Table of Contents
After Reading This Guide, You’ll Understand 🡭
- Planning content creation at scale
- Benefits of building glossary pages for technical terms
- Improving EAT for YMYL sites
- Optimizing product and category pages for user and SEO benefits
About The Business 🡭
PharmEasy is one of the leading healthcare platforms in India that offers medicines and healthcare products, get online doctor consultations, and book medical lab test services.
Results Achieved 🡭
It’s safe to say that SEO is their primary source of customer acquisition as PharmEasy gets close to 10 million organic visits every month.
Some stats about the PharmEasy website:
- Getting over 9.4 million organic visits per month
- 100k+ backlinks from 12.5k different domains
PharmEasy primarily offers two types of offerings such as:
- Selling medicines and healthcare products
- Medical lab test services
And they have built a content moat around each of their offerings by building huge content assets that are hard to copy and compete with.
For example, PharmEasy has created 7k+ pages targeting search queries like:
- Online medicine delivery in [place name]
- Online medicine in [place name]
Here, you can imagine the number of pages that can be created for different places in India. This is what they have done by creating a huge number of pages at scale to target every possible location in India.
Similarly, they have created a page for almost every popular medicine in India.
Result?
Generating 6+ million monthly organic visits from the medicine name related queries such as:
- Coriflam (monthly search volume ~ 94,000)
- Limcee tablet (monthly search volume ~ 88,000)
- Dolo 650 (monthly search volume ~ 250,000)
This also helped them to rank in the top 10 positions for almost 200k+ search queries, all related to medicine names.
Not only this, there are many ways PharmEasy is dominating the SERP and driving leads and customers for their business offerings.
And, their huge content inventory is hard to replicate for any new brand in this niche.
Let’s dive right into the SEO and content strategies of PharmEasy and key takeaways that you, too, can implement in your business.
SEO & Content Strategy Breakdown 🡭
The healthcare and medicine niche is competitive not just because of the competitors but also because of Google’s strict guidelines for YMYL (Your-Money-Your-Life) sites.
And, PharmEasy is beating the competition by creating content at scale and also focusing on EAT information.
Let’s see each of the primary strategies that helped them drive almost 10 million qualified traffic every month.
1/ Creating Glossary Pages For Medicines And Molecules
Creating glossary pages can be a great strategy, especially for the health industry, where people are not aware of complex medical terms and medicine names.
Key benefits of building glossary pages are:
- Educating the audience at the awareness stage
- Driving a good amount of organic visits
- Linking glossary pages to the money pages or business offerings.
- Building topical authority as Google wants to understand the expertise/authority of the website.
“Google wants to build a knowledge base of concepts to better understand things like what different businesses or entities are ‘Known for’.”
– Bill Slawski, SEO Expert
Let’s have a look at the glossary pages of PharmEasy →
As you can see, PharmEasy has created thousands of pages targeting different medicine names.
As a result, they are driving 6.4 million+ organic traffic to these medicine glossary pages.
But the benefit is not just about getting traffic and brand awareness. This also helps PharmEasy in converting readers into medicine buyers.
Here are the CRO strategies for medicine glossary pages:
1- The above the fold section is optimized for product selling by adding the ‘add to cart button.’
2- Great way of adding internal links in such a way that a reader is likely to check out other medicines from the store. When clicked, this section will lead the user to the eCommerce store of PharmEasy.
Therefore a good strategy is to turn top of the funnel traffic to the money pages.
3- Again, adding relevant products or medicines helps in internal linking and increasing average order value.
Here’s a catch.
When to scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll find informational content about the medicine name. That includes:
- Uses of medicines
- Side effects
- Precautions and warnings
- And related FAQs
Here’s a screenshot:
The key reason for adding informational content to the medicine glossary page is to match the search intent.
Not everyone wants to buy the product when searching for medicine names. And in this way, PharmEasy not just improves the conversions but also matches the search intent.
Hence, a better chance of ranking for these queries.
One more element that improves the EAT of these pages is the ‘content details‘ section, where PharmEasy showcases the expertise of the author and the reviewer.
Likewise, they have built giant content assets for ‘molecules‘ names.
2/ Targeting Geo Specific Locations At Scale
Some of the common queries while buying medicine online are:
- Online medicine delivery in [place]
- Online medicine in [place], etc
Imagine how many specific pages you’ll need to create to target these types of queries for almost every major location in India.
This is exactly what PharmEasy has done. They have created 7k+ pages for different locations.
Let’s have a look at the geo-specific page directory:
In fact, they have created 7k+ geo-specific pages in less than 3 months by automating the page creation.
Here’s how:
They have smartly used templates to create all of these pages. The content is almost similar for all of these pages except the location name. It’s also called programmatic SEO
See the below examples of using the template for title and meta description for all the pages:
Not only that, but the on-page is also similar except for the location name. However, it’s not always recommended to create near-duplicate pages at scale.
The best part about this strategy is the internal linking.
They have added the nearby places to each page, which helps build a solid internal linking structure and improve dwell time.
Here’s how:
Another thing to mention is the above-the-fold optimization of these geo-specific pages.
This is similar to the medicine glossary pages where the above-the-fold is optimized for conversion.
3/ Product Led Content And Lab Tests Services
One of PharmEasy’s services is to provide online lab test booking options.
Also, this is a bottom of the funnel content where the buying intent for some searching ‘full body checkup online’ is high.
This is why PharmEasy has created a list of pages for almost all pathological lab tests. This includes:
- Full body checkup
- Winter care health checkup
- Immunity health checkup, and so no.
The best part about their BOFU content strategy is that they have decided to go with a product-led SEO approach.
Meaning your product becomes the primary part of the content. For all the above examples (medicine/ molecules glossary pages, geo-specific pages), you have seen how they have integrated their product/services with the content.
And, most of all, it matches the search intent.
Result?
8k+ monthly organic visits per month.
Even though it doesn’t seem like huge traffic, consider that the buying intent and average order value are very high ranking for lab test related queries.
5/ Focusing on EAT
Before I jump into the EAT practices of PharmEasy, I want you to read the following statement from Google’s quality raters guideline:
“The amount of information needed for E-A-T assessment depends on the type of website. For example, YMYL websites demand a high degree of trust, so they generally need satisfying information about who is responsible for the site’s content.”
Creating high-quality content and building backlinks aren’t enough to get the most out of your SEO efforts.
Let’s understand what PharEasy is doing to improve the EAT information.
Editorial policy:
The editorial policy page is a must-have for all the YMYL sites. Two key reasons →
- Being transparent about the editorial process
- Showing who is responsible for the content and why users should trust the articles published by the site
Have a look at their editorial policy page:
Another good strategy for any editorial page is to include the professional experts involved in the content publishing process.
Here, you’ll find the medical experts and doctors who are either writing or reviewing the content.
This is not only recommended by the Quality raters guideline but also helps you build trust with the users.
Here’s a catch.
Most sites make the mistake of not showcasing enough of their professional experts. That means having an editorial page for all the experts is a good strategy.
But an even better approach is to create a separate page for each expert, doctor, expert reviewer, etc.
This is also helpful in ranking for search queries related to the author/ contributor/ reviewer’s name.
Healthline has generated thousands of traffic and backlinks from individual contributor/ expert pages with the same approach.
Trustworthy External References:
External trustworthy external references are often considered characteristics of a high-quality page.
“A Wikipedia article on a non-YMYL topic (example) with a satisfying amount of accurate information and trustworthy external references can usually be rated in the High range.”
For the same reason, PharEasy focuses too much on the accuracy of the articles by adding proper citations to high trustworthy websites.
Here’s an example from one of the articles:
Other important pages:
From EAT perspective and from a users’ point of view, it is important to consider adding important pages such as privacy policy, return policy (for eCommerce sites), contact us page, customer support, etc.
In the quality raters guideline, an eCom page is rated as low-quality because of inaccurate and lack of information about the business policy.
Here’s Google’s feedback on the eCom shopping page:
“Inaccurate information about shipping and returns, deceptive use of logos and no information about who is responsible makes this shopping site appear potentially fraudulent and untrustworthy.”
PharmEasy has built a solid foundation in this context by creating all these important pages such as return privacy policy, customer support, etc.
7/ Adding knowledge base for customer satisfaction
You’re not responsible for managing content that only has SEO value (traffic) as a content marketer. You may also need to focus on content assets that have zero SEO value yet high business value.
Let me cite an example →
1/ Content with SEO Value + Business value
This article from Hubspot is approximately getting 6k+ organic visits for relevant search queries.
Hence it has SEO and business value both.
Another example:
2/ Content with Business value but no SEO value
Here, the customer story of HubSpot is getting zero visits, but it is still a highly valuable asset for the final buyers’ stage.
Hence it may have almost no SEO value but have high business value.
This is what PharmEasy is also doing by building a knowledge hub for the services and products.
They have created a complete knowledge base for their existing customers and new users as well.
This helps in customer retention and satisfaction as the customer can now easily find out the solutions/ answers for their queries.
As you can see, it is more focused on the user’s point of view than the SEO perspective.
The hidden benefit is that it also helps in driving traffic for branded queries. For example, if you search on Google ‘how do I cancel my order on pharmeasy?’ you’ll find the knowledge base articles on the top of Google.
And branded queries are most stable in terms of ranking.
Do This Now 🡭
Follow these steps to find and execute BOFU Content ideas to drive qualified traffic and improve conversions.
STEP 1. Product Led SEO Approach
Instead of focusing too much on keyword research and SEO tactics just to beat the algorithm, focus on making a great product that solves users’ problems.
In this case, PharmEasy has turned their SEO strategy into a product-led SEO approach where their product (order medicine online, book lab tests, glossary pages of molecules, etc.) is the primary source of traffic.
“Instead of using SEO to market your product, the product should become the SEO driver.” – Eli Schwartz (Author of Product-Led SEO).
Find a way to meaningfully integrate your product offerings into the content.
For example, PharmEasy could easily create medicine glossary pages (includes definition, related terms, etc.) like others.
But they choose to align their offerings (to sell medicines online) with the content.
In fact, the majority of their traffic comes from these pages.
The key benefits?
Increase brand value. You may also measure the SEO performance by the growth of branded search terms.
STEP 2. Create Content At Scale Using Programmatic SEO
There is a good chance of scaling the content creation process when it comes to product or eCommerce.
For example, if you’re selling corporate gifts, you may create pages for the followings:
- Corporate gifts under 100/ 500/ 1000/ 15000/ etc.
- Corporate gifts in Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, etc
This is why wildcard keyword research is a great way to find ideas to scale the process.
Here’s an example:
With this process, you’ll get a ton of templated content ideas.
But scaling the content creation becomes harder if you are not implementing programmatic SEO (Approach of automating the content creation process at scale).
Below, I’ve shared references from where you can learn more about programmatic SEO.
STEP 3. Build Geo-Specific Pages
Geo-specific service/ landing pages not only work for eCommerce or product-led business but also helps in service businesses.
Look for local search queries people are searching for in your country. Especially if you have offline offices in multiple places or your service area is large enough, you may consider creating geo-specific pages.
Here’s an example from a content writing agency in India:
Image source: ApnaWriter.com
STEP 4. Plan Internal Linking Strategy
Internal linking is key to letting users easily navigate your website and giving Google a better understanding of the context and relevance of the pages of your site.
Note: Do it strategically. If you have content hubs for different topics, consider building an internal linking structure that interconnects sub-topics under the content hub.
Use Screamingfrog to quickly visualise the internal linking structure of different sites.
Here’s an internal linking visualization of Zapier:
STEP 5. Focus On EAT, Especially If You’re In The YMYL Category
Now, page quality isn’t only restricted to high-quality images, long-form content, or even a high number of backlinks.
It also includes signals that help Google and the users to trust the website and pages it publishes.
Some of the basic suggestions regarding EAT are:
- Consider showcasing the author’s expertise (create an individual page for the author or expert reviewer).
- Creating important pages such as return policy, editorial policy, customer support, and contact page with necessary information. Also, the about us page should help users to understand who owns the website and their expertise.
- Use structured data to markup the expertise and accuracy of the content.
- Get your content written by subject matter experts. If that’s not possible, consider professional experts to review the content written by any freelancer. And lastly, add the reviewer using reviewedBy property. [Mostly helpful for YMYL sites]
- Add proper citations to justify the claims and data. Don’t make the mistake of adding citations to some poor, irrelevant or spammy pages.
STEP 6. Think beyond SEO – Build Knowledge Base
A knowledge base or FAQs hub is a great way to delight your existing and new customers with the help of in-depth documentation.
The first step toward building a knowledge base is to gather content ideas. Talk to the real customers and sales team, and find questions from forums (Quora, Reddit, etc.).
Your end goal is to answer each, and every queries that your audience might have before, during and after buying your product.
Related Case Studies 🡭
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Optional Assignment 🡭
Pick any online brand (under the YMYL category) of your choice and try to do the followings:
- Access the EAT information about the website. Then, note down what the brand is doing well and what can be improved to improve the trust and expertise of their content.
- Please re-visit the medicine and molecule glossary pages and see what can be done to get the most out of the SEO efforts. Hint: It’s related to the content.
