SEO Strategy

Who we optimize whallc.com for, what they search for, how content earns trust on medical topics and how we measure results.

The SEO page covers the tools and setup. This page covers the plan: who we optimize for, what they search for and how we measure it.

It's a living document. Update it as Search Console data and WHA's priorities change.

Scope. This reflects how whallc.com is actually built, plus an informed read on its search strategy. It's a starting point, not a finalized SEO program, and it's meant to work alongside whoever owns search, not replace them.

What the site already handles

A lot of the groundwork is automatic. The strategy below builds on this, it doesn't start from scratch.

Concern	How the site handles it
Meta, titles, canonicals, sitemaps, social tags	Yoast, on every page
Structured data	`Physician` + ratings on provider pages and `MedicalClinic` on location pages, injected automatically (details)
URL structure	Clean `/services/`, `/providers/`, `/locations/` hierarchy (post types)
Internal linking	Providers, locations and services interlink automatically through their taxonomy relationships
Local SEO data	Location coordinates auto-geocode from the address on save
Performance	Lazy-loaded images, automatic WebP, conditional Mapbox and cache-busted assets
Accessibility	Semantic markup, skip link and ARIA built into the Theme System
Redirects	URL changes won't 404, handled by Redirection
Provider credibility	Credentials, NPI (National Provider Identifier), specialties and ratings on every provider profile

Audience & personas

These are grouped by how people search and arrive, not by demographics. They come from WHA's real services, locations and conversion paths. The diamonds in each flow are the moments where content and SEO either win the patient or lose them. The first three are where SEO content earns the most; the rest are more about findability than marketing.

1. New patient

Primary. Researching and comparing before they book.

2. Insurance checker

Primary. Confirms coverage before committing. WHA puts this front and center, so it's a real entry point.

3. Content arrival

Primary. Lands on an article from a health search, top of funnel.

4. Returning patient

Handling logistics, not looking for care. Mostly branded or direct traffic, so SEO's job is branded coverage and crawlable utility pages.

5. Referral arrival

High intent, low effort. They have a provider name and want the profile to rank and convince.

6. Location finder

Needs a specific office's address, hours or phone.

Cross-cutting: multilingual patients. They span all six personas. The site can translate through optional Google Translate or DeepL, so content should translate cleanly: plain language, real text rather than text baked into images, and semantic markup.

Search intent

Every page should answer one clear search intent.

Intent	Example searches	Best page
Informational	"is acetaminophen safe in pregnancy," "menopause symptoms"	Blog, life-stage pages, service detail
Branded / navigational	"WHA bill pay," "MyHealth login," a provider's name	Utility pages, provider profiles, portal
Local / ready to book	"OB-GYN near me," "gynecologist Portland"	Service pages, location pages, provider profiles

Keywords & topics

Group content into topic clusters so the relationships are clear to readers and search engines.

Services are the hubs. Obstetrics, Gynecology, Nurse-Midwifery, Wellness, Urogynecology and the rest.
Conditions and topics are the spokes. Each article ↔ its service hub and the providers who treat it.
Life stages are a second path. Teens, pregnancy and menopause ↔ the relevant services.
Insurance and billing answer high-intent questions like "do you take my plan?"

Then link them together: service hub ↔ condition article ↔ provider ↔ location. Good internal links help patients and search engines alike.

Content credibility (E-E-A-T)

Health content is held to a higher bar. Google calls it "Your Money or Your Life", and weighs Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust more heavily. What that means here:

Show expertise. Put credentials, specialties and NPI on every provider profile.
Name the author. Health articles should have an author, and ideally a medical reviewer and a review date.
Surface reputation. Patient ratings and outside recognition (like Portland Monthly's Top Providers) are real trust signals.
Stay accurate. Keep contact info and provider bios correct and consistent.
Be technically sound. HTTPS, fast pages and accessible markup all count.

The test: a reader, and a search engine, should be able to tell who stands behind a health claim and why they're qualified.

Measurement

Track SEO across these layers, from visibility in search to the appointments it produces:

Layer	What to watch	Source
Technical health	pages indexed, crawl errors, Core Web Vitals	Google Search Console
Visibility	impressions, clicks, position, CTR (click-through rate)	Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools
Landing pages	organic visits and top searches per page	Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, analytics
Behavior	where people click, scroll and drop off	Microsoft Clarity or Hotjar — evaluate carefully, see below
Outcomes	organic visits that become a call, an appointment or directions	Event Tracking

Behavior tracking may not be appropriate for this site. Session-recording and heatmap tools like Clarity and Hotjar capture what visitors see and type, which on a medical site risks recording protected health information (PHI): names, appointment details, anything entered into forms or the scheduling flow. If considered at all, it needs aggressive input/field masking, a careful review of the vendor's data handling and BAA terms, and sign-off on the privacy implications. In most cases it's safer to skip session recording here and read behavior from Search Console plus the first-party event tracking.

SEO: the tools and setup
Local SEO: the local-search playbook
Event Tracking: measuring outcomes

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