10 Reasons All Practitioners & Medical Practices Should Blog
Blogging presents a considerable opportunity for practitioners. When done correctly, applying on-page SEO tactics to blog writing can powerfully improve a medical practice’s business in many ways.
1. Increase online visibility
When looking for a doctor or an answer to a specific medical question, patients turn to the web. 21% of participants in a Pew research study said they vet specific doctors or hospitals before scheduling any in-office appointments. (1)
2. Control your professional reputation
If you do not establish yourself online, then you are giving other people the power to control your professional narrative. As an example, when potential patients search for you, they could come across incorrect office hours. Furthermore, being invisible online is just making it easier for other practices to take patients and spread potential misinformation.
3. Gain a loyal patient base & attract the patients you want
Increase patient loyalty and build an easily searchable, positive referral base online by writing on topics patients often ask you questions about. A blog gives you a space to share patient testimonials. Also, when doctors post testimonials with videos or images from a relatable patient, they tend to generate far more engagement with those blog posts because patients often re-share on their platforms. This effect is supercharged when testimonial blog posts are shared via your social media handles.
Keeping an active blog allows patients to find you on the web.
4. Improve current patient adherence
By blogging about recommended supplements or strategies to improve chronic conditions, you can passively encourage your patients to implement your recommendations, reinforcing adherence to treatment plans. For example, if a physician writes a post about vitamin D supplements, they can use Fullscript’s Embeddable Product Cards. The cards provide visual examples that make shopping on your online supplement dispensary just one click away.
5. Establish your ‘niche’ market
Nowadays, general listicles and overviews of topics have reached a saturation point. This presents you with an opportunity to establish your specialty and to find your niche online. For example, do you specialize in gut health? Then it makes sense to write blogs about specific topics all about gut and digestive health. When someone googles gut health doctor, chances are, you’ll come up!
6. Keep up to date with the latest medical research
By regularly writing blog posts on subjects your patients often ask you questions about, you naturally tend to stay up to date and read-in on the latest research. Staying up to date on all the latest research keeps you sharp.
7. Share blog post information on other platforms
These days, most people spend the majority of their time online using social media, and more and more doctors have Instagram accounts to share their more robust content. The content you put together for blog posts can be chopped down and shared via Twitter or Instagram, which can, in turn, drive high-quality social media engagement. You can also print out or email information from blog posts.
One study by BrightEdge found that prominent social sharing buttons can increase social sharing by 700%. They can also help get the content in front of patients/potential patients.
8. Improve communication skills through reflective writing
Writing can improve doctors’ and healthcare providers’ empathy and reflection, and reflective capacity & excellent bedside manner are vital for a doctor. The practice of strong communication skills in the medical profession is integral for the development of meaningful and trustworthy relationships between the doctors and patients and, thus, is beneficial to both of them. (2, 3)
9. Increase media coverage & appearance opportunities
When you write blog posts and establish yourself as an authority on the topic, there will likely be more opportunities and invitations sent to you by the media. You may be more likely to be asked to present at conferences and are more likely to be nominated and selected as a reward recipient.
10. Free advertising & passive income
Your blog functions as your advertising, only better. By sharing sound information with patients, professionals, and prospective patients alike, you have an opportunity to make money just from the number of eyeballs that read and share your blogs. Moreover, if your site has enough monthly visitors, there is a good chance you may attract more patients to grow your practice. You can also make money from Google Adsense, by promoting a specific product through a branding partnership, or by using embeddable product cards to drive sales to an online supplement dispensary.
Engaging images, videos, and infographics can reduce bounce rate and increase time spent in a blog post.
Understanding the importance of blogging and how it can help your practice, is how you will see value in spending time building and maintaining a blog. Get online, be active and ensure your online presence pays off.
Learn more about SEO, the importance of blogging and on-page SEO.