Blogging is a great tool to promote your medical practice while boosting your website’s ranking in search engines.  People are regularly searching for solutions to their medical problems online and are eager to hear about them through professionals like you!

Three-quarters of all internet users now read blogs and almost half of marketers confirm that blogging is their key content marketing strategy. Now it’s time to jump on board, but you need a plan!

7 Tips to Blogging More Effectively

1)Know Your Audience

  • Ask yourself these questions:
  • Who are you talking to?
  • Who will be reading your blogs
  • What are the viewers interested in?
  • Are the topics that you will be blogging about in sync with the services you provide?

When you have answered these questions, you will have a better idea of the scope of your blogging. Keep in mind that this is a source of information for both patients and prospective patients as well as those referred to your site from the search engine as they look for a particular topic.

Tip– What are the frequently asked questions during your office hours?  Make a list of the ten most asked and answered questions in your practice and now you have a list of blog ideas to start off.

2) Mind Your Language

When you are speaking with the public, leave out technical jargon and medical acronyms.  You needn’t throw around language to be perceived as more professional.  On the contrary, according to the Literacy Project Foundation, 45 million Americans read below a fifth-grade level.  So by writing in a simple tone, people will appreciate you and enjoy your blog much more.

Tip– When using Microsoft Word, go to Options on the scroll-down menu and choose “show readability statistics”. Word will show you the reading level of your document.  You can also access this through the Flesch-Kinkaid application.

E.G.

Counts

  •     Words                                                998
  •     Characters                                      5,441
  •     Paragraphs                                           31
  •     Sentences                                             68

Averages

  •     Sentences per Paragraph                   3.5
  •     Words per Sentence                          13.6
  •     Characters per Word                          4.9

Readability

  •     Flesch Reading Ease                          61.9
  •     Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level                7.9
  •     Passive Sentences                                  0%

3. Give Eyes a Rest

Most people skim an article.  Opening up an article or blog and seeing a mass of words can be overwhelming.  Readers need places to let their eyes rest.  Have white spaces rather than a sea of letters.  Limit each paragraph to three or four sentences.  Have short sentences with bold subheads and a lot of bullet points.

Tip– People love lists.  Prove your points with lists and bullets which improves both readability and likability.

4.Be Warm and Inviting

Write your blog as though you were speaking to people.  Let your personality shine!  You can be informative while still being entertaining, humorous or warm and fuzzy. (Just think of all those puppy pix that get sent around. Use contractions.

Tip– Think of how you talk when you have a twinkle in your eye.  Don’t be boring.  Use descriptive adjectives.  If you can insert a story, so much the better.  People really engage with stories.

5. Take Action

Writing in a passive manner drives you to “snoresville”.  What can you do to make your information more appealing?  Use action verbs whenever possible and insert them into sentences that had “is” and “are.

6. Be Consistent

Maintain your voice and tone through all of your blogs.  When you have fans that relate to you a certain way, don’t change.  They don’t want to adjust; you’ll just lose them. Having stability induce credibility, revs your authority as a thought leader in your field and markets your practice as being integrated and complete.

Tip-Be sincere.  This will help grow your practice as viewers will want to learn more from you or get more of you.  As it is shared, you will attract more prospective patients.

7. Variety Adds Spice

Blog posts need not always be long treatises or in-depth discussions of medical problems. Consider changing up your posts with the following formats:

  • Infographics
  • Lists
  • How-to Guides
  • Questions and Answers
  • What’s Trending
  • Interviews

Tip–

Once you have your blog post published, increase your audience viewership by placing the post on various social media sites where your audience resides.

Be My Guest

Do you have a blog but don’t have a following? Submit it here as a guest and I will place it on my blog site!