Case study · Pharmaceutical
How editorial link building took a UK online pharmacy from 136,000 to 487,000 visits a month
The campaign at a glance
- Client / sector
- A regulated UK online pharmacy
- Starting point
- 135,894 organic visits a month, but the treatment pages that make money were losing the most fought-over searches in UK health to national chains and the biggest online pharmacies. Across hair loss, weight loss and erectile dysfunction it held just 86 top-3 rankings.
- What we built
- 200 editorial links on UK health, lifestyle and consumer titles, aimed at one treatment category at a time. Spread across the whole site they'd have been lost against the chains, so we concentrated them where buyers decide. Each link sat inside an article about the choice a buyer is weighing.
- Headline result
- 3.6x organic traffic, 135,894 to 487,022 visits a month, while its two biggest rivals each lost about a quarter of theirs
- Timeframe
- 6 Months
- Headline KPI
- Top-3 rankings in core category, 16 to 217
The campaign
Six months, 200 links, and a 3.6x jump in traffic, in a market where its two biggest rivals each lost a quarter of theirs.
A pharmacy up against the giants
The pharmacy is regulated and pharmacist-led, and it sells treatments online for hair loss, weight loss, erectile dysfunction, eczema and hay fever. Those are some of the most fought-over searches in UK health, and the national chains and biggest online pharmacies owned them. In July of our campaign it drew 135,894 organic visits a month.
Win one treatment at a time
We didn't try to lift the whole site. We treated each treatment area as its own fight and built authority straight to the pages people buy from, category by category. Every link sat inside an article about the decision a buyer is actually weighing, on UK health, lifestyle and consumer titles.
200 links, every one approved
200 editorial links over six months, most of them to erectile dysfunction, weight loss and eczema. Every site was scored by M-Flux, passed our 33-point manual check, and was approved by the pharmacy before it went live.
3.6 times the traffic while its rivals shrank
Traffic climbed from the second month. By January it was 487,022 visits a month, 3.6 times where it started, and in November it touched 523,742. Over the same six months its two biggest online rivals each lost about a quarter of their traffic. The rankings moved in every category we touched. Top-3 positions in hair loss went from 16 to 217, in weight loss from 28 to 262, and in erectile dysfunction from 42 to 338. That's 86 top-3 rankings across three categories becoming 817. To buy that traffic as Google ads would have cost about $380,000 a month by January, against $95,000 in July. Over the six months, the extra traffic was worth more than $1.1 million.
The result, charted
One clear before/after view — honest axes, no truncated scale.
Method, not luck
Every site in this campaign was scored by M-Flux and passed a 33-point manual quality check, and the client approved it before the link went live. That's why the profile holds up — and why the result keeps compounding after the campaign ends.
What the client said
“We engaged with UK Linkology to initially look after our link building, but soon got them involved with on-site content. They have delivered on both to a very high standard and we are delighted to see meaningful increases in both revenue and traffic through our organic channel.
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Campaign FAQs
What did Linkology do for the Online Pharmacist?
We placed 200 editorial links over six months on UK health, lifestyle and consumer titles, each one pointed at a treatment category and approved by the pharmacy first.
What results did the campaign achieve?
Organic traffic went from 135,894 to 487,022 visits a month, 3.6 times higher, while its two biggest rivals each lost about a quarter. Top-3 rankings in hair loss went from 16 to 217.
How long did it take?
Six months, July to January . Traffic started climbing in the second month and peaked in the fifth.
Can you get results like this for my pharmaceutical brand?
Every brand starts from a different place, so results vary by your authority, competition and goals — we won't promise a number before we've looked at your site. What we can do is apply the same method: M-Flux-vetted editorial links, a 33-point manual quality check, and your approval on everything. Book a free strategy call and we'll give you an honest read.
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