Project Overview
How organic SEO increased visibility for a private cancer treatment provider
Healthcare SEO isn’t just about appearing in Google searches. It’s about gaining trust and helping vulnerable people find the information they need. This case study shows how a carefully planned organic SEO strategy helped a private cancer treatment provider educate the UK market on a relatively unknown treatment, create trust and build visibility in the UK from the ground up.
The client
Due to the sensitive nature of the healthcare sector, we can’t name the provider. However, we will be as transparent as possible about our work and the results. The project was led by Rankine Healthcare Marketing, a specialist agency with deep experience in healthcare marketing. We have enjoyed a long and successful working relationship and are proud that Targeted SEO is their first choice for organic private healthcare SEO.
The end client offers private proton beam therapy, an advanced cancer treatment, to patients from the UK and internationally. When Rankine brought us on board, the client was entering the UK market and needed to:
- Build brand awareness from scratch
- Educate audiences on a relatively unknown treatment
- Compete with established national providers and organisations
- Generate high-quality patient enquiries
The Challenge
Breaking into a high-stakes, low-awareness market
This was not a typical SEO project, but our experienced team approached the challenges confidently and methodically. Challenges included:
1. A highly regulated industry
Healthcare content must meet strict standards. Every page needs to be accurate, balanced, and responsible. You cannot overpromise or use persuasive language in the same way as other industries.
2. Low awareness of the treatment
In the UK, proton beam therapy is not widely accessible, and many patients simply don’t know it exists. That creates a fundamental challenge: How do you generate demand when people aren’t yet searching for the solution?
3. Intense competition:
Search results were dominated by large, authoritative websites. Not just direct competitors, but national charities and research organisations.
4. A brand new presence in the UK:
The client had no existing authority, no search visibility, and no established audience in this market.
Our Approach
At Targeted SEO, we take a 360° approach to organic SEO strategy. Along with the great work the Rankine team were doing, we set out to create solid SEO foundations, build authority, educate the audience, and support the user journey from enquiry to conversion.
1. Building SEO foundations
Organic SEO only yields results if it has a solid foundation. We carried out vital technical SEO and on-page work, including:
- Creating a clear site structure and sitemap
- Developing treatment pages and landing pages aligned with search intent
- Ensuring strong technical SEO foundations, including crawlability, indexing, and performance
- Implementing structured data (schema) to support search engine understanding
2. Understanding the industry, service offering and audience
This campaign relied heavily on insight. Along with taking a deep dive into the client’s services and the industry as a whole, we asked important questions about the audience, such as:
- How do people search for alternative cancer treatments?
- What are their concerns at different stages of their journey?
- What is the importance of family members and second opinions in decision-making?
- What is the emotional context behind the search?
This depth of insight allowed us to create a strategy that reflected real patient needs and search intent, ensuring the content was not only visible but genuinely helpful, relevant, and supportive at every stage of the journey.
3. Tone of voice development
Our team has extensive experience developing strong brands, and we were able to use it to add value to this project.
Based on our research and exploration, we created comprehensive tone-of-voice guidelines. In healthcare, copy can lean towards the overly clinical, so we introduced a more empathetic voice. This made the often complex information easier to digest, while still being balanced, accurate and professional.
The guidelines also set out the client’s core values and how language should be used to differentiate them in the private cancer care market.
Importantly, the guidelines also ensured that all content produced remained aligned with stringent healthcare regulations and industry sensitivities.
4. Research-led SEO strategy
We conducted thorough keyword research, market and competitor analysis to inform the SEO strategy.
The client clearly wanted to grow authority for key search terms like “proton beam therapy”. But, with limited direct search demand in the UK, we needed to think beyond obvious keywords.
Rather than chasing volume alone, we focused on education, relevance and intent.
In practice, that meant identifying adjacent and long-tail search opportunities, mapping keywords to different stages of the user journey, and building topic clusters that supported awareness.
By focusing on long-tail and related topics, we were able to build visibility, grow authority over time, and gently guide users towards the treatment rather than expecting them to search for it directly.
5. SEO content strategy
High-quality, accurate and balanced content is key to any healthcare SEO strategy. It builds trust and helps patients make informed decisions about often life-changing issues. We take this responsibility very seriously at Targeted SEO, and we took great care to produce content that not only pleased search engines but was genuinely reassuring and helpful to anyone researching the topic – not just the target audience.
We created a structured SEO content strategy to support users at every stage, from research to comparison, reassurance to action.
That included:
- Regular educational blog content directly linked to services
- Detailed treatment pages
- Patient-focused landing pages
- Case studies
We reoptimised existing pages so that they were SEO-ready and in line with the new tone of voice. Rankine also tasked us with producing some pages from scratch, which further proves their faith in our abilities.
Every page is thoroughly checked by experts and has input from named authors to add credibility.
6. On-page SEO
In a “Your Money or Your Life” sector like healthcare, trust signals really matter. Users are making high-stakes decisions and must be confident that the information is accurate, safe, and credible.
From a search engine perspective, experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) directly determine what content should be prioritised, particularly in an industry like this where misinformation can cause harm.
We worked on:
- Enhancing on-page SEO across key pages
- Supporting content with credible references and structured information
- Improving internal linking to guide users through the site
- Aligning messaging with clinical standards and patient expectations
7. ‘Local’ visibility
To establish a strong presence in the UK, we used targeted local SEO techniques to drive relevant visibility. The client’s location within a leading London hospital is a key value and perception driver, so we ensured this was clearly reflected across core pages and local signals to reinforce trust, credibility, and prestige.
While international SEO activity is still to come, we have built solid, scalable foundations that position the site for future expansion into key markets.
8. Ongoing consultation, refinement and reporting
SEO in healthcare is not a one-off project. We continue to work closely with Rankine Healthcare Marketing and deliver:
- Monthly reporting and strategy sessions
- Continuous performance analysis
- Ideas and opportunities for new activity, including digital PR
Our close collaboration has ensured the evolving SEO strategy remains in sync with broader marketing activity.
SEO Results
Over time, the campaign delivered exactly what was needed.
- The brand established a clear presence in the UK market
- Organic search became a consistent source of patient enquiries
- Visibility grew across both high-competition terms and targeted long-tail queries
- The website became a trusted source of information for patients exploring treatment options
This has not been a quick or easy win. It has taken months and months of sustained effort on research, strategy, and careful execution.
We continue our work with Rankine for this client and are excited to say that, based on these results, they have asked us to explore an international healthcare SEO campaign in 2026.
Importantly, these results have translated into a consistent pipeline of patient enquiries and conversions.
Testimonial
We’ve worked with this team across two very different healthcare organisations, and they’ve been consistently excellent.
They’re knowledgeable, highly attentive, and importantly, very aware of the regulatory sensitivities that come with healthcare marketing. SEO in this space isn’t easy, but they’ve delivered strong, measurable results.
They’re thoughtful to work with, responsive, and genuinely collaborative – exactly what you want in a specialist partner in healthcare.
Beth Rankine (Rankine Healthcare Marketing)
Talk to us about healthcare SEO
This project is a strong example of what SEO can achieve when it is approached strategically. From zero visibility to a steady flow of enquiries, the results came from consistent, thoughtful work over time.
It also reinforces a simple truth: Even in the most competitive and regulated industries, there is always an opportunity to build visibility. If you take a responsible stance, understand your audience and execute SEO thoughtfully, the results can be extremely valuable.
Contact us to talk about SEO for private healthcare businesses today.
