Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts

Monday, September 6, 2021

A blog can expand your healthcare practice brand

A marketing strategy healthcare practices overlook when it comes to expanding their brand and patient reach is writing a blog.


Healthcare blogs give practices new opportunities to connect with patients in today’s digital world. Consistent blog posts on a healthcare practice’s website can attract new patients, drive patient conversion, and maintain engagement with current patients. The benefits of blog posts are twofold—from building rapport and establishing authority with prospective and current patients in a digital world, to increasing your brand’s reach through search engine optimization.

By focusing marketing efforts on a consistent and informative blog that lives on your practice website, you will move the needle on both ends of increased patient acquisition and retention.


Educate Patients and Provide Solutions


A 2021 study by PatientPop showed that two-thirds of patients look to their local healthcare provider as the trusted source of COVID-19 information. By sharing regular, helpful, and up-to-date information through an easily accessible blog, providers can educate prospective and current patients while solidifying their role as local healthcare leaders. Proactive communication is essential in educating patients and building provider-patient trust.

Utilizing a blog to educate and connect patients with services you provide at your practice gives them the information they need and the solutions they are looking for.


Improve Search Engine Rankings


A healthcare blog can improve a practice’s search engine ranking with each new blog post. A new blog post will appear on its own separate webpage on your website, and with each new page comes new material for Google and other search engines to find and index. By focusing each blog post on a particular specialty offered by your practice, a specific subject matter that is making news, or certain healthcare conditions and services, your website is providing search engines with increased material to point to on your site.

When it comes to local search, maintaining a blog for your healthcare practice increases your website’s overall volume of quality content; it enhances the topical keyword relevance across your entire site; and improves your domain authority, an important score that drives site rank.

When focused and consistent, blog posts about your practice’s specialty and services can improve your website’s page rank, which increases your visibility with potential patients.


Drive Patient Conversion


Creating quality content and offering free value through a blog can help convert website visitors into patients. A study from marketing firm Hubspot demonstrates that businesses that blog have 55 percent more website visitors, with a 5x increase in the number of pages indexed by search engines.

An effective strategy for converting visitors into patients involves the use of a clear call-to-action (CTA) for each blog post. Once a visitor receives the information they are seeking out about a condition or service, offering a solution by driving them to schedule an appointment with your practice will push conversion. Another call-to-action option includes an email newsletter signup.


Set You Apart From Competition


Healthcare blog posts can be used to dive into very specific topics. By providing information on defined, niche conditions or services, healthcare sites can set themselves apart from their competition. A prospective patient doing a search for practices that provide specialized services in their area will land on a blog post that provides them with the information they need on that service. By offering this free and valuable information, visitors will be more likely to book an appointment with a practice that has already proved their knowledge and experience on the subject, compared to one that has not.

To establish authority on particular topics, identify topic areas that tie into your practice and providers’ expertise. For example, if you run a radiology practice, your blog posts could highlight the latest imaging techniques and which conditions they’re used to diagnose and/or treat. When formulating blog posts, it’s important to think like a patient. Consider the questions you hear from patients most often and write a post catering to your everyday patient.

Keywords are also an important focus when crafting the perfect blog post. Following the radiologist example, if you have the only PET/CT in town, or are the only radiologist performing uterine fibroid embolization, focus on those topics and incorporate the relevant keywords into your headlines and copy. The more you can share about your services, the greater chance you have of being recognized as an authority above your competition.


Improve Patient Retention


Maintaining a consistent blog makes patients feel informed, establishes provider reliability, and promotes engagement between patients and your healthcare brand. Blog posts can provide patients with a constant digital reminder about your practice. By maintaining consistency, you’ll assure followers and patients that you are committed to sharing valuable information on a regular basis. When your blog posts become the go-to source for healthcare insight, patient retention soars.

Strategies to maintain consistency in blog posts include a schedule tracker or editorial calendar. Having a system in place is necessary because the more you post, the greater the potential impact your healthcare blog will have.

With many medical marketing strategies to consider, allocating marketing resources to maintaining a consistent and focused blog is a tactic that can help take your practice brand to the next level.


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Saturday, December 5, 2020

How Doctors Can Enter the World of Medical Writing

Medical information is everywhere. On the Internet, in magazines, on television talk shows, and even in seminars held at places as diverse as local grocery stores and vacation destinations.


As a physician, you have probably had a variety of reactions to all of this publicly available health advice. You may feel impressed by medical tips delivered in an understandable way, you may squirm at nuanced inaccuracies, or you may even be appalled by completely false medical claims that could take advantage of trusting consumers. Any or all of these reactions can then inspire a physician to strive to become a source of accurate and thoughtful consumer health information.



Getting Started


But getting into the world of medical writing is challenging, yet if you stick to it it can be one of the most fulfilling and rewarding ways to have an impact outside of direct patient care.The key to getting started as a medical or health writer is to really decide whether it could be a good fit for you. Carefully reading a variety of the content that is out there is an important step. As you evaluate the characteristics of what you see, you can begin to decide what you like and what you don’t like. Magazines, journals, websites, physician education resources, and pharmaceutical releases are among the many sources of health and medical content.



Your impression of medical and health writing can help you formulate how you would eventually like to form your own writing style. As this process begins to take form, you can easily see whether your writing would fit well with the publications that you like.



Once you figure out if you would like to be more of a consumer-focused health writer, a writer of medical education for health care professionals, a scientific technical writer, or a medical writer focused on marketing, you can begin to work on becoming a strong candidate for medical writing jobs.


Building a Portfolio


Of course, there is a chance that once you pay close attention to health and medical content, you could decide that you don’t like any of it. If you feel that none of the publications you are seeing would be a good fit, this might mean that being a medical writer is not for you. All decision makers in the publishing field know that doctors are tremendously knowledgeable and capable of assessing the accuracy of information. However, even as a medical expert, it is virtually impossible to be paid to write without proving that you can write in a way that delivers a useful and relatable message. One of the ways to do this is to build an accessible portfolio that you can easily point to if you apply for a medical writing job.



Physicians can do this by contributing articles to consumer-based online websites, print magazines, or blogs for free. If you are focused on eventually writing for a professional audience, you can work in submitting an article to a peer-reviewed medical journal—either on your own or by working with a team (along with others from the hospital where you work or from your local medical society). Doctors who also have other skills to show off, such as graphic designing, might create their own blogs or websites to author content on their own sites that serve as a portfolio in the future.


Improving


If you are very dedicated, you can focus on writing for as many publications as you can handle for several months. Some aspiring medical writers take it slower, contributing an article for publication only every few months.Writing articles is a great start for most doctors. Building a strong portfolio that you can use to apply for medical writing positions requires honing your skills and your message. This often means getting an understanding of how your writing is received.



Most online publishers will provide you with analytics for the content you authored, giving you an idea of how popular the pieces you write are. Websites and blogs often have comment sections, so you can see reader reactions to your work. And if you share your writing on social media, you can assess traffic reposts and reader comments to gauge various feedback to your work.



Evaluating reader responses can help you decide whether you are meeting the needs and expectations of readers and whether or not you have been able to connect with others through your writing.


Getting Paid


If you compare your writing with what others have written about the topic, you can figure out what distinguishes you from the competition, and you can be sure to keep those traits that make your own writing special. If your goal is eventually to be paid for your writing, it may be time to start applying for writing positions. If your articles are well written and receiving attention, there is a good chance that you will be invited by at least a few publications to apply for paid writing assignments.



Doctors typically need to adjust their CV to include writing experience and links to published work (or just a sample if you have more than 10 articles published). Doctors can create a strong cover letter to then be adjusted when sending it to different publications. This step of personalizing your cover letter is important because it shows that you have made an effort to understand a publication and their readers, which makes you a better candidate.



You can get positions in technical writing in pharmaceutical companies or medical communications companies by applying directly through their websites for a full-time position. By searching on platforms like Google or LinkedIn for these jobs you will also find many different medical communications companies that you can look to work with.



If your goal is to write for a patient/consumer-directed publication, you can begin by finding publications that you respect, and reaching out to them through their websites as well. Consider browsing the job openings listed for publications that have content about the subject matter you may have already written about. And it is often a good idea to reach out to authors you admire and ask them if they know of any need in your field of interest.



It helps to submit applications to many online websites and print journals. Keep in mind that there are far more technical writing jobs than there are jobs writing health and medical content in the media or in medical education.



Medical writing is an area that some doctors find interesting. It is a quiet endeavor that requires self-discipline and self-motivation. Your experience as a physician gives you a special type of discernment into what readers really want and need from medical content, far more than analytics does. Yet, reader comments and correspondence, along with sophisticated analytics give a physician medical writer unique insight about the perceptions of readers who look for and depend on medical content as they navigate their health.

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Monday, June 11, 2018

12 Tips for Making Your Business Blog a Success

Content marketing can be a powerful tool for all types of small business owners, and a blog is one of the best ways to leverage content. The idea of starting a business blog from scratch may be a bit intimidating, but it doesn't have to be an overwhelming experience. The benefits of starting a business blog can make the process worthwhile. Here are 12 tips for getting started with a business blog and making it a success.

Post Consistently



There are no defined rules when it comes to posting frequency. Whether you post once a week or every day, the most important factor is that you blog on a consistent schedule. In order to establish a following, readers need to know when to expect new content.

Provide Relevant, Useful, and Valuable Information



The more useful the information you post, the more readers you will attract and the more likely they will become regular readers. Remember the old writing mantra: Show, don't tell. If, for example, you are promoting a particular business strategy, provide an example of how and why it was successful.

Ask for and Respond to Comments



Make a point to invite your readers to weigh in and share their opinions in your comments on every post. And when they do have something to say, acknowledge their comments, even when their viewpoint differs from your own.

Have a Focus, but Be Willing to Go Off-Topic



It's good to have a clear focus when it comes to your blogging topics, but too much of anything can be a turnoff. Be willing to introduce new topics or a new way to look at a common topic to add interest and increase engagement.

Make It Easy to Subscribe



If you want your readers to continue reading, put your subscription options in an easy-to-find place. You also can attract more subscribers by offering multiple options. Access to the RSS feed and a post-by-email option are popular choices.

Promote and Share What You Write



Don't expect your readers to catch every single post you write unless you're reminding them that your blog exists. Share links to your blog in social media, on your website, in your newsletters, and even in your email signature, and encourage people to click through.

Mix Up Your Format



If you typically write long all-text posts, try mixing in a few shorter posts or adding images to see if it changes your pageviews. You even can throw in an occasional video post to add a new level of interest.

Have a Point of View



Sometimes, all it takes is a little controversy to get your blog on the map. Don't be afraid to take a stand on a hot topic in your industry, and then encourage discussion in your comments.

Make It Easy to Read



Use subheadings, bullets, and other formatting wherever appropriate to make it easier for your readers to skim and zero in on the information most important to them.

Self-Edit or Find a Proofreader



It can be difficult to catch errors as you write, so try writing your posts a day or two ahead and then coming back to read them again with fresh eyes. Or, if possible, ask a colleague to proof your posts for you to make sure they are error-free.

Share a Little Bit of You



Your business blog may be about business, but that doesn't mean there isn't a place to mention your personal life and experiences. Many times an anecdotal post can attract a new type of reader and give your consistent readers a peek at a new side of you.

It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint



It takes time for a business blog to build momentum, pull in readers, and create a loyal following. Be patient and try not to get discouraged if the progress seems sluggish. Slow, steady, and consistent wins the race when it comes to blogging.

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