The problem with the new SEO when it comes to anything remotely bordering on medical subject matter is that efficacy is situational.
It’s a what-treatment-for-what-ailment with a comparison to alternatives with consideration to a series of factors: cost-effectiveness, time to result, side effects, allergies, likelihood of compliance, etc..
Funny enough, research has shown crystals to have a positive effect for healing… but only for those that believe in crystals for healing. This is widely attributed to the placebo effect.
I don’t believe in crystals for healing. But I do believe that rituals have an effect on well-being above and beyond what we think of as placebo.
Experimental research into placebo effects… suggests that ritual healing not only represents changes in affect, self-awareness and self-appraisal of behavioural capacities, but involves modulations of symptoms through neurobiological mechanisms.
Placebo studies and ritual theory, Kaptchuk (2011)
So this is pretty neat, and way off topic, but placebo studies are being used to inform ritual theory. Some takeaways from the above study:
- Biomedical treatment with powerful medications has a ritual component that is clinically significant.
- As with pharmaceuticals, each type of ritual, for example, fake needles versus fake pills, has a unique outcome.
- Components of rituals can be disaggregated and incrementally combined in a manner analogous to a dose response. For example, adjusting components of a ritual could make it more or less persuasive.
- Different healers can have different effects on patients even when they perform an identical prospectively defined precise scripted interaction.
All this is a roundabout way in what ways can we “turn around” our approach to cultivating authoritative content.
How much of what’s going to rank in Google predetermined now? eg. you’re healthline, webmd, livestrong or you’re out.
Or, can we add signals of legitimacy, use real research to better defend and clarify a point of view or position, challenge any assumptions in the process, and have our content (and maybe even the web) be better for it?
Personal development subject matter and SEO next.