Port Stephens Koala Hospital
Industry
Wildlife conservation, not-for-profitBackground
Port Stephens Koala Hospital (PSKH) is the Hunter and Newcastle region’s leading koala and native wildlife hospital, backed by a multi-million-dollar facility, 230+ trained volunteers and a growing research program. They’re a not-for-profit organisation.
Brief
With new hospital equipment, expanded facilities and a major koala disease research project underway, PSKH needed a website that matched the scale of their work; one built to grow brand awareness, attract more visitors, donors and adoptions, and properly showcase their research credentials.
The brief called for a full repositioning: warmer and more engaging, while staying grounded in scientific credibility. It came together in a tight eight-week turnaround.
The project involved:
- Discovery sessions and a hospital/sanctuary visit with the PSKH team
- Brand positioning refresh and a tone of voice guide
- 14 pages of website copy plus 4 case studies
- Rethinking site navigation and structure
- SEO report, plus SEO and AEO optimisation
- Tagline development
Approach
Tone of voice
PSKH needed to sound like an expert and a carer at once – trustworthy enough for research funders, warm enough for someone deciding to adopt, volunteer or report an injured koala. I built the tone around four pillars:
- Steady assurance for moments of concern (“Thanks for caring. Don’t worry, our rescue team is on the way to help”),
- Local grounding referencing the Hunter bush and specific eucalyptus species like river red gum and forest red gum
- Community warmth through real koala rescue and release stories like Tilly’s recovery
- Everyday expertise through specific facts (the CT scanner’s 128 sliced images, chlamydia rates exceeding 50% in some NSW koala populations)
I also developed a set of hooks and CTAs to carry the tone across headlines and campaigns – curiosity-led (“What happens after the rescue?”), community-led (“You made this possible”) and story-led (“Tilly is climbing again”)
Navigation + UX
With research, education, adoption and rescue reporting all competing for attention, I helped rework the navigation into clear, intent-led paths, separating urgent rescue information from the broader brand story, so a panicked visitor and a prospective donor both land where they need to.
Website copy
I ended up writing more than the briefed pages, taking on extra content to support the team and help get the site live within the deadline. I used strong, engaging headings and short, digestible sections rather than dense blocks – structured for both readability and AEO, so key facts and answers could be easily surfaced by search and AI tools.
I included fun, bite-sized facts, volunteer stories and koala success stories, balanced against credibility (stats, hospital facilities, the CT scanner, the research project), all while staying warm, never tipping into clinical distance, guilt-driven language or over-sentimentality.
I wove SEO keywords in naturally throughout, guided by a keyword report I developed alongside the copy.
Tagline
I conceptualised ‘Healing wild lives’ as the lead tagline. It’s short and memorable, captures the hospital’s clinical role while speaking to the bigger purpose behind every rescue, and reads on two levels: healing individual wild animals, and helping heal wildlife more broadly. It also plays nicely off ‘hospital’ with its alliteration.
PSKH have launched with a more generic line while the tagline decision is finalised.
View work
