Growth of organic traffic for the network of medical clinics from 162.5 thousand to 2.5 million visits per year

For the teaser image:

• 118 semantic groups in progress
• Search traffic increased from 162.5 thousand to 2.5 million in a year
• 1700+ requests in the top 10

Customer

Multidisciplinary medical network of clinics in Kyiv, providing services to adults and children.

Our task

The main task set before us is to increase non-branded search traffic.

In November 2018, we started working on the project.

The client additionally provided a list of priority medical areas for work: gynecology, cardiology, pediatrics, surgery, oncology, emergency care, a hospital with a list of services for the treatment of diseases, and top procedures in the context of each of the listed areas. In June-August 2019, 5 more new areas of the clinic were taken into work: insurance, dentistry, vertebrology, patronage service, diagnostics.

Niche and competitor analysis

We began work on the project with an analysis of competitors in each medical area.

We faced different types of competition in the search results:

• Online services for finding a doctor and making an appointment for patients (for example, doc.ua, likarni.com, 103.ua);
• Information sites (for example, wikipedia.org, who.int);
• Narrow-profile medical centers;
• multifunctional clinics.

Competing for a position on the first page of Google search results was not easy, and we risked losing our budget with no return.

Since the instructions for Google assessors pay special attention to medical topics, one of the key elements of the promotion was to refine the site to fully comply with the instructions.

The provision of medical services has a local link. Key requests related to the provision of services for the diagnosis, counseling and direct treatment of diseases are mainly geo-dependent. Patients rarely go to other regions for treatment, the only exceptions are serious diagnoses.

In addition, the list of key medical queries contains information queries, a large proportion of which falls on high-frequency short queries related to the search for data on the symptoms and causes of diseases. The user is not yet ready to apply for services to the clinic, he is only interested in the disease — and such traffic also needs to be collected on the site through properly-organized content.

As a result, we identified 3 types of traffic, which we planned to work on attracting:

• Informational (melanoma, appendicitis, adenocarcinoma, inguinal hernia, etc.);
• Commercial (gynecologist Kyiv, coronary angiography price, cardiologist Kyiv, etc.);
• FULL NAME. doctors

What was analyzed on competitors’ websites

Advantages and disadvantages of top sites from the point of view of the average user:

• Whether the content of the landing page meets the user’s request and how fully the subject of the page is revealed;
• Is there enough information on the site to build user confidence to make an appointment (user reviews and their reliability, merits of the clinic/doctors in the field of medicine);
• Is it convenient to make an appointment, see the map?

The compiled list of shortcomings was used as a list of recommendations for improving the site being promoted.

We also analyzed how exactly users can come to the site, what types of pages can be entry points.

Semantic core

At the start of the work, we collected a semantic core of 600 key queries, divided into 33 semantic groups. In the future, we will expand the semantic core every month. Today, work is underway on 2868 keywords (118 semantic groups).

We work with the following types of landing pages:

• Main page;
• Information articles;
• Service pages;
• Pages of service packages (Check-up);
• Pages of doctors;
• Pages of individual clinics of the medical network.

According to the organizational structure, the network of clinics includes individual specialized medical centers, for example, the Center for Oncology, the Center for Vertebrology, the Center for Cardiology, and others.

The work is carried out with each separate direction, which made it possible to compete in search results in all major niches of medicine.

Content

EAT and YMYL

Persuasive content that builds user trust is the most important component of a medical website.

A “sheet” of well-known text optimized for key queries does not motivate users to make an appointment with a doctor, so we developed the structure of selling pages. When preparing content, we constantly asked ourselves the question: “Will the user trust their health, time, and money to the clinic by studying the information on the page”?

When writing content, the EAT evaluation criteria (expertise, authority, and reliability) and YMYL with instructions for Google assessors were taken into account.

To meet the criterion of expertise, our copywriters prepared the content together with specialized clinic doctors with relevant medical competence. The information was prepared professionally, clearly presented articles were written simultaneously by several authors. New materials on the site are published monthly — consistently and without interruption.

All materials on the site are regularly reviewed, analyzed, and updated by our optimizers.

Development of pages based on instructions for Google assessors + usability

We based the structure of the page on the instructions for Google assessors, which indicate special requirements for the YMYL theme.

Other edits:

• Our experts have placed informative H1 headers corresponding to one of the main RF queries on
• the page.
• Since many patients are afraid of going to the clinic, we set the task of preparing comprehensive content that will dispel the experience — information presented in clear language for a potential patient: how the course of treatment, procedure, or consultation will go. The more details and answers to potential user questions will be presented on the page, the better.
• As a rule, there are several methods for treating diseases, so we described them all, displaying a block with similar services on the pages.
• In addition, our managers have added unique infographics that help communicate important information in an accessible form.
• Since the advantage is with “live” photographs, and not universal pictures, our specialists added to the
• site only high-quality real photographs of attending physicians, attending medical personnel, equipment, the interior of treatment rooms, and wards.
• We recommend that you do not write about the advantages of the clinic in the format “we are the best on the market” — it is enough to place specific facts, based on which the user himself will conclude that the clinic is the best on the market.
• Our managers have placed signs on the pages with approximate prices and time of the procedures: the user must understand exactly what is included in the declared amount and in what range — the cost of additional procedures that may be required.
• We also indicated the required package of documents for the procedures.
• Additionally, we have added information about the author of the article on the pages of the site, thereby confirming the medical competence of the material presented. At the same time, each doctor of the clinic has a page with comprehensive information about their education, work experience, merits, awards, as well as a section with reviews.
• Our specialists have placed prominent buttons for making an appointment with a minimum number of fields for the convenience of filling them in by users.
• We have added a list of references used in the preparation of the content and external links to authoritative resources.
• On the information pages, our staff has added the current date of the content update.
• In addition, we paid attention to the “About the clinic” page, adding information about the company’s age, management, and team (with photos, names, and surnames), successes, achievements, awards, and also indicated links to the company’s mentions in external sources.
• Today, our specialists are working on the implementation of the functionality for posting reviews and questions on the service pages and designing the page with licenses and certificates.

Software edits

At the start of work, our specialists performed a technical audit of the site and eliminated software errors:

• Our optimizers identified and eliminated full and partial duplicates of site pages that are useless for search robots;
• The managers of our company closed the technical pages of the site from indexing, as well as pages without content and with duplicated content;
• We’ve made edits and lifted Google’s manual sanction “Structured Data Markup Spam”;
• Our experts have optimized the output of content on the pages and placed optimized meta tags for each page.

To increase the CTR of pages and natural traffic, the project optimizers are constantly working to improve the snippet: we are experimenting with adding Emoji and special characters to the title, description, and breadcrumbs.

Download speed improvement

We have improved the page loading speed of the site from the “red” zone to the “green” zone, based on PageSpeed ​​indicators.

External optimization

background

The project had unnatural dynamics in the number of referring domains: throughout history, there were three periods of unnatural growth and a decrease in the number of donor domains:

A year before the start of our work, the number of external donor domains was increased, on average, by 60 sites:

• We accepted the site with 9,381 external backlinks from 998 unique domains. Among the list of donors, there were also spammy and low-quality sites.
• The anchor list of the project was not optimized for the target keywords. In the list of anchors, we found: non-anchor links, links with branded company names, and links with informational queries in anchors.

What was done

Our optimizers conducted a detailed analysis of the existing link mass on the project, sending 245 domains for rejection through the Disavow service.

In the medical niche, “crowd marketing” is effective for the project: thanks to the careful selection of thematic threads on the forums, we received natural transitions to the site through referral links.

In addition, our specialists carried out work on the purchase of links and the placement of press releases on trust news resources. To improve the reputation of the medical network, we have prepared press releases about the achievements of the clinic in the field of medicine and its merits.

The general graph of the dynamics of growth in the number of referring domains to the project over the past year:

Working with Google. My business”

We have carried out work on the registration and optimization of Google cards. My business” for each clinic of the medical network, broken down by line of business.

Today we are working with 24 branch cards.

Our monthly work package for each card includes:

• Publication of thematic posts;
• Preparation and placement of answers to questions asked by users;
• Preparing and posting responses to user-posted reviews;
• Adding information about new services in the relevant section.

The work is carried out jointly with the specialists of the clinic.

Results

Free search traffic at the start of work was 162,652 visits in November 2018, and this figure in November 2019 reached 2,494,653 visits.

Comparison of free search traffic figures for November 2018 and 2019:

The general schedule for the growth of project attendance for the entire period of work from November 2018 to November 2019:

Of the 2868 keywords that are actively promoted today, 1740 queries are in the top 10 of Google. Below we have given several examples of the dynamics of positions by groups of requests:

According to the serpstat.com service, the visibility of the project as a whole in Google search results over the past year has increased from 27.67 (data for 12/18/2018) to 434.94 (data for 12/06/2019).

The general graph of the growth of the visibility of the project as a whole in Google search results over the past year:

According to the serpstat.com service, the total number of keywords for which a domain ranks in the top 100 of Google has grown over the past year from 51,618 (data for 12/18/2018) to 1,122,949 (data for 12/06/2019 .).

The overall graph of the growth in the number of keywords for which the domain is ranked in the top 100 Google over the past year:

Conclusion

In the work on the project, our specialists focused on competent content and optimization of each promoted page. The constant expansion of the site structure contributed to the monthly increase in free search traffic on the project over the predicted figures.