SEO for life science business and the impact of AI search.

Have you ever wondered how your life science business can stand out in a crowded digital landscape, especially with the explosion of AI-driven search technologies? As the competition intensifies, it’s becoming increasingly vital to leverage effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies tailored specifically for the life sciences sector.

If your goal is to elevate your life science brand through innovative search practices, join us as we explore the critical SEO strategies and the impact of AI search on your business growth..

What is SEO for?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, helps improve how visible your website is in search engine results. It aims to boost your site's ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). 

The main goal of SEO is to attract organic traffic from search engines like Google and Bing. 

This is achieved through various strategies, including optimizing website content, improving user experience, using relevant keywords, and building high-quality backlinks. 

Effective SEO can help your life science business reach its target audience, and ultimately increase conversions and sales. 

Why SEO is important for Life science companies?

SEO is an important strategy for B2B companies, even more so for Life Science businesses. 

Your website can show up for specific search queries like “antibody development,” “lab reagents,” and “lab automation solutions.” 

Based on our experience, here are 3 other reasons why SEO is so important for life science companies:

• Unfortunately or fortunately for you, many life science websites we analyze do not use an SEO strategy. I can name big companies in the industry that do not optimize their websites. They mostly rely on traditional marketing activities such as Tradeshows and conferences or publications in scientific journals to promote their new discoveries or products. Therefore, this creates an opportunity for you. 

• Advertising your products or services on Google or social media can be complicated. This is due to rules that prevent you from using words related to health conditions or drug names. SEO is a good option because there are no restrictions on ranking your website for keywords with these regulated terms. 

• Trust is key in your industry. When a user finds your business on Google, it builds trust in your website. This happens because you are one of the top results for their search. In a field that relies a lot on the credibility of its research, it is a factor to consider. 

By optimizing content creation for search engines, life science companies can target specific keywords in their field. This helps improve your biotech lead generation and drives growth in the industry.

What are the risks of not having an SEO strategy? 

Not having an SEO strategy can significantly hinder your website's visibility and potential for growth. 

Without SEO, your website is likely to remain buried in search engine ranking results, resulting in lower organic traffic. 

This lack of visibility means fewer potential customers, ultimately affecting sales and conversions. 

Also, without a clear strategy, your website might not target the right keywords. This can result in missed chances for engagement. 

Ignoring SEO can lead to a weaker online presence. This is especially true when compared to competitors who optimize their sites. As a result, your business may be at a disadvantage in the digital marketplace. Overall, a lack of an SEO strategy can lead to stagnant growth and reduced brand awareness.

You can avoid these risks today. Learn more about our life science SEO services. Let's talk!

What is generative search?

The digital landscape is rapidly evolving, and AI technologies are now orchestrating complex algorithms to enhance our search experiences. AI is changing search in big ways. It affects how information is organized and found. It also changes how users engage with that information. 

Generative search, also known as SGE (Search Generative Experience), is a type of search technology. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to create responses or content based on what users ask. 

Generative search does more than just show information from a database. It creates new phrases, sentences, or ideas. This helps provide answers that are more detailed and relevant to the context. 

This approach creates more interactive and engaging search experiences. It can produce personalized content and adapt to what the user wants. This leads to better user satisfaction when finding information.

The question that follows naturally is “Will AI search impact the SEO of life science companies?”.

In the Life Science field, will Generative Search kill traditional SEO? 

We don’t think that AI will kill the SEO of life science companies for the following reasons: 

1/ The scientist's mind needs to corroborate its sources

Many of our clients work in product development, business development, or marketing for biotech products. Most of them start as scientists before becoming marketers. Their clients too, are. 

As scientists, they refer to sources to support their claims and findings. This helps ensure their research is credible. By acknowledging sources, scientists enable others to verify information, replicate studies, and further investigate related topics. The source of the information provided to them is of utmost importance. 

An AI can give you an answer to a question. However, a scientist will look deeper to confirm the information from the AI. 

We believe that AI will help with initial discovery. However, users will still look for more details from trustworthy sources. 

2/ Search volumes are not going down, quite the contrary

This observation was made by Neil Patel (one of the top SEO marketers in the world). Neil Patel and his team are benchmarking millions of websites. Even with the competition from ChatGPT and Google AI in the search market, they have seen an increase in organic traffic for their clients. 

At Magma Science, we also see this trend as organic traffic for all our clients has grown strongly since the beginning of 2024. 

3/ The difficulty for AI to provide coherent answers to complex questions

Our life science field includes many areas, such as genetics, microbiology, and bioinformatics. We need to combine knowledge from these fields to answer important questions.

We know that biological systems are complex. They are affected by many factors. This makes it hard to predict outcomes in biotech studies.

And our field evolves at a fast pace as well, what was right yesterday is not automatically right today. 

AI struggles to give accurate and complete answers to many questions users ask about scientific topics. 

In summary:

We believe that AI will be important for discovery. However, users will still depend on traditional search engines for reliable information. 

We should see AI as an additional way to increase awareness for your life science business. It is not a replacement for organic traffic. Therefore, you need to optimize your website for AI search results. 

What is the opportunity to optimize content for AI discoverability?

More people are using AI tools and search engines to find information. Making your content easy to find increases its visibility. This helps it reach a larger audience. This can lead directly to higher traffic and engagement levels, which are crucial for your businesses.

Second, AI algorithms often prioritize relevant, well-structured, and optimized content for search queries. By following these guidelines, you increase the chances of your content ranking higher in search results. This can help you attract new leads.

Optimized content is more likely to be recommended by AI systems. This increases the chances of it being shared or cited. As a result, it can boost your authority and credibility in your field.

In the end, improving AI discoverability helps valuable information reach your prospects quickly. This maximizes impact and builds better connections between your business and your prospects.

Insight: our recent experience with SEO optimization for AI. 

We use a powerful tool named Semrush to optimize our clients’ websites for SEO. The software helps us track our ranking for a specific list of keywords chosen with the client. 

The results are still preliminary, but we have identified a pattern. Our software helps us check if a web page has been indexed by a search AI. It also shows which content on the page is used or displayed by the AI. 

Here are two insights: 

There is a clear link between a page indexed by AI search results and a rise in its keyword ranking on Google search results. It looks like if you optimize your content for AI, you will also grow your ranking on search results. View the image below that shows a clear jump for the keyword that has been indexed by AI.

Example of effect of AI overview on SERP and growth in keyword ranking.

• The second insight reveals the type of content that AI has indexed. Our web page features a question-and-answer format for indexed content. The question is specific to a scientific term, and the answer is straightforward but not short (about 100 words in bullet point format). 

Conclusion

For life science companies, SEO is a must. It is essential for winning at lead generation in this competitive market. The good news is that most of your competitors do not play that game (yet). 

SEO will increase your organic traffic and bring more leads to your funnel. You should also optimize for AI search results. This will create another way to raise awareness about your business products or solutions. 

Magma Science is a life science marketing services agency. we create digital marketing strategies for life science companies. Our life science SEO agency can help you with your strategy.