Blogging for business is a long-term marketing strategy, crucial for small businesses like dental clinics operating in a highly competitive market.
Here are some facts about business blogging you may not know.
- Regular posts with quality content drive more and more online traffic to your practice website – and patients through your door.
- Blogs expand your online visibility and generate leads.
- The best dental blogs result in a steady flow of new patients and keep you connected with existing patients.
- A blog can provide valuable information that helps to gain people’s trust.
- And a solid SEO (search engine optimisation) strategy will ensure a strong presence among people looking for the dental services you provide.
While blogging works as a marketing strategy, it isn’t all plain sailing. Instead, there are several challenges you may need to overcome.
Blogging challenges
There are of course dentists who ‘get’ blogging and when they do (and do it regularly) they see the long-term benefits. However, to others, they may see it as something of less importance – a distraction that deflects from the task of operating a busy dental practice.
After all, blogging doesn’t come naturally to dentists, and even if the idea appeals, it can be challenging to find time to maintain an influential blog with a continual stream of premium content.
These are the people this article aims to help!
To make it easier, we’ve put together this step-by-step guide to help dentists overcome the challenges of business blogging.
Here, you’ll discover everything you need to know about ensuring a successful dental business blog that generates more patient leads.
Step #1: Know Why You’re Blogging
Before writing your first post, it’s important to understand the ‘why‘. Doing so will help you to remain focused on your objectives, Factors such as:
- Establishing your authority
- Building trust with prospective patients
- Staying engaged with current patients
- Making people in your locality aware of your dental services
- Driving traffic to your practice website.
Once you understand the reasoning behind dental blogging, it makes it easier to do it consistently.
Here’s an interesting statistic from OptIn Monster…
As of 2019, there were approximately 500 million blogs in circulation, yet by 2022 it’s estimated that 80% of those will cease to be in existence.
Why?
Because people simply run out of steam. Understanding the ‘why‘ of business blogging can focus the mind and power you through when you feel like giving up.
Step #2: Identify Your Target Audience
Here’s a fact. Each month over 400 million people view 20 billion blog pages.
So we know that a blog has the potential to be seen by millions of people worldwide. However, what you need to ask yourself is ‘ how many of those are actually your target audience?’
In reality, you need to be targeting people in your catchment area. How do you do this?
Using geo-targeted key phrases.
If you have individuals searching for information about dental topics in your practice catchment area, those are the ones likely to become future patients.
Blogging for business can help to establish your credibility as a dental expert when you engage directly with your target audience, but only if you provide genuinely helpful content.
Being helpful brings us nicely to Step #3.
Step #3: Create Quality Content
Once you’ve identified your target audience, you can set about creating a series of blogs that show you understand their oral health concerns and needs.
This content should be original, unique, and compelling while providing the information your audience is seeking.
For instance:
Let’s say you run a periodontal practice – Blogs on topics with titles like ‘Why Are My Gums Bleeding? and ‘Tips to Prevent Gum Disease’ are extremely helpful.
Alternatively, if you have a special interest in cosmetic dentistry, then dental blogs on ‘Advantages of Professional Teeth Whitening’ or ‘How veneers can change your smile’ will hit the spot.
As a dentist, I’m sure you already know the type of questions your existing patients regularly ask. All you need to do is answer them in the form of a friendly, detailed blog post – Simple!
Hopefully, by now, you’re starting to see how blogging for business works, but there’s one important point we’ve so far avoided, and that’s the use of keywords.
Step #4: Make Sure You Understand Keywords
The whole point of business blogging is to drive traffic. In order to do this, people need to find your content online. This is where keywords can help.
- Keywords are phrases people enter into search engines when looking for information, products or services.
- It’s a blogger’s job to know how to incorporate keywords so that people find your dental content online.
- Keyword research is critical to discovering what your audience is searching for rather than what you think they’re searching for.
- consider brainstorming top key phrases related to your dental services and create a blog post based on each one – Google will rank you for those keywords.
If you’re unsure of where to start in regards to keywords – don’t worry, we’ve got your back 🙂
Check out this detailed post on how to do keyword research for beginners.
Step #5: Use a Strong Call to Action
So you’ve constructed a well-written and informative post on ‘the benefits of dental implants vs dentures. What now?
You need to tell your readers what they need to do next. A call to action (CTA) tells your readers to take a specific action – a signpost that lets them know what to do next.
- Without a clear call to action at the end of your dental blog, readers are likely to leave the page feeling informed but unsure. A good CTA gives them a clear and concise direction.
This can be to: - Read additional articles on the topic
- Sign up for a newsletter
- Share the post on social media
- Book a consultation or appointment with your dental clinic
The best CTA’ s state a clear, enticing benefit the reader will get by taking that further step.
As an example, let’s revisit our cosmetic dentist friend:
Something as simple as;
Find out more about how our cosmetic dental services can transform your smile. Contact us now (with a link to your website contact page) is a good starting point.
For more examples, here’s a post I created several years back on how to write a solid CTA for your dental blog.
Step #6: Spread the Word
The idea of investing time and (more often than not) money, into creating a quality blog post is so that it can be seen by as many people as possible.
Blogging for business doesn’t end with writing the content. You also need to promote it. As well as posting your blog on your practice website, you should share it on social media.
Here’s a fact:
Social media is used by 3.9 billion people worldwide. While the average user has 8.6 social media accounts spread across various sites.
In other words, it pays to be where your target audience is already hanging out. Makes sense right?
- Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest allow you to introduce yourself and your dental clinic to a new audience.
- Posting your blogs on social media heightens awareness of your practice and strengthens your credibility.
- Social media has vast reach and influence – an ideal place to share your knowledge about dental health.
Step #7: Add a Subscribe Button to Expand Your Email List
Blogging for business provides the perfect tool that allows you to expand your email list. Blogging makes this possible because it provides the perfect opportunity to include a subscribe button.
A subscribe button is a direct connection between you and your blog readers. They get to receive more of your content directly in their inbox.
Moreover, these email subscribers have already shown an interest in your blog content, and what you have to offer, so they’re primed for conversion into paying patients.
If you continue to provide informative content, you will start to build a list.
To put this into perspective, 18% of all internet users read blogs (810 million people). Out of these, approximately 77% (over 600 million people) subscribe to one or more blogs.
Why Blogging is a Long-Term Strategy
Blogging for business is an effective tool for growing your dental business – fact!
Consistent blogging can generate traffic and leads for years to come. With small business blogging, many leads come via older posts, particularly evergreen content that’s not time-sensitive and retains its relevance. Therefore you need to be patient.
the benefits of dental blogging don’t materialise overnight. It takes time to build blog traffic to a substantial level – typically 6 to 12 months – but it’s well worth it.
Consistent blogging will establish your dental clinic as a go-to source among people looking for informative, educational content on dental topics. When they need dental services, you’ll likely be the first person they think about contacting.
Need a Little Help with Your Dental Blogging?
Understandably, many dentists don’t have the time or resources to create quality posts consistently. Instead, busy dentists turn to us – Dental Writers, for a cost-effective solution to expand their patient base.
Want to know more about how blogging for business can help you? Drop me an email at [email protected] or fill in the contact form on the Dental Writers website. We craft compelling content that your prospective patients will want to read.
