Middle Eastern Healthcare Provider
Related Features
Services
Platforms
- Sitecore Experience Platform
- Sitecore Search
- Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
- Google Tag Manager (GTM)
- Azure DevOps
Overview
Unlocking international potential
Our healthcare client has a strong reputation in the Middle East and wanted to build on this to attract more patients from other parts of the world. This demanded a wholesale transformation of its digital offering.
Working closely with teams across the care organization, Horizontal Digital shaped and delivered a broad overhaul of its digital presence, designed to raise its profile with international audiences – including those seeking information via search engines and generative AI chatbots.
As a result, the healthcare provider now has a digital front door that truly reflects the medical excellence and sophistication it provides, and that meets the needs of prospective international patients and its other key personas. This is demonstrated by a surge in overall user engagement, and a 22% increase in page views per session by visitors from outside its home country.
The Situation
A healthcare leader seeking to grow its reputation worldwide
Our client has built itself an enviable reputation in healthcare across the Middle East.With ambitious plans to attract more international patients, the organization knew it needed to build its profile globally, to match its strong regional standing. It partnered with Horizontal Digital to create a digital experience that truly reflected its world-leading medical excellence, and to evolve its messaging to appeal to international audiences.
In addition to the headline aim of attracting patients from around the world, the care provider needed the transformation to:
- Deliver value quickly and incrementally, starting with the highest priorities
- Align key stakeholders and department leads across a complex organization
- Strengthen its global reputation to attract both patients and world-class medical talent
- Align with its data-first ethos
The Response
Deep discovery points to content-first delivery approach
To scope out the digital strategy that would support the healthcare provider’s vision, we ran a wide-ranging and in-depth discovery in just eight weeks. This included:
- ~30 workshops with teams from HR to surgery, to gather insightsand secure buy-in
- User experience (UX) audit
- Content audit
- SEO and analytics audit
- Data audit
- Technical audit
- Detailed benchmarking against other leading international healthcare providers
- Persona creation
- Design direction
- Proposed information architecture (IA)
- Proposed technical architecture to maximize value from the care provider's Sitecore investment
- Prioritized roadmap with 100+ items
Content-first approach for SEO and GEO
We knew the website could play a central role in attracting more international patients, even before they land on it. With people using search engines and generative artificial intelligence (genAI) chatbots to find information about health conditions, the care provider’s digital experiences needed to be search- and generative-engine optimized.
We took a content-first approach, building valuable, original material that would show up in search results and chatbot responses. Phase one focused on the most important pages, including migrating high-value content from secondary URLs to the main domain. But this wasn’t simply a lift-and-shift. We developed a comprehensive copy guide in both Arabic and English, alongside step-by-step guidance, to help the care provider shape the final pages. This process enabled us to create a huge volume of new content with a relatively small team.
Modernized user interface while tying in with existing pages
We weren’t overhauling the entire digital experience in one go, and some of our user journeys would take people from new pages to older ones. To ensure this transition was as smooth as possible, we took care to ensure our modernized look and feel retained sufficient continuity with remaining parts of the website.
Enhanced search
Upgrading the site search was critical for international audiences. We introduced a unified search experience, enabling users to find everything across the website and key domains from a single place.
Analytics
The organization is a leader in data-driven healthcare. To bring its digital experience platform in line with its wider medical operations, we incorporated modern analytics. The reports this produces feed into strategic and operational decision-making within the care provider.
The Results
A transformed experience for international patients – optimized for search and genAI
Following go-live of the first phase, the care provider's digital front-of-house has been completely transformed. New content is the hero, covering everything from treatments on offer to details about travelling to the region for care. This offers the six key personas and the search engines and genAI chatbots they’re using essential insights to inform decisions about their care, and to position the organization as a global health leader.
Analytics data shows that since go-live, people are engaging more deeply with the care provider’s digital experiences. Of particular interest, given its international ambitions, is the 22% increase in pages viewed per session by visitors from outside its home country.
And we’re not easing off the pace. Hot on the heels of the first phase, we’re kicking off the second. This will see Horizontal teams transitioning the next set of capabilities to the new digital experience. In parallel, we’ll be helping the organization build its internal content delivery capability. This will empower it to start generating a consistent flow of original material, which will further enhance its reputation internationally.
22%Increase in pages viewed per session by international visitors
90%More page views overall
47%Increase in user sessions
1.84xUptick in engagement with new navigation menus
3xIncrease in engagement time per session
8 weeksTo deliver the wide-ranging discovery
22 weeksFor a comprehensive overhaul of the most important pages
22%Uplift in total user interactions
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