When it’s time to redesign your medical website, you need to think content first.
Asking a few content related questions at the start of your project will allow you to identify website content opportunities and challenges early on. By doing so, it will also you gauge the project team’s awareness of and appreciation for your overall content strategy and ensure success of your website.
Have you audited the content on your current site?
Most likely content and other assets, such as images, documents, videos and more have been added to your site over time. Taking a baseline inventory of what content you currently have on your website is a good starting point. Once inventoried, you can use that analysis as a guide to qualify your content:
- how do I want to organize the content for the new website
- is my current content still accurate
- what needs to be updated
- what content or other assets am I missing
One thing to keep in mind.. if you don’t know where your current content came from, don’t assume that you have permission to use it. It’s a good time to verify that your content is properly licensed.
Do you know who is going to (re)write content for your new site?
Content generation is one of the most resource intensive aspects of your website project. Don’t assume that content will magically appear in the new site. Early on identify who is responsible for content development. Set some hard project deliverable dates to ensure you meet your project milestones.
Who is responsible for content quality during your website project and beyond?
Producing quality content on an ongoing basis will be mission critical to the success of your website and overall online presence. Your website is a living and evolving medium that needs continuous attention. If content development resources are not identified, content creation beyond the initial project will either not be maintained well or not occur at all.
Have you identified dedicated subject experts as content owners?
Google, and other search engines, reward sites that demonstrate that they are an authority on a topic. That means good authoritative content needs ownership. For better results, make sure your content owners are included during the project lifecycle and beyond.
Have you considered all content types?
Content is more than the just words on the page. It should include imagery, video and infographics that engage and convert your visitor. Knowing all types of content that you have access to or will need to develop is vital to your overall content strategy. Also mapping those elements appropriately based on topic will increase patient engagement and conversion. Finally, don’t forget to consider how these additional content types will display on various devices.
Do you know if your current content comes from a licensed content feed?
It’s important to know your content eco-system. Be sure to research if you utilize any content feeds as they may add to your new website’s functional requirements, especially when developing a responsive website.
If you don’t have licensed content for your medical website, it may be time to consider adding it. That will allow you to focus your content development efforts on the conditions, treatment and services that you are an expert in. You have limited resources. Don’t spend your valuable time developing general patient education content that is easily available as a licensed medical content library.
Do you have analytics running on your site?
You can’t improve want you don’t measure. If analytics and conversion tracking are not appropriately added, you won’t know how your content is performing nor how to improve it in the future.
Do you need help with your content strategy for your healthcare website and online marketing programs?
Let Practis help you map and make meaningful connections with your patients by creating engaging content.
