500 optometrists
in one region

For one of my first SEO assignments at Phoenix Agency, I was asked to research and write articles to improve the organic positioning of a small York Region optometrist. Most of the marketing I had studied before involved brands that were somewhat unique or had a clear differentiating factor. For this brand I would have to think differently and find other differentiating factors.

Simply searching for “Optometrist Toronto” showed what I expected from a crowded market. The Greater Toronto Area is estimated to have over 500 optometrists — obviously not all of them show up on a single Google search, but that regional density means plenty are investing in SEO and competing for the same keywords. Despite that, the business did show up on the first page. That’s not nothing. The direct-intent SEO was working to a degree and there’s nothing wrong with that. But even paid results only tend to attract around 20% of clicks. The question wasn’t whether we were ranking — it was whether there was less crowded traffic we were leaving on the table.

I considered that while standard direct intent terms such as “optometrist Toronto” were very crowded, we could use keywords that sit at the bottom part of the marketing funnel near the awareness stage to capture extra traffic. These tend to be far less competitive and attract the 90% of users who are not yet directly looking for an optometrist but merely want to discover what eye issues they may be having. This could complement our existing direct-intent ranking, not replace it.

The business was on page one in a reasonable position — around mid-page in the organic results with several competitors both above and below. That’s a solid direct-intent ranking. But the space was crowded with similar-looking listings and it’s hard to show differentiation. More importantly, generally only around 3% of people are ready to buy at any time and 7% are in the consideration stage. That meant our existing ranking was capturing traffic from the 10% already decided. The other 90% — people still figuring out what’s wrong with their eyes — were a separate, less crowded opportunity entirely.

So I used SEMrush. I entered the three obvious direct-intent keywords: “optometrist toronto,” “optometry toronto,” and “eye care toronto.” For all these direct intent/consideration stage keywords, competition was high and the KD was near 50% for all of them. We were ranking OK here, but this confirmed the space was crowded and any improvement would be hard-won. The question was: where could we find less competitive traffic to add on top?

As my assignment was to find less competitive ways to generate more website traffic, I considered the Dr D’Orio eyecare website. Perhaps here there were interesting insights to find differentiating factors. I took this list of products and services and put all of them into SEMrush. My main goal was to find out which one offered the best organic discovery opportunity. At first I entered them exactly like they appeared on the website.

For non-branded keywords, they were getting some useful higher intent traffic directly looking for an optometrist in Toronto, but generally this represents only around 5% of people. The rest are still looking around if they even have an issue. In line with what I had been told by my manager, a good portion of website traffic wasn’t directly looking yet for an optometrist but instead interested in specific eye issues. I also noticed they had a fairly low authority score.

Rather than trying to rank for a service page, I considered that it may be better to link it to a specific service that solves a specific concern or an article about a specific concern and try to rank in that. I chose to take the 5 bottom services from the website as they work better for SEO articles and put all these into SEMrush’s Keyword Overview Tool.

I sorted by KD. While we could have competed on some of these topics, most of them being above a KD of 50 would have likely required extensive backlink building from very credible sources. Not impossible, but it takes time to establish. This was the same problem as the direct-intent keywords — just wearing different clothes.

However, as I saw the keyword “myopia management” with a KD of 35, I began considering whether changing some of the keywords to phrases like “dealing with,” “managing,” and “myopia management” would get more favourable results that would allow us to rank slightly better while being more specific intent. This was the breakthrough moment.

Admittedly I had not heard of the Keyword Magic Tool but it provided a good overview of what keywords would point in this direction. I was looking for keywords with a KD below 50. These keywords would offer, with good other optimisation that the team was doing, a good chance of ranking on the first page. This is a good benchmark because 90% of web users never scroll past the first page of Google.

This is how I re-entered the search — every condition term now reframed with “management,” “dealing with,” and “managing” variants. 62 keywords total in the Bulk Keyword Analysis.

I then sorted again by KD score. The results fell into three clear zones. Some of the higher topics were both difficult to rank on and had little traffic — it would have made no sense. The mid-point was where I wanted to arrive: reasonable recent traffic but lower KD scores. A few at the bottom had very low KD scores but also low traffic — for the ones that had at least some traffic, they could represent niche SEO opportunities.

Long term if they even wanted to try pay per click advertising such as Google Ads, these keywords can nicely complement the strategy and mean they already have relevant content. It would also work in reverse if they wanted to first run paid ads on the same keywords, while waiting the 6+ months it can take to show up on Google for more competitive terms.

Ultimately my manager wanted me to write a more balanced article about different issues as one of the first articles. This meant the first articles also featured other medical issues. Looking back at my later SEO knowledge, I would have loved to have mentioned Myopia more in the title or meta tags as this could have further improved optimisation or even a separate article created. Further editing by the manager meant that Myopia was actually mentioned less than the draft version I already had.

The keyword research was one half. The other half was how the articles were actually written. The goal wasn’t to stuff keywords into a sales pitch — it was to write content that genuinely helps someone who is Googling their child’s symptoms. If the article is useful in that moment, they bookmark it, share it, come back. That’s the awareness-stage behaviour I was targeting. The tone, structure, and language were all deliberate choices to serve that goal.

Final version, posted by Phoenix SEO on the Dr D’Orio blog. Covered myopia (difficulty seeing the board), eye fatigue (tiredness despite sleep), strabismus (squinting), and hyperopia (difficulty reading). Both the #1 keyword target (myopia) and the niche target (hyperopia) were included.

The second article linked eye conditions to a real-world scenario — driving safety. Again featuring myopia and glaucoma as the top keyword targets. Unfortunately removed after my internship finished in 2023 but I still have my own copy.

The direct-intent ranking was OK — the practice was on page one. But in a region with 500+ optometrists all competing for the same direct-intent keywords, the extra opportunity was in targeting the 90% of potential patients still Googling their symptoms. The reframing from clinical terms to management-oriented phrases consistently produced lower KD scores with meaningful traffic. Myopia management alone had 4,400 monthly searches at a workable KD of 40. This was additional traffic on top of the existing direct-intent presence, not a replacement for it.

The final articles spread across multiple conditions rather than going deep on the highest-opportunity keywords. Myopia was mentioned less in the published version than in my draft. Without a dedicated page targeting “myopia management” in the title, H1, and meta description, the content couldn’t rank as effectively for the single largest keyword opportunity.

I did the research. I made the recommendation. I executed what was approved. The keyword strategy was my contribution. The content architecture decisions were above my pay grade.