An online search environment in transition is making marketing difficult for fledgling home care providers building their web presence. Is associating with authoritative platforms a more viable strategy than crafty keywording?
The home care sector in Toronto has grown steadily in recent years, driven by an aging population and increasing demand for personalized, in-home support. Yet as more agencies enter the market, many find themselves grappling with a less visible but critical challenge: staying discoverable online.
“Search engines, once a relatively straightforward channel for reaching prospective clients, have undergone a pretty drastic shift,” says a spokesperson for AmpiCare, a marketing technology company working closely with home care and senior care businesses in North America. “Today, AI shapes how search results are delivered, and for small home care agencies without large marketing teams, that shift is proving costly.”
The transformation of online search is less about flashy new tools and more about how information is surfaced to users. Where once search results led users to company websites, today’s AI-powered systems, such as Google’s Gemin,i prioritize summarizing information within the search results themselves.
Only the most authoritative and trusted content makes it through.
“This isn’t just about optimizing for keywords anymore. Your brand needs to be present where the algorithms already trust the source, which means having content on influential, high-domain-authority platforms.”
While paid ads remain an option, they offer only a temporary fix, and they are costly for smaller agencies managing tight budgets.
For home care providers, the challenge ahead is one that is common among many small businesses: how to establish a presence on platforms that matter in order to attract the attention of AI crawlers.
AmpiCare, drawing on its background in both running and supporting home care agencies, recommends a two-pronged approach. First, agencies need to think beyond their own websites and publish authoritative content in places where search engines already look for answers, such as industry publications, healthcare news outlets, and educational platforms that serve the senior care community.
Second, content must be diversified. “Written articles remain important, but short videos give businesses more ways to meet prospective clients on their preferred channels.”
For Toronto’s growing home care sector, this means embracing a more sophisticated, multi-channel marketing approach. Agencies failing to adapt risk becoming invisible in a search environment where simply having a website or a blog is no longer enough.
“The mindset that one can blog their way to visibility will only lead to failure. You need to be part of the broader conversation in your industry to stay relevant in AI-driven search.”
