Web Writing Best Practices: Guide for Medical Practices

In today’s digital landscape, a strong online presence is essential for medical practices seeking to attract and engage patients. While a visually appealing website design is important, it’s the quality of your content that truly makes a difference. Effective website content informs, engages, and builds trust with potential patients, ultimately driving conversions and growing your practice. This comprehensive guide outlines best practices for writing compelling content that resonates with your target audience and boosts your search engine optimisation (SEO).

Understanding the Digital Reader:

Unlike reading printed materials, online users tend to scan web pages for specific information, often reading only about 20% of the text. This behaviour necessitates a different approach to writing for the web. Concise, scannable, and patient-focused content is paramount for medical websites.

Optimising Your Medical Website Content:

• Know Your Patient: Write content that resonates with your target audience. Use clear, simple language, avoiding complex medical jargon that may confuse or intimidate patients. Explain technical terms in plain English, providing layman’s terms where appropriate. This patient-centric approach improves comprehension and enhances the user experience.

• Structure for Readability and Scannability: Use headings (H1-H4) and subheadings to break up content into digestible sections. This allows users to quickly scan and locate the information they need. Short paragraphs (around 3-4 sentences) and bullet points further enhance readability and make content more accessible.

• Maintain Consistency Across Your Website: Create templates for similar pages, such as doctor bios and procedure descriptions, to ensure consistent formatting, headings, and information across your website. This creates a cohesive user experience and reinforces your brand identity. Consistency builds trust and professionalism.

• Prioritise Key Information with the Inverted Pyramid: Adopt the inverted pyramid style of journalism, presenting the most important information first, followed by supporting details and background information. This ensures users quickly grasp the key takeaways, even if they don’t read the entire page.

• Engage with a Personal Tone: Use “you” to address the patient and “we” to refer to your practice. This creates a more personal and approachable tone, fostering a connection with your audience. Using active voice strengthens your writing and makes sentences clearer and more concise. For example, “We offer this treatment” is more direct and engaging than “This treatment is offered by us.”

• Write Concisely and Clearly: Use short sentences (under 20 words) and paragraphs. Replace semicolons with dashes or break long sentences into two shorter ones. Starting sentences with conjunctions like “and,” “but,” or “or” is acceptable when it improves clarity and brevity.

• Utilise Lists Strategically: Bulleted and numbered lists are effective for highlighting key information, but avoid overusing them. Strive for a balance between lists and paragraph text to maintain reader engagement and comprehension. Avoid nested bullet points, which can be confusing. Instead, restructure content using clear paragraphs and top-level bullet points.

• Craft Compelling and Informative Headlines: Use concise, engaging headlines and subheadings that accurately reflect the content and draw readers in. Posing questions with pronouns, such as “What can you expect during this procedure?”, can be particularly effective. Avoid unnecessary punctuation in headlines.

The Importance of Unique, Original Content:

• SEO Best Practices: Search engines, particularly Google, prioritise unique, original content. Duplicate content can severely harm your search engine rankings, making it difficult for potential patients to find your website. Ensure your content is original and not copied from other sources, both within your website and compared to other websites.

• Legal and Ethical Considerations: Copying content from other sources without permission constitutes copyright infringement and can have serious legal consequences. Creating original content protects you from legal issues and upholds ethical standards.

Online Medical Copywriting Services:

If creating high-quality website content feels overwhelming, consider partnering with Online Medical’s team of experienced medical copywriters. We specialise in crafting effective, patient-focused content that adheres to web writing best practices and SEO guidelines. Our services can help you attract more patients, improve your search engine rankings, and enhance your online presence.

Contact us today to discuss your content needs and receive a personalised quote. Let us help you create a website that truly connects with your patients and drives the growth of your practice.