If you’re like most of the doctors I work with, your primary focus in having a website and blog is to show up in Google when patients search for
And I would completely agree. That is the #1 goal you should have.
But before you can get there, you need to start with the basics, which is creating great content for them.
Master The Fundamentals
“Gentlemen, this is a football.”
Vince Lombardi
Vince Lombardi is highly regarded as one of the greatest football coaches of all time, if not the best. He won five NFL Championships in seven years, and never coached a team with a losing record.
The primary key to his success was his relentless focus on having his team master the basic fundamentals of the game.
That same mindset also leads to victory when it comes to digital marketing.
While there are always new technologies, social channels, and algorithm changes, 80% of winning online comes down to the fundamentals. And the basic fundamental of digital marketing is creating quality content.
You can’t expect to have terrific Google ranks and website traffic before you have great content for your potential patients to find.
Engineer A Process For Creating Content
Sitting down to create content can be challenging and seem like a big task. There are ways to help make this process easier, and establishing a discipline of creating content for your patients is well worth the effort.
I suggest that you do the following:
1). Commit to a specific number of new posts per week.
Frequency and consistency are crucial elements of having a successful blog.
Next, to the quality of your content, this is the most important fundamental skill to master.
Now, this doesn’t have to be overwhelming. My recommend goal is one new post per week.
If you’re feeling ambitious, you could jump to two posts per week. The only downside to two posts per week is the challenge of keeping pace over the long term.
2). Commit to a specific day(s) for your posts
Your readers will appreciate the consistency and will begin to look forward to your posts on a specific day.
I’ve found Monday-Thursday are the best days for a post. Friday and weekend posts tend not to be as effective.
3). Determine a set time to write
Every doctor’s schedule is different. Depending on your specialty, finding a set time can prove to be a challenge, especially with an on-call schedule.
But to the degree possible, schedule your content creation time like you would any other appointment.
Another option to consider is batching. Set a time to create and schedule 4-5 posts at a time.
4). Set a minimum word count
For SEO, Google puts a quality score based on the number of words written. But that doesn’t mean that every post needs to be 1,000 words or more.
You should plan on a 400-500 word post.
You may often go over this, and that’s ok. But don’t feel like you must write a long-form article to be successful.
Google sets a minimum of 300 words to have any quality value or authority in their eyes. Posts less than that tend to be devalued in the search results.
The good news is, most pages and posts by other doctors and hospitals at this point are still well under that mark, which will make it easier for you to rank.
Be Patient and Commit to the Process
In summary, focus on creating quality content, and a process for doing so before you get too focused on how many people are visiting your website.
Ranking well on Google, and driving quality website traffic takes time.
There are certain things that you can do to help expedite that process, but success will be elusive without consistent, quality content.