Dryello SEO Case Study: Building Search and AI-Answer Visibility for an OTC Foot-Care Brand

In short: Dryello makes an athlete's foot treatment in a dry, glide-on stick and a foot antiperspirant in the same format. The brand is new to search in a category led by long-established names. Our job is to get Dryello found for buying-intent athlete's foot and sweaty-feet searches, and cited when people ask AI assistants the same questions. The approach is audience-matched articles on publisher sites, comparison pages, guest posts, and short quotable answers, all kept inside the product's drug label. Work started on September 25, 2026. As of September 25, 2026, 9 pages are live on 6 publisher sites, and there are no results to report yet.

The client

Dryello is a foot-care brand made by ProPedix, Inc. Its site says the athlete's foot stick was developed by a board-certified dermatologist who wanted a treatment people would keep using for the full course. The pitch is simple: creams are greasy, powders get everywhere, and sprays drip, so Dryello puts the active ingredient in a stick that goes on dry. The site also lists the stick as HSA/FSA eligible and TSA-friendly. The product line, as listed on dryello.com when work began:

• Dryello Athlete's Foot Treatment Stick

  OTC antifungal with tolnaftate 1% in a dry, glide-on stick. Labeled to cure most athlete’s foot, relieve itching, burning, cracking, and scaling, and help prevent recurrence with daily use.

  $16.95 for a 2-stick pack (30g), listed September 25, 2026

• Dryello Antiperspirant Deodorant Foot Glide-On Stick, For Him

  Foot antiperspirant with aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly in a glide-on stick, positioned for boots, cleats, and running shoes.

  $14.50, in stock, listed September 25, 2026

• Dryello Antiperspirant Deodorant Foot Glide-On Stick, For Her

  The same antiperspirant format with a lighter scent profile.

  $14.50, shown as sold out on September 25, 2026

That matters for SEO in two ways. The stick is a genuinely different format in a category dominated by creams, powders, and sprays, which gives content a real angle: who is a stick actually better for? And because the stick is an OTC drug, what we can say about it is fixed by its label, which shapes every page.

The goal

Two goals, measured separately:

1. Rank for buying-intent searches. People who search “best athlete's foot treatment for kids,” “foot antiperspirant for seniors,” or “how to apply athlete's foot cream if I can't reach my feet” are close to buying. We want a Dryello-featuring page on page one for as many of those as we can earn, and clicks from those pages to dryello.com.
2. Get cited in AI answers. More of these questions are now asked to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI features. We want those answers to cite a page that mentions Dryello accurately, or dryello.com itself.

The big national brands own the head terms like “athlete's foot cream.” We are not trying to outrank a pharmacy giant on a two-word query in week one. The opening is the long tail: specific people with specific problems, where a well-written, well-sourced page can compete.

The strategy

The audiences we are building toward, in rough order: parents of young athletes, older adults and their caregivers, and adults who spend long days on their feet in athletic shoes, such as referees, coaches, and court-sport players. Each gets a small cluster: a problem-solving guide and a comparison page, cross-linked, with the relevant Dryello product first.

About the placements, plainly: the publisher sites used so far are established niche publishers in parenting, senior tech, and youth, officiating, and racquet sports, sites that already cover the reader's world. The placement is disclosed on every article, and each page has to earn its place for that site's readers first. Our guest posts page explains how we approach placements like these for other brands.

Compliance approach

Health content about an OTC drug is a place where a sloppy sentence can mislead a reader or create a regulatory problem for the client. These rules apply to every page in this campaign:

• Health statements stay inside the OTC drug label. For the stick, that means the tolnaftate 1% label's uses and directions, as published on DailyMed. We do not repeat marketing claims that are not on the label.
• No invented reviews, testing, prices, people, quotes, or results. Prices are stated only with the date they were checked on dryello.com.
• The founder, a dermatologist, is not quoted anywhere. We don't put words in a clinician's mouth.
• Every link to the client is tagged rel="sponsored", opens dryello.com directly, and carries UTM parameters so referral clicks can be counted. No affiliate or marketplace links are used for Dryello.
• Every page carries a plain-language sponsorship disclosure: Dryello is a paying client of the publisher, and the page features its product.
• Pages send readers to a doctor or podiatrist where the label or public-health sources say to, including for diabetes, poor circulation, children under 2, and symptoms that don't improve.
• Sources are cited inline: DailyMed/FDA labels, the American Academy of Dermatology, MedlinePlus, the CDC, and similar public-health references.

The side effect is useful for SEO too. Pages that stick to label facts and cite primary sources are easier for an AI assistant to quote without distortion, and they hold up when a reader or a platform checks them.

Pages shipped

Every Dryello page so far, with the date it went live and the queries it is written to answer. The target queries are the searches we are aiming at, not positions we hold.

9 live. Every page links only to dryello.com for the client, with sponsored link tagging and a disclosure.

Measurement plan

Three sources, each reported separately and each labeled with the date it was pulled. We will not blend them into a single made-up “visibility score.”

The AI-citation prompt set

Using the same prompts every time keeps checks comparable. The current set:

• What is the best athlete's foot treatment for a teenager who plays sports?
• How do I apply athlete's foot cream if I can't reach my feet?
• What's the best foot antiperspirant for sweaty feet?
• Is there an athlete's foot treatment that isn't a cream or spray?
• Best athlete's foot treatment for older adults
• How do referees and coaches keep their feet dry during long tournament days?

What counts as progress, in order: pages indexed; impressions for target queries; average position moving toward page one; clicks; referral sessions on dryello.com; and a Dryello page or dryello.com cited in an AI answer. Early weeks are usually about the first two, and we will say so rather than stretch the numbers.

Results

AI-citation checks logged so far: 0. The first baseline check is scheduled for the first week after launch.

Daily log

1. September 25, 2026

   Day 1 evening: DreamFields turf foot-care guide

   • Published a new audience guide on DreamFields USA for coaches, athletic directors, and youth players on artificial turf: athlete’s foot and foot care with cleats on hot synthetic fields.
   • Page features Dryello Foot Antiperspirant For Him first, then the Athlete’s Foot Treatment Stick, with comparison tables, FAQPage/Article/BreadcrumbList schema, top + bottom sponsorship disclosure, and sponsored UTM links to dryello.com only.
   • Cross-links the EmergencyRefs referee foot-care guide and Mom’s Magazine sweaty-teens guide, plus DreamFields turf cleaning and bacteria-testing pages. Site CTA points to DreamFields cleaning, not Dryello.
   • Results: none yet / pending.

2. September 25, 2026

   Day 1: kickoff, research, and the first eight pages

   • Dryello signed on as a paying SEO client.
   • Pulled product facts, prices, and images from dryello.com, and the OTC drug labels from DailyMed, so every page works from the same verified fact sheet.
   • Collected label facts and official images for the real competitors a shopper would compare (Lamisil AT, Lotrimin AF and Ultra, Tinactin, Zeasorb, Gold Bond, Certain Dri, Carpe, Dr. Scholl's, Arm & Hammer).
   • Published two pages on Mom's Magazine for parents of young athletes: a guest post on sweaty, smelly feet and a comparison of athlete's foot treatments for kids and teens.
   • Published two pages on Senior Tech Review for older adults and caregivers: a guest post on treating athlete’s foot with limited reach and a comparison of foot antiperspirants.
   • Published a third Senior Tech Review page, a comparison of athlete's foot treatments for older adults.
   • Opened a third audience, adults on their feet in athletic shoes, with three audience guides: referee foot care on EmergencyRefs, athlete’s foot in youth flag football on Flag Training Football, and padel foot care on PadelAnywhere. Each cross-links to one or two of the earlier Dryello pages.
   • Each audience guide opens with a short direct answer, answers real questions under question-shaped headings (can athletes treat athlete’s foot in season, do sweaty feet cause it, can you combine an antiperspirant and an antifungal), and carries FAQPage, Article, and BreadcrumbList schema.
   • Every page carries a sponsorship disclosure, tags Dryello links rel="sponsored" with UTM parameters, and keeps health statements inside the drug label.
   • Results: none yet. The pages are hours old and Search Console data lags by a few days.

What this means for other regulated or health-adjacent brands

None of this is proven yet for Dryello, so treat it as our working method, not a result. For a small brand in a category led by household names, we think the approach generalizes:

• Pick audiences, not keywords. Each audience has its own questions, its own sites it trusts, and its own reason a product is or is not a fit.
• Write the useful page first. Every page should still be worth reading if the product section were removed. That is what earns a place on a publisher's site and in an AI answer.
• Let the label set the ceiling. For an OTC drug or any regulated product, the approved label is the most you can claim. Staying under it protects the client and the publisher.
• Compare honestly. Naming real competitors, and saying who they may suit better, makes a "best" page more credible, not less.
• Measure in the open. Date everything and publish misses. A build log is only useful if it is allowed to show that something did not work.

Questions about this case study

Disclosure: Dryello is a paying client of Rank Easy. Product details and prices on this page come from dryello.com and the products' OTC labels on the dates stated. This page contains no Dryello sales links.