in touch.”
Start your project
Let's fill your beds
Tell us where you want to grow, more enquiries, a new website, or custom software, and we'll come back with a clear plan to get you there.
- A reply within one business day
- A free, no-obligation plan for your growth
- Specialists who already know the care sector
- One team for marketing, websites & software
Prefer to talk? Call us or book a free demo.