Websites · 6 min read
Hiding your fees doesn't protect you. It loses the call.
What families check at 11pm before deciding which home to ring first.
The short answer
A website for care homes needs to show weekly fee ranges, the current CQC rating and inspection date, and real photographs of the actual building and rooms. Enquiries usually come from adult children searching late at night during a stressful week, so anything hidden or vague simply sends them to the next provider on the list.
By Raja Wahab, Co-founder, Fixby Studios · Published · 6 min read
Who is actually searching, and when
Most care enquiries are made by an adult child, often on a phone, late in the evening, in the middle of a difficult week. They are comparing several providers quickly and deciding who to call first based almost entirely on what the website shows them.
- "care homes near me"
- "residential care home [town] fees"
- "dementia care [town]"
- "CQC rating [home name]"
What a website for care homes needs to build trust fast
- Weekly fee ranges by care type, stated clearly rather than behind a 'call us' button.
- Current CQC rating and inspection date, shown without needing to click through.
- Real photographs of rooms, communal spaces and the actual building — stock imagery reads as a warning sign here.
- A visit booking form with date and time options, alongside a phone number that is genuinely answered.
- Plain-English pages on funding, local authority support and what the fee includes.
Fees hidden
- — Families assume the highest price
- — They call elsewhere first
- — Fewer serious enquiries
Fees shown as a range
- — Filters out poor-fit calls
- — Builds trust fast
- — More serious enquiries
Why fee transparency gets more enquiries, not fewer
Families comparing care homes assume a missing price means an expensive one. Publishing a realistic range does not lose you cautious enquirers — it filters out the people who were never going to afford the home anyway, so the calls you do get are more serious.
“State weekly fee ranges plainly; hiding them loses the enquiry, not protects it.”
The admin behind the scenes
Visit bookings, enquiry logs and follow-up reminders kept in one place mean no family is left waiting for a callback during the week they are making a decision. The same system can handle recruitment applications — many providers spend far more on agency staff than they ever would on a website that helps them recruit directly.
What it costs
Care home sites, including photography and a visit-booking flow, are available on our monthly plans with no upfront build fee — see our monthly plans at /plans.
Writing for someone making a decision under pressure
Most visitors to a care home website are not browsing idly. They are often comparing three or four homes within a single evening, trying to make the right decision for a parent quickly. Clear, calm, specific information serves them far better than reassuring but vague language.
That means stating what a room actually includes, what happens on the day someone moves in, and who to call outside office hours — not just describing the home as "welcoming" and "homely" without detail.
Keeping the site accurate over time
A CQC rating or inspection date that is months out of date undermines the trust the rest of the site is trying to build. Whoever manages the website needs an easy way to update it the day a new report is published, not weeks later.
Your questions
- Should we publish our CQC rating if it isn't 'Outstanding'?
- Yes. Most ratings are Good, and hiding it looks worse than showing it plainly alongside the context families actually read, such as the inspection date and any improvements made.
- Do we have to show exact fees?
- A realistic weekly range is enough. It filters enquiries better than hiding the figure entirely, which tends to read as evasive to families already stressed about cost.
- Can the site help with staff recruitment too?
- Yes. A careers page with an application form run through the same system as enquiries can reduce reliance on agency staff over time.
Raja Wahab is co-founder of Fixby Studios, a Huddersfield studio building websites, SEO, social media and business software for small, owner-managed businesses across West Yorkshire.
Next step
Let's get your business seen.
A free plan for your website: pages, booking and what to fix first.
Fixby Studios builds websites, runs SEO and manages social media for small businesses across Huddersfield and West Yorkshire. Web design in Huddersfield
Prefer to talk it through? Contact Fixby Studios, email info@fixbystudios.co.uk or call 07737 067552.
