How life science, biotech and healthcare marketers boost SEO without creating new content
If you’re looking to boost SEO for your life sciences, biotech or healthcare website, your first thought might be to create new content. While this is the right thing to do in certain circumstances, optimising your existing content may actually have a more positive impact. Let’s examine the benefits of reworking existing content versus creating something new.
When to create new life sciences, biotech and healthcare content
Creating new content offers several key benefits.
Importantly, for the life sciences, biotech and healthcare sectors, it keeps websites current and helps establish businesses as forward-looking experts with an eye on growth. This is essential for these industries, which focus on rapidly changing, cutting-edge technologies that build customer trust.
New content can also be used to target the novel keywords that emerge regularly in these sectors and support new campaigns and market-specific developments.
The SEO benefits of optimising your existing life sciences, biotech and healthcare content
Optimising existing content is quicker and more cost-effective than creating new copy, imagery, video and design from scratch and can have an even bigger impact on SEO.
Republishing existing articles with new information and videos can increase organic traffic by as much as 106%.
Search engines trust pages that are established so focusing on evergreen content is a smart way to drive search results.
Content that hasn’t been maintained can impact the search rankings of other pages on your website, so it’s a good idea to audit and update information regularly.
Life sciences, biotech, and healthcare content quickly become outdated, so it’s especially important to keep up with any information that is no longer correct or has not kept up with innovation.
How to optimise existing content to boost search results
Auditing and updating your content is recommended at least once a year and, ideally, once a quarter.
However, it’s always best to consider your readers when optimising pages rather than solely focusing on SEO. Following a March 2024 Google algorithm update, Google now rewards high-quality, helpful content written for humans by humans and is actively filtering out unoriginal and irrelevant pages designed only for SEO.
That being said, there are a number of things you can do to improve both your user experience and search results.
- Poor-quality content is unlikely to hold your reader’s attention and it can impact how your whole website performs on Google, so removing some content entirely may be the best approach.
- If several of your pages target the same keyword or customer intent, consolidating the content into one clearly defined page will help you avoid cannibalising search terms and allow your readers to find everything they’re looking for on one page.
- Additionally, evergreen pages can be updated with a more relevant title as well as new videos, images, keywords, headings and subheadings and then republished. This helps keep your content fresh for users and search engines.
- Google also prefers pages where users spend time absorbing content rather than immediately clicking away or returning to their search. That’s why it’s a good idea to check how your copy flows to ensure they are easy to read and answers are quick to find.
How to decide which content needs optimising
It can be tricky to know which content is best to focus on when auditing and updating a life sciences, biotech or healthcare website.
When determining which content to optimise for SEO on your life sciences, biotech, or healthcare website, it’s crucial to prioritise based on strategic impact.
Start by identifying the pages that align most closely with your business goals—these are the ones that should be performing at their best.
Next, analyse traffic and conversion data to spot underperforming pages that have the potential for improvement.
Focus on pages that target high-value keywords relevant to your audience but aren’t ranking as well as they could be. Additionally, consider the relevance and timeliness of your content—outdated or less relevant pages may fail to engage your audience and negatively impact your SEO.
Finally, optimise content that aligns with emerging trends and innovations in your industry, ensuring your site remains a valuable resource for search engines and users.
Here are a few questions you can start with:
- Which pages are a priority for your business?
- Are there pages with particularly low traffic or conversion rates?
- Are your most-important pages ranking for the keywords you’ve targeted?
Additional ways to boost SEO on life sciences, biotech and healthcare websites
Boosting your search results isn’t just about the words, images and videos on your pages. Here are some additional areas to focus on when you audit and update a life sciences, biotech or healthcare website:
- User experience – Are the layouts and navigation as clear as possible? Have you checked site accessibility? Do your pages load correctly and quickly?
- Metadata – Are your title tags and meta descriptions optimised for length and current keywords?
- Backlinks – Do other reputable sites link to your page? Are you cited on other industry websites?
If you’re still not sure where to begin, you might consider working with third-party experts. A creative marketing agency that specialises in your sector has the experience and expertise needed to boost SEO for a life sciences, biotech and healthcare website.
At Arttia Creative, we don’t just focus on one element of SEO. We take a holistic approach that incorporates everything from audience and keyword research through to website building, UX and content editing. We can even look at how creative design and branding is impacting your performance.
The Takeaway.
Boosting your SEO begins with striking the right balance between refreshing existing content and creating new material.
Creating fresh content is essential if you're aiming to establish your expertise, target emerging keywords, or support new marketing campaigns.
But pay attention to the power of updating what you already have. Regularly reviewing and refining your existing content to eliminate outdated information, enhance site structure, and improve user experience can significantly boost your SEO performance.
Ready to elevate your SEO strategy?
Let us help you optimise your content and drive results for your life science, biotech, or healthcare business.
Belinda White | Creative Director