For the past several years blogging has been a hot topic in dental marketing. In the online marketing realm, blogging sits in the same category as social media activity in helping establish and build your online presence. Every dental practice takes a different approach to blogging. Maybe your practice still hasn’t established a blog, or maybe you have a blog but it hasn’t been updated in years. Perhaps you update your blog fairly regularly already, but you don’t really have a strategy for content. But what should you really be doing? Here are some tips:

Why Your Dental Practice Should Blog

• Blogging is a great way to add credibility to your website.
• Blog content can help increase your visibility with Google and other search engines (which can generate more leads).
• Blogs can create a more personal, casual connection with patients or potential patients compared to just a website.
• Blog posts are an effective way to keep your website updated with the latest news and information about the industry and your practice.
• Blogs host shareable content that can be distributed through other social media channels.

With so many great reasons to blog, you might be wondering why any dental practice shouldn’t blog? Well, it depends on how you plan to approach it from the start.

Why Your Dental Practice Shouldn’t Blog

• You won’t be able to update it consistently – Outdated and deserted blogs only detract from your website’s credibility because it appears that no one cares enough to maintain it.
• Your content will only consist of articles that are copied and pasted from other websites – Duplicate content can not only hurt your search engine rankings, but it’s usually painfully generic for readers.
• Your blog won’t be hosted directly on your website’s domain – Blogs that are hosted on third party sites like Wordspress.com or com don’t serve much purpose in enhancing your website’s visibility with search engines and it also creates a disconnect with branding.
• You don’t have the resources to create interesting, original content for your readers – It can do more harm than good to your online reputation if your blog will only be filled with lackluster content that really creates no interest with the reader.

If you plan to start blogging, or to resurrect your blog that may have been dormant for years, be sure to start with a plan. A blog that starts with a plan and a strategy is one that will provide real benefits to your practice.

Tips to Begin Your Blog Strategy

• Realistically decide how often you will update your blog. Once a week? Twice a month? Once a month? Whatever you decide, commit to stick to it.
• Hold brainstorming sessions with the office staff to come up with a number of different topic ideas for your blog. Incorporate a variety of different topics like industry news, patient education posts, office news, features of office staff, etc.
• Create a content calendar that maps out which post topics will be schedule for which dates according to your update schedule.
• Decide on the voice and tone that your blog content will use and stick with it consistently.
• Always try to incorporate images or other multimedia into your post along with headings, sub headings, and bullet points when appropriate. A blog post should not just be one big block of text.
• Make a plan to distribute links to your new blog posts through Facebook and other social channels each time they are updated.

When it’s done right, blogging is one of the best things you can do to improve the state of your online presence and the number of leads you acquire through online channels. We hope these tips help you with your new blogging goals!