Apotek Hjärtat, first for searches still to come

When covid-19 self-tests were about to launch in Sweden in 2021, nobody had searched for them yet. We predicted how people would, Apotek Hjärtat built the pages in hours, and it ranked first on every relevant search.

See the results

Client: Apotek Hjärtat
Industry: Pharmacy retail, in stores and online
Markets: Sweden
Period: Spring 2021, measured through Christmas 20212021
Our part: Search strategy: a keyword analysis for searches still to come

Apotek Hjärtat's category page “Covid-test”, with its introduction and the first self-tests, open on a laptop on a table with a white linen cloth, beside gingerbread biscuits and a red napkin, with a lit red candle and a straw goat behind. — Covid-test on apotekhjartat.se: the category page for the tests

Challenge

A new product, no search history

Apotek Hjärtat is Sweden's largest pharmacy chain, with more than 4,000 people helping customers with medicines, health and wellbeing.

In spring 2021 the national launch of self-tests for covid-19 was close, and it was easy to see that demand would be huge. The online pharmacy that answered first would have an edge over the rest.

But the tests had never been sold in Sweden. There was no search behaviour to measure yet, so the usual ways of estimating search volume or revenue had nothing to go on.

What we found

A search that did not exist yet

No tool can show the volume of a search nobody has made. Similar products, and what people already knew about covid-19, could point the way.

Interest was never in doubt: the threat of a new wave, and people longing to see family and friends again, made that clear enough. The question was how people would put it into words.

So we built the searches from their parts. We analysed the terms people already used about corona and covid-19, and the words used for tests in other areas, and combined them into a picture of how people would search once the tests were on sale. The analysis took two hours.

Being right was half of it; being first was the other. Apotek Hjärtat needed to be the first online pharmacy with an answer, for the chance to own the results rather than only appear in them. Its own team built the landing pages and wrote all the content in four hours.

It asked Apotek Hjärtat to act on an informed guess, before any data could confirm it, and to have the pages live before the demand arrived.

A search, built before it existedFrom words people already used to the pages they would need

What people knew
The words already used about corona and covid-19.
What tests are called
The words used for tests in other areas.

01 Guess
How will people search?
1. Combine the words
  Covid terms and test terms, put together into the searches to come.
2. Two hours
  The keyword analysis, from first term to finished picture.
02 Pages
Be first with the answer
1. Landing pages
  Built by Apotek Hjärtat's own team for the searches the analysis named.
2. Four hours
  The pages and all their content, written in-house.
Out Results
First when the demand arrived
1. Every relevant search
  Snabbtest, självtest, antigentest and covid test, sometimes with two places in the same result.
Six hours, from a guess to the top of the results

The work

Screens are apotekhjartat.se as captured on 27 September 2026, shown in staged scenes.

Apotek Hjärtat's page “Antigentest” on a white monitor on a birch desk, in front of shelves of presents wrapped in brown paper with red and white string. — A page for one of the searches: antigentest

Apotek Hjärtat's product page for a combined self-test for covid-19 and influenza on a phone lying on a folded white towel on a bathroom counter, beside a mug of tea with lemon and a jar of honey. — A self-test, on mobile

Apotek Hjärtat's advice page “Covid-19 - symtom och behandling vid corona” on a tablet lying on a white hallway bench, beside a red present, a grey scarf and red and white mittens. — The questions around the tests: symptoms and treatment

Apotek Hjärtat's page “Självtest för pågående Covid-19” on a laptop on a terrazzo kitchen counter, with saffron buns, a copper coffee pot and a lit Advent candle bridge in the window behind. — Another of the searches: självtest

The result

First, before the rush

Measurement notes

Shortly after launch Apotek Hjärtat ranked first, or first among shops, on every relevant search, and in the days before Christmas 2021, when interest peaked, its organic traffic reached record levels.

The searches were the ones the analysis had predicted: snabbtest and självtest (rapid test and self-test) for corona and covid, covid test, and antigentest. Sometimes Apotek Hjärtat held two places in the same result.

Demand was so great that products sold out. Even so, apotekhjartat.se had record visits, transactions and revenue, and played its part in getting people across Sweden testing at home.

We don't claim the demand: a pandemic made it. The work was being the first answer when it came.

On every relevant search, or first among shops: No. 1
Hours of work in all, from analysis to live pages: 6

Rankings shortly after launch in 2021, records before Christmas 2021. Organic Google search, apotekhjartat.se.

Measurement notes and definitions

Sources: Pixel Nordic's results for Apotek Hjärtat, 2021.
Scope: Organic Google search to apotekhjartat.se. Relevant searches: snabbtest corona and covid, självtest corona and covid, corona and covid test, antigentest and snabbtest. First among shops means the first commercial result.
Window: Rankings: shortly after the pages went live in 2021. Records: the days before Christmas 2021, when interest peaked.
Excluded: Paid search.

Measurement notes and definitions
Period	2021
Hours of keyword analysis, ours	2
Hours of landing pages and content, Apotek Hjärtat's	4
Position on the relevant searches	1, or first among shops
Organic traffic, visits, transactions and revenue, before Christmas 2021	Record

2021

Hours of keyword analysis, ours: 2
Hours of landing pages and content, Apotek Hjärtat's: 4
Position on the relevant searches: 1, or first among shops
Organic traffic, visits, transactions and revenue, before Christmas 2021: Record

Pixel Nordic's results for Apotek Hjärtat, 2021

Rankings shortly after launch, and record visits, transactions and revenue before Christmas 2021.

In their words

“ For us, Pixel's support and expertise have been decisive in putting valuable routines and ways of working in place, in every function that together builds our SEO. They share their knowledge and insights in a way that engages all of Hjärtat”

Pelle SchieberApotek HjärtatTranslated from Swedish

What this case says

Build the search from its parts

When a new product creates a new search, there is no volume to read. The words people already use tell you how they will ask.

Combine what people already know with how they name similar things, and publish before the demand arrives: the first good answer is the one the results settle on. Speed counts as much as accuracy. A right guess published late is only a guess.