The Analysis
Wheelhouse DMG performed a series of content analyses for Fred Hutch, gaining a clear understanding of their competitive landscape. We assessed how everything from taxonomy to UX to the rapid evolution of Google’s search ranking algorithm might be causing Fred Hutch’s organic traffic to lag. As we reviewed our full content strategy audit, we discovered actionable insights hidden in plain sight: in the search engine results pages themselves.
Wheelhouse DMG’s analysis showed that, just as in the offline world, Fred Hutch had tremendous online authority for cancer-related content. Given this leadership position and resulting authority, our strategy focused on a new and rapidly expanding element in search results called “Featured Snippets”.
Featured Snippets
Originally developed for news content, a Featured Snippet presents a succinct response to a search query at the top of search results. In effect, a Featured Snippet is Google’s attempt to answer a question for a user before they even click on one of the search results. Given that a Featured Snippet appears at the very top of search results – even above the first organic result – it’s impact on site performance can be profound, driving exponential increases in traffic (see example of a Featured Snippet below).
By focusing on the overlap between relevant queries to Fred Hutch’s business goals, content that could be optimized and edited to win Snippets, and search engine results pages where Google was either currently serving Featured Snippets or likely would be soon given trends, Wheelhouse DMG strategists identified the highest value opportunities to achieve Featured Snippets for Fred Hutch. Our content specialists then carefully restructured and optimized target pages in order achieve Featured Snippet placement.
This time-consuming work required both a keen, strategic focus and a light touch to ensure the scientific and medical value of this content was never diminished in any way. Each article required discrete and painstaking competitive research and thoughtful, line-by-line optimization. Wheelhouse and Fred Hutch worked closely together, building trust, rapport and consistent lines of feedback to make sure that the experts who masterfully produced this content were at ease with Wheelhouse’s proposed adjustments.