Valerie VanBooven RN, BSN

About Valerie

Valerie VanBooven is a registered nurse who founded Approved Senior Network® in 2008, after years of working in roles from ICU nurse to discharge planner, home care, and care management. That clinical background is why ASN's marketing is built around how families and referral sources actually make care decisions.

She is the author of Aging Answers (2003) and The Senior Solution (2009), and co-hosts ASN's home care marketing podcast. Today she leads ASN's work in home care SEO, AI search visibility, websites, and AI-assisted marketing systems.

Writes about

• Home care SEO and local search
• AI search visibility
• Home care websites
• Home health and senior care marketing
• AI-assisted marketing systems

Articles by Valerie VanBooven (56)

• Home Care Referral Sources: The Complete List

  Every referral source a private duty home care agency should know, grouped by type, with what each one needs from you and how to approach them. Plus how to rank accounts, build a route, and keep the network producing.

• How to Get Clients for a Home Care Agency

  Where private duty home care clients actually come from, which sources produce a first client fastest, and the four points between the first call and the first shift where most agencies lose the client they already earned.

• Why Is That Home Care Agency Ranking Above Mine? What to Check and What to Do Next

  Your competitor’s higher Google ranking does not tell the whole story. Learn how local search, helpful website content, reviews, and community relationships work together to strengthen your home care agency’s visibility.

• What’s Next in Home Care Marketing: AI Search, Care Across America, and Expanded Support from ASN

  ASN is expanding its team, technology, and educational platforms. An expanded SEO and AI Search team, AI-built websites alongside WordPress, Care Across America as our consumer platform, and new resources for GoCarePro sales training students.

• How to Generate Better Home Care and Home Health Leads With Content Marketing

  Home care and home health agencies can use content marketing to attract relevant inquiries by answering the questions that come before a care decision.

• Home Care Marketing Strategies: 4th Quarter 2026 into 2027

  Ten marketing strategies for home care agencies planning late 2026 and 2027, connecting local search visibility, helpful website content, professional referral relationships, and consistent inquiry follow-up.

• 20 Blog Post Ideas for Home Care Agencies

  Your agency already has stories worth sharing. Turn team milestones, community events, caregiver recognition, professional relationships, and family questions into useful blog content.

• 3 Home Care Website Redesigns: Different Agencies, Different Design Decisions

  A franchise network, an independent concierge provider, and a Naples nurse registry needed different website solutions. See what agency owners can learn from the design decisions behind three ASN projects.

• How to Market a Home Health Agency

  Know what you can take, find out where admissions come from, build a ranked account list, put one person on a written route, fix what happens when a referral arrives, and make your website work for discharge planners. The sequence, in order, for agencies newly certified or marketing deliberately for the first time.

• Home Health Marketing Ideas That Actually Produce Admissions

  Eighteen ideas organized by where a home health admission is actually won or lost: the referral relationship, the first hour after a referral arrives, the digital presence that supports both, and the clinician pipeline that decides whether you can say yes. Plus the tools worth using and the ones to skip.

• Home Care Advertising: Where to Advertise and Ad Ideas That Work

  Google Ads for families actively searching, Google Business Profile for local visibility that costs nothing, and Meta for caregiver recruiting rather than client acquisition. Then specific home care advertising ideas: ad angles, offers, local placements, and retargeting rules. The deciding question is whether the person seeing your ad is looking for care today or merely the right age.

• Home Care Marketing Ideas: 60 That Actually Produce Clients

  Sixty home care marketing ideas grouped by channel: referral partners, community events, Google Business Profile and reviews, website and SEO, AI search, content, social and video, ads, leave-behinds, caregiver recruiting, and intake. Each one names the problem it solves, and most cost time rather than budget.

• How to Generate Home Care Leads With SEO

  SEO produces leads through a four-link chain: visibility, the click, the inquiry, and the response. Most agencies measure only the first link, which is why so many are paying for rankings and not getting calls. Here is where the chain breaks and what to do at each point.

• Keyword Research for Home Care Websites

  The method has four steps: list what you sell, layer in the markets you serve, add the questions families ask before they are ready to hire, then group everything into clusters and assign one page per cluster. Most agencies skip the last step, and that is why so many home care sites have dozens of pages and nothing ranking.

• Home Care SEO Basics: A Beginner's Guide for Agency Owners

  You do not need to become an SEO expert. You do need to understand enough to tell whether the person you hire is doing real work or selling you a monthly report. Here are the basics, in the order you should fix them.

• Local SEO for Home Care Agencies

  Local SEO runs on three things Google weighs: relevance, distance, and prominence. Here is how home care agencies show up in Google Maps and local results, covering Google Business Profile, service areas, location pages, citations, and reviews.

• How Much Does Home Care Marketing Cost? 2026 Budget Guide

  How much should a home care agency spend on marketing? See realistic 2026 budgets, channel costs, examples, and a simple ROI formula.

• Is Your Home Care Website Ready for AI Search? | Home Care Marketing

  AI search is changing how families find home care agencies. Learn what your website really needs for SEO, Google, ChatGPT, AI search, and conversions.

• What is home care marketing?

  Learn how online marketing, referral relationships, trust, budgeting, authority, sales training, and follow-up help home care agencies grow.

• Google Business Profile for home care agencies: the complete setup and upkeep guide

  A Google Business Profile is a public business record and a trust checkpoint. How to set it up accurately, keep it current, and audit it in 15 minutes a month.

• How to check your agency's AI search visibility in 30 minutes a month

  A repeatable 30-minute monthly audit: run real family prompts across AI search tools, read the citations, and turn every gap into a specific task.

• Home care FAQ content worth citing: turning intake calls into useful answers

  The best FAQ content starts with real intake calls, not keyword tools. How to capture family questions and write direct answers worth citing.

• AI Search and Home Care Marketing: How Families Find Agencies Now

  Families now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews which home care agency to call. Here is how AI answers choose which agencies to name, and what your agency can do to be one of them.

• Home Care Marketing in 2026: What Changed and What Works Now

  Families now search Google, ask AI tools, read reviews, and compare websites before they call. Here is how home care marketing has shifted in 2026 and where agencies should put their effort as a result.

• Handling Family Conflict: How Home Care Agencies Can Help Families Get to “Yes” Faster

  Learn how home care professionals can navigate family conflict, ease hesitation, and help families confidently begin care with empathy and proactive communication.

• Why Home Care Cases Fail—and How Agencies Can Prevent It

  Starting a new home care case is about much more than filling a schedule. Families are trusting an agency with the safety, comfort, and well-being of someone they love.

• AI for Home Care Agencies: Practical Options for Websites, AI Search, Chat, and Phone Answering

  AI is one of the most talked-about topics in business right now. For home care agencies, it can feel exciting, confusing, overwhelming, or all three at once.

• Why AI-Generated Website Edits Can Create More Problems Than They Solve

  AI can help with website content, but untrained edits can hurt results. Learn why trusting your web development team supports readability and lead capture.

• Mid-Year Marketing Checklist for Home Care Agencies- Growing, Static, or Stale?

  Use this mid-year marketing checklist to review your home care agency’s website, local visibility, lead follow-up, referral strategy, and sales process before Q3.

• Increase Home Care Revenue by Changing the Way Your Team Answers the Phone! (Video/Audio/Article)

  Every call counts. Every person who answers the phone represents your agency. And every team member, no matter their role, is part of your marketing.

• You Can Hire 100 Different Home Care Marketing Agencies, But Nothing Changes Until.....

  A home care agency can hire as many marketing agencies as it wants, but nothing changes until the owner takes responsibility for ....

• The New Rules of Organic LinkedIn for Home Care Agencies

  Learn the new rules of organic LinkedIn for home care agencies, including how to build trust, share real expertise, and create content families and referral partners value.

• Medicare’s GUIDE Model: A New Opportunity for Home Care Agencies Supporting Dementia Families

  During a GoCare Pro Mastermind presentation, Nancy Gillette, Chief Growth Officer at PocketRN, explained how the GUIDE model works, who qualifies, and why this program could represent a major shift for the home care industry.

• What to Expect from GoCarePro Sales Training for Home Care Agencies

  GoCarePro Sales Training helps home care agencies improve referrals with proven sales processes, weekly accountability, and real-world marketing strategies.

• Stop Bringing Donuts: What Referral Sources Actually Value

  Stop bringing donuts to referral sources. Learn what social workers actually value and how a simple discharge package can build trust and increase referrals.

• The Real Reason Home Care Referral Sources Stop Calling You

  They are managing high-pressure situations. They don’t have time to guess, follow up repeatedly, or worry about whether a provider will deliver.

• Why 80% of Home Care Agencies Are Winging Their Referral Follow-Up

  Most home care agencies aren’t lacking referrals—they’re lacking a system. If you can’t track your last touches, you’re winging growth.

• Connect With Us: Your Hub for Home Care Marketing Success

  If you're serious about growing your home care agency, staying ahead of industry trends, and learning proven strategies that actually work—you're in the right place.

• A Better Solution In Home Care Launches New National Website in Partnership with Approved Senior Network®

  A Better Solution In Home Care launches a next-generation website designed for franchise growth, local visibility, and AI-powered search with Approved Senior Network®.

• The Revenue Problem Most Home Care Agencies Misdiagnose (Video)

  In this video, Valerie VanBooven and Dawn Fiala break down a real case study of a long-established agency facing stalled growth and uncover what was really happening behind the numbers.

• Home Care Marketing: How Elder Law Attorneys Become Powerful Referral Partners for Your Agency

  Learn how elder law attorneys choose home care partners, what earns referrals, and how smart legal collaboration can strengthen your home care marketing strategy.

• What Skilled Nursing & Rehab Social Workers Really Need From Home Care Agencies

  Want more referrals from SNFs and rehabs? Start by meeting social workers’ real needs: fast response, staffing reliability, and safer discharges.

• 5 Referral Impressions That Turn Home Care Contacts into Consistent Referral Partners

  Discover the 5 referral impressions that turn contacts into consistent referral partners in home care. Stop leaving referrals to chance.

• Home Care Marketing Online- Google Is Not Your Only Audience Anymore

  If your entire strategy is built around Google rankings, you are already behind.

• If You Don’t Answer “How Much Does Home Care Cost,” AI Will Ignore You

  If your website avoids those questions, today’s AI driven search systems cannot extract a clear answer. And if they cannot extract it, they will not recommend you.

• (Video) Strategies for Recruiting Exceptional Caregivers in a Competitive Home Care Market

  In this Go Care Pro Mastermind session, Dawn Fiala of Approved Senior Network shared proven strategies for attracting, interviewing, hiring, and retaining exceptional caregivers — especially during seasonal hiring slumps.

• Holiday Marketing Strategies for Home Care Agencies: Turning Visits into Care Opportunities

  Holiday marketing tips for home care agencies: turn holiday visits into care opportunities, boost referrals, support families, and keep seniors safe.

• Avoid the December Home Care Revenue Dip: 5 Proven Strategies for Home Care Agencies

  Prepare early and prevent December’s 10–20% home care revenue dip with proven strategies for referrals, caregiver retention, and Q1 growth momentum.

• The Private Pay Gold Rush: Proven Strategies to Grow Your Home Care Revenue

  Dawn Fiala from ASN reveals practical, proven methods to help home care agencies grow their private pay client base and achieve sustainable revenue.

• Why Does Ongoing Sales Training Matter When it Comes to Home Care?

  Ongoing sales training combats skill decay, boosts rep performance, and drives ROI. Learn why continuous training outperforms one-time workshops.

• (VIDEO ALERT!) Why One Office Thrives While Another Struggles: Fixing the Referral Pipeline Problem for Multi-Location Home Care Agencies

  This isn’t just frustrating — it’s costly. A location that underperforms doesn’t just drag down revenue; it also eats into brand reputation, staff morale, and client satisfaction.

• Don’t Let 7 Out of 10 Home Care Client Inquiries Slip Away

  If you’re running a home care agency, you know how hard it is to make the phone ring. You invest in digital marketing, referrals, local networking, and advertising. The calls *do* come in—but here’s

• How to Turn a Home Care Website into a Lead Engine in 2026

  We unpack how a home care website either earns trust in seconds on a phone or quietly leaks leads to competitors—and exactly how to fix it before 2026.

• The First 10 Seconds: How to Win Families’ Trust on the First Call

  The ten second connection is the ability to reassure families immediately that they’ve reached the right place, that you understand their situation, and that you can help.

• GoCarePro®: Finally, Sales Activity You Can See and Trust

  GoCarePro® eliminates blind spots in your sales and referral activity with built-in reporting. Gain visibility, accountability, and measurable growth.

• Stop Guessing. Start Growing: Why Referral Marketing Outperforms Every Other Channel

  If you’re a home care agency owner, deciding where to spend your next marketing dollar can feel like a gamble.