Web writing:
A comprehensive guide for healthcare marketers
The words you put to the (web)page matter. They tell people who you are while helping them find what they need. Often, that means promoting your brand and providing patients with information they can use to make knowledgeable healthcare decisions.
Sure, design is undeniably important to the form and function of your website, but the words you write on your webpages can either make or break your overall online success.
This guide explores how to ensure your web writing strikes the right chord to deliver the best possible results for your brand.
Why getting web writing “right” matters
Content is at the heart of any good website. Especially in the healthcare space, when earning patients’ trust is vital, it’s critical to create engaging content that’s easy to read, helpful, honest and, often, heartwarming.
Today’s websites may have hundreds or even thousands of pages, and when you’re adding or refreshing content, it’s tempting to just knock it out, get it done and move on. When I’m falling into that rut, I take a deep breath and remind myself that web writing isn’t just words on a virtual page. It can be the resource that connects people to just the right provider or service, at a time when they need hope and answers the most.
— Leigh Wilkins, senior writer and editor, WG Content
Types of web content
While the types of web content are numerous and varied, each has a purpose in advancing your mission. Feel free to mix and match, but keep your goal in mind when selecting which to use when.
Here are a few of the main kinds of web content on healthcare and health b2b websites:
- Blogs: Fresh content on interesting topics helps build your brand’s online presence — and ongoing loyalty.
- Case studies: Examples of how others have used a product or service can help lead someone looking for that product or service directly to you.
- Doctor and provider profiles: Strategic (and easy-to-find) doctor and provider bios can generate appointments and referrals.
- Landing pages: A well-focused landing page can promote nurture campaigns and drive traffic to service lines.
- Location pages: Clear pages with location-specific information, including services, addresses and phone numbers, can help patients easily find what they need.
- Patient stories: Powerful patient stories and testimonials help build trust and connection with your audience.
- Service line pages: An easy-to-follow breakdown of your services helps your audience understand how you can help them.
- White papers: The long-form opportunity provided by a white paper allows you to explore a meaty topic in-depth.
The role of content strategy
No matter the type of web content you use, it should ladder up to your overall content strategy, which is the way your brand ensures it’s delivering the right content to the right place at the right time to the right audience.
Just like there are many types of web content, there are many types of content strategy. Still, healthcare marketing typically centers around a few key areas, including web content strategy. Every word on the page is a chance to work your web content strategy to serve your brand goals.
Web writing best practices
Web writing follows different rules from other forms of writing. The good news is you don’t have to fly blind. There are some evidence-based best practices you can use to guide you. In addition to basic tips for creating good content, like writing in active voice, here are a few to keep in mind:
- Remember that your words matter. If you don’t write content that’s interesting, you’ve already lost.
- Use plain language to create content that is clear and concise. No mumbo jumbo (or medical jargon) included. You should also make sure your content is accessible. That means it’s able to be read by everyone. (So don’t forget to check your content’s grade level before hitting “publish.”)
- Chunk your content into well-structured and scannable sections, broken up with headings, subheadings, bullets and white space that guide the reader throughout the page. (You may not know it, but white space is your friend.)
- Optimize your website for SEO, AI Overviews and search intent by strategically incorporating relevant keywords throughout your pages.
- Include calls to action (CTAs) throughout your pages that help guide the reader to do something.
Tools of the trade
In addition to following best practices, there are tools you can use to help make your web writing engaging and effective.
For example, Hemingway Editor, Grammarly and Readable.com are free resources to help check for conciseness, find critical grammar mistakes, highlight passive voice and check for reading level and clarity.
Developing a writing style and brand guide for your organization — and following them — also helps align your web pages, even if they’re written by different writers.
AI implications
Although it’s generating major buzz in content right now, artificial intelligence (AI) is most valuable playing a supporting role in web writing. That means you can — and should — use it for things like brainstorming, checking the tone of something you’ve written and drafting meta descriptions for your pages.
You can even use it to help make writing style guides more usable for your team. For example, you can create an internal, customized GPT for your organization and ask it to retrieve style rules. That way, instead of searching through a lengthy document, you can ask AI for specific formatting, punctuation or grammar rules.
Just don’t use AI to write something that requires a human touch. Save that nuance and creativity for actual humans.
AI, like ChatGPT, for instance, makes a great ‘sounding board.’ Writing is often a solitary occupation. So having a tool that can brainstorm on the spot enhances the writing process, versus waiting for a colleague to respond to a Teams message or be available to chat. Still, when it comes to what I think of as organic creativity, AI’s machine learning can’t fill the need. At this point anyway, that kind of creativity only comes from lived experience.
— Carol Williams, content director, WG Content
Content-first approach to website redesign
Websites are big and never-ending. When you redesign your website, you’ll likely touch hundreds, even thousands, of pages. In fact, it can take months to change the look and feel of your site. With so much to focus on, content can sometimes get overlooked in big-picture conversations.
But letting content slip through the cracks can come back to bite you — by threatening your targeted launch.
Why should content strategy come first in a web redesign?
Content strategy should guide your redesign from the very beginning. By planning early, you’ll ensure your site meets user needs, reflects your brand voice and performs well in search.
Start by bringing content to the table with these essential steps:
- Conduct a content audit: Assess existing content to understand what’s working and what needs to be improved or removed.
- Perform a content gap analysis: Identify what’s missing to ensure your new site covers the topics and questions your users care about.
- Do keyword research: Uncover the search terms your audience is using so you can optimize pages for discoverability and relevance.
- Create a content development plan: Outline goals, define your audience and organize content early. This roadmap sets the foundation for a focused, strategic build.
- Use content briefs: Define the creative direction, voice, tone and key messages for each page. Writers and designers rely on this guidance throughout the project.
Writing for a web redesign
When it’s time to write, you’ll want to first develop writing style guides — the guidelines your writer will use to create the content you’ve mapped out in the content development plan.
You can then create page templates to standardize webpage layouts across your site. These templates help you keep brand elements — like tone, voice and visual identity — consistent on each and every page.
A quality template improves team efficiency and collaboration, along with the content that ends up on a website. Ideally, a template collates all preferences and best practices from the many teams involved in web development. It provides a solid starting point for web writers, easy access for reviewers and clear instructions for web developers.
— Hannah Barker, senior writer and editor, WG Content
Editing for a web redesign
Once you’ve written your content, it’s time to put one last shine on it. That’s, of course, the editing and proofreading process.
An editor should review each webpage to make sure it aligns with your writing style and brand guide, reads well and clearly, and achieves its goal.
Proofreading is the final stage of the writing process. It entails combing through the content with an eagle eye for detail, looking for errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Optimizing web content for ongoing success
Once you’ve written and polished your web content, don’t think you’re finished. The work has just begun.
You must continuously invest in your website:
- Improve underperforming content through enhanced readability, optimized SEO/AEO and easy-to-follow formatting
- Check hyperlinks and add hyperlinks to new content
- Increase the visibility of provider profiles
- Refresh blogs for timeliness and relevance
- Check content performance and iterate as needed
- Publish new content consistently
When I write web content, I always think about how it will read months — even years — down the line. Evergreen blogs, paired with regular refreshes, keep your content fresh and your audience engaged long-term. It’s about building something that continues to serve readers, no matter when they find it.
—Addison Werling, content writer, WG Content
Finding the right web writing content partner
Knowing how to do something doesn’t always translate to executing it well, especially during a web redesign, when internal resources tend to run thin. That’s where a trusted web writing partner can help.
Working with a content partner with a deep bench of niche expertise can save you time and money by reducing rework, revisions and stress. At WG Content, we help you execute the content strategy and content creation you want — right when you want it.
Ready to tackle a web writing project?