The solution is to make sure consumers/doctors can easily find your products when using generic terms such as dry eyes instead of product names like Systane
Alcon one of the world’s largest health care companies focused on vision and eye products appears to be a leader in its market thanks to effective SEO. The swiss based company has a number of keyword friendly domains but also a number of complex brand names that are more difficult to spell. But I have noticed a number of subtle changes they can make to their websites to get a bigger impact growing their organic keyword traffic.One of the best benefits of seo for pharmaceutical companies is that they are able to market the solution via complex names but can also make sure consumers/doctors can easily find your products when using generic terms such as dry eyes. Its corporate site seems to follow some of the basics starting with their homepage title tag starts with “Eye Care products…”, the reason that this is significant is that it both matches to their product offerings and is helpful in helping them achieve #1 result for the search term “eye care products“.
Many companies make the mistake of placing more importance on their brand/company name than their products/services, a test search for “flights“, show a few examples of sites that see brand as more important. While Travelocity, Southwest airlines and Continental Airlines were all listed on the first page of the search results, some slight changes to the title structure within their site would likely have a benefit with increased rankings for generic terms. The only times that brands need to consider using brand terms first is when they have a common name, geographical competition or affiliate marketers who can possibly outrank them for brand related searches.
Alcon Corporate Site
They also use a number of keyword friendly internal links, but they could improve more by replacing a number of the image menus with text links. The image below shows the corporate website is using its strength and trust to help its product sites with keyword friendly urls. This is not spam or paid links but relevant and suitable linkage between the parent companies site and its product sites.
The following keyword friendly links from Alcon link to the following sites, and in brackets its position in the search engine results on Google.com
- Intraocular lens – http://www.Acrysofrestor.com/ (#4)
- Cataract lens removal – http://www.infinitivision.com/ (#4)
- Cataract surgery – http://www.cataractsurgery.com/ (#1)
- Allergy eye – http://www.pataday.com/ (#8)
- Contact lens solution – http://www.opti-free.com/ (#1)
- Dry eye – http://www.systane.com/ (#34)
Analysis: It seems that the variation “eye allergy” does slightly worse ranking #9, but the biggest surprise that Systane almost fails to rank for its generic term showing up 34th, and the more suitable term would be “dry eyes”.
Opti-Free Site
Opti-Free’s site also has a number of image items that could be replaced with text to increase the amount of onpage content. The title tag matches to the product solution which is a perfect match for the Alcon footer links, which is part of the reason that the site ranks highly for its generic term. Below is a screenshot of the footer links from Opti-Free.
The following keyword friendly links from Opti-Free link to the following Alcon sites, and in brackets its position in the search engine results on Google.com
- Glaucoma http://www.travatanz.com/ (Not in first 100)
- Eye vitamins http://www.icapsvitamins.com/ (#4)
- Allergy eyes http://www.pataday.com/ (#7)
- Nasal allergies http://www.patanase.com/ (#42)
- Ear infection treatment http://www.alcon.com/en/alcon-products/pharmaceutical.asp (#35)
- Cataract surgery http://www.cataractsurgery.com/ (#1)
- Intraocular lens http://www.acrysofrestor.com/ (#5)
- Dry eye http://www.systane.com/ (#34)
Analysis: Travatanz could benefit from an increase in backlinks and a the selection of a keyword that will actually show in the first 100 results. Pataday has targeted a slightly different plural variation and ranks higher in the search results for the plural term. The “ear infection treatment” product page could benefit from its own product page that would make it possible to add more content.
Systane Site
Systane has a much more seo friendly site, as its menu structure is text unlike many of the other sites. It also makes extensive use of text for product listings and onsite content, but there are still more images than can be replaced with text.
The following keyword friendly links from Systane link to the following Alcon sites, and in brackets its position in the search engine results on Google.com
- Glaucoma http://www.travatanz.com/ (Not in first 100)
- Eye vitamins http://www.icapsvitamins.com/ (#4)
- Allergy eyes http://www.pataday.com/ (#7)
- Nasal allergies http://www.patanase.com/ (#42)
- Ear infection treatment http://www.alcon.com/en/alcon-products/pharmaceutical.asp (#35)
- Cataract surgery http://www.cataractsurgery.com/ (#1)
- Intraocular lens http://www.acrysofrestor.com/ (#5)
- Contact lens solution – http://www.opti-free.com/ (#1)
Analysis: The points to note are identical to Opti-Free, except the terms that are already ranking #1 may benefit from alternative link text to increase their presence within the search results.
Acrysofrestor site
The site appears to have a lot of content hidden under a number of sub text menus, which doesn’t give it the full advantage as spiders won’t crawl that deep. There is also a lot of white space that could be filled with either larger sized font or more content. This site also has a lot of legal notices and disclaimers making up a majority of the homepage content, there is also two links to Cataract Surgery at the bottom which doesn’t offer an increased benefit.
The following keyword friendly links from Acrysofrestor link to the following Alcon sites, and in brackets its position in the search engine results on Google.com
- Glaucoma http://www.travatanz.com/ (Not in first 100)
- Eye vitamins http://www.icapsvitamins.com/ (#4)
- Allergy eyes http://www.pataday.com/ (#7)
- Nasal allergies http://www.patanase.com/ (#42)
- Ear infection treatment http://www.alcon.com/en/alcon-products/pharmaceutical.asp (#35)
- Cataract surgery http://www.cataractsurgery.com/ (#1)
- Dry eye http://www.systane.com/ (#34)
- Contact lens solution – http://www.opti-free.com/ (#1)
Cataract Surgery Site
This site does a very good job of combining a generic domain and with lots of information about the disease and links in with Alcon products. The problem is that once again a bulk of the information and menus are image based and not text so don’t get as much benefit for onsite content.
Analysis: There are no links in the footer to any of Alcon’s related product sites, which seems a lost opportunity but might also be restricted under FDA rules and regulations around pharmaceutical advertising codes of conduct.Patanase Site
The site seems very inconsistent as it makes very good use of images replaced with text in some parts of the site and menus but not in others, there also seems to be a mixture of terms and keywords related to the product. Looking at the website, I have listed some of the many terms and phrases that are used that don’t rank well in SERPs: Nasal Allergies, Allergy Symptoms, Seasonal Nasal Allergies, Allergy symptom reducer, seasonal allergic rhinitis.
Analysis: There are no links in the footer to any of Alcon’s related product sites, which seems a lost opportunity but unlike CataractSurgery.com this is a product site and not an informational page so it is not clear why no links have been added in the footer.Pataday Site
Of all the Alcon websites, this site makes the most use of text for the information sections and its menu structure, the only confusing part is the cross-promotion of a similar product Patanol. The site design is also appears to be one of the older designs and if it is updated to use images in place of text will likely impact its search traffic significantly.
Analysis: A number of the sites use their website address instead of a keyword friendly link, reducing the benefit, and Coprodex.com is linked as “Ear infection treatment” on the other footer links, and is a 301 redirect to the Alcon products page. The way some of these links are written almost make them appear to be sketchy spam links such as AcrySofReSTOR.com or TravatanZ.com. It is likely that many of these sites are already able to rank for their own brand terms so the links could have been better utilised.
iCAPS Eye Vitamins Site
This site has one of the strangest mixes of large images, and a very limited amount of content/information on the product. Its likely with an expansion of content it could easily increase its presence in the SERPs, and rank much higher for the term “eye vitamins”.
Analysis: There are no links in the footer to any of Alcon’s related product sites, which seems a lost opportunity but unlike CataractSurgery.com this is a product site and not an informational page so it is not clear why no links have been added in the footer.
Travatan Site
The site has a fair amount of detail about Glaucoma’s as well a majority of the information is accessible via text links. The only issue is the mixture of glossary pages and a strange popup definitions window. There should be a consistent process, and a number of browsers block pop-ups so information maybe missed by visitors. Also this information should form part of the site not a separate no-indexable popup module.
Analysis: similar to many of the other footer links with the only difference being there are two links for eye infection treatment, one to the Alcon product page and the other to the Coprodex.com which is a 301 redirect to the same page. This might be a bit more risky behaviour than the other links as it tries to get a double benefit of two links to that page.Many more sites under marketed
What is interesting is that two other Alcon businesses one that details with Lasik and the other Retina information are not listed within the site footer links on any of the sites, and would have been a prefect match for CataractSurgery.com.
- Lasik information – www.alconrefractive.com
- Vitreoretinal surgery information – www.alconretina.com
Overall Alcon Website Network Review
It seems that the company has done a number of things right, but it also seems that some of the search results are pure luck and is not as consistent as it possibly could be across the Alcon network as highlighted by the inconsistent use of footer links. There could be some more effort and planning spent on the footer links and would have a direct benefit for their brands and would likely result in an uplift in organic search traffic.
Hi David,
Thanks for your comments on our Alcon website presence. You have certainly identified the issues we are aware of and are working to correct over time. You correctly describe some of the challenges we face meeting FDA requirements with “lengthy and large” amounts of safety information that can detract from the user experience.
On a side note, I am continually surprised at the number of agencies who pitch their web capabilities to our marketing teams, including SEO, only to turn around and build sites that fail to even account for “SEO 101” elements. Maybe I need to refer them to your blog…..
Hello Colleen,
Thank you for the great feedback and you highlighted one of the reasons why sometimes its not always cost effective to manage multiple websites for niche products. Hopefully this can help people when they look at seo from an external perspective, there was almost enough material for another 2-3 blog posts on related aspects to both pharma and Alcon.
I know there is also problems been flagged by pushing a majority of that FDA requirements too far down the page, but I can also see much less issues arising with seo than adwords or social media. Happy to have you send more readers my way, hopefully the post gives people more understanding of the basic elements can affect your results.
David
Interesting, I heard that recently the FDA took a hit – and had a judgement ruled against them for infingements involving the first ammendment! Is this a sign of things to come?
I also believe its true that many “SEO specialists” are today’s modern pirates. At least they had the skull & crossbones so they were recognized – trying to find a good SEO company is not easy with so many out there promising a world of traffic. Great job you’re doing 🙂
Thanks for the comment, i haven’t followed some of the recent FDA issues, but im sure they don’t win ever battle they fight.