Pharmaceutical content marketing, According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, about eight in ten Americans use a search engine to look for symptoms before consulting a doctor. The overwhelming majority (90%) of this group say they started with sites like WebMD aimed at providing medical information. 

Why are more and more people using the Internet to find only the most accurate and factual information and to find nothing harmful or misleading about their health? And how can the healthcare industry adapt to compete with WebMD around the world? The answer is surprisingly simple. Defeat them in your game with a clever pharmaceutical content marketing strategy. 

The Age of the Online Diagnosis 

Perhaps this trend in online search is a natural extension of the online shopping age, where people can read Yelp reviews of everything from a nearby taco truck to their child’s third grade social studies teacher. Or maybe it’s the result of our innate desire for confirmation bias, whether it’s a political stance or a potentially life threatening illness. 

Unlike your doctor, the writer of a given WebMD article can`t know if your headache is a symptom of a hangover or a brain tumor, so any information they provide must be as general as possible. This sort of thing can cause certain people undue stress, leaving them open to trusting disreputable claims from online health gurus selling the 21stcentury version of snake oil. 

The good news is that some search engines, Google in particular, have taken notice of this phenomenon and consistently tweak their ranking algorithm in an attempt to improve user behavior resulting in improving pharmaceutical content marketing.

Lessons Learned from the Medic Update 

Once the dust settled, Search Engine Land scrupulously sifted through the ranking data, highlighting the winners and losers of the Medic Update. For example, one of the most negatively affected domains was Prevention.com, which lost a stunning 53 percent of Google traffic in just over a week. On the flip side, Healthline.com gained about 20 percent more traffic as a result of the update. 

Why was there such a large discrepancy between two websites in the same health and wellness vertical? By visiting each site and poking around, the rationale behind these new rankings becomes clearer. 

YMYL Done Right 

On the surface, Healthline.com seems very similar to its sister site. There are stock photos, clickbait headlines, and pop-ups prompting you to subscribe to our newsletter. However, there are some subtle differences. The actual footer includes the disclaimer, contact information and navigation menu. Her article is also written in a more journalistic style and is full of hyperlinks to support her claims and citations from medical professionals. 

Their overview page is exhaustive and lists their management, medical, and nutrition team backgrounds and contact links. The latter two are made up of doctors, therapists, and certified medical professionals. The Healthline website also has an entire page  dedicated to partnerships with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It will be harder to find an official source than a government agency. 

In the end, this all comes down to a focus on Google’s SQRG and  what they call EAT (expertise, authority, trust). Top-ranked health and wellness websites focus more on providing information than on selling products (such as earplugs that  help sleep in some way). These pages have an About Us section. Use a fact-based style of journalism. Maintain an outstanding external reputation. Not all tokens burned by the 

 Medic Update’s seismic shift will be lost. To regain Google’s trust and compete with WebMD around the world, the industry needs to rethink how it’s displayed online and focus on providing more reliable content than talking directly to users. 

Expertise, Authority, Trust 

When people think of hospitals, they think of doctors and medical professionals who know all the details of medical care. They are the bearers of both good and bad news, and their ability to empathize and  calm in the face of adversity helps patients find hope even in  the worst diagnoses. 

When visiting the websites of hospitals and medical networks, users expect  to be overwhelmed by information about specific illnesses, conditions and available treatments. They assume a certain level of trust and specificity, but sites like WebMD have essentially everything they lack. It’s the expertise, authority, and trust that Google seeks, and it’s already at the core of the medical industry.

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