Many physicians are attracting new patients by way of blogging.
These physician blog posts help doctors reach new patients by way of organic search, local SEO and also help to establish expertise, authority, and trust with patients before they ever step foot in the clinic.
When setting the foundation for your physician blog, it’s important to remember you’re playing the long game. With that in mind, it’s helpful to think about your platform’s scalability.
1). Determine Your Ideal Patients and Treatments
One of the biggest and perhaps undersold benefits of having a physician blog is that you have an opportunity to strategically focus on the patients you want to see more of.
Having this clear picture in mind will help you determine the content categories you’ll want to create.
Based upon what you decide, make a list of possible topics to cover. Creating content around the most frequently asked questions is always a good place to start.
Assuming one blog post per week, map out the topics you may want to cover, and then create a content schedule based upon that.
I often find mind mapping can be an effective way to organize content. I personally use Mind Node.
2). Perform Keyword Research So Your Physician Blog Can Rank
Keyword Research is central to having any success in online marketing.
Once you have your topics identified, you’ll want to research what keywords and phrases people are using to search for your topic.
I can’t overemphasize how important this step is. You can have the best-written content, but patients may never find it if you do not incorporate the right keywords.
The tool I recommend and use the most for keyword SEMRush.
3). Utilize Project Management Software
One of the things that can hamper the success of having a physician blog is a lack of posting new content.
The days of “build it and forget it” website development are long gone. For Google to take your website and blog seriously, you’ll need to be regularly posting new content.
A strategy I’ve found helpful for this is to utilize project management software.
I personally use Todoist, but there are many other excellent project management systems out there. The tool isn’t what’s important. The important part is having a system that will help keep you on track.
4). Embrace Automation
As a physician, your time is extremely valuable, so it’s wise to embrace automation wherever possible to cut down on the time investment of maintaining a physician blog.
Here are a few automations to embrace from the beginning:
Google Analytics: Schedule a quick snapshot to be sent to you once a week so that you can get an idea of any potential trends or updates.
Social Media Management: Of course, you’ll want to share your content through social media to have the maximum reach. Tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, or my favorite Social Pilot allow you to create your social posts, schedule, and share to all platforms in one entry.
Email Marketing: Tools such as MailChimp let you build an audience, take them through an on-boarding sequence, and email your content from one platform.
Keyword Rankings: This is another place where SEMRush really shines. You can schedule so many different reports, including keyword rankings. This makes tracking your progress very easy.
5). Produce and Use Your Own Data
It’s often helpful for patients to see some data relative to what they’re searching for.
While there is some SEO strategy in external linking to other sources, if you can also produce and show data from your practice, that’s even more helpful to patients.
In the areas you can, incorporate data from your practice into the post. And where appropriate, compare that data to other general data.
This will help build up confidence and trust in patients’ minds when they come across your blog post.
Local SEO for physicians thrives on having consistent, up-to-date, helpful, and unique blog content.
Building a large-scale blog will go a long way in establishing you personally as the local authority and attracting more new patients by way of online marketing.