Exceeding SEO and Content Strategy Expectations with UX for Excedrin
I’ve been preaching at the alter of SEO and Content since my days working for Razorfish Health. Back then, we had the lion’s share of J&J OTC products, so when I eventually moved over to help lead North American SEO at Resolution Agency (formerly Resolution Media), I didn’t need much onboarding to work with GSK products.
Between that and partnering with Weber Shandwick, I was exposed to a new type of collaboration - SEO and UX. I had the pleasure of working along one of the best Organic Search teams I’ve ever partnered with (Resolution), and one of the most dedicated UX/Content teams at WSW. We optimized several consumer and healthcare provider websites, but the most memorable (to me, at least) was the Excedrin redesign.
Our goal when leading the full redesign of Excedrin.com was two-phased: Deliver relevant information across the consumer journey, and optimize that story based on how users were searching for headache and migraine relief.
As we dissected each audience persona and built archetypes, as well as a deep-dive into competitive OTC medications, we learned how our targets were searching: Questions (What is the difference between headaches and migraines?), Research/Types (What is a sinus headache?) and Relief/Treatments (Best headache treatments).
This redesign followed the idea of a “choose your own adventure” story - Clicking on either the homepage Headache or Migraine CTAs drove users along themed informational journeys. Content answering all of those needs, optimized for SEO from the URL/navigation level to On/Off-page content, eventually took consumers to a Product Page and Goal Completion. More importantly: Everything, from UX CTA’s to user-friendly drug usage charts, was influenced by SEO findings.
We showed that providing education, support, and treatment could win the trust of headache and migraine sufferers for GSK - so much so that the content strategy was awarded the Content Marketing Institute’s Marketing Project of the Year Award in 2015.
For the client, it was the first time many non-brand terms showed at the top of Page 1 as both Traditional and Rich Results.