Case Study: Establishing Digital Presence for Thorpe Clinic Podiatry

Introduction

Thorpe Clinic is a specialized podiatry practice offering foot and ankle care, including treatments for conditions like ingrown toenails, sports injuries, diabetic foot care, and custom orthotics. With two clinic locations serving the local community, the practice aimed to replace an outdated Squarespace site and build a stronger online presence to attract patients, educate on foot health, and compete with established providers. This case study details the development of the clinic's new website, launched on August 24, 2025, and early SEO efforts to drive organic traffic in under a month.

Challenge

Thorpe Clinic previously relied on a Squarespace site that lacked proper SEO optimization, resulting in poor search visibility, slow performance, and limited local discoverability. Key issues included:

• Suboptimal Legacy Site: The old Squarespace platform had no targeted keywords, inadequate meta tags, and no structured data, leading to low rankings and minimal organic traffic.
• No Digital Footprint for New Site: The fresh domain started with zero authority, making it invisible in searches for "podiatrist near me" or "foot clinic Thorpe."
• Competitive Niche: Healthcare searches are dominated by directories (e.g., NHS listings) and long-standing practices with reviews and content.
• Multi-Location Management: Handling two clinics required accurate local listings to avoid confusion in map-based searches.
• Short Timeline: Only 20 days post-launch to evaluate, with expectations of slow initial crawling by Google.
• User Experience Focus: Need for a site that's fast, accessible, and informative for patients researching symptoms or booking appointments.

The objective was to create a professional, SEO-optimized site that outperforms the old one, quickly gains visibility, and converts visitors into appointments.

Solution

The new website was built to replace the underperforming Squarespace site, focusing on healthcare best practices: clean design, patient testimonials, service pages, a blog on foot health tips, and easy booking integration. Key steps included:

• Development Approach: Responsive layout with high-contrast text for readability, optimized images of treatments, and secure forms for inquiries.
• SEO Implementation: Keyword research for local terms, on-page elements (e.g., schema for medical services), mobile-first design, and immediate submission to Google Search Console. This addressed the old site's SEO deficiencies head-on.
• Local Optimization: Sorted out Google Maps listings (Map Pack cards) for the two clinics, ensuring accurate addresses, hours, and photos to improve local search results and avoid duplication issues.
• Performance Tuning: Efficient coding to ensure quick loads, crucial for mobile users searching on-the-go.
• Tracking Setup: Monitored via Lighthouse for audits and Search Console for search data.

Post-launch, minor updates were made based on initial feedback to refine navigation and ensure the new site fully supplanted the old one in search results.

Results

In just 20 days since launch, the website achieved remarkable metrics, demonstrating swift indexing, user engagement, and superiority over the previous Squarespace site, which it now outranks in key searches.

Google Lighthouse Scores:

These high scores confirm a top-tier build, ideal for a healthcare site where trust and usability are paramount.

Google Search Console Performance (Post-Launch Overview):

The graph illustrated quick traction: impressions climbed from near zero to peaks of 45 daily, with clicks following suit up to 9 per day. Notably, the new site has already begun outranking the old Squarespace site in local queries, driving more traffic and better placement in Google's Map Pack for the two clinics. This led to tangible outcomes, such as a confirmed extra 10 bookings per month directly through the site booking system.

Key Takeaways and Next Steps

Success Drivers:

• Exceptional Lighthouse scores and targeted local optimizations enabled fast crawling and outranking of the legacy site, while high CTR highlighted effective meta content.

Improvement Opportunities:

• Push Accessibility and Best Practices to 100, and target top-10 positions via patient reviews, backlinks from health directories, and expanded blog content.

Future Strategy:

• Integrate telehealth options, social proof (e.g., Google Reviews), and ongoing local SEO enhancements like monitoring Map Pack performance for both clinics.

This case study shows how targeted web development and SEO upgrades can propel a podiatry clinic beyond an outdated platform, achieving superior rankings and visibility almost immediately for Thorpe Clinic.