Starting A Healthcare Blog: 3 Factors To Keep In Mind Before Launching
It probably seems like everyone and their mom has a blog these days. And maybe that’s true. But that doesn’t mean that all blogs are created equal. Blogging can be a powerful marketing tool for your healthcare organization—if it’s done right.
So, how can you set your company’s healthcare blog up for success? Here are 3 factors to keep in mind before you even think about publishing that first post.
1. Figure Out Your Target Audience.
As an August 2013 Forbes article explains, having a clear target audience is key to creating a winning content strategy. And, as the second point in this post (see below) will explain, a strong content strategy is critical if you want your organization’s healthcare blog to succeed.
Instead, ask yourself: Is there a specific service line that we should focus on?
For example, let’s say your organization is about to build a new diabetes clinic that will offer comprehensive, multi-speciality care and support to adult patients. Maybe your target audience is working people with Type 2 diabetes who are struggling to balance jobs, family, and taking care of their own health.
2. Start With A Strong Content Strategy.
According to Forbes, identifying your target audience allows you to do the in-depth research and planning needed to create a content strategy that will set your healthcare blog up for success.
But what on earth is a content strategy?
Orbit Media’s Andy Crestodina sums it up best when he says:
“Content strategy is about planning the creation, promotion, and measurement of content. This content attracts visitors to our website, creating meaningful interactions that meet the needs of our audience and our business.”
Creating a great content strategy means really getting to know the wants and needs of your target audience. It requires knowing the ins and outs of search engine optimization and keyword research. The content strategy should include a content calendar full of engaging post ideas. Your organization will also need to know how to track and interpret analytics—and adjust the strategy as needed.
And no successful content strategy is complete without a solid promotion plan.
3. Produce Less, Promote More.
It goes without saying that your organization’s healthcare blog content should be top-of-the-line as far as quality is concerned. But while it would be great if standout blog content spoke for itself and attracted readers through osmosis, unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
This is where the promotion part of a successful content strategy comes in.
In fact, as an August 2016 Content Marketing Institute article makes clear, the majority of a marketing team’s efforts should go toward promoting content, not creating it.
Think about it this way: If your organization’s blog is pumping out blog posts daily, you’ll want to promote each post thoroughly. But not only is it very difficult to produce that much quality content at that rate, promoting it might actually be harmful to your company’s cause.
This is because trying to promote that many posts at a time will quickly saturate your organization’s social media feeds—and drive people away. And that’s the exact opposite of what you’re trying to achieve.
Instead, take time to create quality content, then dedicate even more time to promoting that content.
This might seem like a lot of work just to launch a healthcare blog. But a well-planned blog can help your organization meet its marketing goals. In the end, all of this up-front effort will be well worth it.
At CareContent, these three points are always on our mind when we help our clients launch new healthcare blogs. Let us help your hospital or healthcare organization create and promote standout web content. Contact us today to get started.
5 Reasons Why Your Healthcare Website Needs Effective Landing Pages
The moment a visitor arrives at your healthcare organization’s website, you’ve got her full attention—but you could lose it very quickly if you don’t provide what she’s looking for. Plus, she’s probably doing several other tasks while perusing your site. You don’t have much time, and you only get one first impression.
Unfortunately, when most healthcare organizations are revamping their websites, they focus on the homepage.
Instead, the focus should be on landing pages. Your homepage should only be a map to take the visitor to a strong landing page.
Here are the 5 reasons your healthcare website needs effective landing pages:
1. To Answer The Patients’ Questions
Press releases. Awards announcements. Letters from the CEO. These are just some of the ways that hospitals squander landing pages to talk about themselves instead of helping the patient.
When someone lands on your healthcare organization’s site from a Google search, she’s looking for something. She may be searching for information about her own condition, her child’s disease, or her spouse’s upcoming procedure.
The page where she lands should be all about the patient. Not your hospital. Your content should inform, instruct, and encourage your reader.
2. To Combat Sketchy Health Info
Clarifying bogus health info builds your hospital’s credibility. If you don’t do it, someone else will.
Approach your landing page as your way to fight all of the misinformation floating on the web. Each time your landing page answers the question effectively, that is one less time another page with sketchy information has a chance.
Alternatively, each time your landing page—for whatever reason—doesn’t do the job, you are decreasing the chances of that person ever returning to your site.
3. To Get Into The Details
Just as your homepage provides general information, an effective landing page gets specific. A patient is looking for in-depth information regarding their condition and how you can help them with it.
Unfortunately, many hospitals slap up health library content on their landing pages, instead of taking the time to explain a condition or procedure to the patient in their own words. That’s also a missed opportunity to highlight your healthcare organization’s unique approach.
Narrate through everything you would want to know if you were in your patient’s position. If you can’t put yourself in the patient’s position, interview one to get more insight.
Also read: 7 Steps To Test Your Healthcare Blog or Microsite
An effective landing page will leave your reader feeling empowered and informed enough to make the right choices.
4. To Get Engagement
While the reader may walk away feeling educated, you can bet that this reader will have more questions down the road. The design of your landing page has to direct them to your CTA—call to action.
Assuming your content is just what the reader was looking for, ask for something in return—like visiting a related blog post, signing up for your e-newsletter, or downloading your patient guide on the topic.
5. To Be Found In Search Engines
Search engines love landing pages. “Landing pages are kind of like cars—make sure they’re tuned-up properly, and you’ll likely get better performance and savings out of them down the road,” according to the Google Webmaster blog.
Search optimization means designing and coding your page so that people can find it through a Google search.
Remember that Google also wants people to continue using its search engine, so they need to be satisfied. Google designed its search algorithm with this in mind. Prominently featured sites will be those that have strong landing pages that provide what people are searching for.
Creating Healthcare Blog Content? 6 Ways To Do It Wrong (Part 2)
Here are 3 additional tactics that just don’t work if you want to keep your healthcare blog going strong.
Who Should Be the Voice of Your Healthcare Blog: 5 Clinician Characteristics
As healthcare organizations look to highlight other experts, its important that these experts have certain characteristics that will make their participation in the blog successful—or at least less of a headache.
Zero Reasons Healthcare Blogs Need A Content Strategy (Part 2)
Here’s part two of our discussion about why your healthcare blog or brand journalism site is not getting the engagement you want.
Zero Reasons Healthcare Blogs Need A Content Strategy (Part 1)
If you’re wondering why no one is engaging with your healthcare organization’s blog or brand journalism site, read this.
6 Ways to Include Physicians in Healthcare Blogs
Chasing down physicians to help with web content it tough and time consuming. If you’re trying to get out by 5, follow these six steps.
3 Reasons to Scrap Your Healthcare Email Newsletter
If your team or your web vendor is doing a standalone e-newsletter for your healthcare organization, make them stop. Standalone e-newsletters are a lot of work for little return. Here’s a better option.
