If you think blogging has no benefit for your practice, you’d be wrong. Blogs actually have a wealth of value for your physician practice. By incorporating them into your marketing regime on a regular basis, you’ll notice a number of clear benefits that will improve your practice.
1. Increased Site Traffic
Having blog content on your site is an excellent way to increase your standing in search results. For this to work, you’ll need blogs that are search-engine optimized. This means they utilize relevant keywords throughout, are formatted in a web-friendly way, and have meaningful content. When all of this is present, Google will rank your website higher in search results, so when someone searches for a “plastic surgeon near me,” you will be the first result that pops up.
2. Increased Authority
Google strives to provide its search engine users with relevant, reliable results. Their algorithms are largely oriented around the EAT acronym, a reminder that Google wants to give people information that exudes expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. By blogging about issues related to your field of practice, you’re embodying the EAT values, and thus making it more likely that Google’s algorithms will promote your content on a national level. The upshot is, when local prospective clients perform a ‘service-based’ search, Google will tend to favor your practice, offering increased opportunities to generate qualified traffic and leads.
3. More Referrals
Once visitors are on your blog, it becomes far easier to convert them into patients with a call to action for your services. For example, you might end your posts with a notice for a free consultation to entice visitors to schedule an appointment. However, calls to action don’t just work on their own. You need robust, educational content that will assure potential patients that you’re a doctor they can trust.
4. Better Patient Connections
On that note, your blog posts don’t always have to be in-depth tomes on specific conditions and procedures. While education is important, it’s also important to be friendly and open to create a cordial environment for your patients. Feel free to use a conversational voice so potential patients can get a better idea of your personality. This may also help drive home the points you’re trying to make.
5. Improved Legitimacy
As a physician, you want to be seen as a legitimate practitioner of medicine. You don’t want to appear as a shady and unreliable professional. Unfortunately, if you maintain a bare-bones site that has little-to-no information, that might be just how you come across. Use your blog content to answer your patients’ most frequently asked questions, as this showcases your knowledge and facilitates trust.
6. Stable, Long-Term Results
Unlike social media posts or print ads, which have a very limited duration of effects, the effects of blog posts are long-lasting. Once the content is posted to your site, it will remain indexed in Google, so whenever a person searches for a relevant term, your site will continue to appear. Using Hubspot as an example, 70% of their traffic comes from posts at least a month old, while 90% of their leads come from posts at least a month old—and sometimes years old.
Consistency and quality are key, so to reap any of these benefits, you’ll need blog content that’s relevant, keyword-rich, and posted on a regular basis. Unless you have a skillful copywriter on staff, this can be a bit tricky to manage with everything else on your plate. Luckily, Firm Media is here to help with that.
Contact us today at (855) 681-3292 or online to learn more about how we can craft compelling blogs for your website.
