The content on your organization’s service line pages is essential for engaging with patients, helping prospects on their care journeys, and driving appointment requests.
However, healthcare marketers often face the challenge of balancing informative, accurate content with an easy-to-understand, patient-friendly tone.
Check out these suggestions to help you craft service line content that connects with your audience while supporting your organization’s business goals.
1. Consider your voice, tone, and style
Before you start writing, define the overall tone that you’d like your content to have. Does your organization’s content tend to skew clinical, with an authoritative tone? Or will your audience respond better to a more conversational tone, with a focus on care over clinical topics?
For example, content about complex medical treatments may benefit from a more professional tone, while pediatric services might be more approachable and reassuring. Ensuring a consistent voice across your service line content helps build trust and recognition with your audience.
2. Determine your goals
What do you want this new content to achieve? Your goals should shape the structure and focus of your content.
Are you trying to increase the number of appointments visitors schedule, improve search engine rankings, or introduce a brand-new or complex service to your patients?
Clearly defined goals will help you create targeted content that delivers measurable results.
3. Reflect on your resources
Producing and maintaining high-quality service line content requires resources.
Before launching into your new service line content, consider who will create it, who is responsible for making sure it’s updated and accurate, and if you need any external support to meet your goals.
Knowing your limitations will help you create a sustainable content strategy that maintains accuracy and relevance over time.
4. Understand your audience
Effective service line content starts with understanding the audience you’re writing for.
Think about who your target audience is — are you speaking directly to patients, parents, or other family caregivers? What questions or concerns are they trying to solve when they visit your website? What is the most effective way to deliver information to them?
Using patient-focused language and addressing common questions directly in your content will make it more relevant and engaging, leading to a higher likelihood that the reader will choose your organization for care or schedule an appointment.
5. Interview internal stakeholders and subject matter experts
As part of your information-gathering process, be sure to talk to the people at your organization who work directly with that service line, like physicians, nurses, and administrative staff.
You can ask them what information patients need to know when visiting the page, what questions patients or caregivers frequently have about this service, and what details might make their care journey smoother.
This input will help you create content that’s not only accurate but also aligned with the patient experience.
6. Identify gaps or inaccuracies in current content
If you’re refreshing the content on existing service line pages, audit what you currently have to determine what’s outdated, missing, inconsistent, or difficult to understand.
Updating and expanding content to fill these gaps ensures that patients get accurate, helpful information when they need it.
7. Check out your competition
Take a look at how other health systems or hospitals in your area communicate their service lines. Are they offering features or content you aren’t?
Think about how their content is structured and designed, what information they emphasize, and how they position themselves as leaders in caring for that condition.
Use this analysis to find opportunities to differentiate your content and highlight your organization’s unique strengths.
Let’s get writing!
Writing service line content isn’t just about explaining your services — it’s about guiding your audience through their healthcare journey with clear, helpful, and engaging information.
Check out an example of a service line content refresh in this case study for Rochester, Minnesota’s Olmsted Medical Center.
If your organization could use a hand in the content department, our team of content experts is here to help. Reach out to us today to discuss your service line content goals!
