Wednesday, September 19, 2018

3 elements of hospital blogging you’re ignoring

Inbound marketing is important for all companies and it represents a huge opportunity for hospitals. Why? Because 80% of American web users look for health information online. Blogging is a great tool for Internet marketing success but being successful with your blog is harder than you might think. Let's assume you already have a blog up and running, but you are not seeing the traffic you would like You're left wondering how you can increase the awareness of your hospital's blog. For starters, your blog must be engaging, informative and give readers value, but that is easier said than done.

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  1. Be consistent
    Monthly posting is not going to get you the traffic you’re looking for. The key to increasing the awareness of your hospital's blog is to post at least 2 to 3 times a week. Why? Because regular posting gives the search engines fresh content and increases your opportunity to rank for specific keywords and phrases. Both of these factors improve search engine rankings and make potential readers more aware of your blog. Consistency also allows readers to see you as a credible and reliable source of information.
  2. Write for your audience
    Another effective tactic that will help increase the awareness of your hospital's blog is ensuring your content provides readers with the information they are actually looking for. Are you writing for your audience? If you want patients to find you, you need to write content that they will look for. Think about it like this: If you are in need of an OB/GYN in your city, what would you do? It’s likely that you would go to Google and type “OB/GYN in Cleveland” right? Consider what your patients are looking for online before you sit down to write a blog post. Additionally, be sure to cut your medical jargon.
  3. Keep it interesting
    Use video, graphics, and other media to keep your blog interesting. Sure, you could write a blog about how doctors feel about knuckle cracking and its relationship to arthritis but wouldn’t it be more interesting to watch a video of doctors explaining this? And yes, you could write a blog based around the research on that same subject but instead, consider an infographic that can accomplish the same thing . Plus, infographics are much more fun for your visitors to look at…and are more likely to be shared on social media.

Putting up a blog is one thing. Getting people to pay attention to it is another. Creating an engaged audience for a blog is a common problem for many health care organizations, including hospitals. But, once you can get people to pay attention to your blog, you will start to see your website numbers and overall online engagement increase.

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