4 Common Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

Blogging provides several benefits to businesses. Many businesses owners have turned to blogging to reach a wider audience, drive traffic to their site, promote their products and services, and increase conversions. Blogging can help you achieve your business goals, provided that you avoid certain pitfalls.

Here are 4 blogging mistakes you need to avoid, along with some tips to get the results you want.

Inconsistent blogging

Let’s face it. Creating content can be time-consuming. We understand that most of you have a crazy schedule and you’re struggling to find time to write your next blog post. But in order to achieve your goals, you need to stick to a consistent posting schedule. It’s not enough to post content when you have something to say. You should publish new content at least once a week.

Inconsistent blogging is bad enough for your SEO growth; it can also make you look like an amateur. This can sink your blog and can cost your business sales. To make your business blog work, we suggest that you develop a content calendar. Plan your blog topics ahead of time and try to schedule posts in advance.

Your writing is too stiff and technical

A well-written blog is one that strikes a conversation with their readers. Get rid of the jargon and loosen up your writing. It’s okay to be more conversational in your writing. In fact, we encourage you to write like you talk. People want to feel like they’re dealing with people, not robot. The more conversational your writing is, the more people will enjoy reading it.

When you write in a conversational tone, you can convey your message more easily. It also helps you engage with your audience and build a stronger relationship with them. They’ll see you as genuine and human, not as a faceless brand who’s trying to sell to them.

In 2020, Neil Patel ran A/B test on two versions of the same blog post. One was written conversationally, while the other one was written in a formal tone. Here, he discovered that the majority of the readers only spent less than two minutes on the blog post that was written in a formal tone. Whereas, readers spent an average of 4.5 minutes reading the conversational version. Also, 247% more readers consumed the full article when written in a conversational tone.

Being self-centered

A blog is a great platform for giving your audience updates about your business and promoting your products and services. However, not every post in your blog should be about you. Rather, you should focus on who you are writing for.

Create content your audience will find interesting. Be helpful.  Answer all the questions you’ve been asked by customers. Share your expertise. You may also share your opinion on certain topics. Write blog posts that are creative, informative and interesting.

So what’s the key to selecting the best topics for your blog? It’s knowing your target audience. Once you know who you’re writing for, it will easier for you to create a list of blog topics.

One of the best ways to find out what your audience likes is to check your analytics and identify your top performing posts. You can also reach out to your audience and have a conversation with them. Or you can also do an online survey. Remember that most of a blog’s traffic is driven organically, so choose topics your audience will want to read, not something that will only interest you.

Giving up too soon

If you’ve been writing for several months now and you still haven’t seen a significant increase on your leads and traffic, you’re probably getting frustrated. I understand that it can get frustrating, but you also have to keep in mind that building a successful blog takes time. It requires a lot of hard work, patience, and perseverance.

You’ve spent countless of hours in front of your computer, trying to make boring stuff interesting. Unfortunately, after a few months of blogging, you’re still not seeing the results you want. At this point, you may feel like giving up. That’s understandable. However, please keep in mind that it may take quite a while before you generate positive results. Depending on the online competition and your industry, it may take about 3 to 6 months. Giving up too soon is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.

Keep writing. Focus on creating high-quality posts. Be patient. Soon enough, you’ll get the results you want.

Final thoughts

Anyone can start a blog, but not everyone will be able to build a successful blog. Why? Because most business owners don’t give it the time, effort, and attention it needs.

If you’re struggling to get the results you want from your blog, then we’re here to help. Schedule a free consultation call and we’ll help you get more leads and traffic for your business.

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5 Tips for Building a Content Marketing Strategy for Your Healthcare Practice

The content marketing world is more competitive now than it has ever been before. Big brands, small businesses, influencers, and even healthcare professionals create their own content to reach more people online.

But with so many blog posts, videos, infographics, and other types of content online, it can be challenging to stand out. That’s what we’re going to talk about next.

When developing a content strategy for your healthcare practice, there are five things you need to keep in mind. Let’s dive into those now.

Know your audience

It is estimated that Google processes approximately 5.6 billion search queries every day. According to Google, 5% of those searches are health-related.

There is no shortage of content on the internet. But if you want to get in front of your target audience, you need to create content that is relevant and useful to them. To do that, you must get to know your audience on a deeper level.

Dig deep into what types of content they’re consuming and what topics they’re interested in. This way, you can align your content with your target audience’s specific needs and interests.

Establish your content marketing goals 

Let’s face it. It’s easy to get caught up in the who, what, how, and where of content marketing that people tend to forget about the most important question: why?

Every strategy should start with a specific goal in mind. So ask yourself. What do you want to achieve with your content? Are you hoping to capture more leads? Or maybe you’re looking to grow your brand awareness and social media presence.

By defining your goals, you can ensure that each piece of content works towards meeting those goals. Even better, you can keep track of your data and use them to improve your content marketing strategy in the long run.

Create a content messaging roadmap

Now that you have already created a buyer persona, established your goals, and set criteria for success, it’s time to start building a content messaging roadmap that can help move each persona through the sales funnel.

Patients who are visiting your site for the first time may be looking for a healthcare provider but aren’t ready to book an appointment with you yet. During this stage, getting their trust is of key importance. This is where educational content can help. Articles, podcasts, videos, and case studies can help position yourself as an expert and get potential patients’ trust.

Warmer prospects may have considered booking an appointment already but may still be looking around. At this stage, adding testimonials from other patients, answering frequently asked questions, and offering free consultations may be just what you need to seal the deal.

Make the most of your content 

You spent hours creating those content, so why not make the most out of them? You can repurpose your content to introduce them to new audiences who might prefer a different format.

For instance, you can turn your blog post into an infographic to make it easier to digest and understand. You can turn it into video content, which is perfect for those who prefer watching videos. Another option is to segment your blog post and publish it as a series on social media.

Identify the most relevant platforms 

So you spent so much time and effort researching and writing your content. You wanted to make sure that your audience would find it helpful and informative. But it won’t matter if no one has seen it.

The key is to identify which platforms your audience spends most of their time in. This can help give your content the best possible chance of being seen.

If most of your audience is on Instagram, start by creating an appealing image that would make users stop their scroll. But don’t just stop there. You should also write compelling captions that create more engagement.

Final thoughts

There is no denying that content marketing strategy works. It can help you reach more patients online, retain current patients, and even improve patient journeys. But for it to work, you need to have a well-defined and carefully thought out strategy. Otherwise, you’d be wasting a lot of time and effort creating content that won’t benefit your practice.

If you need help devising a content marketing strategy and plan or need some fresh ideas to include in your plan, we can help. Schedule a free consultation with us, and we’ll help you generate more traffic and leads for your healthcare practice with content marketing.

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5 Tips to Level Up Your Healthcare Content Marketing Strategy

Did you know that healthcare-related queries account for about 7% of all Google searches? According to David Feinberg, head of Google Health, they get approximately 70,000 healthcare queries every minute. This translates to about 1 billion searches a day.

With these statistics, it’s pretty clear that people need a trusted and reliable source of healthcare information. This is your chance to position your practice in front of potential patients.

Use these tips when creating a content marketing strategy for your healthcare practice.

Begin with the audience in mind

Content marketing is about attracting the right audience. To do that, you need to know your audience on a deeper level.

– Who is your ideal audience?

– What’s important to them?

– What are their most common concerns?

– How can you serve their needs?

Once you have a better understanding of your audience, it will be easier for you to craft messages that resonate with them. Plus, you’ll be able to speak their language. Remember, content marketing is about the reader, not your brand.

Set clear, measurable goals

Creating content for your practice can be overwhelming given the sheer volume of options you have. Blog posts, video content, social media posts, podcasts, and ebooks are just some of them.

But when creating content, it is essential to take the time and decide what you want to achieve from it. Simply writing and publishing blog posts is not enough. Getting views isn’t a clear goal either.

When creating content, ask yourself:

– Do you want to educate your audience and turn them into clients?

– Do you want to increase engagement and connect with potential clients?

– Do you want to build trust with your audience and position yourself as a thought leader?

Identify how your content can serve your audience and then create pieces that tie back to that.

Focus on your area of expertise 

Some organizations focus on a specific niche. Similarly, every doctor has an area of expertise. Before you start working on your content marketing strategy, it is best to define your area of focus and the main problem areas in your niche.

Start by listing down some of the main concerns and pain points that people in your niche struggle with. You can easily list down some topic ideas based on these problems.

For instance, an ophthalmologist can educate their audience about the dangers of working on a computer for extended periods. On the other hand, dentists can talk about the importance of flossing every day or how to brush teeth with braces properly.

You want to become the person your audience relies on when they need information related to your area of expertise.

Go beyond written content

Content marketing isn’t just limited to written formats. Many businesses are fighting for people’s attention, so you need to figure out how to stand out. The key is to diversify your content strategy.

With the rising popularity of videos, it is good to include videos in your content marketing strategy. You can share short and informative videos on social media. Or do a live Q&A. This will not only help educate your audience but also increase engagement. Other content ideas include infographics, podcasts, webinars, and quizzes.

Humanize your healthcare brand 

A patient is more than just a name on a medical chart. They’re someone’s son, daughter, parent, sibling, or spouse. You won’t win their loyalty unless you show them that you care.

People are more likely to engage and connect with you if they know a real person behind your practice. Post regularly on social media. Create some video content. Respond to comments. Make sure, though, that you have a clear policy to let people know that they should contact their physician or 911 in emergency cases.

We can help!

Content marketing has been proven to be highly effective. When done right, it can help you improve your online visibility, boost SEO, and even position yourself as an expert in your industry. Keep in mind, though, that results take time.

To reap all the benefits of content marketing, you need to do post content regularly. It usually takes about six to nine months for your content marketing efforts to bear fruit.

Feel free to reach out to us if you need help with your content marketing strategy. Whether you’re just starting or you’re hoping to double down on your content marketing efforts, we’re to help.

Schedule a free 30-minute consultation call with us. Let us help you create engaging content that attracts the right traffic and converts leads.

 

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Roadmap to digital marketing

One thing that has been coming up in our business a lot lately is this roadmap to digital marketing. Where do you start, when do you run ads, how do you create an online community? And a lot of times, we just want to jump into one component and hope it works. Digital marketing has grown so much over the past, just five years, just a year, six months. So it’s always changing, it’s always growing, which keeps us on our toes because they’re always adding in new things. When you think of your digital marketing, you always want to be thinking of your client or your patient’s journey.

What are they searching for, how are they going to find your content? How are they going to follow you, how are you going to build the know, like, trust factors? We created this roadmap. There’s a lot of moving pieces, and you can’t just focus on one thing.

Reflect

Let’s start up here by the very beginning, defining your company’s values. What is it that you are doing? What is important to your company? Really understanding those core values, because, in any business, you want to work with good people. You want patients that are going to love you, that are going to come back, that are going to refer their friends and family. So what are those core values that your company and your staff stand for?

If you already have this piece created, great, maybe just double-check it. Go back, look if you guys have grown or changed anything, and then moving into your goal. So what is your goal for digital marketing? Is it just brand awareness, making sure that you’re staying top of mind, that as people are searching for you on Google, that your social media is going to come up, or is it to increase leads, getting new people in the door? Is it to increase your online program, again, by getting people to sign up for your newsletter, what are those goals? And we always use the SMART goals here, so make sure that they are Specific, that they are Measurable, that they are Achievable, Realistic in Time. You don’t want to say, “I’m going to have a million followers in a week”, ’cause that’s not going to happen, but what’s that timeframe you’re going to give yourself? And then we’re going to move into a client avatar. What does this ideal patient or client look like for you? And this is really important. One of the best ways to do this, and this piece here takes a little bit of time, okay? This is kind of that step one.

Build and Create

With that client avatar, think of your favorite patients and clients that you have had. What did you love about them? Why did you love working with them? Did they… What was that relationship that you guys had? Maybe there are 10 of them. Take the common good from them and put them into this client avatar. What does that look like? Okay, so this is our step one of reflection, and then moving into step two, building and creating. So take the time to research topics online. Do a ton of Google researching and figure out… One thing I love about Google is you start typing in two things, it’s going to auto-populate different options. Okay, do those options resonate with your business? If that’s what you think that your clients or your patients would be looking for, start taking notes. Take the time to research what people are searching for. Then thinking of, you have all this content, what is your patient or your client looking for? Can you do some type of freebie? If it is, maybe you’re a pediatrician, and it’s about 10 healthy and fun snacks for kids under eight, and you can put together a freebie, a content upgrade that then you’ll be able to promote to collect those names and emails.

From that research, what can you put together as a freebie to be able to provide to your target market? Then you’ll want to look at how are you going to get that content out there, so you’ll want to look at either building something on your website, Mail Chimp, or even lead pages. This is going to help build your email list. And so writing a welcome series about this content upgrade and how excited you are to have this person a part of your online community, and what they can expect from you, and how often that they’re going to hear from you. Then looking at, based on those research you’ve done online, looking at what blog post can you write around those topics. The blog post takes some time, and if you are a natural writer, then you love, you love blogging because you have all these ideas coming to you, you don’t mind writing 500 words or 750 words or 1000 words, sometimes it’s a little hard to think of what is that blog post, what should it be about? And so when you have kind of this keyword, keyword phrases database that you can go back and look up after, that you could say, “Okay, this is what people are searching for. This is what people have asked me about in my practice this week, those are all great blog topics.” Okay, so we want to make sure we’re paying attention to those keywords that people are searching for in our industry, that’s going to give us the fuel to write those blog posts.

Educate

Now that we have our reflection piece done, we’re building and we’re creating all of our components to go together, now it’s time to start educating your audience. This piece right here is often overlooked because we think, “My story is not that important, people don’t want to hear about me”, and you’re true to a point, but this builds that know, like, trust factor. And that is what is going to bring people in the door. They want to know who you are, why you do what you do, who your team is, who are they going to see when they walk in or who are they going to be speaking with? So really being able to share your story, your personal story, your practice story, your company story, and also asking your team their story. And then with this content and with this content, you’re going to start to grow your network. This is where… Maybe you have a Facebook Likes campaign in to grow the likes on Facebook, you could be adding connections on LinkedIn, you can be sending out messages on Instagram and growing your network that way, followers on Twitter, whichever platform or platforms you’re working with, you want to grow your audience, so they’re able to see all of this great content that you’re going to be putting out.

All of this is education, and here as well, is really being able to put together that social media strategy to educate that audience. You don’t want to be sales, sales, sales, ’cause that’s going turn them off. But if you are promoting some type of a program, maybe this is an online program, then you want to talk about the benefits, you want to think about what are their pain points, what is… What are they going through? What would they be looking for? And that’s how you’re going to create that social media content. So it’s really about connecting with them and educating them and education can be a blog post, this can be videos, this can even be inspirational quotes. I love seeing inspirational quotes on my social media feeds because it motivates me and it’s still, “Oh yeah, I didn’t think of it that way”, or different ones resonate with me at different times of my life, and so that’s still educating. So putting together the social strategy within this educate piece is really important, because then once you have grown your network, you’re posting consistently on social media, you’re educating your audience, so you’re building again that know, like, trust factor, then you can start this promotion piece. And this is where sometimes people want to jump right into here to promote on Facebook ads or Google ads, but they haven’t done any of this yet, so they’re missing a big chunk of the picture.

Promote

Once you get to this piece of it, then it’s really important that you want to be able to promote this free content upgrade that’s going to grow your list, that’s going to grow your network, and put them in front of you. So promotion can be Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google ads. This on Facebook, you can be doing boosted posts, which is great because that reaches even more people from your social media strategy here. You can also then have a whole ad campaign, which is really important because, with Facebook and your website, you want to be able to track those conversions, and Facebook in the past month has made a lot of changes to the backend of the ad. So it’s really important to understand what you’re doing, or have a company like us that understands that you’re able to get ads approved, that you’re able to track the conversions, that you have the Facebook pixel in the right place, all of these things come in to play so you are able to reach the right people and really grow that network and turn the people that just downloaded this freebie into a paying client. That’s key. So, once you have this piece done, you get to this promotion, then you want to look for what are more opportunities.

Management

After they get the freebie, maybe you can do a retargeting ad to those people and have another content upgrade that would maybe be like step two or the next step up from what you’ve created, okay? Or it could be something that is completely different, but still within that target market, just another thing they may want and be looking for. And so then all this comes down to managing, and this is a big piece of it. This is the most time-consuming piece, and our clients, love to write content, they love to put the videos together, they love what the idea is, but it’s a lot to manage because each of these pieces has its own little moving parts within that core. And so this is really where you have that social media strategy, so you’re creating the content, you’re posting anywhere between three and seven times per week. You are running your ads to promote your freebie, and ads you may have maybe five to 11 different ads running with different variations that are going to go back to this freebie, okay. So you’ll have a different language, you may be trying out a video on one ad, a still image on one ad, maybe a video that you’ve put together in Canva. So this management piece is really where you are then able to look at the big picture and say, “Okay, this is what’s working, this is how many conversions that we’ve gotten this week, here’s our social media analytics. This is what ads are working, this is what we need to change.”

This management piece is a daily, a weekly, a monthly, a yearly thing, and so this hopefully gives you that big picture of what your digital marketing strategy should look like. And each business is different, so you may have different tools in here that other companies don’t and based on your business model. But this is really just the overflow of what it is you should be doing in order to really see those leads come through and see your digital marketing go from here to here because at the end of the day, you really want that ROI. And if you’re not doing all of these pieces the right way, you’re not going to see that and you’re going to be wasting your money. So it’s important to look at each component and see how can you improve or change things of what you are doing to be able to have your digital marketing work for you.

If you are looking for help putting a strategy in place or having help managing the strategy you have put in place, we would love to schedule a free 30-minute consultation with you to go over what you are doing, where you want to be, again, reflecting on those goals and putting a plan in place to see that ROI. 

Blog to Boost SEO for Healthcare Providers

In today’s episode we are going to be talking about blogging for your healthcare center or your wellness practice. Blogging is one of the best ways for you to share your knowledge and your education with prospects and with your network online.

Additionally, a well-written blog post helps to boost your search engine (SEO) rankings for your website thus driving more traffic, to your website for specific keywords and keyword phrases.

It’s always important as you’re writing a blog post to keep both that end-user, or that potential patient in mind as well as keeping the search engines in mind too.

How do you go about finding topics to blog about, how do you go about writing that blog post and structuring it, and how do you share it after it’s written?

These are the key elements that we will be covering today in the video about How to Blog to Boost SEO for Healthcare Providers.

For a step-by-step guide to blogging, please visit: How to Easily Write a Blog Post.

Watch the Episode

Listen to the Health and Wellness Marketing Podcast Episode

Read the full digital marketing for healthcare transcript:

00:00 Caitlin McDonald: Hello and welcome to the Social Speak Network podcast. I’m Caitlin McDonald and I am the co-founder of Social Speak. And today’s episode we are going to be talking about blogging for your healthcare center or your wellness practice. Now blogging is one of the best ways for you to share your knowledge and your education with prospects and with your network online. Additionally, a well-written blog post helps to boost your search engine rankings for your website thus driving more traffic, to your website for specific keywords and keyword phrases. So it’s always important as you’re writing a blog post to keep both that end-user, or that potential patient in mind as well as keeping the search engines in mind too. So how do you go about finding topics to blog about how do you go about writing that blog post and structuring it and how do you share it after it’s written. So that’s what we’re going to be covering today.

01:19 CM: So the first part of that question is thinking about what topics you should blog about. Now, it’s always important to blog about something that you are knowledgeable about. So you want to make sure that you’re blogging about topics within your practice or industry that you actually know about and care about. If you are not the specialist in that topic, find somebody in your practice who’s better suited to write about it or who can at least edit the information that you’ve put out. We find this often especially with some smaller health care centers where they have one person who’s in charge of doing the blogging. Unfortunately, they don’t necessarily have the expertise in whatever specific topic there is. For our team, for example, when we are going into a new practice, we make sure that we are matching that practice up with a writer who’s going to be suited to talk about those topics. If we’re talking about Pediatrics, or if we’re talking about pain management, we might have two different writers for those two topics. They’re very different, and they require a different level of understanding of who that patient is, what that patient journey is, and everything like that. So let’s get back to writing that blog post, so to find a topic to write about one make sure that it’s something that you are very knowledgeable about two, make sure that some people are searching for it.

03:03 CM: So what I typically recommend doing is taking out a pen and paper, and actually writing a list of different topics that you talk about with patients and with prospects. So by this I mean, what are the questions that people are asking you what are their top concerns what are they looking for, what benefit does the practice provide to them what are the specialties of your practice, what additional things can your services and specialties help to solve for your patients? Now take a look at this list and what I recommend doing is hopping on over to Google and starting to type in these, phrases, what you’ll see is that Google will pre-populate other searches that are related to it, or searches that other people search for. Now, there are also tools that you can use to do this research. So, I like first starting out doing your own brainstorm looking at Google search results, and just set your timer takes about 30 minutes to do this exercise, make as many notes as you can.

04:22 CM: I often find myself hand-writing them, probably it would be a little bit more streamlined if you do this for yourself, in a spreadsheet so that you don’t replicate work overtime. The next thing to do is either head on over to Keyword finder kwfinder.com or over to Neil Patel’s Uberselect app. Now, this is a new app that he has brought to the market and it currently is completely free. So what you do is, within this app and I’ll have a link down below, excuse me Ubersuggest not Uberselect Ubersuggest app. And so it’s Neil… Excuse me, app.neilpatel.com/en/ubersuggest is one way that you can get there or you can just do a Google search for it as well but what you do is there is a related keyword ideas sort of tool within there, and so you can actually type in some of those keywords and keyword phrases.

05:30 CM: And you can see what other search results folks are looking for. Keyword finder you can do the same thing, however, now it is limited to just a few searches per month on that free account. So I do recommend jumping over to Neil Patel’s tool. When you are utilizing this tool and I don’t have it up in front of me. So that’s going to be a whole new blog post and tutorial about how we utilize it. But when you use it, you can see one, what keywords your competitors are looking for and two what those related search terms are for the ones that you enter into that search field. Now, we recommend filtering these results so that you are looking for keywords with a low keyword difficulty score. We recommend starting off if you’re just starting off blogging, putting in a keyword score, a maximum keyword score of about 20, maybe 30.

06:30 CM: Now, this means that it is hypothetically easier to rank for these keywords, you’ll find that typically the result that pops out there is going to be a long-term keyword so a keyword phrase rather than back pain, for example, another thing that you can do is you can plug in the number of searches per month for that keyword. Now as you’re starting off blogging we recommend writing blog posts and trying to rank for keywords that don’t have as many searches for them. So I would plug in a number like 500 here.

07:12 CM: So you’re looking for searches where there are fewer than 500 searches for them and where the keyword difficulty score is fairly low. The reason why we do this is, and I’m taking this from one of our interviews a while ago, is because we follow the skyscraper approach to keyword research and blogging for that SEO benefit. What this means is, if you visualize the Skyline, we are targeting the low-buildings, So we’re targeting the buildings that, Yes, they don’t have as much traffic, but they also don’t have as much competition for them. Then over time, as you’re proving your worth to Google, you can start bidding for those higher skyscrapers. So you can start writing content that has more searches and higher keyword difficulty, score. So you’ve done the list of your brainstorm of all the topics you’ve jumped over to the Ubersuggest app on Neil Patel’s website, you’ve done your keyword research there and you’ve chosen a topic now what do you do? This part is actually my favorite, and it’s seeing what other people have written about that keyword phrase.

08:39 CM: And so what you want to do is just type it into Google and take a look, open up a few of the searches excuse me, search results that come up for that phrase. When you open up the articles I recommend, not reading them word for word, but doing a cursory skim, just to see what other headlines and sub-topics people are talking about. Then close all of the windows take out either your notebook and piece of paper again or jump over to your spreadsheet or a Word document, you could even open up your blog post if you want to a blog post draft and write the outline that you want to follow for that blog post. Now I always recommend putting that title, excuse me, putting that keyword phrase as the title of the blog post or at least in the title of the blog post this will help you rank even better and also make sure that people who are searching specifically for that phrase know that you are the place to go when they see it up in the organic listings. So you’ve done the cursory outline for your blog post and now we recommend filling in the content.

10:03 CM: So what you’re going to have, what you should see on your paper are major topics that you want to cover, sub-categories or sub-topics that you want to cover, And then maybe a couple of bullet points that you wanna make sure that you touch on. So underneath each of these items, type in two to three or more sentences or bullet points for each of these. Now, if you do that, and if you are putting together a robust outline, you might find that at that first go, you already have a 1500-word blog post. I’ve done this before where I’ve done an outline and the outline itself, was over 500 words long. That makes writing a longer blog post very straightforward. Now, let’s say you sit down to fill out these bullet points and you just have a mental block, you can’t think of anything to put down. I recommend jumping over to Google Docs, and under, if you open up a new doc, you can click tools, and then you can do a voice record. So if you do this you can actually record yourself speaking and make a transcription of what you’re going to say and so you can create a few sentences, if you feel more comfortable speaking rather than sitting down in writing, you can at least talk through some of the bullet points so that you have something that then you can convert into a nicely written blog post.

11:35 CM: Now, if all else fails, if you have this outline that’s put together and that’s tapping into your knowledge about what topics should be talked about, you can then Hop on over to WriterAccess or Upwork on, to have somebody else fill in the blanks and write the content. This is an easy way to make sure that you’ve done the research in terms of what other people are looking for, you’ve added your expertise on that specific topic, and then you’re just getting someone to fill in the blanks now to make a blog post work even better for your business there are a few additional things that we recommend adding, the first is video so you’ll see in all of our videos excuse me, in all of our blog posts. We have a video embedded in the blog post as well. Now, having this video adds a multi-media element to your blog post, the multimedia element, allows different people to come and view it. People who wouldn’t necessarily be reading your blog post, maybe they’re more interested in listening to it or watching it.

12:46 CM: So, this adds additional SEO benefit because you’re keeping people on your page longer, and you are uploading the video to YouTube which is in fact the second largest search engine and also owned by Google. So you might be adding an additional place for your name and brand to show up in search results. Another thing that you can do with this video is you can create a transcription of it. So I talked about transcribing with the Google Voice On the Google Doc in order to write the content but if you do a video, that goes into deeper detail on one or two of the topics that you talk about in the video, you can actually create a transcription of that video and add that to the bottom of your blog post. I believe it’s something around 10 minutes of speaking typically equates to about 2500 or 3000 words. Now, imagine what that can do for the content on your website. Now, after you write your blog post, it’s important to make sure that you’re going through for formatting.

14:09 CM: When we go through for formatting we take a look at the outline that you originally created and make sure all of those main topics are header twos, then those sub-topics are header threes, and the topics below that are header fours. Typically within a longer blog post, you’ll see something like two header twos, three to five header threes, and four or more header fours. This allows Google to see what those most important categories are and if your website was structured properly in the CSS and the styling those elements are going to be bolded, or have more, more prominent on a page rather than just the written text. Additionally, we recommend linking two services pages from that blog post. So again, let’s say you’re talking about back pain and you have a service that is great for back pain. It could be a massage, it could be surgery or a specialist. You want to make sure that that Back pain text is linked to the services page or more information about how you can help with back pain. This is called inner page linking.

15:27 CM: And so by doing that again, you’re getting people to more resources. You can also add a section of related posts to your blog post so let’s say you’re talking about one specific specialty within your blog post link to or add the related blog post that also has to do with that specialty or potentially this is a physician interview link to the other blog posts that have physician interviews And it helps keep people on the site longer, so that they know like and trust you more. It also signals to Google that people are finding the information that they want when they view your site and that helps to increase the Domain Authority and where your website is positioned compared to competitors, in the organic search results. The last thing to do with your blog post for your health care and wellness center is to share it with the world. So the past few weeks we’ve been talking about a lot of different tactics that you can do to make this happen. The first would be sharing it on social media, the second sharing it to your newsletter, the third making sure that you are sharing it through sponsored advertising on Facebook. This could be as a boosted post. Your organic reach you’re going to find is fairly low. And we talked about this with the reach apocalypse the other week. So you are going to have to boost the post with at least a little bit of money behind it in order to make sure that it is reaching your audience and other people who might be interested in reading it.

17:11 CM: Now, I hope that this has been helpful. If you have any questions about how to write a blog post for your wellness center please don’t hesitate to reach out. We have blog posts and other resources about how to do this over on our website at socialspeaknetwork.com, And we would love to chat with you to see how we can help with the process. So thank you so much for tuning in. My name’s Caitlin McDonald, I’m here with the social speak network and I can’t wait to see you next time on our next podcast episode.

How to Blog to Boost SEO for Healthcare Providers

How to Blog to Boost SEO for Your Family Medicine PracticeHow to Blog to Boost SEO for Your Health and Wellness Practice

How to Blog to Boost SEO for Your Mental Health Practice

Digital marketing is becoming the new wave of healthcare marketing. With the growing competition in the healthcare industry, it is important to stay on top of digital marketing and keep your organization at the forefront of change.

Today, the competition is getting tougher and patients are getting smarter. Many of them even turn to Google for quick answers to health-related concerns. If you want to get more customers to your door, then you need to get in front of your audience and have a solid online presence. Otherwise, someone else will. This is why it’s important to have a healthcare marketing plan — so you can reach potential and existing patients at the best time.

Ever wonder what it takes to create a successful healthcare marketing campaign?

We listed down some tips that you can incorporate into your marketing plan right away.

Know your target audience

A successful healthcare marketing campaign starts with knowing who your audience is and what they value. To produce great results, you first need to create a well-defined persona profile.

Vividly picture who is it that you want to attract to your doorstep and what matters most to them. The more specifically you define your audience, the more likely you are to inspire a positive response.

Carefully and precisely defining your target audience will ensure that you’re not making the wrong assumption about what your audience values. Plus, it will improve your efficiency since you’ll have a good idea about what media to use and how to shape a compelling message that brings a response.

Combine healthcare and social media

Today, social media isn’t just a place for family and friends to stay in touch. People also use them to promote their business and reach their audience. 

The power of social media extends to all industries, including healthcare. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn can help you reach a wider audience and connect with your followers. It can also help you drive traffic and leads to your website.

Now that you know who your target audience is, it will be easier for you to reach your key audience. Tapping into online communities and sharing health information can be a game-changer in your healthcare marketing plan. Keep in mind, though, that each platform has its own voice and audience. When you create social media content, make sure that the message is tailored to different audiences and channels.

You can also use paid advertising to increase brand awareness, improve visibility, and widen your reach. Don’t worry. You don’t need to spend a huge sum of money in order to get results. In fact, you can run a Facebook ad for a minimum budget of $5 a day. So go ahead and try it out, and adjust your budget later on.

Make wellness a lot more fun

Health and wellness is a serious topic, but that doesn’t mean that your campaign should be boring and uninspiring. Let’s take cues from UnitedHealthCare’s successful healthcare marketing campaign – We Dare You.

UnitedHealthcare created an interactive campaign that dares people to make one small change to live healthier lives and document it on social media. Each month, there are new challenges and quizzes aimed at inspiring people to live a healthier lifestyle. There are prizes involved too.

The multi-awarded “We Dare You” campaign not only led to healthier habits, but it also fostered an interactive online community of brand loyalists.

Establish an email marketing plan

Email marketing is an effective means of transmitting messages to your current and prospective audience. In fact, studies suggest that email marketing is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers as compared to Facebook and Twitter. When done right, it can help you grow your practice and reach a larger amount of patients.

With email marketing, the audience is openly receptive, and relative cost is low, and the rate of return can be exceptionally high. You can promote your services in a cost-effective way while building a relationship with your patients.

If you’re new to email marketing, you might want to start with growing your email list. To do that, you need to focus on reaching as many people as possible. Don’t worry. Getting your first 100 email subscribers isn’t as complicated as it seems. With an irresistible lead magnet, a killer landing page, and the power of social media,  you’ll be able to grow your email list in no time.

Google yourself

Studies suggest that physicians and other medical practitioners receive up to 45% of new patients through referral. Though most patients would consider the referral of other doctors, family, and friends, the majority of them will run a Google search of your name and check out your reputation before booking an appointment.

The survey revealed that 60% of patients wouldn’t book an appointment with a medical practitioner that has bad reviews. This is why you should Google yourself now. It might seem silly, but it’s actually important. 

By running a quick Google search of yourself, you’ll have a good idea of how your practice looks from a consumer’s perspective and know where to start when creating your digital strategy. You also want to make sure that all the information about you is correct and updated. 

If you unearth some negative results when you Google yourself, try to have the post taken down. But if that doesn’t work, then the best thing you can do is suppress them with positive content.

Be a source of helpful information

In today’s digital world, most people’s inclination would be to open up a browser in Google and research about their own or their loved one’s condition. With so many people turning to the internet for answers, it is important that healthcare marketing is there to be a helpful and supportive guide.

Regularly post high-quality content that answers people’s questions. This will help them learn more about medical conditions they may be searching for or procedures they may have to undergo. It is also a good idea to share important and relevant medical information to help people improve their health. This will help build your credibility and position yourself as an authority in your field. People may not run off and make an appointment, but you will be in their minds the next time they get sick.   

6 Tips for a Successful Healthcare Marketing Campaign

Healthcare Marketing Tips for Your Family Medicine Practice.Healthcare Marketing Tips for Your Nutrition Practice

Healthcare marketing tips for your mental health practice

6 Easy Tips to Make Your LinkedIn Posts Standout

By now, you probably already know that Linkedin is a great place to generate leads. And publishing valuable content on the platform positions you as an authority in your industry, so you started writing content.

You spent hours researching, writing, and editing. Finally, your article is ready for publishing. Beaming with excitement, you clicked “post”. A few minutes later, you checked again hoping to see some likes and comments. Unfortunately, there is none.

Here’s the thing… If you’re not getting views on your LinkedIn posts, then you’re missing out on thousands of potential leads. The good news is that you can boost your engagement rates with just a few tweaks.

Follow these tips to write Linkedin posts that attract views and engagement.

Headlines are crucial

If you’re not getting enough views and engagement, then you’re posts are probably missing one of the most powerful user attractions of all – an intriguing headline.

In a world full of noise, it is your headline that captures the attention of your audience. So take the extra time to consider what headline would grab people’s attention.

When writing a headline, you should always ask the question: “would this make me want to read on?”. If it doesn’t, then try again.

Create content that strikes a conversation

A lot of professionals and entrepreneurs are using Linkedin to promote their business. The problem is that many of them would just pump out content, promote their services, and then leave.

You see, you can’t just post content, leave, and expect unlimited traffic. It doesn’t work that way. Start treating your audience like real people. Talk to them. Genuinely ask people to give out their opinion on industry-related topics. Ask questions to get people talking.

By keeping the conversation genuine rather than salesy, you’ll leave a much better impression. Eventually, your engagement rate will rise, you’ll reach a wider audience, and grow your business in the process.

Tell your personal brand story

If you scroll through your LinkedIn feeds, you’ll notice that most people are sharing some tips, tricks, advice, etc. After all, we know that posting valuable, informative content is one way to capture the attention of your audience, right? Well, it does. But if you want to cut through the noise, then you need to differentiate yourself from the others — and telling your brand story helps.

If there’s anything the internet has taught us, it’s that everyone has a story. And believe it or not, people are more interested to read about your story than listen to your sales pitch. Your story may seem ordinary to you, but others may find it interesting. Go ahead and share your story with the world!

Make images work for you

You probably already know that social media posts with an eye-catching image get more views and engagements. It turns out, the same principle applies to LinkedIn. In fact, studies suggest that LinkedIn posts with images receive an average of 57,000 views; whereas, posts with no image only receive about 6,000 views. That’s a huge difference!

What does this tell us? Visuals play an important role in capturing the attention of readers. Using a visually attractive image with your content will make your posts standout in the LinkedIn feed.

Lower the reading level

Linkedin is a social media platform for professionals and entrepreneurs. The majority of them are well-educated, read frequently, and can understand complex content. So why would you lower the reading level? It’s all about the ease of comprehension.

Writing copy that is 5th to 6th-grade level is not talking down to educated readers. Rather, you want your audience to easily grasp and digest your content. If you go much higher than that, it will require concentration. Remember, the most powerful LinkedIn content is straightforward and easy to read.

You can use the Flesh-Kincaid score to determine whether or not your content is easy to comprehend. A higher score means the article is elementary.

Timing is everything

If you want to get your posts read, then you need to publish them at the most opportune time. You need to keep in mind that LinkedIn is primarily used by business professionals. That means you should publish your posts on weekdays.

Research shows that most articles are read between 1:00 and 2:00 PM, 4:00 and 5:00 PM, and 7:00 and 8:00 PM. Try to schedule your posts around these times.

Final thoughts

LinkedIn is such an awesome place for networking. It allows you to connect with some of the biggest names in the industry, as well as your prospects. One of the best ways to build a relationship with your connections is by providing value first — which you can do with your content.

Follow the tips above to establish your presence and strengthen your reputation. But if you need help writing killer LinkedIn content that hooks readers, we are here for you. Click that Free Consultation Link for a free 30-minute consultation.

6 Easy Tips to Make Your LinkedIn Posts Standout

6 Easy Tips to Make Your Nutrition LinkedIn Posts Standout 

6 Easy Tips to Make Your Yoga LinkedIn Posts Standout

Content Consistency is KING

We are always talking to you about planning out your content, the importance of having a content calendar, researching your keywords, and it all comes down to consistency. With digital marketing, consistency is king, and this goes hand-in-hand with your social media posts. If you are trying to grow your social networks and you Google how to increase, or how to grow your Instagram followers or your Facebook likes, one of the first things that come up is consistency.

Social Media Consistency

Consistency can look different for each company, that could be maybe two posts per week, three posts per week, or a post every day, and you have to really decide what’s gonna be the best for your business, and if you’re just getting started, maybe starting out with only two or three posts per week, and as your followers grow, increasing that to maybe four or five posts per week. You also need to look at your audience to see when are they engaging with you? So what days of the week? Maybe Mondays are really not high engagement, but Saturdays are or Sundays, so maybe the weekdays are really when you want that engagement going on.

Also, think of is when your office is open. If your office is open Monday through Friday, it may make sense to just be posting Monday through Friday, and not the weekends, if somebody is not there to be able to monitor that activity. But you really need to have that content consistency with each social media platform. We always tell our clients to make sure that starting with, if you’re new to social media or you’ve had accounts but you haven’t really been actively using them, look at the ones where your clients are first. So if your patients or clients are on Facebook and Instagram, start there, and then maybe grow into LinkedIn, if you think Twitter would be the right fit, Pinterest. You don’t have to do them all, but you need to do the ones that you are managing the right way and have that consistency with your social media posts.

Blogging Consistency

A few years ago, even a year ago, having those cornerstone blogs were really important, and these cornerstone blogs could be 3000 to 5000 words, and not saying that blog content would be great on your website, but we were finding it was harder for our clients and us to put together such a big blog post, and it was taking up a lot more time where we weren’t having that consistency with these blogs. SEO is always changing and growing, and we really do follow Neil Patel and the foundation he has built. And so one of the strategies he has mentioned is doing smaller blog posts, so what we call micro-blogs. And this can be if you’re doing an Instagram post and you’re writing a long Instagram post already, you can just add to that and create a blog post. And again, that consistency is huge, because you’ve spent all this time, money, and energy on building this amazing website, and if you’re not feeding it, Google is not gonna see it. So these blog posts at that organic SEO to your website, and each time you are updating that blog post, Google is indexing that content.

Really work on what that micro-blog can be about, maybe you have one overarching content topic that you wanna talk about, and then you’re gonna write three or four or five little blogs that can be 750 words or even 500 words they can be short, sweet to the point. Maybe even thinking of asking a question. What questions are you being asked in your practice and addressing that one question?  Go to Google just to search, start typing in that question and seeing what Google suggests, and then write your blog post based on that question, because people are clearly searching for that. So the more clear and niche you are on this micro-blogs, and if you did one per week or two per month, again, having that schedule that works for you, that you can stick to it. That is key.

Video Consistency

This also goes into our video marketing. Videos are huge. We have a podcast coming out with a videographer and his crew in LA, and it is really important, and I know you know this because if you listen to us, you know that we’ve been talking about video marketing, but it’s easy to do one video and then say, “Okay, I’ll do another one.” And a week goes by, two weeks go by, and you haven’t recorded the other video. So having that plan and being able to… If you’re doing these blog posts, add a video to the blog. Your social media strategy, have one video per week. Be consistent, and if it’s easier to take one hour a month and have a couple of different change of outfits and record six videos. These videos don’t need to belong, they can be a variation of one-minute videos to five-minute videos, maybe up to 10-minute videos, depending on the topic you’re talking about, and really just put them all together so you have them. You’re able to put them into your blog post, you’re able to use them on social media, put them on to YouTube, and there’s that consistency.

Start small, start with one per week and work your way up. Then this also goes into all this hard work you’re doing on the digital front, you want to make sure that you are having something where you’re collecting names and emails. In your ads, are you providing a freebie for your audience, are you collecting their name and email, and in return, they’re getting a handout that you’ve put together, maybe it is 10 easy ways to naturally lose weight, or if you are a pediatrician, maybe it is 10 healthy snacks or five healthy snacks for children under the age of 10, something along those lines. Think of these conversations that you’ve had with your patients and with your audience and what do they need and put together something that you can market to them.

Newsletter Consistency

You’re providing a value to them, but then you’re also being able to collect their name and email, be consistent with that newsletter, so they get a welcome email, and then once a month they’re getting a newsletter email from you, so you’re staying top of mind, and in that newsletter, you’re putting valuable content. In that newsletter, you can reuse some of the blog posts, you can do a customized video that’s introducing you and your staff to them if they’re new, so they have an idea, they really feel like they are building this know-like trust factor with you. So they feel comfortable when they’re coming in the door, and especially now with the pandemic going on and still having to take those protocols, video is more important now than ever because people aren’t just coming in, they’re doing their research, they’re trying to figure out where they really wanna go. So having that consistency with the newsletter is really important.

Podcast Consistency

If you’re taking it one step further and you have any podcasts. Again, all of these tools are a great way to get in front of your audience and grow your client base. That’s all digital marketing is. Building those relationships, nourishing those relationships and turning those relationships into paying patients or clients, and all of these tools have a specific way to help do that, and so it’s important to make sure you know how to use them for your advantage, but that you’re not overwhelming yourself either.

If you need help really honing in on this digital marketing strategy and what that consistency looks like for you in your practice, we would love to sit down with you on a video chat and go over what are you guys currently doing, how can we implement new things and help with building that consistency to make sure that your efforts online are working for you?

Schedule your FREE consultation here

 

Content Consistency is KING

Content Consistency is KING for Your Yoga PracticeContent Consistency is KING for Your Nutrition Practice

Content Consistency is KING for Your Acupuncture Practice

National Podcast Week - The importance of keeping your content up to date

It is National Podcast Week, and in today’s podcast, we will be covering some great information!

Today the questions we will be covering are:

  • Why is it important to Google yourself and your practice?
  • How do you fix outdated or wrong information on old directories?
  • How often should you be updating your content on your website and social media sites?
  • How does each social platform work for your practice?

Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Podbean and iTunes

The importance of keeping your content up to date

 

The importance of keeping your Family Medicine content up to date
The importance of keeping your Health and Wellness content up to date
The importance of keeping your Mental Health content up to date

This is our first podcast for our monthly Q&A  series. In this podcast, we will go over – Why is it so important to do a social media audit and get rid of old accounts?  – Does blogging help your SEO and how can you find keywords/phrases to blog about?  – Why is it important to mix up your social media content?  – What are a few tools we use to make our digital marketing life a bit easier?  – Why should you be running Facebook ads, even if you feel they haven’t been successful before.

Digital Marketing Q&A – Tips and Tricks

Digital Marketing Tips and Tricks for Your Family Medicine PracticeDigital Marketing Tips and Tricks for Your Health and wellness Practice

Digital Marketing Tips and Tricks for Your Mental Health Practice