Daily Medical Clinic is a private medical center for children and adults in the city of Dnipro.
State of the site before the start of work: not optimized site with a long period of organic traffic.
Peculiarities of promotion of medical websites
The main problem in SEO promotion of medical websites is the special attitude of Google to this topic. Medicine is one of the so-called YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topics. Google has much more requirements for such sites than for other sites, especially for the content part. It is difficult to prepare informational content for such sites, as the copywriter must have the necessary knowledge, plus all finished materials must be approved by the client for adequacy and truthfulness. Without close interaction with the client, difficulties may arise. Another difficulty is the regional nature of the promotion (Dnipro). Due to the fact that a large medical center is being promoted that provides the widest possible range of services, it has to compete in a particular region not only with similarly large centers, but also with highly specialized clinics that are tailored to one small segment of services. Even sites that, at first glance, are not related to medical services, such as beauty salons, can be competitors in certain categories. The last big problem is Google's major updates. For the first time, special updates to the search engine that directly affect medical websites became known in August 2018. Since then, each update has been perceived with caution, as it can lead to unpredictable results.
What was done:
We analyzed competitors and developed a project promotion strategy.
We conducted a control audit of the website and competitors.
A strategy was developed to increase the link mass with the help of links: crowd marketing, local (registration in regional directories) and eternal.
We conducted a technical audit of the website.
Terms of reference for moving to the secure https protocol were drawn up.
Terms of reference for technical revision of the site were drawn up.
The semantic core of queries was collected.
We created a technical specification for expanding the site structure.
Optimization of the existing pages of the site.
Meta tags for all pages of the site are written: Title, Description, H1.
Relevant content is written according to the terms of reference for category pages.
Informational articles are regularly written for the blog.
Below we describe all the processes in more detail.
At the beginning of the promotion, we conducted a full technical audit of the website to identify all the weaknesses that needed to be improved. Based on the audit, a technical task was drawn up for the developer to eliminate all existing errors.
The main errors were found:
incorrect robots.txt file;
there were a large number of garbage pages in the sitemap.xml file;
errors in the formation of breadcrumbs;
schema.org page micro-markup is not implemented;
problems with pagination in the blog, broken header hierarchy.
All of these are among the critical errors that affect website rankings on Google.
One of the tasks at the start of the promotion was to move the site from http to https. Sites using a secure protocol are better ranked by search engines and provide additional security for users. For the migration, a detailed technical assignment was drawn up, which spelled out all aspects of this procedure, such as
selection of an SSL certificate;
necessary changes in robots.txt and sitemap.xml;
setting up 301 redirects from old addresses to new ones;
setting up Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Moving the site to the new protocol inevitably led to a temporary drop in positions, but later all the sagging positions were restored and growth began.
*the graph shows the period of traffic decline
To develop a strategy and understand the further SEO promotion of the clinic, a control audit of the main competitors in the Dnipro region of Google search results was conducted. Among the identified features of competitors, a large amount of branded traffic and obtaining additional information traffic from blog articles could be distinguished. The main sources of backlinks are purchased or affiliate perpetual links from articles on thematic sites, links from medical forums and various directories, and medical clinic aggregators. Since the promotion is regional, first of all, we worked out sites for the Dnipro region and the region. All this was taken into account when forming the project's link strategy for the next 6 months of work.
*At the time of the start of the promotion and development of the link strategy, the link mass of the site tended to decrease
Since not all pages of the site can be optimized in one month, we developed an optimization plan with a priority for the promotion of certain services and categories of the site. It included all the landing pages of the site, after which, together with the client, the optimization priority was determined, according to which the pages would be worked on. The final optimization of the pages consists in collecting semantics, based on which relevant meta tags are written, the necessary content is added to the pages, and internal linking is implemented.
Monthly work also includes checking the site for technical errors and analyzing the site's search results. Rankings, Google Analytics and Search Console analysis are taken on a weekly basis. Based on all the data obtained, if necessary, amendments are made to the promotion strategy, or technical specifications are drawn up for developers to eliminate technical errors that arise in the process.
The main feature of the chosen promotion strategy is the creation of a directory of diseases and symptoms. This will make it possible to receive thematic information traffic that can be converted into final requests for certain types of services, as well as the ability to link commercial pages with informational pages (blog articles).
Increase in link mass
During the period of promotion, we managed to increase the link mass of the site using only high-quality platforms. Different types of links were used (crowdsourcing, article links, links from directories). Links were placed both to the main page and to the pages of servers and blog articles. Anchor and nofollow links (in the ratio of 30% and 70%, respectively) to make the reference profile as natural as possible.
The optimization process resulted in
more than 35 high-quality eternal links;
40 crowd links;
15 links from regional directories.
*Growth of donor domains during the period of SEO promotion
Results of the work
The site's visibility has grown significantly - from almost zero to significant, given the competition. The number of requests and visits to the site from Google's organic search results has increased by 2.5 times and is growing by +15-20% per month.
Since the start of the promotion, the number of keywords has increased by more than 1,500%, to 704 thousand.
*SEO promotion period
Organic traffic has increased over 200 times, from 1,300 to 360,000 users per month from organic search. The organic channel accounts for over 90% of the site's total traffic.
There is a constant increase in traffic from the Direct channel. This indicates an increase in brand awareness and significantly affects the number of applications for the site.
Growth in impressions over the last 6 months compared to the previous period.
Growth in Google positions by core queries
Below are some of the queries that ranked in the TOP 5 positions in the Google search engine.
*some site positions as a result of promotion work
Conclusions on the project
This project stands out for its specific niche (SEO promotion of medical websites is different from most websites) and strong competition. However, we managed to achieve decent results in a fairly short period of time.
In promoting the websites of clinics, hospitals and medical centers of various kinds (both general purpose and dental clinics, plastic surgery clinics, etc.), the main focus is on high-quality content, both on the service pages and on informational content. All texts for the client were written by our in-house copywriters, after which they were checked by the client and the clinic's specialized doctors. Thanks to this cooperation, the thematic pages are expert and quickly begin to be ranked by the Google search engine.
In terms of promotion, we focused on low-frequency (LF) and ultra-low-frequency keywords. This made it possible to quickly increase traffic and calls to the site.
In the future, we plan to expand the structure by dividing individual categories or creating several subcategories from one category, where possible.
Work on the project is ongoing.
