Last week I stopped by StoneCreek Assisted Living and Memory Care. No, I wasn’t there because I had reached the phase in my life where this makes sense. I haven’t even reached retirement age yet. I am, however, getting very close to being eligible for senior discounts at Denney’s!
In this instance, I merely wanted to checkout StoneCreek’s 2019 Halloween festivities, but I arrived too early in the day to capture images of Halloween decorations. Since I needed to be home during the evening to hand out candy to the kids that came to my house, going back to StoneCreek later that evening wasn’t, unfortunately, an option.
I did, however, get one picture of Kourtney Hamilton, who is the Executive Director of StoneCreek. She’s the one with the scissors stuck in her head as shown in the images below! You can read more about Kourtney here: https://stonecreekedmond.com/our-passionate-leader/
I, of course, arrived during lunch time (poor timing on my part!) so everyone was in the dining area. I could, however, see that several staff members were in costume, so it was clear that the Halloween festivities had begun.
Fast growth For StoneCreek Assisted Living Since Opening in 2017
StoneCreek opened its doors in August of 2017 which is just barely two years ago, so I was curious how well they were performing in Google Maps and how they compared to a more established senior living facility in the area (Brookdale Edmond Danforth).
The Brookdale Edmond Danforth facility is located 3.8 miles to the Northeast of StoneCreek of Edmond.

To Better Understand the GEOgrid Map Data to Follow:
- The PIN numbers shown in the grid below represent the ranking for the business for the keyword phrase used when searching in Google (3-Pack Map rankings).
- These results below are very accurate as the Map PIN data is pulled using Google’s API, and the search is using the latitude and longitude of the business itself.
- The store is located in the center of the Map because as noted above, the search it keying off of the business’s latitude and longitude. If the results don’t show your business with a #1 on it in the center, then your company has its work cut out for it to rank for the keyword phrase used in our queries shown below.
- The distance between each Map PIN is 1-mile apart, which represents a 4-mile radius around the business.
Google Search Phrase: Assisted Living
Comparing Google Maps Rankings for StoneCreek of Edmond to that of Brookdale Edmond Danforth for the Keyword Phrase: Assisted Living.
As you can see in the GEOgrid scans below that StoneCreek performs exceptionally well within a 1-mile radius around their building, and that success continues due north as well as to the northwest. Brookdale, on the other hand, isn’t as strong in that 1-mile radius, but they are strong due north and to the northeast of their building. It appears that StoneCreek is performing a bit better overall in Google Maps for the Assisted Living keyword phrase.


Google Search Phrase: Senior Living
Comparing Google Maps Rankings for StoneCreek of Edmond to Brookdale Edmond Danforth for the Keyword Phrase: Senior Living.
The Google Map rankings below highlight the importance of optimizing a website for multiple keyword phrases. In this instance, we see that Brookdale’s results for Senior Living that are nearly identical to the results they got for the search phrase Assisted Living. In fact, their results are slightly better.
For StoneCreek, however, it is evident that they are all in on the search phrase Assisted Living but could use some optimization to include Senior Living. They are, however, ranking in the top three in Maps in a 1-mile radius around the building for Senior Living, so it wasn’t all bad news for them.


Google Search Phrase: Senior Living Near Me
I would have expected both StoneCreek and Brookdale to have had similar results with their Google Maps rankings for the keyword phrase “Senior Living Near Me” as they did for “Senior Living,” but that wasn’t the case. It just goes to show that even small changes in a keyword search can garner significantly different results when it involves Map Pack listings in Google.


Word of Mouth & Google Maps Rankings Key for StoneCreek Assisted Living
It would appear that while StoneCreeks Google Map rankings, as shown above, are neither great or horrible, they are more than likely one of the main contributors to the facility’s success along with word of mouth.
For example, if we look at the organic traffic StoneCreek gets each month from Google, we can see that it’s only around 14 searches per month (down five searches from the previous month). However, Google Maps traffic is not included in “organic” traffic stats, which come from the blue link listings you see in Google below the Map Pack.’s regular search results.

In this next image below, you can see that of the 41 total keywords, StoneCreek has ranked in Google’s top 100 that only two are in the #4-#10 positions and none in Google’s top three for any keyword.

StoneCreek’s Stellar Reputation
Word of mouth comes about in several ways, but nothing is as convincing as a personal recommendation from a friend or family member. The next best comes from reviews online from trusted sources. In this case, StoneCreek’s Google reviews are stellar.

Not only does StoneCreek enjoy a plethora of solid reviews on Google, but they actively respond to those reviews, which is very important for prospective customers to see. It shows that a business cares what its customers think whether the review is good or not so good. This is what all local businesses should be doing, but few do.
StoneCreek Assisted Living Has Room for Improvement
Overall, StoneCreek is doing good work, but like most places, there are always areas for improvement. Below are just a few suggestions that would help them to improve their presence in Google.
- Backlinks & Content: Write maybe 2-4 very authoritative pieces of content (2k – 4k words) related to the assisted living niche that is so good that other sites will link back to it. This is not easy and takes a lot of competitive and keyword research to get right. However, it will lead to the website getting solid backlinks, which will raise the site’s domain authority and lead to higher rankings and more leads. This might take one or even two years to complete depending on the number of articles, but it will pay off big time in the long run.
- Create a LinkedIn account for StoneCreek. That LinkedIn business page can be used to build relationships with business partners in the healthcare industry. Those relationships could also translate into recommendations of StoneCreek to seniors, or their kids that may be looking for a senior living option for their parents. They could even write an authoritative article that includes those partners. I will not go into strategy here, but if you have your thinking cap on, I think you can see where this is going.
- The StoneCreek website is very simple and straightforward There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you look at the Brookdale website, you’ll notice multiple calls to action, images, and social proof right out of the gate. There’s also no structured data on the StoneCreek site that helps Google understand the essential elements of their business.
Owners Wayne & Misti Powell
One last thing I wanted to mention about StoneCreek Assisted Living and Memory Care is that they are a part of the Civitas Senior Living company started by Mark and Misti Powell along with a few other high profile co-founders. I recommend reading their “Our Story” page, and you’ll see why StoneCreek is one of many success stories for the parent company. Not only do they care for their senior residents, but they blew me away with their Glassdoor employee score, which is well above the industry average for the assisted living niche.

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