Promotion of the website of the medical center in the top 3 for high-frequency requests

Author: Lehkobyt Andrii

Context specialist

Reviewer: Oleg Gavryliuk

Head of SEO

2022-03-21

For the teaser image:

• brought 46% of priority group keys to the top 3

• increased organic traffic compared to SPY

• 230,000+ organic users per month

Customer

ADONIS is a multidisciplinary medical center that has been operating in Kyiv for over 20 years and provides a wide range of medical services for adults and children. The network includes 10 branches in different districts of the capital and the region, including a research laboratory and 2 maternity hospitals.

Our task

Growth of positions and targeted search traffic in priority areas:

• maternity hospital;

• Gynecology;

• Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery;

• Surgery;

• Plastic surgery;

• Reproductology.

The main goal is to reach the top 3 for requests from priority categories.

Initial data

• Region: Kyiv

• Priority search engine: Google

• Website Platform: WordPress

• Language: Russian, Ukrainian

• Start of works: December 2020

Niche and competitor analysis

There is a fairly high level of competition in this niche — in the top 10 for targeted queries are ranked:

• top clinics;

• aggregators of medical services;

• niche narrow-profile clinics;

• information sites.

At the stage of accepting the project for work, our specialists conducted a comparative analysis of the basic metrics of the promoted site and competitors:

3 out of 9 projects from this table are web SEO clients

Table of competitors according to the serpstat.com service:

Table comparing the link profile of competitors according to the ahrefs.com service:

Work process

Technical optimization

We started the website promotion with a complete revision of technical optimization. The main goal of the SEO specification is to detect technical errors of the site at the initial stage of work and check it for compliance with Google requirements.

As part of a comprehensive audit, our specialists conducted a complete analysis of the site, drawing up a detailed technical task, the implementation of which will improve ranking in the search engine, indexing of the resource, and attract more organic traffic.

Our technical specification consisted of 43 points of checks and recommendations for improvement on 31 pages.

List of all checks and recommendations:

The specialists of our company have implemented a list of technical changes:

• eliminated complete duplication of content: set up 301 redirects from URLs in uppercase to URLs in lowercase, closed service pages, pagination pages, etc. from indexing;

• fixed errors in the SSL certificate by raising the protection level to an “A” rating, according to the assessment of the SSL Server Test service;

• fixed errors in HTML and CSS code;

• implemented automatic generation of sitemap.xml using the site engine;

• fixed markup errors, implemented Physician markup on doctors pages, aggregate rating and FAQ on service category pages;

• “junk” and technical pages of the site were closed from indexing using an index;

• raised the site loading speed from the red zone to the yellow/green

• implemented the correct operation of the multilingual site;

• finalized the optimization of text content: headings H1-H6, price block on service pages, Alt images, and much more;

• Optimized internal linking.

Semantic core and content plan

Our optimizers have created the most detailed structure of categories and subcategories for clinic services to cover all search queries. So, for the category “Computed tomography (CT)” we have worked out landing pages for all zones and directions:

• CT scan of the spine;

• CT scan of the abdominal cavity and small pelvis;

• CT scan of the neck;

• CT of extremities;

• CT scan of the paranasal sinuses;

• CT with contrast;

• CT angiography;

• CT scan of the pelvis;

• CT on ò screening;

• CT in polytrauma;

• dental CT;

• complex CT.

For all pages, we created descriptions and also worked out the placement of articles in the blog. All texts were written by a doctor specializing in these services, so they met the requirements of expertise and authority — the information was presented in an encyclopedic form and gave an exhaustive answer to all user questions on this topic. In addition, we supplemented articles and descriptions with visual content: images, videos, infographics.

An example of the structure of the text description of the service page:

• What it is;

• Indications for carrying out;

• Contraindications, possible side effects;

• Preparation for the procedure;

• How is the procedure carried out?

• Restrictions after the procedure;

• Recommendations for care and recovery.

Improvement of the site according to the instructions for Google assessors

The clinic site belongs to the YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) category, so it should have high EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) scores.

Our specialists studied in detail the instructions for Google assessors, as well as the experience of top clinics, including Western ones, applying it to the site being promoted. As a result, we created informative pages where the user could read the maximum information about the service provided.

In addition, we filled the pages of doctors with informative content so that a potential patient could get to know each doctor in absentia, having learned the maximum necessary information about him.

Sample list of improvements we have implemented on the site

Services section pages:

• added price block;

• added the “Doctors” block;

• implemented a block of informative articles on this service;

• introduced the block “Frequently asked questions” about the service;

• added feedback functionality.

Page “About the clinic”:

• list of branches and directions;

• clinic benefits;

• certificates and licenses;

• photo of the clinic;

• clinic doctors.

Doctors pages:

• information about education and work experience;

• indicate work experience and academic degree;

• indicated current positions and professional skills;

• provided the opportunity to leave a review about the doctor.

List of recommendations we are working on today:

• authorship on service pages and blog articles;

• a list of used literature on the pages of services and in blog articles;

• publication in the footer of the website of the license of the clinic with a link to the Ministry of Health.

External optimization

As we know, off-page website optimization is extremely important, especially given the high competition in the niche.

First of all, our experts conducted an audit of the existing link mass and donors, rejecting low-quality sites using the Google Disavow Tool.

Next, we made a plan for building a quality link mass and a strategy for its implementation in the process of optimizing the site.

We evaluate donors for placing links according to the list of metrics, selecting the best ones in terms of price/quality ratio:

• SimilarWeb: Traffic, Organic, Time on site, Page Views, Bounce Rate;

• Ahrefs: DR, RD/OD;

• Majestic: CF/TF

• CheckTrust: Trust, Spam.

Separately, it is worth noting that at the start of work there was a negative trend in the growth of the link profile. Within 3 months, the number of referring domains dropped from 400 to 200. We stopped the catastrophic decline, after which we started building up the profile. Based on a well-designed extension strategy, our specialists managed to increase the number of referring donors by 180 domains in 6 months.

To build links we used:

• placement of articles;

• purchase on the exchange of links;

• crowd marketing;

• non-standard placement (links from play.google.com, amazon, and other resources).

Working with company cards on Google. Maps"

Our specialists have optimized and filled with content the company’s cards in Google. My business" for all 10 branches of the clinic:

• filled in the standard information in the card;

• optimized titles using targeted key phrases;

• added Emoji to increase CTR;

• filled in the attributes that are displayed in the issue, increasing the size of the card and increasing the CTR;

• weekly published records and news of clinics;

• Monitored reviews and improved company ratings.

Mini SERM

As part of website promotion, for all projects of our company, we carry out SERM-optimization — a type of work aimed at increasing the reputation of a business on the Internet. Since the site belongs to the YMYL (Your Money Your Life) category, it is important to work out EAT factors as carefully as possible.

By increasing the rating of the site and the reputation of the business, improving the recognition of the company on Aweb, we increase the expertise and credibility of the resource not only in the eyes of the user but also of the search engine. This has a positive effect on the promotion of the project since Google trusts more expert, reputable, not yet reliable sites that provide quality information and do not mislead users.

To improve the reputation of this project, we selected both specialized medical portals (likarni.com, doc.ua, medcentre.com.ua) and popular review sites (otzovik.com, otzyvua.net, zoon.com.ua). Having created pages on these resources, our specialists are constantly working to improve the reputation by posting reviews.

Achieving position goals

For most priority groups and keys, we managed to reach the top 3.

Gynecology:

Pediatrics:

Maternity hospital:

Surgery:

Pediatric surgery:

Reproductology:

MRI:

Ultrasound of the heart:

Pediatric urology:

Prenatal screening:

Achieving traffic goals

Graph of the growth of free search traffic of the project for the period

01/01/2020...07/31/2021

The increase in free search traffic for the period of our promotion from 01/01/2021 to 07/31/2021 (compared to the same period last year) amounted to 152.99% — 1,236,674 against 488,821:

Conclusion

Even though the competition in the niche is very high and strong competitors are ranked at the top, our team managed to take the expected positions and achieve the set goals for traffic growth.

Key success factors:

• an integrated approach to work on promotion: technical, internal and
  external optimization;

• work on EAT factors;

• work to expand the semantics and create new additives;

• expert content prepared by clinic staff.

Project participants

Project Manager: Kateryna Tymoshenko

Optimizer: Lehkobyt Andrii, Yurii Oshchapovskyi

Reference: Yevhen Fedchenko