Certain types of websites are scrutinised more closely by Google than others. These are known as YMYL sites, which stands for ‘Your Money, Your Life.’ This term refers to any website that could potentially have a negative impact on a user’s health, happiness, or finances. Websites in the medical, legal, and financial sectors fall into this category.
Google aims to keep low-quality websites that spread misinformation out of its search results, particularly from the top-ranked positions. Therefore, YMYL websites must adhere to extremely strict standards for safety and trustworthiness. The content they produce must be factually accurate, high-quality, and genuinely helpful in order to rank well.
This makes SEO for YMYL websites a challenging task that requires top-notch expertise. However, when executed correctly, SEO can significantly enhance the online visibility of medical practices, build brand awareness, and attract more patients.
In this medical SEO case study, we will share how we achieved a remarkable 387% increase in organic traffic for a behavioural therapist’s website in less than six months. By combining thorough content creation (with rigorous fact-checking) and a clever backlink strategy, we were able to improve the site’s keyword rankings dramatically, leading to a substantial influx of traffic.
The Client: A Behavioural Therapist Office with 28 Years of Experience
Our client runs a behavioural therapy practice in New York, specialising in treating anxiety and mood disorders. She has been in practice since 1995 and possesses incredible expertise in her field. Her work has been cited in over 200 publications worldwide, making her a well-respected figure in her profession.
Despite her excellent reputation and a thriving practice, the client faced a significant challenge: her online visibility was nearly non-existent. As illustrated in the traffic graph, the website had been generating almost no traffic for a long time.
In today’s world, especially post-pandemic, online marketing through search engines is essential, even for well-known local businesses. The pandemic saw a dramatic rise in telemedicine and virtual appointments, making visibility on search engines more crucial than ever. A study by the National Institutes of Health highlights that virtual medicine has become a lasting trend due to its convenience, and telehealth remains popular—similar to the ongoing trend of remote working.
Recognising the need to strengthen her online presence due to changing patient priorities (i.e., finding her practice online and scheduling virtual visits), our client reached out to us after seeing positive testimonials about our services. She explained that, despite her flawless reputation and busy practice, she was struggling to gain traction online.
The Problem: An Unoptimised Website
The core issue was straightforward: the website wasn’t optimised for SEO. With substantial work required to start generating traffic, we decided to place the client on a Clout X campaign. Unlike standalone SEO products, Clout X is a fully managed service where clients are connected with a dedicated campaign manager. This manager uses a combination of all our products to develop a cohesive SEO strategy tailored to the client’s website.
Clout X is our go-to solution whenever a website requires comprehensive SEO work, and this case was no exception.
The SEO Audit: Optimising the Site and Seeking Easy Wins
To kick off the process, we conducted an SEO audit of the client’s website to ensure that crucial SEO factors were in order. This included:
- Checking for any major indexing errors on Google Search Console
- Identifying any duplicate content
- Analysing the site’s internal linking structure
- Improving thin content (any page with fewer than 1,000 words)
Once these technical aspects were addressed, we moved on to identify easy-win opportunities. These are keywords for which the website already ranks, but not in the top positions. Any keyword ranking between positions 4 and 30 qualifies as an easy-win opportunity.
By making some basic optimisations, these easy-win pages can start ranking higher in just a few weeks rather than months. This is because:
- The content is already ranking for the keyword, making it easier to climb higher.
- The web page is already indexed by Google, so there’s no need to wait for indexing (which can take weeks or months).
In this case, we discovered only a handful of easy-win opportunities. This was largely due to the website’s lack of content, but we were ready to change that.
The Strategy: 6 – 8 Blogs Per Month + Backlinks for Core Pages
To rank for trending keywords in the industry, it’s essential to create content centred around those keywords. Otherwise, there won’t be any pages on the website for the keywords to appear. This is why blogging has become a vital element of SEO. By crafting blogs focused on trending keywords, you can attract your target audience to your website.
Given that the client’s site was lacking in content, we committed to producing 6 to 8 high-quality blogs per month. It’s important to note that these were YMYL blogs, meaning the stakes were particularly high for our writers. It was crucial that they included only 100% factual information backed by trusted sources.
Fortunately, our team of writers is accustomed to this level of pressure, and they delivered outstanding work.
In addition to blogging, we implemented a link-building strategy to create backlinks pointing to the site’s main service pages, thereby boosting their search rankings. Our primary method involved targeting relevant link insertions. We identified instances on other medical websites where it made perfect sense to link to one of our client’s blogs or services. This streamlined the outreach process and allowed us to secure valuable backlinks with minimal original content creation.
The Results: 387% Boost in Traffic and Ranking for 2,400 Relevant Keywords
Once the blogs we created and the backlinks we built began to take effect, the client’s website experienced significant growth. Their traffic surged by 387% and has continued to rise steadily.
Moreover, they are now ranking for over 2,400 keywords related to behavioural therapy in their area, which has resulted in a substantial influx of new patients.
Do you want to dominate the local search results for your medical practice’s niche? Clout X is your ticket to simplified SEO success, so don’t hesitate to explore how we can help elevate your online presence.
