Healthcare SEO: 700%+ growth with content optimisation

Challenge overview

The client was unhappy with the performance of one of their most important treatment pages. They stated that they had ranked around the top in the past, but during the last couple of months, and following the latest Google algorithm updates, they have effectively lost their position, affecting their bottom line.

What we found

As always, we started with research. We were quick to identify two limiting factors:

Site structure

The client had relatively good-quality content, but scattered across multiple pages. Making the pages compete with each other, instead of supporting one another.

For example, they had one page that generally described the procedure, another dedicated to before & after results at the patient level, and many other pages introducing different variations of the same treatment.

This meant that in practice, the before & after page was more informative about the treatment than the dedicated treatment page.

This setup confused users as they had to do their research through the site to get the whole picture, and it was confusing to Google, which couldn’t decide which page to put in front of the potential patient as the site had many.

Mismatch with search intent

Looking into the exact keywords made it clear that our client had very different things to say compared to what their target audience wanted to hear.

For example, the search intent for the keyword they wanted to rank for is informational. This means that most users searching for that term are looking for information. While our client, as a business, wanted to convert them into patients.

The issue is that at that point, those users were not in a position to be converted. They were not ready to pull the trigger on a surgical treatment.

At this point, we could either revise the content to better align with the search intent, or we could educate the client to focus on a different keyword. It turned out to go with the first option.

What we did

Having concluded the above, the plan laid out itself. We had to merge the scattered content from the various pages and present it as a whole.

We also had to update the content here and there to connect the various pieces and to make it a better fit for the search intent.

It sounds easy looking back, but it was quite a task. By the time we merged the content, it was way too lengthy. We had to come up with various solutions to keep the potential patients interested as we walked them through the different stages of the page.

Results

We are happy to report that our efforts weren’t for nothing.

Keep in mind that we have published the optimised content on the 23rd of October, 2024. Not quite the season for facial surgeries. Despite all of this, we could immediately see results.

The page appeared 400%+ more from one month to the next.

This has led to an improvement in the number of organic visitors. 700%+ increase in actual traffic from one month to the next. Outside of the season!

But how have the numbers looked since then? Not bad, some would say. Appearance on the search results page improved by over 600%.

The number of visitors also improved by more than 500%.

Overall, the client is happy with the results, which makes us happy. This exercise again proved that SEO is one of the best marketing channels for site owners and that the healthcare industry is no exception.