Driving new care enquiries and higher occupancy with a unified marketing, design and development approach
The Orders of St John Care Trust (OSJCT) is a not-for-profit care provider running more than 60 care homes across the UK. Their focus is on delivering compassionate, person-centred care to residents with residential, nursing, and dementia needs. As an organisation, their mission revolves around making a meaningful difference in the lives of older people. OSJCT’s marketing efforts are an important extension of that mission, ensuring that prospective residents and families can easily find the right care and support when they need it most.
We began working with OSJCT in 2021, initially inheriting their Drupal website from a previous agency. Since then, we’ve partnered closely with the OSJCT team on a rolling programme of technical upgrades, design improvements, marketing refinements, and ongoing support. Our work together covers everything from Drupal migrations to digital advertising, UX design, and strategic consulting.
The project at a glance
This recent phase of work brought together three core areas of Versantus expertise, focused on:
- A full redesign of OSJCT’s care home pages to improve user experience, clarity, and enquiry rates
- Refining their Google Ads PPC campaigns to prioritise high-value care home enquiries
- Ongoing collaborative support to ensure long-term growth and continuous improvement across both marketing and website performance
With a clear set of challenges and tight delivery timescales, this was a highly collaborative project that brought together OSJCT’s internal team and multiple Versantus specialisms.
Challenges and objectives
Marketing
OSJCT’s existing Google Ads campaigns had grown increasingly difficult to manage and measure. Conversion tracking needed refinement, blending valuable care home enquiries with lower-value interactions like recruitment form completions. The campaign structure was broad and lacked the granularity needed to see what was really working. Budgets were being absorbed by irrelevant search terms such as ‘home care’ services and recruitment phrases that weren’t aligned with the Trust’s residential care home focus.
Our marketing objectives were clear:
- Rebuild campaign structures for improved control and clarity
- Separate high-value conversions like care home enquiries and calls from lower-value actions
- Tighten keyword targeting to avoid wasted spend
- Create a system that OSJCT could confidently manage and improve in-house
Design and UX
From a design and user experience perspective, the care home search experience felt clunky and disjointed. There were two different care home page templates, leading to confusion for both website users and administrators. The map functionality was underutilised, filters lacked clarity, and the design didn’t reflect the warmth and individuality of each care home.
The design brief focused on:
- Simplifying and consolidating care home pages into a single flexible template
- Improving usability of search, filters, and maps
- Bringing a more human, personal feel to the pages to better reflect OSJCT’s ethos
Development and project delivery
The technical brief centred around:
- Delivering a refreshed set of care home pages on a tight deadline ahead of internal milestones
- Upgrading and future-proofing the Drupal platform
- Managing complex content updates across all homes, ensuring continuity and stability throughout
Our approach
Rebuilding the PPC framework
We took OSJCT’s PPC account back to the foundations. Campaigns were rebuilt around individual care homes and specific care needs, allowing for much tighter budget control and clearer performance data.
Key steps included:
- Splitting conversions into primary (enquiries and calls) and secondary actions
- Updating Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Tag Manager to improve conversion tracking accuracy
- Excluding irrelevant keyword groups like home care and recruitment phrases
- Introducing weekly performance reviews to refine campaigns in real time
- Collaborating closely with OSJCT’s team to build shared understanding and allow rapid adjustments when needed
We also helped implement integrations with Found CRM and Mediahawk. These tools provided deeper visibility into lead sources and conversion paths, connecting online activity with actual care home conversations.
Redesigning the search and care home pages
Care home search page
The search experience was completely reworked to improve usability:
- Redesigned filter panels with clear white selection boxes against a grey background, making it easier for users to explore options
- Restructured listing cards that presented information more clearly and efficiently
- Enlarged interactive maps that finally fulfilled their intended purpose as a useful exploration tool
- Visually aligned map marker pop-ups with the new listing cards for a cohesive experience
Care home landing pages
The landing pages were rebuilt from the ground up with both users and content editors in mind:
- Flexible layout components like single-column blocks, 50/50 split sections, accordions, and optional CTAs
- A dedicated hero image component to showcase each home visually from the outset
- Personalised ‘from the home manager’ quotes to introduce each care home’s character
- Integrations with Google Reviews, CQC reports, and carehome.co.uk for added credibility
- Lifestyle image galleries to present a richer, more welcoming view of life at the homes
- An interactive location map alongside a 'nearby care homes' feature to encourage browsing
- A sticky desktop sidebar and responsive mobile call-to-action ensuring contact information, brochures, and enquiry buttons were always easily accessible
Technical delivery
Faced with a tight internal deadline, we managed the complex migration and rebuild of updated care home content across the OSJCT site. By using our agile project management approach, we kept the OSJCT team closely involved at every stage, providing clear visibility of progress, regular testing, and space for refinements before the full rollout.
Their knowledge, responsiveness, and collaborative approach have made a real impact, both in our results and in how we manage digital marketing internally
William Beaumont-Oates, Digital Marketing Manager, OSJCT
The results
While headline PPC metrics showed reduced volumes year-on-year, this was a deliberate and positive outcome. By removing low-value conversions, refining targeting, and improving lead qualification, the account now delivers:
- A cleaner, more accurate picture of performance
- Higher relevance and value for each enquiry generated
- Stronger confidence in ad spend ROI from OSJCT’s internal team
The combination of Found CRM and Mediahawk integration provided valuable additional insight, allowing the marketing team to connect digital activity with real-world admissions conversations.
On the website side, OSJCT now has a refreshed and future-proofed Drupal 10 platform, with a care home browsing experience that better reflects their person-centred approach and supports easier content management for their internal team. While further conversion rate optimisation (CRO) tracking will continue, initial feedback on the updated design and improved usability has been extremely positive.
"Working with the Versantus team has been a pleasure. They've helped us evolve our PPC strategy from a generic national approach to something far more precise and effective across our multi-location care home business. Their knowledge, responsiveness, and collaborative approach have made a real impact, both in our results and in how we manage digital marketing internally." — William Beaumont-Oates, Digital Marketing Manager, OSJCT.
Ongoing partnership
Our partnership with OSJCT continues to grow. With a stable, scalable website and data-driven marketing foundation now in place, we’re supporting the team with continued development and marketing support. As OSJCT’s care home portfolio evolves, we remain actively involved in helping the Trust deliver high-quality care to more people across the UK.
