If you run a medical practice or any business that deals directly with medical patients, you might want to think about starting a healthy living and wellness blog. The reasons for trying this as part of your marketing strategy are many, but here are just a few:
1. A More Casual Tone – If your more technical medical blog isn’t getting much play, you probably aren’t having enough of a casual conversation with your readers. Try something less heady.
2. More Flexibility – Instead of focusing on one area of medicine, blog about current trends or research in a way the average reader can understand. This includes areas like diet, medicine, and physical fitness.
3. A More Entertaining Read – Lighter subjects are, by their nature, easier to consume. You can always introduce more complex concepts and link to evergreen content in your main blog.
So, with all that in mind, where do you begin? What’s a good strategy for reeling in and engaging readers? What it boils down to is understanding who your preferred audience is and speaking directly to them. I’m about to provide you with a little advice on how to do that.
The following five goals of an effective wellness blog should help you at least get this project in its planning stages. When you have a good map established (or if you just can’t seem to get that together), I highly recommend working with a custom writing service like Beez to maintain quality and consistency.
Provide Useful, Practical Advice
Be as direct as possible and avoid complex words and phrases. When you have to use them, link directly to pages that explain them, so the reader doesn’t get derailed by not quite understanding your message. Engaged readers will click on links and return to your content if they consider you an authority.
SEO Tip: Always set hyperlinks to open content in new tabs to avoid inadvertently increasing your bounce rate.
When deciding on the advice to give in your post, settle only on information that is verifiable and factual. Don’t go off on tangents or present anecdotal evidence as science. Most people can’t tell the difference. It’s your job to make your messaging clear.
Research Timely Subjects
Keep in mind that you are writing for your audience, not yourself. The stuff that interests you may not interest them. I suggest several things when researching subject matter:
• Join related social media groups.
• Be active in those groups.
• Subscribe to as many wellness blogs as possible and read them – note if specific subjects crop up in a few more popular blogs.
• Select topics that relate directly to your services or services you think your patients should explore.
I further suggest using a tool like Evernote to keep all the content you’re researching easy to revisit. This is important if you’re writing your blog yourself, but it’s a godsend to the average copywriter. Knowing the kind of content you want to emulate makes it easier for an outside writer to deliver the right type and style of blog content the first time.
Steer Clear of Fads
The one danger in looking at other blogs for ideas is that not all of them are good ones. Don’t hop on any bandwagons. Don’t endorse fads. The moment you do, it starts chipping away at your credibility. Just because it’s a popular topic, it doesn’t mean the topic is relevant or that it’s responsible to develop content around it.
As an alternative, try writing content that paints a more realistic picture of current health and wellness fads. What’s good about them? What’s bad about them? The latter question can make for some very successful posts. People like controversy, so don’t be shy about capitalizing on it. Just be sure that you’re relaying facts and including the positives with the negatives. Don’t descend into sensationalism and hyperbole.
Don’t Advertise
A blog that is maintained and populated by a medical professional or practice should sell people on the concept of the practice or business based solely on its own merits. While it’s perfectly fine (even encouraged) to include calls to action to call or fill out an online form in a blog post, those CTAs should be predicated on information that justifies asking for the click.
When developing your CTAs, steer clear of “why you should choose us” and in the direction of “why you should take this action.” Offer help, but don’t sell your practice or business in a blog post.
Make Your Practice Feel Relevant
There are various opinions on how this gets done. To me, it boils down to a few basics. First, be more concerned with information that SEO. If the content is good, it will generate off-page SEO. Do everything you can to optimize, but don’t obsess. The more natural the text of your blog appears, the more believable it will be.
Second, don’t get into a rut. Don’t let your content grow stale or repetitive. Always keep producing new stuff for people to consume and post it to all relevant social channels.
Finally, pay enough attention to SEO trends that you’re always using good keywords that attract readers. Keywords trend in and out. Don’t use the same ones in every post or neglect to update them. Better yet, don’t even keep a list. Research keywords for every article with deference to both the overall subject of the blog and the subject of each individual post.
I do hope that the above advice gave you some inspiration. Just one last thing: Most of what I mentioned above should also be included in your brief should you decide to hire a copywriter. Directives about what to say and not say and how to present the information in a way that reflects your practice’s or brand’s image can help keep the messaging in your blog tight and consistent.
If you farm out your wellness blog writing responsibilities to an agency like Beez, the more direction you can give your writers about what you want the messaging to be, the better the content will be. If you need help getting your wellness blog off the ground, contact us at BeezContent today. We’re here to help!
