There are many reasons why blogging for private practice is a good idea to help you grow your practice.
First, it can position you as a thought leader and an expert in your field of expertise.
Second, by creating interesting articles it can draw traffic to your website helping your search ranking in the search engines.
Third, it helps you to keep current in your field by gathering the latest research-based information.
Fourth, it can result in helping you to build your client base in your specialization.
Lastly, it can be therapeutic to take the time to reflect on and write about your work.
In an effort to help you get started with blogging- I have pulled together some tips for writing a blog:
- Brainstorm a list of topics (categories) that are of interest and relevant to the people you’re trying to reach. What questions do your patients ask regularly? Search competitors for ideas
- Decide on the frequency of your postings and create a schedule. The suggested minimum amount of time to blog is monthly. Blogging bi-weekly is better, and weekly is best
- Conduct keyword research using Google keyword tool to ensure that you include some relevant keywords in the title and first few sentences of the article
- Select a picture(s) that would complement the article and add visual interest
- Create a brief summary of the article
- Choose if you would like to accept comments on the article or not. If you do, then you will need to review and respond to all comments, including spam comments
- Optimize the post by identifying keywords used in the article and linking some blog text to your website text
- Be sure to add an RSS feed to your blog and website so people can receive your new articles automatically
- Tell people that you wrote an article by putting a link to it on your facebook, twitter, or linkedin updates.
If you start a blog then you will need to regularly contribute because when blogging you are building trust. If you find you cannot commit to writing regularly yourself-then consider hiring a professional who can do it for you as it is well worth the investment if done correctly. What many people find is that the more they write, the more topics they want to write about and it just becomes a part of their routine. Studies have shown that blogging regularly can help increase your web traffic by up to 55% and get you on top of the web search results so start writing today!