Is Writing a Blog Important? (and When to Try Something Else)

How to Successfully Write SEO Content for the Medical Industry

Your content should be optimized for people to find it.

Schedule Free Demo

Blogging is a very common component of digital marketing strategies, but are blogs actually effective? The answer really depends on several factors. There’s a way to make blogging work for just about any business, but you have to be smart about your strategy. Here are some pros and cons of blogging and some alternative content marketing options.

Benefits of Blogging

1. Drive Traffic with New Content

Keeping your site up to date with new content is one of the most important ways of signaling to Google that you are a great resource for searches. Similarly, Google will typically rank sites with more pages higher than smaller sites.

Think about how much or how often you add to your existing site pages. With so much evergreen content, the answer is probably “not much.” This is one reason a blog can be so beneficial for SEO. Keeping a regular blog consistently adds indexed pages on your site, increasing your opportunities to show up in an organic search.

2. Convert Blog Readers into Leads

One important strategy when it comes to blogging is converting your readers into leads. For a medical practice, this usually looks like adding a call to action—something like “schedule a consultation” or “call us for an appointment.” The more opportunities to convert on your site the better.

3. Answer Common Questions

In consultations, you probably answer some of the same questions over and over each day. This means that your potential new patients are probably Googling these questions as well! A blog is a great way to keep your patients informed and meet them where they are. Answering those common questions through your blog is great for your SEO and helps build your authority online.

Disadvantages of Blogging—And What to Try Instead

1. Steep Competition

A blog is a good way to rank higher for your target keywords, but you should also consider your competition. For example, it would be very difficult for a small, family-owned plastic surgery practice to rank on the first page for “Breast Augmentation Recovery.” Larger sites like plasticsurgery.org or healthline.com will dominate those first few spots. However, your odds will improve if you are considering more niche topics and keywords, like the name of your city. This is where a tailored strategy for your practice’s blog comes into play. Your DLM Marketing Specialist can help you decide which blog topics will be most effective for you.

2. Establishing Authority is Difficult

This point goes hand-in-hand with the problem of steep competition. Many times, when readers are looking to answer their questions, they are more likely to trust the authority of a website or name they already recognize. If you are a smaller or newer practice, this makes it more difficult for you to attract clicks. You should always include some information on your website that will build trust—like your educational background, experience, and certifications—but these won’t necessarily be obvious in a Google search result alone.

3. Blogs Can Be Time Consuming

There’s no way around it—writing a high-quality blog takes time. From choosing topics each month to doing research to writing the first draft to editing and proofreading, plenty of work goes into maintaining a blog that will benefit SEO and your audience. If your blog strategy isn’t working for you, all that time would be better spent on other content writing projects.

Try: FAQs and Updating Site Pages

As previously established, blogs are a great way to answer frequently asked questions and update your website with new material. However, adding these FAQs directly onto your existing pages is another great strategy. This seamlessly builds keywords into your content and signals to Google that you are keeping your site updated. At the same time, adding FAQs and updating pages is a simple way to increase the word count of each page, another SEO benefit. It can also be more efficient when it comes to the time you put into your content.

Try: Email and Social Media

One of the obvious downsides of a blog is making sure that your audience sees new posts when they go live. Think about it—how often do you check out a favorite brand or business’ website to see if they have posted a new blog? Email and social media meet your audience where they already are. You can make sure your social plan or email marketing include links to new blog posts, or simply focus more on these mediums when it comes to updating patients with news about your practice.

Give Us a Call

Questions about your content strategy? Give Team DLM a call at (616) 222-3735 or contact us online to learn more.