Children’s Osteopathic Services SEO Case Study
SEO preservation and 17 months of compounding growth: 6x more keywords, 3x more clicks, and 5,400+ patient enquiries from search
When we took over this children’s osteopathic centre’s website, the priority was clear: preserve everything that was already working while building a foundation for growth. The existing site had rankings and traffic. Losing that during a rebuild wasn’t an option.
We launched the new site in September 2024 with surgical SEO preservation, maintaining every URL, every ranking signal, and every piece of content that was driving traffic. Then we built on that foundation. Seventeen months later, the results speak for themselves: keywords up from 51 to 335, first page rankings up from 31 to 132, and monthly clicks nearly tripled.
Preservation First, Then Growth
The first priority was protecting what they had. Before touching any code, we mapped every URL, every ranking keyword, and every internal link that was supporting those rankings. The new site launched with perfect URL preservation, proper redirects where needed, and enhanced content that maintained the semantic signals Google was rewarding.
Health services SEO requires particular care under Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines. Every page needed to maintain proper expertise signals while gaining modern design and improved user experience. The preservation worked: no ranking loss at launch, and immediate stability that set the stage for growth.
Where They Are Now
The numbers tell the story of compounding growth. In the first month after launch (September 2024), the site had 51 ranking keywords with 31 on the first page, generating 113 clicks from 628 impressions. Seventeen months later: 335 ranking keywords with 132 on the first page, generating over 1,000 clicks per 90-day period from 14,100+ impressions. That’s keywords up 557%, first page keywords up 326%, and 90-day clicks up from around 300 to over 1,000. Year-over-year, comparing the same 90-day period, clicks are up 30% and impressions are up 202%. Over the full 17 months, the site has generated 5,400+ clicks and 49,800+ impressions from Australian searches.
| Metric | First Month (Sept 2024) | Current (17 Months) | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ranking keywords | 51 | 335 | +557% |
| First page keywords | 31 | 132 | +326% |
| 90-day clicks | ~300 | 1,010 | +237% |
| 90-day impressions | ~1,900 | 14,100+ | +642% |
| Year-over-year click growth (same 90-day period) | 779 clicks → 1,010 clicks | +30% | |
| Year-over-year impression growth (same 90-day period) | 4,673 → 14,100+ | +202% | |
| 17-month total clicks | — | 5,400+ | |
| 17-month total impressions | — | 49,800+ | |
First Month = September 2024, the first full month after the new site launched.
Current = the most recent 90-day period as of January 2026.
Clicks = the number of times someone clicked through to the website from Google search results.
Impressions = the number of times the website appeared in someone’s Google search results. An impression counts every time the listing shows up, whether or not someone clicks on it.
Ranking keywords = the number of different search terms Google shows the website for in search results.
First page keywords = keywords ranking in positions 1-10, meaning they appear on the first page of Google search results where most clicks happen.
Year-over-year growth = comparison of the same 90-day period this year versus last year, showing how performance has improved over 12 months.
All data filtered to Australian searches via Google Search Console. Data current as of January 2026.
The headline is preservation plus compounding growth. The site went from 51 keywords to 335, a 6x increase. First page keywords grew from 31 to 132, more than quadrupling. And those aren’t vanity metrics: they represent parents searching for children’s osteopathic services and finding this practice in their search results.
What That Means in Practice
For a children’s healthcare practice, these numbers translate to families finding the care they need. Every search for “children’s osteopath” or “paediatric osteopathy” represents a parent looking for help. With 132 first page keywords, this practice appears when those parents search, rather than being buried on page two or three.
The preservation strategy meant no recovery period. Instead of losing visibility during a rebuild and spending months climbing back, the practice maintained its patient pipeline while building additional search presence.
If your health services website needs a rebuild without losing rankings, or you want to build on existing SEO to grow your patient base, get in touch. We understand how to preserve and grow healthcare SEO.
Frequently Asked Questions
How We Report These Results
Australian data only. Every number on this page comes from Google Search Console filtered to Australia. Unless specifically stated otherwise, we report on Australian search performance because that’s where our clients’ customers are. Worldwide numbers would inflate the results, and inflated numbers help nobody make good decisions.
Average position means ALL keywords. When we say average position improved from 42 to 27, that’s the average across every single keyword that site ranks for. Hundreds of them. Sometimes thousands. We don’t cherry-pick the best performers and ignore the rest. You’re only as good as your lowest-ranking keyword, and everything moves together. If we’re doing our job properly, Google expands the keywords, the synonyms, and the search terms you appear for as it recognises your site deserves to be there.
This is a process of proving to Google that your website should be the one people see when they search for what you offer. That proof builds over months, not days. It’s why consistency matters more than any single tactic.
Why SEO and Google Ads Work Better Together
We don’t recommend running Google Ads without SEO. The two have a symbiotic relationship that most businesses miss.
Google Ads fills the gaps where your SEO hasn’t reached yet. You’re paying to appear for the searches you haven’t earned organically. But those paid visits do more than generate leads directly. When someone clicks your ad and completes their search on your site, that signals to Google that your site satisfied the searcher. We call this a completed search session, and it’s one of the strongest signals you can send. That signal helps your organic rankings.
So Google Ads doesn’t just fill gaps… it actively helps your SEO by proving to Google that your site deserves to rank for those terms.
As your SEO builds and you start ranking organically for more terms, you can pull back your ad spend on those keywords and redirect it to the terms where you still need coverage. The result: your total cost per lead drops over time while your visibility keeps growing. Running only one is leaving results on the table. Both together compound each other’s effectiveness.
Want to understand how SEO and Google Ads would work together for your business? Talk to us and we’ll map it out for you.
