Have you checked your marketing health?​

The trends, challenges and opportunities health and wellbeing marketers must know in 2025

Tough competition, squeezed marketing budgets, AI and Algorithm updates are crippling many health and wellbeing brands' marketing performance.

Brands must innovate to compete, and deliver more with less through smart strategy and creativity.”

Gary Jenkins

Managing Director, No Brainer

It’s no secret marketing leaders of health and wellbeing brands face increasing challenges in 2025.  

AI and algorithm updates are transforming the digital landscape for health marketing and wellbeing brands, often impacting reach, ranking, and how brands are found by consumers online.  

Competition is fierce for the hearts and minds of prospective customers and the ever-evolving digital landscape – combined with the need to prove ROI for every penny of marketing spend – means healthcare marketers are spread thin, with resources needing to be harnessed for the most impact.  

The thing is: This isn’t a unique challenge. Every marketer is facing the same complexities – how to be found, front-of-mind or famous in a world where content is being pumped into the digital ecosystem in high volume is tough.  

But you must find a way through the white noise if you are to survive and thrive.  

As trust becomes an increasingly important pillar of the healthcare marketing mix – from both a customer and digital perspective – health and wellbeing brands must learn to adapt if they want to get a competitive edge. Key to this is placing expertise, experience, authority and trust at the forefront of healthcare digital marketing.  

This guide explores the key things health and wellbeing brands must know about the evolving digital landscape if they want to stay ahead – and how earning customer trust is more important than ever. 

0 %

of businesses said they’d experienced traffic drops in the August 2024 Google updates

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

0 %

of all Google searches are health-related.

Source: Google

0 %

of consumers say information on social media affects the way they deal with their health 

Source: Mediabistro

Health and wellbeing
sectors under fire:

How to deal with the
threats and opportunities

Health and wellbeing brands have faced major traffic declines due to Google’s “Your Money; Your Life” (YMYL) updates and those competitors with the right strategy are benefitting from these – whilst others are being left behind.   

We’ve explored some of the brands facing the biggest online challenges – and identified some opportunities to outsmart the competition. 

Nutrition supplements

The nutrition brand ZOE experienced a significant decline in organic visibility during the summer of 2024, coinciding with the completion of the August 2024 Google Core Update, according to the SEO tool Sistrix (read our analysis here). 

As of now, the brands’ visibility and traffic have not yet shown signs of recovery. While ZOE.com has implemented some elements signalling they’ve considered E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) on their website, their efforts fall short compared to other healthcare ecommerce brands. 

ZOE’s decline has created a huge opportunity for Healthspan UK to overtake them from a visibility perspective – Zoe needs to work hard to recover, but with the right SEO and content strategies – focused on the biggest revenue-earning opportunities – the competition could seize traffic, market share and revenue. 

Online pharmacies

Online pharmacy brands Chemist Direct and Pharmacy2U saw their visibility drop during the summer of 2024, coinciding with the completion of the August 2024 Google Core Update. And whilst the brands may have taken action on the back of the decline, they have still struggled to recover. 

At the other end of the scale, another online pharmacy, Chemist4U, has experienced no such drops. In fact, their visibility has noticeably grown since the August 2024 Core Update.  

With high levels of E-E-A-T demonstrated throughout their content and wider site, it’s likely that they are taking a more proactive approach to pages that meet the YMYL criteria (check out our analysis of these brands here). 

How can health marketers prepare for trends and challenges in 2025?

Anticipating trends and challenges in 2025 will be fundamental for staying competitive.
 
Whether you’re looking for an expert agency partner (like us!) to help navigate challenges and make the most of the opportunities and heed off the threats, or you’re keen to do your own research yourself, we’ve compiled the key things health and wellbeing marketing leaders need to know to achieve success in 2025.

Your Money,
Your Life,
Your Marketing Budget...

“Understandably, Google is much more hyper-focused on how brands in the health, wealth and finance sectors market their brands, products and businesses. The Your Money Your Life (YMYL) algorithm update was designed specifically for brands in these sectors – so how can healthcare and wellbeing industry marketers keep Google happy, without compromising on customers and brand experience? 

The answer, in short, is it’s not about compromise. It’s about giving customers a better, more authentic user experience and following a really clear strategy that enables healthcare brands to harness YMYL for the benefit of both the business and consumer.” 

Laura Rudd, Head of SEO and Content  
No Brainer Agency 

All you can E-E-A-T

Why trust signals are so important for health and wellbeing brands

It’s crucial for health and wellbeing brand marketers to have a strong understanding of EEAT principles – so that they engage target customers and satisfy Google. 

Google’s EEAT guidelines – Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness -play a significant role for “Your Money, Your Life” (YMYL) brands, particularly in sensitive industries like finance, healthcare, and legal services, where content can impact users’ well-being, finances and safety.  

Brands operating in the health and wellbeing space will find their digital marketing efforts are subject to Google’s strict guidelines around:  

  • Prioritising high-quality content: Which requires brands to showcase their expertise with credentials, author bios, and authoritative sources to meet Google’s rigorous YMYL standards. 
  • Building authority: Using credible sources, certifications and expert creators to enhance trust and credibility. 
  • Emphasising transparency: Including clear privacy policies, user reviews and accessible contact information to build trust. 
  • Focusing on user safety: Avoiding misleading claims and providing transparent, honest and safe guidance. 
  • Ensuring consistency: Maintaining EEAT principles across all platforms, including social media, blogs, and newsletters. 

Is your SEO and content marketing strategy demonstrating the right level of E-E-A-T signals?

Get in touch today for an audit.

E-E-A-T: a breakdown

Experience

Demonstrating first-hand experience within the topic. For example, a review written by someone who has personally used the product or helped create the product.

Expertise

Showing in-depth knowledge or skill in the subject matter. This often involves having content created by recognised experts in the field, such as doctors or pharmacists who have credible industry experience.

Authoritativeness

Establishing the website or content creator as a trusted source. This could include citations, references, or endorsements from other credible entities, such as links to the doctor’s GMC Medical Register or references to articles that the expert has written for other websites.

Trustworthiness

Ensuring content and the website are reliable, transparent, and accurate. Features like secure connections, clear authorship, and well-sourced information help contribute to trust.

How we can help

This approach is proven to work for health brands

No Brainer has worked with a leading personal alarm retailer to implement these principles, and delivered:  

  • +374% increase in page one keywords (947 vs 200)
  • +392% increase in keywords in position 1-3 (36 vs 177)
  • 78% of monitored keywords on page one

Delivering award-winning work

UK Search Awards - Winners 2022

Be Found

TikTok & social media 

Your customers are engaging with content across social media – is your brand visible where it needs to be?  

Navigator helps brands identify the right trends, topics and channels to be a part of the conversation and be found by the right people. 

Be First

Google, SEO & content 

From AI to algorithms, digital content is a constantly evolving and competitive space for brands. 

Navigator helps brands to rise to the top of SERPs, create the right kind of content and be the first choice for customers. 

Be Famous

Online Media & Digital PR

From trending stories to opinion pieces, digital PR can drive huge volumes of online brand citations and high quality earned links to healthcare and wellbeing product websites.   

Navigator identifies the publications, outlets and communities your brand should be part of, and our strategies build strong brand authority, media presence and digital fame. 

Proudly working with
AO logo
TakingCare logo

Do you know where
your audiences are online?

Because we do.

Our insights tell us: 

  • Where to find our target audience online 
  • The kinds of content they consume 
  • Which content formats work best with the different target audiences 
  • The influencers, social media channels and digital/news publications they engage with  

  

These insights power our content and PR strategy and help us collectively achieve our bold aims and objectives. 

social channels

Our Work

We work with our clients on integrated, search-driven content blending our award-winning Digital PR, SEO and Content to ensure that they can be found, be famous, and be first on search. 

Award winning

UK Search Awards - Winners 2022

Helping AXA brand to have 'The Talk' about elderly care

Brits don’t talk about elderly care until it’s too late. Our campaign worked across SEO, DPR and content to change this. 

60% increase in online revenue for elderly care retatiler

In the competitive personal alarms space, we helped our client become first on search through clever content, PR and technical SEO.

200+ media hits for leading sleep posture expert

Two thirds of Brits don’t get enough quality sleep. We built our client into the leading sleep posture expert, to help Britain sleep better.

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