A few months ago I started building [reversemydiabetes.co]a small health platform focused on helping people manage type 2 diabetes through diet and lifestyle changes. I'm not a doctor — I'm a builder — but the project turned into a genuinely interesting technical challenge, and I wanted to share some of what I learned along the way.
Why I started this
Type 2 diabetes affects a huge number of people, and a lot of the advice online is either paywalled, badly organized, or written in a way that's hard to act on. I wanted to build something simple: a site that gives people practical, easy-to-follow guidance on blood sugar management, diet planning, and day-to-day habits — without needing a login, a subscription, or a medical degree to understand it.
The technical side
A few decisions shaped how the site turned out:
Content structure over cleverness. Early on I over-engineered the information architecture — trying to build dynamic filtering for every possible diet preference. I scrapped most of it. What actually mattered was clear, well-organized static content: a diabetes diet plan page, a blood sugar basics guide, and a meal-planning section. Simple beats clever when the audience isn't tech-savvy.
SEO became a first-class concern, not an afterthought. Health content lives or dies on whether people can actually find it. I spent real time on keyword research — things like "diabetes diet plan," "blood sugar levels," and "type 2 diabetes management" — and restructured pages around what people were actually searching for, rather than what sounded good internally.
Performance mattered more than I expected. A lot of the target audience is older, on slower connections, or on older devices. I ended up stripping out a bunch of client-side JavaScript I didn't need and leaned on plain HTML/CSS wherever possible. Lighthouse scores went from "fine" to "actually fast," and bounce rate dropped noticeably.
Trust signals are a real UX problem for health content. Unlike a SaaS landing page, visitors here are often anxious or skeptical — rightly so, since health content online is often unreliable. I spent time on things like clear sourcing, plain-language explanations instead of jargon, and avoiding overhyped claims. It slowed down "launch" but it was worth it.
What's next
I'm still iterating — adding more structured content around meal planning and blood sugar tracking, and working on making the mobile experience faster. If you're curious about the result, the site is live at reversemydiabetes.co.
Takeaways for other builders
If you're building something in the health space, a few things I'd tell past-me:
Don't assume your audience wants "an app." A lot of people just want a clear, fast, trustworthy page.
SEO and content structure aren't separate from engineering — they shape your architecture from day one.
Performance budgets matter more when your users skew older or less tech-fluent.
Slow down on anything that sounds like a medical claim. Precision and honesty matter more than punchy copy.
Would love to hear from anyone else who's built in the health/wellness space — what tripped you up?
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