Problem: Organic Search
As Babylist’s organic growth started to plateau and showed signs of decline, we started to look for ways to meet users earlier in their pregnancy journey.
Babylist was fantastic about showing up first when users searched for “Baby registry”, but we wanted to compete in the pregnancy health and wellness space when users searched for terms like “prenatal vitamins” or “first trimester” or even “baby names”, for example.
Solution: Enter Expectful
Expectful was originally a pregnancy wellness and meditation app that Babylist acquired in early 2023. The plan was to rebuild Expectful from the ground up as a Pregnancy health and wellness SEO content site in order to drive engagement with an audience earlier in they pregnancy journey.
Because Expectful’s articles were medically reviewed and vetted, Babylist was able to leverage the medical efficacy of the content and establish credibility with users- which we learned was crucial when developing content in the health and wellness space.
Research & Insights
Through UXR, we gained crucial insights into our audience's challenges. Collaborating with our staff UXR we ran a foundational study, focusing on "zillenials"- the newest generation of parents. Our study explored their unique search habits and platform preferences. This targeted approach allowed us to align our offerings with their evolving needs effectively.
Insights
■ We were able to extract the differences between health and wellness from our audience:
■ Health-related topics encompass medical concerns requiring consultation with professionals such as doctors. They also required a higher degree of vetting both from medical reviewers as well as our audience.
■ Wellness-related subjects, on the other hand, focus on enhancing well-being beyond medical matters, including examples such as nutrition, sleep, and stress management.
■ Trustworthiness was paramount when it came to health and wellness information. Our audience used a variety of sources to assess trustworthiness, including: Medically cited sources, government websites, and finding multiple sources (3 or more) that aligned on a specific topic.
■ Short-form video content and social media were reserved primarily for wellness topics, playing a key role in fostering a sense of community.
■ Google still remained king as the primary tool for searching for health content although trustworthiness (as mentioned above) was paramount in making a decision.
Benchmarking
I conducted extensive competitive research to see what existing patterns existed in the health and wellness space but also to learn more about how our particular users were or were not being served. This helped considerably in creating a set of do's and don'ts tenets for us to abide by:
Do's
■ Meet users where they are
Are we meeting our younger audience where they research information? For example new platforms and forms of media like TikTok and Youtube? Do we meet their requirements when they search for vetted information on Google?
Are we meeting our younger audience where they research information? For example new platforms and forms of media like TikTok and Youtube? Do we meet their requirements when they search for vetted information on Google?
■ Rabbit holes
Create an experience where users can rapidly find the right content they're searching for and, just as importantly, deep dive down rabbit holes of information to continue their content search journey
Don'ts
Create an experience where users can rapidly find the right content they're searching for and, just as importantly, deep dive down rabbit holes of information to continue their content search journey
Don'ts
■ Spammy SEO sites
Do not create an SEO site riddled with advertisements and gray patterns which overwhelmed and confused the user as to what is real content vs. ads
Do not create an SEO site riddled with advertisements and gray patterns which overwhelmed and confused the user as to what is real content vs. ads
■ Dated
Many health and wellness sites felt stodgy and dated. It was paramount we create an experience that was tailored for new Gen Z parents
Many health and wellness sites felt stodgy and dated. It was paramount we create an experience that was tailored for new Gen Z parents
Execution and Design
Because of the scale of rebuilding Expectful from the ground up and the tight deadline (6 months), the execution of Expectful was exceptionally more cross-functional by nature.
■ SEO/Content
I partnered directly with the Director of SEO and content writers to understand SEO best practices such as inclusion of related articles, links and author & medical reviewer attribution. On the content side, I worked closely with the content team to understand how they were planing to compose articles from the layout to copy to images.
■ Engineering
Per usual, I worked closely with the dev team to shape and define the scope of work for Expectful. However this project required particularly more input and collaboration from design, including: defining the style guide and related components for scalability, and understanding how and designing for the parts of the site that was going to be served by the custom-built CMS.
■ Visual Design
Because I was the sole product designer working on Expectful, I leveraged the visual design team's refresh of the brand and colors to inform the style guide I worked with. Furthermore, they contributed heavily to the imagery and iconography that I used throughout the site.
I partnered directly with the Director of SEO and content writers to understand SEO best practices such as inclusion of related articles, links and author & medical reviewer attribution. On the content side, I worked closely with the content team to understand how they were planing to compose articles from the layout to copy to images.
■ Engineering
Per usual, I worked closely with the dev team to shape and define the scope of work for Expectful. However this project required particularly more input and collaboration from design, including: defining the style guide and related components for scalability, and understanding how and designing for the parts of the site that was going to be served by the custom-built CMS.
■ Visual Design
Because I was the sole product designer working on Expectful, I leveraged the visual design team's refresh of the brand and colors to inform the style guide I worked with. Furthermore, they contributed heavily to the imagery and iconography that I used throughout the site.
Success
In terms of metrics of success, Expectful surpassed several milestones in its initial launch:
In terms of metrics of success, Expectful surpassed several milestones in its initial launch:
■ Expectful currently has 6,381 keyword results on page 1 of google. This is 10x of Expectful's baseline of 643 keywords in the 1-10 position on google.
■ 615.6k email subscribers (+54% YoY). Meeting the goal of 500k email subscribers was the number one priority for the team and will lay the foundation for site traffic and user traction in 2024 and beyond.
■ In terms of page views, Expectful hi 226k total page views. This number fell short of the goal of 500k total page views, however this figure was an arbitrary number and page views was not a primary metric by which we measured success.
