Case Study
Content enhancement at scale: McKesson.com
How a 1,500-page content audit and systematic rewrite program drove an 82% year-over-year increase in form leads and nearly doubled organic traffic to product and solution pages.
The problem
A Fortune 10 website that wasn't working for its users
McKesson.com was the primary digital presence for one of the largest healthcare companies in the world — but the content wasn't performing. Pages were dense with internal jargon and company-focused language that meant little to outside visitors. Long, unbroken blocks of copy buried the information users were looking for. CTAs were unclear or absent entirely. And across 1,500+ pages, there was no consistent standard for voice, structure, or search optimization.
The business goals were clear: increase organic traffic, grow form leads by 25% sitewide, and improve task completion rates. Getting there required more than editorial cleanup: it required a system.
The scale of the problem was also the opportunity. With 1,500 pages to work with, a repeatable enhancement framework, applied consistently across business units, could compound its impact across the entire site.
The strategy
Audit first. Build the standard second. Then scale.
I led a full content audit of McKesson.com, evaluating all solution, wayfinding, and about us content both quantitatively and qualitatively. The audit identified recurring failure patterns that became the basis for an enhancement framework: long copy blocks that needed breaking up for scannability, insider language that needed translating for external audiences, pages that were text-light or redundant and needed consolidation, missing CTAs, and accessibility gaps throughout.
The framework defined what "enhanced" looked like in practice: a search-optimized H1, audience-focused tone, clear product features and benefits, scannable structure, inline links to related content, and clear next steps on every page. This gave every contributor and every business unit a shared standard to work toward.
Navigating complexity
Brokering the brand vs. SEO tension
Midway through the project, McKesson's brand team undertook a major overhaul of their voice and tone guidelines — a change that would have affected every piece of content in scope. The conflict was real: brand wanted simplified language and improved Flesch-Kincaid readability scores, minimizing jargon wherever possible. SEO needed the freedom to use technical terms that matched what customers were actually searching for.
Rather than let the two standards stall the work, I brokered a practical compromise and led the creation of a digital writing guide that honored both. The digital team would hit brand's readability targets through shorter sentences and scannable structure, while SEO retained the flexibility to preserve high-value technical terms. The writing guide became the governing document for all content work going forward.
The process
Segmented by business unit. Designed to stay unblocked.
To prevent bottlenecks across a large, distributed organization, the work was segmented by business unit and phased to avoid scheduling conflicts within any one team. The process began with an enterprise-wide kickoff to establish buy-in and surface concerns early, followed by BU-specific kickoffs at the start of each phase to align on scope and update the roadmap. When one phase hit a delay or conflict, the team pivoted to another, keeping the project moving without sacrificing quality.
This kept the project moving even when individual business units hit delays.
Outcomes
82% more leads. Nearly double the organic traffic.
By the end of 2018, form leads on enhanced product and solution pages had improved 82% year-over-year, well beyond the 25% sitewide target. Organic traffic to business unit pages nearly doubled over the same period. The digital writing guide created as a byproduct of navigating the brand and SEO tension became a durable governance artifact, outlasting the project itself and continuing to shape content decisions across the organization.