My Dental Website Blog Is So Boring and 10 Ways to Make Your Boring Blog Sparkle

My Dental Website Blog Is So Boring and 10 Ways to Make Your Boring Blog Sparkle

By November 1, 2017September 27th, 2018Blog Writing, Content Marketing

Let me first ask, what’s the purpose of your blog?

If it is to entertain patients, attract a following, and book speaking engagements, well then you need sparkle. You need to be memorable. You probably need a vlog (video blog), not just a written blog.

If it is to drive traffic to your website through content marketing, boring might be fine, at least some of the time.

Question from an Identiwrite Creative client: 

The content of each blog seems to be similar, or circle back to the previous blog info even though the topic is different.   If there is a reason for this maybe you could map it out for us?

Answer:

Sometimes it’s a great to get feedback from the staff/doctors, so we can amend the strategy to work well to meet your expectations and the SEO agenda. Both can be well served. That may mean cutting back on blog frequency. It also may mean reworking the editorial calendar or reorganizing efforts in different areas. Let’s chat, look at the effects of the efforts through hard data, and come up with a plan that works for your team, while still yielding results. That is the main goal – results!

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Until we can chat, think about this…

A blog is not like a newspaper or magazine, especially for a dentist. For a retail store sending out weekly circulars or seasonal sales – sure it is! But for a dentist, CPA, or auto mechanic, not so much. These service businesses have to look at blogs as tools to widen the path by which Google users find their websites. You must do what the homeschooling community calls unschooling. You must unteach yourself everything you know to be true about writing. We invest in writing because we want people to read it – and love it, and learn from it, and remember it. For service companies this can hold true – but we must also write for SEO.

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Your blogs may seem to say the same thing a million different ways – which is boring. Who wants to read that twice a week? No one. It’s not even good bedtime reading! You’d thing. But Google Indexing Robots don’t care what the subject matter is. They simply categorize what they “read.” As these bots or spiders crawl your site and blog posts, they categorize the blogs according to the information, words, in the content. Each blog with the words “dentist” and “denture” and “Lone Tree” gives your website another path by which Google users can find you for any of those keyword phrases.
That particular blog may actually never be found by a human; but it’s link to “Lone Tree denture dentist” leading to your website’s denture page may be the scale-tipper that pushes that main denture page to Google’s page-one results for that keyword phrase, giving your site a much better chance of being found than if it were on page two. Better yet, perhaps that link, with many others from your blog posts and third party backlinks, pushed your denture page to the top of page one of Google results, and you’re also on the map listing due to multiple Google reviews. You’ve got major real estate for Lone Tree denture dentist, and your office has the incoming calls as a result.
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Or perhaps that blog post is seen by some potential patients, because it has what we call a long-tail keyword phrase that you’d never think to include in your main website text. Maybe the phrase “wobbly, loose dentures keep falling out when you eat” is in your blog post, and someone searches for that phrase. You would never search for that phrase, but you’re not a 75-year old patient with wobbly, loose dentures who hates using the computer and eating in public. Perhaps the computer user is using voice to search, and this is how he speaks. I’ve done the research, and I can tell you, people search for odd phrases. Voice search is used. You would be surprised what is tracked by Google.
To summarize:
1. blogs are not for the casual reader – but should be readable and interesting just in case someone comes across them.
2. your blogs may never ever be read by a human, but the will assuredly be read and indexed by Google’s bots.
3. your blogs, correctly optimized, have power to push your web pages up the Google search engine results pages (SERPs).
4. Google keyword data is trackable.

10 Ways to Make Your Boring Blog Sparkle

Now, with that said, set SEO aside for a moment. You CAN add sparkle and interest and uniqueness to your blogs! You can make them unforgettable, really. Just remember, they need to include a bit of you. The research sites have science covered. The health magazines have vitamins and exercise trends covered. What your patients want is you. Here’s how to sprinkle a bit of your own sparkle into your blog.
  1. HUMOR – Any time you can lead with humor, do it. A funny image, cartoon, joke, video, or short story is always a great blog idea. If it makes you laugh, it’ll tickle their funny bone, too.
  2. VISUAL – You don’t have to have a vlog to use video in your blog. As a dentist, you’re pretty much Mr. Professional in the office. Your patients trust you, but they also want to know you as a Mr. Nice Guy. Share a video of the next team outing on your blog and your Facebook page.
  3. FOOD – Everyone loves good food. A great way to share a bit of yourself with your patients is to share a family recipe, or one from a staff member. You can do a recipe a month, and be sure to post it on Facebook, too. Recipes get shared on social media quite well, including Pinterest.
  4. THANKS – Just say thanks. Say it to your dry cleaner, the guy at the grocery store, the waiter who helped your wife juggle kids and doggie bags. Say it to staff members and patients and vendors. Just say thanks.
  5. GOOD JOB – A pat on the back also goes a long way. Say good job to the high school football team, the citizen of the month, the teacher of the year. When there’s occasion to do so, give someone a hand. Post a pic of yourself with the hard worker – especially if that hard worker is a patient or team member! (Get permission, of course.)
  6. CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES – If your patients give you the go ahead, post pictures of them with you and your team, celebrating birthdays, graduations, retirements, anniversaries, and anything else worth celebrating. Cancer free? Let’s celebrate!
  7. INFO VIDEOS by YOU – Even if you hate seeing yourself on the screen, know that people see you all day long. All that “I’m not good on camera” stuff is in your head. So sit down, be yourself, and explain to your patients how not brushing for 48 hours will let plaque turn into calculus and increase the risk for gum disease. Post this video with a short blog: 5 tips to avoid gum disease, or 5 facts about halitosis.
  8. DOCS FAVES – Every month or so, write about your favorite restaurant, movie, book, or what have you. Just don’t worry about SEO and dentistry. If you have a good SEO plan in place, just focus on injecting YOU into your blog. What makes This Dentist tic? Inquiring Patients want to know!
  9. FAMILY FUN – For family dental practices, I strongly suggest that the staff take turns writing a monthly family fun blog post, highlighting local, low-cost, low-tech, healthy venues for families to unplug and enjoy one another. Add pictures, reviews, links, details, and contact information,
  10. HEALTHY LIVING – And for any dental or medical practice, a monthly healthy living blog is a must! Focus on a different topic each month: heart health, lung health, cancer, Alzheimer’s, etc.. Or, you can focus on various topics, like healthy eating, exercise, and brain health. Patients love information like this, and it trends well in social media, too!
Whatever you’re inspired to do to add sparkle to your blog, remember to include personality. Add a bit of yourself to the mix. Without that, any old health magazine will do. What your patients really want to hear is what THEIR doctor has to say, think, and suggest.
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