Web strategy and content for academic medical center
Developing an optimized website content strategy for an academic medical center’s new hospital
WG Content created thorough web content strategy and content for 75+ webpages to deliver a quality, complementary hospital website for UT Health San Antonio on a tight timeline.
HQ: San Antonio, TX
Industry: Academic Medical Center
Founded in 1959
8,500+ team members
Opportunity
With a new multispecialty and research hospital opening, UT Health San Antonio needed a content vendor to develop a web strategy and consumer-friendly content for their public healthcare website that didn’t compete with their existing online presence.
Solution
WG Content became an extension of the UT Health San Antonio team, with a content strategist, project manager and team of writers. A content strategy, project tracker and fast-moving process guided writers as they created and reviewed content.
Results
WG Content provided 75+ webpages to the digital team on time, along with recommendations for when to publish each page. Content included localized keywords, plain language for easy translations and best practices for the web.
Opportunity
New, standalone hospital website content that complements existing academic medical center digital presence
Recently, UT Health San Antonio set out to develop a new website for their first hospital, UT Health San Antonio Multispecialty and Research Hospital. They needed assistance in drafting content that would not only meet their audience’s needs but also complement their existing web presence. They selected WG Content as their vendor.
WG Content was prepared to help UT Health San Antonio with the challenge:
- Create new website content that doesn’t compete with existing web content: UT Health San Antonio has several outpatient websites. For example, their cancer care website includes content related to getting cancer treatment. They hoped to create a standalone website for their new hospital that didn’t duplicate or repeat other web content while still matching the tone and voice of the existing sites. That meant new content needed to complement other UT Health San Antonio content but not compete with it.
- Write content for users, even while decisions are in progress: Because the new hospital was still under construction, content development had to happen while UT Health San Antonio was making decisions about service line offerings and hiring leaders and staff. They wanted to prioritize content that focused on what visitors could expect and note any pages with pending details to update later.
- Finalize content quickly: UT Health San Antonio had a tight timeline for content delivery. They planned to do a two-phase launch of the website, with the initial web launch two months before the hospital’s opening.
Solution
Seamless project management, strategy and content development get the project to the finish line
WG Content worked closely with the UT Health San Antonio team and met with them each week. Two project managers — one from WG Content and one from UT Health San Antonio — collaborated to set up and track timelines. Using a shared workspace, all members could view the status, timeline, access shared files and follow an organized workflow.
Content strategy
After analyzing existing assets, notes and research from UT Health San Antonio, one of the expert content strategists at WG Content developed a full strategy, which included the following:
- Input on UT Health San Antonio’s existing high-level information architecture for the new website
- Findings and recommendations for the main, secondary and footer navigation for the new website
- A sitewide matrix with custom tabs to organize webpages (e.g., Home, Care, Location and Directions, Patients and Visitors, Careers, About)
- Unique page recommendations related to brand architecture, such as cross-linking between UT Health San Antonio’s existing websites as needed
- Keywords for each page localized to San Antonio
- A visual site map
WG Content supported all strategic recommendations with rationale that equipped UT Health San Antonio to get buy-in from leadership quickly.
Writing
After strategy approval, WG Content used a team of six writers to draft content for each page listed in the strategy. The team relied on templates to establish consistency in formatting and approach. All content incorporated suggested keywords for improved search engine optimization, important metadata and a clear structure for the web developers.
WG Content writers drafted content using a mix of source materials and input from subject matter experts. Each page also followed standard web writing best practices and accounted for non-native English speakers.
Overall, strategic recommendations from the content strategy had to remain flexible during the writing process — as UT Health San Antonio finalized decisions related to the new hospital, content shifted accordingly.
Because of the phased hospital opening, UT Health San Antonio asked WG Content to help prioritize pages to publish in phase one and others to save for phase two of the website launch. WG Content updated the content matrix with a page publishing plan and wrote phase one pages in an evergreen way so the content would not require additional updates later.
Results
Published content for now, planned content for later
In less than 4 months, WG Content delivered a full strategy — including sitewide navigation, internal architecture and a plan for optimized content — and wrote 75+ webpages for UT Health San Antonio.
Because WG Content adhered to the tight timelines, the UT Health San Antonio web team was able to launch the website in late October 2024. Within one month, there were marked improvements compared to the existing landing page:
- Organic search traffic increased by over 44%.
- Unique monthly visitors increased by 224%.
- More than 500 new organic keywords helped generate web traffic, the cost equivalent of $2.4K in paid Google Ads.
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