Life Science SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the set of strategies scientific companies apply to their websites to rank higher on Google or Bing searches.
This goes from optimizing the website structure to posting articles.
Most life science companies operate in a B2B environment. However, they rarely look at other B2B industries for guidance. A great example is organic search.
Across B2B sectors, organic search accounts for 53% of inbound leads and contributes 44.6% of total revenue. Compared to the traffic generated by paid social media, SEO drives over 1000% more traffic.
Additionally, according to Search Engine Journal, SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail) have a 1.7% close rate.
Despite this, how many life science companies focus on content creation for their website?
More often than not, they’re too busy with LinkedIn.
The best part is that content marketing costs 62% less than outbound tactics, but generates 3 times more leads per dollar.
Google and SEO
The E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is central to how Google ranks websites.
The E-E-A-T framework can be split into three pillar:
- Content: Website’s content should show expertise while including what your audience searches for.
- Authority: Content should proof you are offering a new, unique perspective. We are not only talking about publications or being listed in directories, but about sharing articles with original opinions and exclusive content (i.e., CXO’s interviews).
- Technical: The structure behind your website: metadata, sitemaps, UX design, etc.
The Problem with Authority in the Life Science Industry
Scientists are allergic to marketing. When they become CXO, they don’t want to invest resources on “superficial” strategies.
“Writing an article about the conference we attended? Just make a quick social media post.”
“Posting an article on our opinion on the new FDA guidelines? Unnecessary, the CXO doesn’t have time.”
“Let’s just focus on the science”.
Unfortunately, that’s not how the world works.
And neither does Google.
New content comes from opinions, real-life experiences, and years of R&D expertise.
Summarizing basic biology concepts to explain your technology is not going to help.
That’s why a strong marketing strategy for a life science company requires a close collaboration between the technical and marketing teams.
How to Create Original Content
There is something wonderful and almost magical about life science or technology companies: they’re constantly pushing the limits of what is possible.
People leading these companies have a myriad of opinions about their products or where the market is heading.
That content is completely original, and every CXO carries it with them.
That’s why active CXO social media accounts are such a powerful marketing tool.
If you can extract the CXOs knowledge you will have first quality content for your website and social media channels.
A few ways to do this:
- Articles/talks selected by the CXOs themselves
- Interviews with the technical team about the past, present and future of the industry
- Commentary from CXOs on recent regulatory updates
- Breakdowns of internal case studies
- Insights from real client conversations or chats during conferences
Increase Authority While Maintaining Confidentiality
Life science companies often avoid publishing details due to regulatory or competitive constraints.
It’s understandable. But you need to manage a way around.
Here are a few examples of confidential-friendly content:
- Publishing case studies with blinded assets or anonymized conditions (easier said than done)
- Sharing general timelines, typical deliverables or bottlenecks compared to your deliverables
- Highlighting validation quality, compliance standards, and scientific reasoning
- Explaining principles and workflows instead of disclosing exact parameters
- Describing typical challenges and how your team approaches them, without specifying custom internal methods
SEO is about expertise, not sensitive data. Google rewards clarity, structured explanations, and problem solving.
Practical Tips to Improve Life Science SEO
Here are a few things every life science website should do:
- FAQ pages: address real industry questions, so when people search for them, you will appear first. We are talking about questions like “What is GMP?” or “How do you scale mRNA production?”
- Focus on content generation: from cornstone content (the basics of your technology), to educational articles (original and useful content explaining your project) to case studies (proof to support your content).
- Use copywriting techniques to avoid visitors running away from your website.
- Invest in UX/UI design and make it easy for your visitors to reach out.
- Structured data and content: differentiate between pillar pages, blog posts and services pages.
- Rich media: Use diagrams, process visuals, and short lab videos because Google rewards unique and original content
Conclusions
- Content marketing is a low cost growth channel that outperforms outbound tactics and most paid media.
- Authority is one the missing pillars in life science SEO strategies.
- Original insights from scientists and CXOs are the most effective way to build authority.
