Search Engine Promotion for an Aesthetic Medicine Online Store

The owner of the Derma Solution website approached ITForce through a referral in June 2022. The initial request was to expand their online presence through pay-per-click advertising. This became a key moment in our partnership, as by August, to accelerate growth and improve the company’s online visibility, the client decided to include search engine promotion in their marketing strategy.

Paid advertising delivers quick results but requires ongoing funding to remain effective. In contrast, SEO can provide stable traffic over time without the continuous costs associated with ads. This reduces dependence on paid campaigns and leads to a more cost-effective long-term marketing strategy.

ITForce recommends integrating multiple online channels to maximize the reach of target customers and enhance the effectiveness of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.

Online store selling aesthetic medicine products

Derma Solution is a Seoul-based company operating in the aesthetic medicine niche since 2018, and offers a wide range of products. It serves both B2B and B2C clients, providing them with high-quality skincare products. The assortment includes fillers, boosters, and other cosmetic solutions.

All products are manufactured in South Korea, ensuring their quality and reliability. Orders are shipped worldwide using trusted delivery services such as FedEx and EMS.

Brands Partnered with by Derma Solution:

• Neuramis;
• Chaeum;
• Dermalax;
• Revolax and others.

Our team was given access to a website that had not yet implemented any SEO strategies, and the site owner was unsure how search engine optimization should be carried out. To address this, we conducted a series of consultative video meetings to discuss the key aspects of SEO and their importance for successful website promotion. ITForce specialists provided detailed explanations and clarifications to ensure the client fully understood the process.

The Derma Solution project provided the ITForce team with an opportunity to showcase our SEO expertise, professionalism, and ability to tailor our approach to the unique requirements of each client.

Analysis of the Aesthetic Medicine Product Niche and Competitor Websites

Google has strict requirements for content related to medicine due to its impact on people’s health and lives. Such content falls under the YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) and EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) categories.

EEAT is critically important for any pages that contain medical information. This category includes content that may have a significant impact on a user’s health, financial well-being, or safety. YMYL pages are expected to demonstrate a high level of EEAT. As a result, Google must ensure that such content is accurate, trustworthy, and published by credible sources. For example, inaccurate medical information can lead to serious health issues. That’s why Google takes extensive measures to prevent the spread of false or harmful medical content.

As a result, Google may suspend ad accounts and hosting services if they violate these guidelines, including restricting the publication of certain products on the website. While managing pay-per-click advertising in February 2023, we encountered a complete ad account suspension with no possibility of recovery due to the nature of the products involved (specifically, prescription and injectable items). This required us to handle the content on the client’s website with extreme care regarding what was published and how it was presented.

Additionally, while improving the website’s expertise, it is important to focus on collecting customer reviews and providing complete, accurate information in product listings. This helps build trust in the website and enhances its ranking in search engines. Therefore, we addressed this task as well.

Competitor Analysis

The results of the competitive environment analysis confirmed that the aesthetic medicine segment is represented by numerous players and marked by intense competitive activity. The industry also has its own specific characteristics that require a thorough and detailed approach to developing a promotion strategy.

The analysis of competitor websites in the niche provided the following insights:

• Domain age: 1–2 years
• Domain Rating (DR): 4.6–20
• CMS: Custom-built or WordPress
• Number of referring domains: 21–128
• Indexed pages: 283–1,660
• Monthly traffic: 62–3,870 users
• Number of keywords (USA): 106–454
• Google US Top 10 queries: 8–101
• Most commonly used social networks: Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest
• Blog presence: 1 competitor has a blog

Following the niche analysis, our team concluded that the semantic research should be guided by a keyword strategy focused on promoting product and brand pages. However, we had to take into account that not all brands and products had active search demand—some landing pages had no queries at all, while others were associated with very low-frequency keywords.

For the future, we recommend the following to Derma Solution:

• Consider expanding the product range by introducing both new categories and additional products and brands. This step would help increase market presence and attract new customers.
• Start actively maintaining a blog focusing on incorporating informational queries into the articles. This way, users will visit the site for explanatory content, which will help increase organic traffic and improve the website’s visibility in search engines.
• Actively leverage other traffic sources such as social media and advertising. These channels help expand the audience, reach target users, and attract new customers. Additionally, it’s important to continue building brand awareness to strengthen consumer trust and remain competitive in the market.

Commercial Factors Analysis

Commercial factors on a website are the aspects and characteristics that influence its ability to attract and retain an audience, as well as generate revenue. These factors include various elements and strategies aimed at the commercial success of the site. Moreover, Google takes commercial factors into account when ranking websites.

An analysis of the commercial factors of the Derma Solution website revealed that certain changes are needed to improve its performance, specifically:

• In the website header and footer — business hours.
• In the services section — photos in the Before and After block.
• On the website — an option to add items to Favorites and Saved for Later.
• On the website — a dedicated FAQ page or block.

All recommendations were provided to the client for review and implementation.

Technical audit of a website featuring products in the aesthetic medicine niche

It is recommended to conduct a technical audit of the website regularly. At least once every six months—and especially when implementing major updates, such as a design overhaul, CMS migration, or structural changes. This helps promptly identify and resolve technical issues that could negatively affect the site's search engine optimization. A technical audit is carried out as soon as the website enters the SEO service phase.

The initial technical audit of the website revealed the following issues:

• errors in the configuration of robots.txt and sitemap.xml;
• a large number of redirects due to the absence of the HTTPS protocol;
• missing noindex tags on certain pages;
• incorrect use of canonical tags;
• irrelevant links to external resources;
• low page loading speed;
• lack of semantic markup for contact information on the Homepage and Contact page using Microdata;
• absence of properly structured human-readable URLs (clean URLs);
• errors in URL generation for blog pages;
• junk and broken pages present both in the index and on the website.

We assigned a priority level to each issue and passed it on to the developer for implementation. It is worth noting that technical issues on the website are resolved promptly. Our recommendations are implemented with minimal delays by the client’s specialists.

As of October 2023, we conducted a follow-up technical audit of the website and are working on fixing the remaining issues.

Usability Audit of the Website

A usability audit is a detailed analysis of a website that evaluates its user-friendliness and the ease with which visitors can complete conversion actions. The audit reviews structure, buttons, colors, forms, and more.

Recommendations provided by our team following the initial usability audit of the Derma Solution website:

• implement a complete registration form;
  make the phone number and email in the footer clickable;
• place the Wishlist in a prominent location, such as the header;
• fix display issues with filters on both mobile and desktop versions;
• improve the appearance of product cards on the Homepage;
• optimize the text descriptions on brand pages;
• resolve errors on the WHOLESALE page.

Users are more likely to return to a website that is easy to use. That’s why it’s essential to address any display issues on the site. A usability audit focuses on improving the user experience, which can also have a positive impact on the website’s SEO performance in search engines.

In December 2022, we implemented eCommerce tracking in Google Analytics. This allowed us to collect and monitor data related to visitor events and conversions on the platform. This strategic move enables a deeper understanding of user behavior and transactional actions, ultimately supporting a more data-driven and informed approach to online marketing.

Website Semantic Core

According to the approved promotion strategy, we began collecting semantic data with a focus on the client’s priority brands and products. Derma Solution is committed to continuous growth and meeting the needs of its customers, actively expanding its product range. As a result, we receive a new list of products from the client each month for semantic research and carry out a full range of tasks—from collecting keyword queries for the products and writing texts and meta tags to creating content for external promotion. This helps meet user demand for high-quality products in the field of aesthetic medicine. To support the blog, we analyze competitors and suggest article topics.

Our work focuses on promoting specific products, so we concentrate on collecting semantic data for individual product pages. The search volume for these pages may be low, medium, or even nonexistent. At times, our team also gathers semantic data for brand pages. However, we do not work with category pages, as they contain broad, high-frequency keywords with extremely high competition. Therefore, our SEO approach is centered on promoting individual products and brands rather than general categories.

Content workflow plan:

• a specialist on the client’s side is responsible for writing the website content;
• another professional verifies the accuracy of the information;
• the ITForce team creates metadata based on keyword research for the approved articles;
• a client-side specialist publishes the finalized materials on the website.

As a result, we produce optimized and accurate content that aligns with user search queries and supports the SEO promotion of the Derma Solution website.

Link Building for a Website in the Aesthetic Medicine Niche

We face certain challenges while implementing the strategy to increase the number of external links to the client’s website. Not all platforms are willing to publish content related to aesthetic medicine, and we frequently receive rejections from webmasters. To address this, we pre-select link placement platforms with a buffer to avoid issues caused by refusals. This way, we always have a backup option for publication.

In addition, website owners often have specific requirements for the content—for example, they may not accept overly promotional texts or require articles to be at least 1,000 words long. If a website agrees to publish content on the topic of aesthetic medicine, we create a dedicated article tailored for that platform and submit it to the webmasters for publication. This approach allows us to effectively promote content despite the challenges related to link placement.

We developed the link-building strategy with a focus on gradual link growth. It was important to determine the appropriate number of dofollow links, anchor text distribution, and the percentage of links pointing to the homepage.

Regarding the budget allocated for off-site optimization, we adhere to the agreed-upon plan, and the client consistently follows our recommendations.

SEO Results for a Website Offering Aesthetic Medicine Products

Derma Solution takes a responsible approach to its online marketing strategy. The company carefully evaluates and implements expert recommendations from ITForce specialists to enhance the website’s functionality and overall performance. This collaborative effort enables us to achieve set goals and maximize the return on SEO efforts for website optimization.

Visibility and Keyword Rankings in Google Search Results

Website visibility in search results refers to how prominently a website or page appears on the search engine results pages (SERPs) when users enter specific search queries or keywords.

Essentially, it is an indicator of how easily and frequently users can find the website when searching online for relevant information, products, or services.

Fig. 1 – Visibility and Top-Ranking Keywords (October 2022 – October 2023)

SE Ranking includes only the keywords we track based on established priorities. In reality, the website may rank for a larger number of phrases, but we focus on those that have been collected and agreed upon with the client.

After one year of collaboration, we’ve achieved the following results:

• 261 keywords in the Top 10 — 20% of the priority keywords rank on the first 10 positions in Google;
  9 — the website’s average position in search results;
• 3,628 — projected traffic growth according to the tool’s forecast;
• 56.7 — website visibility score in the search engine;
• 4 search features — the website appears in rankings, related searches, and other enhanced search result elements.

According to SE Ranking’s definition, the average position is a metric calculated by dividing the sum of all keyword rankings over a given period by the total number of keywords in the project.

Fig. 2 – Website Position Changes from August 2022 to October 2023

The SE Ranking platform provides data on keywords in the Top 10. In October 2022, we started with 81 rankings across all priority queries, and the project now holds an average position of 9. The Derma Solution website currently ranks on the first page of Google for 261 out of 1,302 keywords, which accounts for 20%.

Fig. 3 – Data on Keywords in Google’s Top 100

Distribution of the website’s keyword rankings:

• 56 keywords rank in 1st position on Google (the client’s website appears first in the search results for these queries);
• 140 keywords are in the Top 3 positions on Google’s first page (positions 1–3);
• 261 keywords fall within the Top 10 search results (positions 1–10 on Google).

As of September 2023, the client’s website appears in search results for 1,302 priority keywords. Notably, 56 of these keywords rank in the first position on Google. It is important to note that this data reflects only the queries selected and uploaded to the analysis tool..

More details on the client’s priority keywords:

Fig. 4 - Priority Keywords for the Derma Solution Website

The client’s website ranks in the Top 10 for priority keywords, with a significant portion appearing in the first position in search results.

Backlink Profile of a Website Selling Aesthetic Medicine Products

The more authoritative and trusted platforms that link to a website, the higher its ranking in search results.

Fig. 5 - Link Growth Dynamics for the Website

As of October 2023, the results are as follows:

• 155 referring domains linking to the client’s website;
• 19 domain rating of the client’s website;
• 6 rating of the website’s homepage.

Search engines carefully evaluate content for trustworthiness and reliability, especially for websites in the aesthetic medicine niche. That’s why we focus on securing links from authoritative and reputable sources that align with Google’s EEAT and YMYL guidelines.

Organic Traffic of a Website in the Aesthetic Medicine Niche

Before the start of our collaboration, no search engine optimization methods had been applied to the website. Therefore, we present the full dynamics of organic traffic from August 2022 to October 2023.

Fig. 6 – Search Traffic to the Website (August 2022 – October 2023, Google Analytics 4)

Insights from the screenshot on organic traffic to the client’s website:

• 25,989 users accessed the website via the organic channel since August 2022;
• 25,511 visitors engaged with the website in some way;
• 1.34 minutes is the average time a visitor spends on the site;
• 53.73% of all conversions were completed by users from organic traffic;
• 35.26% of the total revenue was generated through the organic search channel.

Let’s take a look at the dynamics of traffic and other website metrics for the periods of September/October 2023 compared to September/October 2022, based on data from Google Analytics 4:

:

Fig. 7 - Comparison of Organic Traffic: September–October 2023 vs. September–October 2022

• 357 users per month visited the client’s website in August–September 2022
• 7,057 users were recorded in September–October 2023
• +1,270.29% increase in users
• +1,456.98% increase in engagement per session
• +14,342.86% increase in total conversions.

Throughout our year-long collaboration, the client’s website showed a significant increase in organic traffic, reaching 1,270.29 percent. We also observed growth in key metrics such as average engagement time and the number of conversions per session. These positive trends indicate that the website has become more effective at meeting user needs. As a result, our search promotion strategy improved the user experience and increased online user engagement.

Plans for Upcoming Periods

We recently integrated Hotjar into the website, a platform that helps analyze user behavior on-site. Hotjar provides comprehensive web analytics data presented in a visually intuitive format, making it easier to identify user behavior and needs through tools such as heatmaps, session recordings, and more.

So far, we have gathered initial data using Hotjar and identified specific issues that are currently being addressed. As data collection continues, the ITForce team will regularly review the new insights, enabling us to identify and quickly resolve any emerging problems. This ongoing process will help ensure an improved user experience on the Derma Solution website.

Going forward, the comprehensive scope of SEO work includes the following tasks:

• verifying the implementation of tasks from the technical audit and Hotjar analysis
• selecting new blog topics
• adjusting individual meta tags based on position analysis
• working on link building (selecting donors and purchasing links)
• collecting informational semantics for new blog articles
• managing website indexing (analysis via Google Search Console)
• analyzing website positions and adjusting the development strategy when needed
• optimizing newly added products on the website, including semantic research, metadata creation, content development, and optimization

We follow the established SEO strategy, closely monitor the website’s positions in search engines, and remain attentive to the actions of our competitors. This ongoing vigilance ensures that we continuously adapt and evolve our SEO efforts to maintain a competitive edge in the digital landscape.