Query-Driven Search & Content That Answers Wins
Brand Wide Query-Driven Pivot Nearly Doubles IHC’s Organic Lead Generation
Client Overview
Created in 1994, healthinsurance.org is one of the longest running sources of in-depth information about health insurance for consumers. Back when web sites were really just picking up steam, the site was known as the Health Insurance Resource Center.
Services
84%
increase in Health Insurance Quotes
46%
increase in Organic Conversion Rates
20,200
new Organic Users YoY
The challenge
IHC has been a staple in the health insurance brokerage space for decades. With the rise of tech- savvy insurance brokers and an increasingly competitive landscape, IHC found themselves falling back onto page 2 and 3 of Google despite their well built collection of content. Google’s shift to addressing purchasing intent in search queries made it necessary to tailor IHC’s content strategy towards their user’s need to find health insurance, not just learn about it.
With the healthcare open enrollment deadline approaching, Directive faced a 45 day countdown to completely revolutionizing IHC’s keyword research strategy, content calendar, and one-page site copy.
The objective
Directive’s primary objective was to increase organic visibility and Quote Requests for IHC by fundamentally rethinking their historical approach to SEO. This started with addressing the shift in Google’s algorithm towards more query-driven search. As opposed to serving as an information base, Google’s shift represented their goal of better serving the question-answer needs of the average searcher.
Directive’s user experience and SEO audits both yielded insights that proved that IHC faced a serious need to pivot the way they communicate with their audience. It was time to evolve their old-era information heavy designs into something that was truly useful for the user by making it easier to take action.
The strategy
Applying their learnings from the currently ranking page 1 of Google, Directive pivoted IHC’s entire design and SEO strategy to target the action-specific queries of their audience that moved users closer to ultimate conversion. Instead of the “apathy and information” approach to old school SEO, Directive’s approach to IHC’s SEO was based in “asked, answered, and action.”
Keyword Pivot
Directive conducted their customized UVP analysis as well as an aggressive assessment of the competitive landscape to help define what IHC needed to base their new SEO and content strategy around. Directive built a content calendar and keyword roadmap that would help IHC boost organic visibility for their higher intent search queries.
Homepage Redesign
Directive’s user-query shift involved completely rethinking the purpose, design and content of the homepage. In practice, this also meant reducing the word count by several thousand words — which goes against every traditional SEO instinct. However, Directive knew that creating content for the customer instead of for the sake of platform performance is really what Google wants to see (and more importantly, is willing to reward).
SEO-Driven Wireframes
Directive’s content briefs also included design outlines for these new user-friendly wireframes. This way, they could ensure that their new pivot in keyword and messaging was reflected in the metastructure of each page, each header, and each section of body text.
Keeping the keyword strategy strong through the metastructure of the page while also optimizing it for user experience created the perfect mix of ranking factors that was able to maximize IHC’s ranking and organic visibility. But it was the CRO and query-answering copy that truly boosted organic conversion across the entire brand.
