Health service pages tend to fail in one of two directions. Either they’re so cautious they say nothing (“We offer dry needling as part of a holistic treatment approach”), or they promise far too much (“Dry needling releases trigger points for fast, lasting pain relief”). The first doesn’t help anyone book. The second is an AHPRA problem.
The fix is to write about the process rather than the promise. Patients mainly want to know what will happen to them, whether it suits them, and what it costs. You can answer all of that in detail without making a single outcome claim.
Below is the structure we use, with a worked example for dry needling at a physio practice. Swap in your own service.
The structure
- What it is, in one or two plain sentences
- Who it may suit, and who it doesn’t
- What happens in the appointment
- What it feels like, and what afterwards is like
- Risks and side effects
- Who provides it at your practice
- Cost, funding and referrals
- How to book, plus one or two real FAQs
That order follows the questions people ask, in roughly the order they ask them.
The worked example
1. What it is
Dry needling uses very fine, sterile, single-use needles inserted into muscle. Our physios use it alongside exercise and hands-on treatment, not on its own.
Two sentences, no jargon. The second sentence is doing compliance work as well: it positions the treatment as part of care rather than a cure in itself.
2. Who it may suit
We may suggest dry needling for some people with muscle-related neck, shoulder, back or hip pain, when your assessment shows it’s likely to be useful. It’s not suitable for everyone. We won’t use it if you’re needle-phobic, pregnant in some circumstances, on certain blood-thinning medications, or have a bleeding disorder, and we’ll always ask first.
Note “may suggest”, “some people” and “when your assessment shows”. This is accurate, not mealy-mouthed: you really do decide case by case. Listing who it doesn’t suit builds more trust than anything else on the page. (Get your own clinicians to write the contraindications list. Ours above is illustrative.)
3. What happens
Your physio will assess you first and explain whether dry needling is part of the plan. If you agree, they’ll clean the skin, insert a small number of needles, and may leave them in place for a short time. The needling itself usually takes a few minutes within a normal appointment.
4. What it feels like
Most people feel a small prick, and sometimes a brief muscle twitch or ache. You may feel sore for a day or so afterwards, a bit like after exercise.
“Does it hurt?” is one of the first things patients want to know. Answering it honestly is good for them and for search.
5. Risks and side effects
Common side effects include soreness and minor bruising. Serious complications are rare, and your physio will explain the risks relevant to the area being treated before starting.
Every treatment has risks. A service page that mentions none looks like advertising, because it is.
6. Who provides it
Dry needling is provided by Jo and Sam, who have completed additional training in the technique.
Link each name to their profile. Avoid “our dry needling specialists”. There’s no specialist registration in physiotherapy, and “specialist” on a page like this is a common AHPRA breach.
7. Cost, funding and referrals
Dry needling is included in a standard appointment at no extra cost. Standard appointments are $XX and you can claim with most private health funds on the spot. You don’t need a referral.
If the service is often accessed through a GP referral or a funding scheme, say so here and explain what the patient needs. If GPs are a big source of patients for this service, our article on making your website easy for GPs to refer to covers that side.
8. Booking and FAQs
A clear booking button, then one or two real questions from patients that the page hasn’t covered. For dry needling, that’s usually “Is it the same as acupuncture?” Answer it briefly and accurately, without disparaging other professions.
Compliance points to check on every service page
AHPRA’s summary of the advertising requirements is short and worth reading. The parts that matter most for service pages:
- Claims need acceptable evidence. Your experience isn’t evidence. If you claim a treatment helps a condition, you need to be able to show how.
- No long condition lists without explanation. If you list conditions, the treatment should help each one, and the page should say how.
- No testimonials about clinical outcomes, including in quotes, sliders or videos on the page.
- Total prices, not just the first visit.
- Offers need terms stated beside them.
- No urgency language linked to health claims.
Read the finished page back and highlight every verb attached to an outcome: relieves, fixes, cures, eliminates, restores. Rewrite each one as something you do (assess, treat, prescribe, explain) rather than something you guarantee.
One page per service
A separate page for each main service lets you go into this level of detail, and it gives Google a clear page to show for each search. We explain the search side in why one page per service beats one big list. For a health practice, it also means compliance can be checked page by page, instead of hunting through one enormous services page.
Aim for something like 400 to 800 words per service page. Enough to answer the questions properly, not so much that the booking button disappears beneath a wall of text.
Your next page
Pick the service people ask about most on the phone and write its page using the eight headings above. Get a clinician to check the facts and the contraindications, then get someone outside the practice to read it and tell you what they still don’t know.
Once a few pages are done, they’re what our local SEO work builds on. If you’d rather hand over the whole thing, we write and lay out service pages as part of our web design projects.