Getting registered is the part everyone warns you about. Getting clients is the part nobody prepares you for. You have policies, insurance, a registered manager and maybe your first carers — and a phone that isn't ringing. This guide covers what actually produces enquiries for a UK home care agency, in the order you should do it.
If you have just come through CQC registration, start with our first clients playbook for new care agencies, then use the steps below as the detail.
1. Get findable where families are actually looking
Nearly every private care journey starts with a search: "home care near me", "carers in [town]", "live-in care [county]". If you are not in the Google map results for those towns, you do not exist to the people who can pay privately.
- • Claim and verify your Google Business Profile, and set your service area properly — not just your office postcode
- • Use your exact registered trading name, and keep name, address and phone consistent everywhere
- • Add photos of your team, your office and your community involvement
- • Post updates monthly: new services, recruitment, seasonal advice
- • List on the main UK care directories with complete profiles
For the longer-term version of this, see home care SEO.
2. Make your website answer four questions
A useful agency website answers four practical questions without making the family search for them.
- • What does it cost? Give honest guidance and explain why an assessment is needed for a final quotation
- • Which areas do you cover? Named towns, not a vague radius
- • How quickly can you start? State the real assessment and start-of-care process without inventing availability
- • Who are you? Registered manager, CQC registration, real photos
More on this in home care website mistakes that cost you enquiries.
3. Build referral relationships with professionals
Hospital discharge teams, district nurses, GP practice managers, social workers, occupational therapists, case managers and private client solicitors all place people into care regularly. They refer to providers they can reach quickly and who reliably say yes or no fast.
- • Prepare a one-page capability sheet: services, area, current capacity, referral contact, response time
- • Visit in person, briefly and politely, and follow up by email
- • Set an acknowledgement and callback standard the team can reliably meet, then measure it
- • Update them monthly when capacity changes
4. Get genuine reviews early
With zero reviews, you lose comparisons you should win. Ask every satisfied client and family member, at the moment they thank you, with a one-tap link. Never buy or invent reviews. See how to get your first 10 Google reviews.
5. Follow up every enquiry, automatically
Follow-up can be a material source of leakage. A CRM can record each enquiry, acknowledge it and prompt the next action while the team is out on assessments. Measure whether the process improves contact, assessment and package conversion instead of assuming how many enquiries it will recover. See CRM and lead follow-up for small care agencies.
6. Add paid search once the basics work
Google Ads can begin collecting local search data once the campaign and tracking are live, but enquiries are not guaranteed. Use a relevant landing page, reliable phone coverage and a controlled test; expand only what contributes to suitable assessments and packages.
7. Show up in the community
Dementia cafés, carers' support groups, retirement housing schemes, churches and local Facebook groups generate slower but warmer referrals. Offer something useful — a talk on funding care at home, a downloadable checklist — rather than a leaflet drop.
Track what works
Ask every enquirer how they found you and record it. Review the first 90 days for directional evidence, but keep testing when the sample is too small to support a confident budget decision.
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