Search Engine Optimization for Behavior Change

Background:

Oklahoma has a tobacco problem, one that costs the state 7,500 lives and $1.62 billion in healthcare costs annually. One in 5 Oklahoma adults smokes cigarettes, our state remains unprotected by tobacco-free policies and alternative tobacco use is on the rise with our youth.

Since 2008, Tobacco Stops With Me (TSWM) has worked to tackle the state’s tobacco problem by educating the public about the negative effects and impact of tobacco and encouraging action in communities.

Program background:

From small local shops to Fortune 500 companies, every organization has a marketing budget that they have to get the most out of. Health communications and behavior change organizations often have even more hurdles. Every dollar must make an impact in an uphill battle. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a marketing tactic that helps new and existing assets work harder and requires little monetary investment. The Tobacco Stops With Me website is full of highly educational content about the dangers of tobacco, big tobacco’s deceptions, e-cigarettes and smokeless products.

A significant SEO effort was deployed during 2018 to increase search rankings and website traffic from Oklahomans who are seeking to be more informed on these topics. Key tasks included keyword research, improving meta-data, interlinking pages, image alt text, refreshed page hierarchy, and proper anchor text usage. While SEO was used across the website, we focused efforts on the smokeless products pages because this audience is traditionally more difficult to reach and properly educate.

Evaluation Methods and Results:

By understanding how our audience was seeking information and updating the website accordingly, we improved user experience and our rankings on search engines. When comparing 2018 to 2017, we found the following:

• Total ranking keywords on the Tobacco Stops With Me website increased by 77%, from 2,340 in 2017 to 4,145 in 2018
• Total visits from Organic Search increased by 171%
• Visits to the Smokeless page from Organic Search increased by 770%
• Ranking position for the term “smokeless tobacco” increased 47 spots to position 4

Conclusions:

Our audiences are actively seeking trusted information about critical health-related topics. Through on-going SEO we can increase the likelihood of educating and activating our state. While paid media efforts can be highly effective, nothing can replace the value and cost-efficiency that effective SEO brings to a website.

Implications for research and/or practice:

SEO can be used by any health communication professional to improve their audiences’ experience with their website and help bring new audiences to the website.