Providence – Local SEO Phase 2: Evangelize and expand
Applying Local SEO strategy across a sprawling enterprise.
Challenge
Optimize local listings of thousands of clinics using the learnings from small Local SEO pilot.
With more than 2,000 locations, Providence St. Joseph Health is one of the largest healthcare systems in the U.S.
Wheelhouse DMG has worked with Providence since 2013, supporting a number of strategic engagements including analytics strategy and implementation, system-wide content strategy, strategic engineering, SEO and digital advertising.
Buoyed by the success of our Local SEO Pilot, we designed and evangelized a strategy to expand local SEO systemwide to more than 2,000 locations and providers – and received organizational buy-in to do so.
This case study focuses on Phase 2 of our long-running Local SEO strategy project.
71%
Increase in website clicks from local listings
51%
Increase in phone calls from local listings
35%
Increase in total actions from local listings
Approach
Evangelize expanding local SEO systemwide to achieve buy-in to apply strategy to 2,000+ locations.
With exceptional pilot results in hand, we focused our efforts on evangelizing an expansion of our local SEO strategy across Providence’s 2,000+ locations nationwide. This involved presenting the data and opportunity to key stakeholders to achieve organizational buy-in. We then set out to optimize listings by populating key Google My Business data fields, securing citations, adding photos and descriptions, correctly categorizing, and enabling direct appointment booking functionality. The comprehensive optimization was informed by learnings from Phase 1 and aimed to drive visibility and engagement gains for providers and clinics enterprise-wide.
Outcomes
Nearly one third of all appointment bookings originated from local search within six months.
After achieving buy-in to apply our learnings, the comprehensive local listing optimization effort resulted in substantial gains in performance and engagement across metrics.
In the months following full enterprise optimization, we saw a 35% increase in total actions, 71% lift in website clicks, 15% more requests for directions and a 51% increase in phone calls. The positive metrics demonstrated that optimizing all listings to heighten visibility in local search results provided tremendous value to patients and the broader organization.
With the increased visibility and engagement with the thousands of local listings across the system, it was time to turn our attention to improving the booking experience. We turn our attention to this work in Phase 3 of our long-running local SEO work.
“Wheelhouse epitomizes the true meaning of the word “partner”.”
– Jill Sato, Swedish/ Providence
