Key takeaways in this post:

  • Page templates and models ensure a reliable experience for website visitors by standardizing layouts and content across pages, facilitating easy navigation and understanding.
  • While some elements of templates and models may be universal, organizations should customize them to align with their specific goals, target audience, and brand identity.
  • Templates and models should reflect the organization’s brand strategy, integrating brand elements such as tone, voice, and visual identity consistently across all pages.
  • Effective use of templates and models requires collaboration between content strategists and content creators.

Have you ever wondered how to build consistent web pages across your website? That answers questions reliably? That reflects your brand uniformly, whether it’s an oncology service page or a careers section?

Content strategy page templates and page models can help you achieve those goals. They provide an extra level of consistency across a website, regardless of what you’re writing on each page. These tools allow content managers to better finesse their user experience and give users a greater understanding of your site as they navigate it. A similar user experience from page to page allows users to understand what they’re trying to do and take the actions they want to take.

Content templates are strategic guides that help writers as they’re developing content. The templates include guidance for headers, meta descriptions and keywords.

Page models take it a step further and provide specific recommendations for what to include on every page for a particular type of content. That includes identifying:

  • Target audience(s)
  • Goals and objectives
  • Prioritized content
  • Dynamic content needs for page type

For example, you could produce a model for your service line pages that outlines how to talk about treatments, conditions and awards. The model will present an exact order, recommended visual elements and the length for each section. Every service line page on your site will follow that model.

Page content models can support multiple roles on your team, including designers, developers, writers, editors and more.

Creating the right templates and models takes time, but it’s worth the effort to bring consistency to your web content. Try these tips for incorporating page templates and models into your content strategy.

1. Create a consistent user experience

One of the main benefits of page templates and models is a reliable experience for your website visitors from page to page. For example, a visitor searching for a provider should be able to search among multiple providers and quickly navigate to the information that is relevant to them, such as each provider’s education, location and scheduling information. Cincinnati Children’s does a great job of organizing its provider pages in a consistent way that makes it easy for patients to search.

In the case of service lines, page models help give a consistent experience to service lines that might be overlooked. Service lines that are more niche might not be as built out. But by following the content model and using templates, you can still provide the same user experience patients expect when coming to your website.

2. Tailor to your goals

Each organization will have its own goals for its web pages, along with ways they measure the success of the site. There are some parts of the page templates and models that will be the same between organizations (such as parts based on SEO best practices). However, the templates and models will also vary depending on the web system, web components, site map, type of organization and more. For example, a community health provider that deals with a vulnerable population might have different needs for a foundation page to get donations compared to the needs of a community hospital.

3. Support your brand

You’ll want to align page models and templates with your overall brand strategy. It’s also best to integrate brand elements within each template so they can be carried throughout each page. That includes recommendations for things like tone, voice and reading level that can be baked in for each type of page from the start of content creation.

4. Collaborate with your writers

Page models and templates are only useful if they work for the writers creating the content. Whether you’re working with content partners or internal writers, you’ll want to maintain an open line of communication. Regular feedback between content strategists and content creators helps make sure the content is being created strategically according to the best practices the brand wants to ascribe to. These guardrails can streamline the content development process and make sure every page can meet your needs and goals. For external writers in particular, models and templates can give a good base understanding of components and requirements for each page that is highly tailored to each client.

5. Timing is everything

Wondering when to get started using page templates and models? A website redesign or content refresh is a perfect time to implement content models. Before you get started writing content, set your baseline with a page model. That way, as you’re writing, you can make sure every page follows that guide and is consistent. This is a great moment to look at content from the top down and use a full suite of content strategy recommendations to help writers apply the best templates and models to each page.

The content strategists, writers, editors and project managers at WriterGirl are here to help you develop web content that best fits your needs and highlights the best of your organization. Contact us to get started today.

Content templates provide strategic guidance for writers, including elements like headers, meta descriptions, and keywords. On the other hand, page content models offer specific recommendations for the content of each page type, including target audience identification, goals, prioritized content, and dynamic content needs. While templates focus on structure and elements, models delve deeper into the content specifics for different page types.

Page templates and models contribute to a consistent user experience by standardizing layouts and content elements across the website. This consistency allows users to navigate the site more easily, understand the content intuitively, and find relevant information efficiently. By providing a uniform experience from page to page, templates and models help users accomplish their goals and take desired actions on the website.

The ideal time to implement page templates and models is during a website redesign or content refresh. Before writing content, establish a baseline using a page model to guide the creation process. This ensures that all content follows a consistent structure and aligns with the organization’s goals and brand identity. By incorporating templates and models early in the content development process, you can maintain consistency and coherence throughout the website.

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