What if your hospital website didn’t rely on Google to be found—because people sought it out on purpose?
In my last post on the missing engagement layer, I made the case that hospital websites need to do more than just look good—they need to deliver measurable value across multiple fronts: building trust, driving service-line growth, and deepening relationships. But as the web shifts under our feet, a new challenge is emerging: the need to build direct digital relationships with patients and caregivers—relationships that don’t rely on Google.
This idea isn’t mine. It comes from Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, who recently shared how news media websites are being forced to reinvent themselves as Google search traffic rapidly declines. His main point? If you’re depending on search to drive traffic, you’re going to lose. Generative AI answer engines (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and even Google’s own AI Overviews) are becoming the default gateway to information—and they don’t always send users to your site. So now, Thompson argues, the real play is building direct relationships with your audience that aren’t mediated by an algorithmic middleman.
Sound familiar hospital marketers? It should.
Hospitals and health systems are sitting on the same cliff as the news business. And in many ways, they’re even better positioned. Most already have large email databases and publish a steady stream of content—wellness tips, care guides, new treatments, physician interviews. But here’s the problem: that content is often buried behind complex navigation or dispersed across multiple websites and portals. And when it is surfaced in newsletters or campaigns, it rarely connects back to a broader digital experience designed to nurture trust, repeat visits, or behavior change.
It’s not packaged for a world without Google. It’s still built on an SEO-first strategy, designed to catch 80% of traffic from organic search. In other words, we’ve been building for the algorithm, not for the end user.
That’s where websites—and increasingly, hospital apps—come in. We need to stop thinking of the website and mobile app as separate entities. Look at Advocate Health’s LiveWell app. It’s not just a reskinned MyChart—it’s a digital front door to the brand. It pulls in some of the same content from the website, but then goes further: surfacing relevant health content, sending proactive alerts, and personalizing the experience based on who you are and who you care for. These are authenticated experiences—and they’re the key to building lasting, direct digital relationships.
And what about the people still searching? They’re not gone. But SEO, as we knew it, is changing. Enter Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)—the practice of structuring your site content in ways that AI tools can pull accurate, brand-authored responses. This is followed closely by Agent Optimization, which focuses on how your content shows up not just in search engines, but in AI-powered agents like ChatGPT, voice assistants, or patient-facing bots. If your content isn’t structured and tagged to work in these environments, you risk being left out of the new decision-making journey entirely.
This is the new job of the hospital website: not just a content library, but a platform that earns attention—and uses that attention to extract first-party data, willingly, in exchange for value. And suddenly, hospital marketers aren’t just web managers. They’re digital product owners, shaping the future of how care is delivered, discovered, and trusted online.
So how do we begin? Thompson laid out a few strategies for the news industry that map surprisingly well to healthcare:
1. People will still want to search.
But now, brands like The Atlantic are rethinking how their internal search tools work—making them fast, intuitive, and helpful. Hospitals should do the same. If your site search doesn’t autocomplete, sort by relevance, or surface the latest provider profiles and clinical programs, you’re already behind.
2. Optimize for the new search frontier: Answer engines and AI agents.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the next generation of SEO—designing your content so AI tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity can use it to generate reliable answers (and cite you as the source). Agent Optimization goes further, thinking about how your content shows up in voice assistants, ambient experiences, and intelligent bots. It starts with structuring content with proper schema, addressing common patient questions in plain language, and identifying high-value queries through tools like Google Search Console.
3. The ecosystem only works if we do.
Thompson argues that AI tools need publishers to stay alive. It’s in their interest to share value back to those creating the content. The same is true for healthcare. Generative AI systems need high-quality, medically accurate data—and hospitals and health systems are sitting on gold. If we can figure out how to structure content for AI while protecting intellectual property and attribution, we can help shape the next generation of trustworthy health information.
But don’t stop at search.
Double down on your owned channels. Your email newsletter shouldn’t be a bland roundup of generic headlines. Add preference centers/subscription management hubs to allow users to customize what they receive. Let them choose topics, frequencies, and formats. Personalize subject lines and content based on what they’ve read or clicked. The newsletter becomes a product, not just a broadcast.
Your app should be the centerpiece of your direct relationship strategy. Connect your app to your content strategy. Create logged-in experiences that unify the static website with the dynamic portal. Personalize the homepage. Track behavior across platforms. Build feedback loops. This is what LiveWell and other standout hospital apps are starting to do—and it’s working.
In a previous article, I called for the rise of authenticated hospital websites—where “Sign in with ChatGPT” or other personalized identity providers allow users to build a persistent relationship with a hospital brand. That’s not just a nice-to-have. It’s the direction everything is going. If we wait for the technology to mature before designing for it, we’ll be designing for yesterday’s problems.
We’re entering a new era where hospital websites are less about being found, and more about being followed.
Less about being indexed, and more about being indispensable.
Less about capturing clicks, and more about building connection.
And that shift—from visibility to value—isn’t just a marketing challenge.
It’s a moment for hospital marketers to step forward as product leaders and design a digital experience strategy that patients actually demand.
