How Pendulum Exceeded its Blog Conversion Goal by 36% And Built Search Authority in Microbiome Science
- Derek Flanzraich
- Mar 11
- 5 min read
Summary: Pendulum Therapeutics, a microbiome science innovator and one of our favorite supplement companies, partnered with Healthyish Content to build its SEO content strategy from scratch. By targeting some of the most business-critical searches in probiotics and metabolic health and producing medically reviewed, expert-driven content, Pendulum saw transformative growth in visibility, authority, and conversions—all in less than six months.
The Challenge
Starting from zero in SEO
When Pendulum came to Healthyish Content, SEO was still an untapped opportunity.
Meanwhile, interest in probiotics was taking off, with people turning to search for answers about gut issues like IBS, constipation, diarrhea, and overall digestive health. It was a booming search space—one Pendulum was built for, but not yet showing up in.
“Before Healthyish, the company also was not focusing on SEO,” says Alayna Hutchinson, growth content manager at Pendulum Therapeutics. “We were completely underutilizing our blog and our content.”
Hutchinson shared Healthyish’s work with the broader team, and the response was immediate. “Everyone was excited,” she says. “It was a very easy yes from leadership.”
Seeing other reputable brands Healthyish had helped scale in adjacent spaces, including clients like Midi Health and Oshi Health, and even more relevant CPG companies like LMNT and Veracity made the upside obvious. This wasn’t a shot in the dark—it was a proven playbook.
Pendulum already had the science and the product. Now it was time to build the search engine to match.
Translating ambition into a search roadmap
Without a defined strategy, growth was hard to engineer. There was:
No clear keyword universe or priority search arenas
Minimal presence for high-intent, revenue-driving searches
No centralized dashboard to track rankings, AI Overviews, or competitive gaps
No clear path from blog traffic to measurable business impact
At the same time, Pendulum had ambitious goals. The team wanted to own key conversations in probiotics, metabolic health, and particularly Akkermansia—topics directly tied to product differentiation that could drive customer acquisition. They also wanted content that could power multiple channels, from organic search to email and beyond.
To do that, they needed more than content production. They needed a strategy that:
Identified where they could realistically win
Prioritized business-critical keywords
Compounded over time
The goal was clear: Build an SEO engine from scratch that could scale authority, drive conversions, and transform Pendulum’s blog into a growth powerhouse.
The Solution
Building the engine
SEO success starts with clarity. So before a single article went live, we zoomed out and mapped the entire playing field: where Pendulum was showing up, where they weren’t, and where real wins were hiding.
We translated that landscape into a centralized dashboard that pulled together:
Rankings
Competitive gaps
Untapped high-intent queries
Visibility across emerging surfaces like Google’s AI Overviews
Suddenly, the opportunity was visible, actionable, and centralized.
“That was a first and exciting step,” says Hutchinson. “We could see all the opportunities laid out in one place, which helped us decide where to go. The overview of SEO and where we wanted to move towards was super helpful from the jump.”
With focus in hand, we locked into the searches most tightly connected to Pendulum’s differentiation and growth, think keywords like probiotics, blood sugar support, digestive symptoms, and metabolic health (more on those in a moment).
Then came the execution.
Over the next few months, Healthyish delivered 12 best-answer-on-the-internet articles. These evergreen assets were built to win high-intent searches, establish scientific authority, and turn readers into customers.
A critical part of that execution: pairing the right questions with the right subject-matter experts. Clinically focused topics went to medical leadership. Research-heavy questions went to Pendulum’s Chief Science Officer. The result: Every article was informed by the people best equipped to answer it.
Each article also followed Healthyish Content's other best practices:
✅ Comprehensive, in-depth coverage aligned with search intent
✅ Optimized layouts for clarity and engagement
✅ Authority-boosting expert quotes
✅ Distinct, on-brand voice and tone
✅ Compelling visuals and custom modules
✅ Smart, trustworthy citations
✅ Detailed, long-tail FAQs
Content highlights (Examples of best practices)
The Results
Scaling visibility, authority, and conversions
Short version: It worked.
In less than six months, Pendulum’s blog went from underutilized to undeniable, driving real gains in visibility, authority, and performance:
🚀 Organic traffic increased by 18%, totalling 119,000+ clicks
🚀 Total impressions increased by 54%, exceeding 14.6M+
🚀 Domain rating increased by +4 to 56
🚀 Keyword rankings grew by 5,100+, including 100s in the top 3 positions
🚀 Backlinks increased by 122+, including from LA Times, US Chamber, Best Life Online, Nutraceuticals World, and The Independent
🚀 Most importantly, blog conversions hit 36% above Pendulum’s target
“Seeing all the keywords we started ranking #1 for was super exciting,” says Hutchinson. “I would post [updates] in our larger channel, and there was a lot of excitement. Seeing those week-over-week increases and driving performance was such validation.”
The best part is these aren’t one-and-done wins. They’re compounding gains from a content engine built to keep driving traffic, authority, and conversions over time.
“Companies that are really successful have a very strong long-term strategy,” Hutchinson added. “The more you put out there in organic, social, and SEO, the more it's going to come back to you.”
*Data based on reporting between April 2025 - August 2025.
Driving category leadership
Ranking is good. Owning the conversation is better.
During our partnership, Pendulum grew its authority by owning some of the most business-critical searches in probiotics and metabolic health. Through targeted, best-answer content, Pendulum captured #1 rankings for:
Collectively, these wins signaled something bigger than rankings: Pendulum was becoming a default authority in the category.
The headline moment: Pendulum is now the only product brand ranking in the top 10 for “Akkermansia.” In a fiercely competitive keyword space, that kind of visibility signals true category authority—exactly where Pendulum’s science says it belongs.
And the momentum didn’t stop there. Pendulum also made major moves on competitive, high-intent searches like:
Each keyword maps back to Pendulum’s differentiation and real revenue opportunity, not just traffic for traffic’s sake. That’s search really pulling its weight!
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