On-page SEO

Optimise your healthcare and pharma website with an on-page SEO strategy

What is on-page SEO for healthcare?

On-page SEO refers to the optimisation of content on your healthcare and pharma website. As these websites fall under YMYL (Your Money Your Life) content, extra consideration needs to be taken when writing and producing copy, headings, metadata, images, and videos so that information is accurate, relevant, and suitable to patients’ and HealthCare Professionals’ (HCPs) needs. Content that shows EEAT (Experience Expertise Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) is assigned greater credibility by search engines.

On-page SEO also refers to a user’s experience from the moment they land on your healthcare and pharma website to the point they leave or convert. Users need to be able to find what they are looking for quickly and easily, with both clear content and a smooth user journey playing a role in conversions.

Why is on-page SEO important?

On-page SEO is a crucial element of an SEO strategy as it makes it easier for search engines to access and understand a website’s copy and ultimately its purpose. It plays a crucial role in how search engines rank your content and helps to improve the HCP and patient experience on the site. On-page SEO important to make their journey on the site, from when they first land on the site, to when they convert, as easy and smooth as possible. Using a combination of on-page SEO tactics for your healthcare and pharma website will support your long-term growth and visibility.

On-page SEO tactics in healthcare

logo

Keyword research & content strategy

Flip

Keyword research & content strategy

One of the foundations of a successful healthcare SEO search strategy is solid keyword research. Our expert knowledge of the healthcare and pharma industries means Varn Health effectively researches your keyword landscape around relevant healthcare topics so it is highly targeted to your customers and relevant markets. Using meticulous keyword research, we help you develop user-focused content and support you in building a data-led website information architecture.
Flip
logo

Content optimisation

Flip

Content optimisation

Crafting and optimising content for healthcare and pharma SEO requires a balance of targeted keywords, engaging creative copy, and regulatory understanding, working closely with internal pharma compliance teams to ensure optimisation aligns with strict regulatory frameworks. Our copywriters specialise in producing and refining web content that integrates brand guidelines, tone, audience and organic search keyword optimisation. Within healthcare content creation, abiding by Google’s quality guidelines is crucial. We carefully consider Google’s Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EEAT) & Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) guidelines.
Flip
logo

Images, infographics and video content

Flip

Images, infographics and video content

Visual content is a great addition, especially in regard to the healthcare and pharma industries. These elements can be used to explain medical content, services, and products. But each element needs to be optimised to ensure that your healthcare and pharma website is gaining the most benefit. Varn Health can help to identify these issues and provide actionable insights and guidance to improve images, videos, and infographics for SEO.
Flip
logo

Metadata

Flip

Metadata

Metadata acts as a shop window to your healthcare and pharma website and therefore must be engaging and informative for your target audience, whether that be HCPs or patients. Metadata that is too long will be truncated in SERPs, but if it is too short, this space is unoptimised and search engines may create their own. It is a great place to target relevant keywords patients and HCPs are using to find your website.
Flip
logo

Regional & local SEO for healthcare

Flip

Regional & local SEO for healthcare

From securing visibility on Google Maps listings to ensuring your content is in the right place for different regions or languages so prospective patients or professionals can find the correct content, local SEO services for healthcare and medical businesses are becoming more and more important. Varn Health has an understanding of critical regional variations in medical terminology and regulation, integrating these considerations into all our recommendations.
Flip
logo

Site architecture and user experience

Flip

Site architecture and user experience

Whether you are targeting HCPs or patients, users need to be able to easily navigate your website and find the information or product they are looking for. Ultimately, smooth navigation and user journey play a part in conversion rates and keeping users on your site.
Flip
PM Award 24
data-dashboard
Varn Health SEO and data team
brighton SEO Varn Health CEO on stage
DSCF2548
Varn Health SEO Team

Get in touch to find out how we can help with on-page SEO

FAQS

Technical SEO focuses on the backend or behind the scenes elements of your healthcare and pharma website, such as crawlability, website speed, mobile optimisation and structured data markup. On the other hand, on-page SEO focuses on optimising individual pages on a website to improve rankings. This includes optimising content, meta tags, headings, URLs, and multimedia elements for relevance and usability. Technical SEO is focused on website performance and on-page SEO focuses more on content. Both are crucial components of an effective SEO strategy aimed at boosting a website’s search engine visibility and driving organic traffic.

Google has a mobile-first indexing approach, prioritising the functionality and accessibility of the mobile version of your healthcare and pharma website. As a result, it is important to ensure that your website has a responsive design, loads fast, and is easy to navigate. Read our blog on mobile optimisation for healthcare websites to learn more.

YMYL stands for Your Money Your Life Content and refers to topic areas and related content that has the potential to affect a user’s health, financial stability, or well-being. As such, healthcare and pharma websites and their content fall under this category and are considered extra cautiously by search engines. Read our blog to find out more about how you can write content for regulated industries including healthcare and pharma.

Content optimisation refers to the process of improving a website’s on-page copy, URL structure, title tags, images, and internal linking to improve the ranking of your healthcare and pharma website and its user experience. Keyword research plays a massive part in on-page optimisation, as this enables you to see what keywords HCPs and patients are using to search for your products or services.

Particularly in regard to keyword research and content optimisation, by including a range of relevant keywords throughout your healthcare or pharma website, you are covering a wider amount of specific traffic. In turn, as your website ranks for more and more keywords patients and HCs are using to find your products or services, your rankings increase, which improves search visibility and website traffic.

cta-background cta-background

Want to learn more about how SEO can help your pharma website?

Latest SEO insights from our experts

AI & innovation, SEO Strategy 02.10.25

How are HCPs searching, and are they using AI?
 Read more
Jordana

Article by:

Jordana

AI & innovation 16.09.25

AI search is here: How can Consumer Health brands stay visible?
 Read more
Tom Vaughton

Article by:

Tom Vaughton

SEO Strategy 09.09.25

Shaping the future of pharma marketing with Dan Buckland
 Read more
Vicky Walker

Article by:

Vicky Walker

Sign up to stay up to date with the latest digital marketing and healthcare SEO insights