The Basics of Healthcare Blogging
Hello there doctors, medical students, physicians, nurses, dentists, and all healthcare professionals!
And WELCOME to this guide on healthcare blogging!
Odds are you searched some version of "why medical businesses need a blog" and are either trying to figure out if this whole SEO blog thing is worth the time, money, and effort, or you've been thinking getting blog but don't know how to start.
Regardless, please allow me to help you decide if healthcare blogging is worth spending your time writing in order to expanding your online presence.
"What IS a blog? Like... what kind of writing should it be?"
Depends...
Sometimes, it's more like a journal entry of the blogger.
Sometimes it is the opinionated stuff a journalist can't say in the latest healthcare news but can say privately to their subscribers.
Sometimes it is more akin to an online article, complete with references.
Other times it is a thinly-veiled attempt at persuading customers that your product/services are just gangbusters and they should buy more from you right away.
And other times it is a tool to make sure your websites Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is supercharged.
Regardless of the style you choose, healthcare blogging is conveying global health and medical information on the world wide web. It can vary from never-before-read insights and well-researched papers to inaccurate and meandering drivel unfit for the fitness of finches and frigate birds. It is a form of content healthcare marketing.
"So I just write and people just... read it?"
Soooorta...kiiiiinda... sooooometimes...but not reeeeaallly...
You an write it, but the internet is really, really BIG. And its very easy for a itty bitty medical blog post to be lost in the infinite ethernet ether. Which means that just because you write it doesn't mean people will read it.
No one will read your blog if they cannot find it.
There are several ways to attract readers to your healthcare blog:
Connect with other like-minded individuals online
Direct your prospective patients and clients to read it
Build and email list and send them a link every time they post
Do a guest post on another blog that has lots and lots of readers
SEO- optimize your blog posts so it shows up for certain keywords
Each of these blogging strategies have different purposes, funnels, and goals. But when it comes to retaining customers as a healthcare copywriter, the middle two are the best reasons. And when it comes to acquiring customers, the bottom two options are best.
But if you need to acquire more customers for a long period of time, then "SEO optimized" posts are by far your best option. It is a proven, lucrative, and straightforward strategy that is rock-solid for long term client acquisition and growth.
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Benefits of Blogging for Healthcare Providers
Enhancing Online Visibility
A blog post by health industry professionals is like a new page on your website. Each one is centered on a niche topics relevant to your target audience, ideally a topic centered on a keyword they search. The healthcare blogging you do, the more search terms you cover.
A helpful analogy would be trawling or gill netting (net fishing). Think of your healthcare blog as a net. The more blog posts you have on diverse, relevant topics, the bigger your net becomes. And the bigger your net becomes, the more "fish" will swim into it.
Encouraging Further Patient Engagement
But is where the net analogy breaks down... your health blog is not "trapping" people looking for help with their health. You can't just write a dozen of mediocre blogs on every topic you can think of and trust that the inquiries will come pouring in.
Fortunately, google and people are smarter than that
Whether it be conscious or unconscious, people notice bad content that is not really meant for them, and they will back click away from your site faster than you can say "Thyroparathyroidectomized". It impacts their trust of your services. I can guarantee you that the road to long term success does not involve attempts at tricking google or people.
Blogging for healthcare needs to be patient- centered.
Imagine that healthcare blogging is an extension of bedside conversations, allowing you to connect with current and potential patients. When someone is confused, scared, or desperate is informed and reassured by a compassionate professional, they attach and commit to receiving care from only you.
Establishing Thought Leadership in the Medical Community
Thought leadership sounds fancy, and becoming a thought leader in the healthcare industry can be nothing more than a vanity project. But when it comes to healthcare marketing, thought leadership amounts to one, very important thing: AUTHORITY. When you are a thought leader, readers know that you know what you're talking about.
Healthcare blogging proves your authority.
Quality content helps you become a leader in your field. It lets people trust your voice in the medical industry as you share health information in a way they and their family members can understand. When you share useful content, news, and your thoughts on tricky medical topics, you become a person others turn to for information.
How blogging benefits your overall SEO
(I'll speak on SEO content more in a future post, but for now the basics...)
Search Engine Optimization is not all about content. Case and point: even if the greatest academic in the world wrote a 10,000 word masterpiece on an unknown, non-optimized site, no one would read it.
Could be for any number of reasons, but at the end of the day the issue is that the domain URL... the website... is not seen as authoritative by search engines.
Good content raises your domain authority.
When a search engine sees people spending time on your blog, taking in valuable information, it views this as a sign that your content is good. And what happens to good content? It rises higher in the search results. And what happens when good content consistently rises higher in search results? The authority of your website rises as well.
Let's go back the "greatest academic in the world" illustration. Say that academic did some off-page SEO that got his website in order, upgraded the speed his website loaded, and began writing two blog posts a week... what do you think would happen?
Slowly but surely, he would get more readers, more shares, more subscribers... and the authority of his website would rise and rise!
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Popular Blog Topics for Hospitals and Clinics
Before you sit down to write a blog, you need to answer: WHO are you blogging for?
Are you writing to attract potential patients in your area?
Are you writing to concerned family members?
Are you writing to other professionals or the health insurance market, hoping to network?
Are you writing to businesses in the industry to demonstrate you are a trustworthy and reliable client/partner?.
The vast majority of people reading this will be writing for reason #1, attracting more patients, and therefore we will cover popular blog topics for patients.
First and foremost, people read medical blogs to find information related to their health, just like in Kaiser Health News or Harvard Health Blog.
Feels like a no brainer, but bear with me for a second...
They are not fellow professionals or academics; you don't need to try to impress them with health care industry jargon or establish yourself with revolutionary insights. They are primarily looking for some context and practical knowledge that impacts their every day life.
Consider it more like a conversation following a question they ask rather than a speech given to a crowd. Talk to one person about their current concerns.
What makes a healthcare blogging successful?
A good health care blog post shares useful information that is easy to read. It helps readers understand their health better. It also follows SEO best practices. This makes sure the blog shows up in search results.
It’s important to find a mix of being informative and interesting. You are the expert. If you share your knowledge in a simple way, it helps build trust and makes people want to come back for more!
Ideas for Blogging for Healthcare
So what kind of context/knowledge do they want? And how can you frame that information in a way that inspires them to give your clinic a call?
Outlining the Source of Injuries and Conditions: When something hurts, people get scared. And while many symptoms require a thorough analysis, it can be helpful to let people know what they might have so they can
Explanations of Your Services: the medical world is like a car engine; most people have no freakin' clue how it works. Even something as common as physical therapy or family medicine will have elements that require clarification. This especially applies to any specialty services out there, like medical spas or clinics offering cryo-therapy.
Innovations in Patient Care and Treatment: Your blog is a great place to teach your readers about the latest healthcare trends, treatments, and exciting advances in medicine. This shows that your practice is leading in healthcare, which boosts trust in your ability to offer the best care.
Answer Specific Questions: Think about the questions your patients ask. Are there new treatments for their conditions? What are the benefits of less invasive surgery? Is there a new, better medication? By answering these questions, you become a trusted source of information. This helps with patient education and can lead to better health outcomes.
Preventative Health Measures and Wellness Tips: I'm sure 'm preaching to the choir here, but approximately 80% of chronic health issues in America would NEVER happen if people just took charge of their own health. You might write about why regular health check-ups matter, clear up common health myths, share tasty heart-healthy recipes, or give tips on how to manage stress
Not sure if you have the time or energy to blog on your own? Reach out now.
Optimizing SEO for Healthcare Blogging
So we have covered the goals of a blog and some categories to consider when you are trying to choose a topic for a medical blog post. Those are the fundamentals, and they cannot be skipped... but that doesn't mean they can't use a little extra boost to get in front of readers.
That's where SEO "tactics" come into play: you write for people, but you include
Medical Keyword Research: DO NOT just guess what your future patients are searching. Get a keyword software like Moz or Keywords Everywhere and find out exactly what they are searching and all the variations of that search term.
Consider Search Intent: There are four kinds of search intent: informational, navigational, transactional, and commercial. The reason someone searches for keyword dictates the best type of content to write.
Add Keywords and Related Keywords: Your post needs to have the primary keyword repeated throughout, but if you stuff your post will cause your rankings to suffer. Do not include the primary keyword anymore than 5% of the total text, and include several uses of parallel phrases that are synonyms to the keyword.
Headings: Make sure there is only one H1, and that the headers are in a logical order (H1, H2, H3, H2, H3, H4, H2... etc.)
Stay on Subject: Keep your blog post focused on a single idea. Talk about everything needed to explore that one idea. If the subject matter starts spiraling, turn that into another blog post and link the two.
Make it Skimmable: Break up the text with images, bold words, lists, and headers. There should be phrases that pop out and convince them to read the post more carefully.
Edit the Hell out of Ai: Ai is very helpful, but 95% of its text is downright garbage. Yes, I am biased, but case and point: AI helped me write this post, but I have replaced probably 97% of it with my own words. In summary, maybe one day Ai can write for you, but not yet, and its best use it to fill in some gaps and prevent writers block.
Write Good: No matter what new mandate google comes out with, they are always trying to do one simple thing: give users the best, most relevant content. So don't try to outsmart google... just write something people enjoy reading.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What makes a blog post "good"?
A blog post is "good" if people find it, read it, and act because of it.
If it has bad SEO or no subscriber base, then no one finds it...
If its confusing or boring, then no one reads it...
If its unsatisfying or conflicting, then no one can take the action you want them to take...
That "desired action" depends on the subject of blog post and industry. Sometimes its asking them to make a purchase or inquire about your services. Other times it is asking them to move another step down your sales funnel (ex: "subscribe for emails"). And sometimes its just to increase your overall site authority.
At a less measurable and more industry specific level, a good healthcare blog post is like a helpful consultation:
It grabs and keeps the readers attention...
Makes complex ideas easy to understand...
Is 100% accurate...
Gives useful information about their symptoms or condition...
Calms and supports by providing actionable steps they can take...
But bottom line: if the blog post is not increasing your site traffic, then it is bad.
How can healthcare blogs maintain HIPAA compliance?
The easy way is to not share ANYTHING about patients. If you give an example, use a purely hypothetical situation with a fake name. However, real life patient stories are much, much more powerful and persuasive to readers. So if you plan on using real patient experiences in your blogs (or any marketing material for that matter) you need them to sign a release of limited information the first day they step foot in your office.
Additionally, when it comes to peoples health, making sure your information is correct and trustworthy is more than just important... it is an ethical necessity. Approach every subject with the same careful attention to detail that you would give a medical diagnosis. Support your ideas with facts from reliable sources and always mention where you got your information.
What are the benefits of outsourcing blog writing for healthcare providers?
You don't have to do any research
You don't have write it
You don't spend time writing it
You don't have to learn SEO for healthcare blogs
You don't need to buy SEO tools
You don't have to manage site analytics
How often should healthcare providers update their blog content?
When you are trying to rank? At least every week.
When you have begun to rank? At least every two weeks.
When you are comfortable with your position? At least once a month.
How often should healthcare providers update their blog content?
Quick clarification: updating is different than posting a new blog post. It is going back to an old post and adding additional content, correcting mistakes, and adjusting anything for contemporary relevance.
Google and other search engines LOVE IT when you regularly update old posts. It shows am dedication to quality and that your site is active and meaningful. And google will ALWAYS prioritize an active site over a dormant one.
And the frustrating answer is... it depends. If you write about how a procedure has life threatening implications, but the latest research reveals it is harmless, then you have an ethical duty to update it ASAP. If a new diet fad comes out that looks promising, you can add it to a diet post months later.
Conclusion: Blogging for Medical Practice
Are you still unsure about starting a blog?
I get it.
Writing regularly takes time and effort.
These are things that are hard to find in a busy healthcare provider's day.
That’s where I can help.
I love helping healthcare providers like you build a strong online presence with engaging and useful content.
If you are ready to increase your online presence, then lets talk and see if now is the right time to start
