Case study
A national healthcare staffing app
22,300monthly Google visits from searches without the name by Jan 2023.
Over 30 times more than about 700 in Jun 2022, before our first article.
Mar 2022 to Jan 2023. A search tracking tool's estimate (SEMrush), from the 12 reports we sent the client. Not Google's own count.
The business A national app that books nurses into shifts
The work A content plan and articles on the things nurses search for
Of our articles still on the app's blog in Oct 2026
Articles written for the blog from our briefs
Searches in Google's top three, up from 84 (estimate)
Searches the app showed up for, up from 1,333 (estimate)
Line chart of monthly Google visits from searches without the name, Jun 2022 to Jan 2023. The last point, Jan 2023, is 22,300.
Each point is SEMrush's estimate from the last report we sent that month, from about 700 in Jun 2022 to about 22,300 in Jan 2023. Not Google's own count.
Searches without the name
50% of their Google traffic came from searches without the name
SEMrush's estimate of where the app's US Google traffic came from, read from the 12 dated reports we emailed them. The climb starts about three months after the first articles went live.
By Jan 2023 it was half and half: about one Google visit in two came from someone not typing the app's name.
A search without the name is someone typing the job or the pay, like "hospice nurse salary", instead of the app's name. Those people were not looking for the app, so each visit is a chance to win someone new. Searches for the name come from people who already know the app, some of them logging in.
Where they started
A strong name, and few people finding them any other way
The app books nurses, nursing assistants and other healthcare workers into shifts. People already searched for it by name.
Almost nobody found the app while searching for nursing pay, careers or specialties. The blog sat on its own separate address, away from the main site.
What we did
The work, in plain words
A technical audit of the site, and five lists of fixes for the developers to work through.
A content plan built around five big subjects nurses search for: nursing school, specialties, pay, how to become a nurse, and a nurse calendar.
A new blog design, and a plan to bring the blog onto the main site.
141 articles, each from a brief we wrote, written by writers we hired and loaded onto the blog by our team.
Fixes we found and tracked with the app's developers until they were live: a home page hidden from Google, missing sitemaps, and tables that broke on phones.
Recap emails with the reports behind them, so the client could see each step.
Google's own count
About 30,000 clicks in 28 days, by Google's own email
Reached before our first article went live.
Reached in the last month of our contract.
Google emails a site when it passes a round number, so each one is a floor, not an exact count. Both count every click from Google search, name searches included. The total grew less because at the start 95% of it was people typing the app's name, some of them to log in, and our work went after the other searches.
Where the app shows up
417 searches with the app in Google's top three, up from 84
Up from 84 in Jun 2022.
Up from 1,333 in Jun 2022.
By Jan 2023 the biggest search without the name was "labor and delivery nurse salary". The app ranked first for it, with one of our articles.
Both are SEMrush estimates from the same reports, Jun 2022 and Jan 2023.
Google's top answer
Google put the app's nurse pay articles at the top of its results
The app's own article, at the top of Google's results.
Answered from the same article.
The app's hospice pay article, at the top of Google's results.
9,900 monthly searches, SEMrush estimate.
1,900 monthly searches, SEMrush estimate.
74,000 monthly searches, SEMrush estimate.
AI assistants were not a traffic source yet in 2022. ChatGPT launched Nov 30, 2022, eight weeks before our last report.
The two snippets and the one People also ask answer are from our own recap screenshots. The three ranks are from the SEMrush report we sent on Jan 25, 2023. Results move day to day, so these are the dates we saw them, not a standing promise. We checked every traffic and search email we hold for the window and found 0 mentions of an AI tool.
The short version
What it added up to
New people finding them. Over 30 times more visits from searches without the name, and 4.87% to 49.75% of Google traffic (estimate).
Google's own count. About 30,000 clicks in 28 days by Jan 2023, from about 22,000 before our first article.
A blog that stays. 141 articles written, and 134 of them still on the app's blog in Oct 2026.
Where every number came from
Every number, and its record
Each figure on this page comes from a saved record we can open on a call. The app stays unnamed, so the records are named by what they are.
- Share of Google traffic and visits from searches without the name, and the chartSEMrush reports we emailed the client at the time. An outside estimate of US Google results, not Google's own count, Jun 2022 to Jan 2023
- Searches in Google's top three and in its resultsSEMrush reports we emailed the client at the time. An outside estimate of US Google results, not Google's own count, Jun 2022 to Jan 2023
- Clicks from Google searchGoogle Search Console's own emails about the app's website, Mar 2022 to Jan 2023
- Google's featured snippets and People also ask answer, from our recap screenshotsGoogle results screenshots and a SEMrush report, attached to our recap emails, read from our saved copies, Oct 2022 to Nov 2022
- Page-one Google rankings and their search volumes, SEMrush estimateGoogle results screenshots and a SEMrush report, attached to our recap emails, read from our saved copies, Jan 2023
- Check of every record we hold for mentions of AI toolsEvery email, report and Search Console record we hold for the app's window, checked for mentions of AI tools, Mar 2022 to Jan 2023
- Articles sent for review, and still liveOur project record: every draft we sent for review, and the live blog, May 2022 to Mar 2023