As a physician, if you want to have a successful online marketing strategy, you need to create content that your patients will want to read and share.
When thinking of creating content for your patients, here are five elements that will make any physician blog post great.
1). Focus on the Patients
One of the most common mistakes I see when I look at a physician blog post, websites, or even practice websites is that it’s all about them and not the patients.
If you want to be successful in attracting patients online, the majority of the content needs to be focused on them.
How do you do this?
Write about things they are concerned about when they come to visit you. What questions do they have? What are the conditions you treat? What do XYZ symptoms mean?
Not only will you be creating content patients want to read, but you will also be helping your local SEO efforts as well.
2). Create Powerful Headlines
This is so important because of the vast amount of information available today.
People see so much content every day, and they need to have a way to filter it. For most of us, headlines are a primary filter. We tend to look at headlines to see if we might be interested in going further into the actual content.
One of the best headline creation strategies is to repurpose patient’s questions and use it as a headline title. Including symptoms can be an excellent way to do this.
For example, if someone suffers from regular headaches, you might create a headline like, * “What does it mean if I have regular headaches?”* This will quickly capture the attention of people you are hoping to attract to your website and practice.
Writing better headlines is something that takes practice, but there are ways to educate yourself to make it faster.
Copyblogger has some excellent articles written on this topic.
Also, picking up books on copywriting can be helpful. Advertising Headlines that Make You Rich by David Garfinkel is an excellent book that also provides some basic templates to assist in creating compelling headlines.
3). Include a Captivating Photo
Another significant filter people use when scanning content, especially on social media, are images.
Finding a source for photos is the first step. I recommend using Shutterstock. It’s not cheap, but if you’re like me, you don’t have all day to scan the web and look for photos you can use that won’t violate someone’s copyright.
Be careful not to use overly clichéd photos. The generic, pharmaceutical type photos don’t play well online. They’ve just been overused at this point.
4). Make Your Blog Post Scannable
One of the final filters people use after the headline and/or image intrigued them enough to click is scan-ability.
The best way to do this is by creating headlines throughout your post, similar to what I’ve done here. Notice how each point I’ve listed is its own title? It’s for this exact reason.
If you’re like most of my visitors, you first scan my posts to check and make sure it’s relevant rather than reading start to finish.
This makes content less daunting for the readers.
Lists or bullet points also are a great way to make your content more scannable and captivating.
The only caution here is not to overdo it. You don’t want your post to look like it’s only an outline.
5). End with a Question
The whole purpose of the physician blog post is to educate patients and attract them to your practice by booking an appointment.
So why end with a question?
You want to create a sense of already having a dialog with them. It’s a conversation happening online, and you want engagement.
Think through a probing question to end with that would get your readers to engage and/or book an appointment as a direct result of reading the post.
Again, the strategy behind a physician blog post is to create a powerful online marketing presence designed to attract patients to your practice.
So I’ll turn the tables now on my last point and ask you a question…
Which of these steps are you willing to commit to implementing in your upcoming blog posts?