What’s the big deal about blogs? In today’s article, I’ll cover 12 Q&As to increase your knowledge about blogging. You’ll learn how consistent, original, SEO’d dental blogs will help your practice GET MORE NEW PATIENTS.
I’m Shauna Duty, owner of Identiwrite Creative and a career dental writer and editor. For about 20 years, I’ve followed the evolution of online dental marketing and modern clinical dentistry. Identiwrite is the second dental marketing agency I’ve owned, and I have accrued a wealth of knowledge to share with my clients, who are mostly dentists, specialists, consultants, and dental product manufacturers. At Identiwrite, our US-based dental copywriters compose quality content that appeals to potential and current patients, as well as Google’s indexing robots.
Read on to learn:
- What is the definition of a dental blog?
- Why does a dentist need a blog?
- Can my website have a blog?
- What information do dental blogs cover?
- Will my patients see the blogs?
- Who can write professional, optimized dental blogs for my practice?
- How are blogs optimized for search?
- Can’t I just re-post information from other websites?
- Can’t I just use ChatGPT to write my blogs?
- Where do the blog photos come from?
- What can a writer do to boost my practice’s growth?
- How does a dentist get started with blogging?
Let’s dive into this sea of info–but first, if you have additional questions or would like to discuss blogs for your website, call us. We write blog posts for dentists! Contact Riese Duty by phone or text at 972-679-6885 or email riese@identiwrite.com today.
What is the definition of a dental blog?
Think of a blog as a digital newspaper or magazine. The articles, or blog posts, share information about dentistry, dental care, oral health, oral diseases, prevention, etc.
“Blog” is a hybrid of the words web log. It means an online journal. At first, blogs were published by individuals sharing their thoughts. Today, businesses use blogging as an affordable and highly effective means of marketing. One big benefit of blogging is that Google indexes blogs as news, so they quickly show up in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Why does a dentist need a blog?
The primary benefit of a blog is showing up high in Google SERPs for particular keyword phrases. The goal? GET MORE NEW PATIENTS!
In addition, a regular blog establishes a dentist’s authority as an expert in oral health matters. Online authority positively affects search rankings, as well.
Additionally, a dental blog builds brand awareness for a practice. “Impressions” refers to the number of times someone encounters your brand. If you’re blogging regularly and posting the links on social media, and if you include your practice name, professional name, and logo with the entries, your brand impressions will skyrocket. Ultimately, the goal is to increase new patient numbers and draw in the types of cases that are most profitable and/or rewarding to the dentist.
Can my website have a blog?
With near certainty, I can say yes. Most websites can be retrofitted with blogging ability.
We write blog posts for dentists! Reach out to Riese Duty by phone or text at 972-679-6885 or email riese@identiwrite.com for advice on which of our services and products will help you GET MORE NEW PATIENTS.
What information do dental blogs cover?
This is the most fun part of writing blogs, in my opinion. I love finding new and interesting ways to present information. Identiwrite’s copywriters share my enthusiasm for finding blog topics. A blog can cover any topic you like because it’s your blog! In most cases, the best dental blog posts include services, symptoms, and cities (the ones you serve).
Will my patients see the blogs?
Maybe, if they’re looking for oral health info online.
Blogs are particularly effective for driving new patient traffic to your office. When a Google searcher types in keywords, if those words are in your blog and the blog ranks high, the searcher will find their answers on your blog and website.
We publish links to the blogs on the dentists’ professional Facebook page and up to two additional social media profiles. Patients who follow your dental office on social media should see the blogs.
Some of our client dentists want to stay in front of current patients, and we often recommend a newsletter. If you opt to add a monthly or quarterly newsletter to your marketing plan, we can include links to your blog posts, with blurbs. These e-newsletters can be sent directly to your patients’ email through a service we use called Emma.
Who can write professional, optimized dental blogs for my practice?
We write blogs! My team of educated, well-trained copywriters love writing about dentistry. We’re all based in the US, and English is our first language. The quality, consistency, and professionalism of Identiwrite Creative’s blogs and web pages are second-to-none, and we’ve served dentists for 10 years. We want to help you GET MORE NEW PATIENTS!
I encourage you to hire a dental copywriter, not a general copywriter. Dentists must follow guidelines put in place by the ADA and state dental boards, in regards to advertising and marketing. Our writers know the rules and follow them.
We write blog posts for dentists, and we’re here to help your practice grow. You can contact Riese Duty by phone or text at 972-679-6885 or email riese@identiwrite.com today.
How are blogs optimized for search?
Google makes an unknown number of alterations to its search platform each month, so an up-to-the-minute strategy isn’t possible. Our approach evaluates what has worked and what hasn’t worked, and why. We created a roadmap for writing blogs that incorporates the SEO tactics we know to be effective. These include but are not limited to:
- Original content (not duplicate)
- Meta data inclusion
- Inner linking strategy
- External linking strategy
- Keyword integration (without over saturation)
- Length of post at least 500 words
- Include image with ALT tag
- Share to social media
Can I just repost important or helpful information I find on other websites?
You could, but it would be copyright infringement. Also, Google doesn’t appreciate duplicate content, so your website won’t rank as high as it could if the content were original. The best way to post information from another source is to re-write the content so the wording is original.
Can I use ChatGPT or another AI content program to produce blogs?
You could, but there are two issues to consider. First, the content AI programs compose comes from various online sources–but if you and another dentist ask a program to write on the same topic, you’ll get the same article. This is the very definition of duplicate content, which as I mentioned before, is not effective for SEO.
Second, the content that AI generates is not fact-checked. This can create big problems for medical and dental content. Remember, it’s your name on the blogs…that means it’s your license at stake. This sounds extreme, but I’ve seen dentists receive letters from the ADA about license suspension over infringements to their advertising and marketing guidelines.
But you don’t need ChatGPT because Identiwrite Creative has a better alternative–we write excellent blogs for dentists and post according to a predetermined schedule. Our SEO expert creates an editorial calendar based on topics he finds most popular through data and research. We look at website traffic each month and compare important data sets to determine the optimal SEO strategy for each practice we serve. Then, the writer composes blogs by applying the most current SEO guidelines and standards set by Google.
Where do the photos come from for the blogs?
The image that tops your blog has the power to draw in or drive away potential patients, so image selection is extremely important.
We subscribe to a stock photo service and select images appropriate for each blog. We try to shy away from photos with dental professionals in them, unless the practice provides photos of you and your team. We also won’t use images that may make a potential patient uncomfortable, like clinical images of surgeries or photos that depict dental tools.
Instead, we prefer to use images that show happy patents or illustrations of procedures, rather than photos. Each photo is also optimized for search with ALT-image tagging.
What can a professional writer do to boost my dental practice’s growth?
So much! With the utmost professionalism, Identiwrite can handle these tasks for you:
- Search engine optimization
- Webpage writing
- Blog writing
- Rewriting
- Editing
- Newsletters
- Emails
- Print letters
- Ad copy
- And more!
How does a dentist get started with blogging?
It’s so easy. You can contact Riese Duty by phone or text at 972-679-6885 or email riese@identiwrite.com today. He’ll be happy to discuss your online marketing or content management strategy and advise you on the best products to GET MORE NEW PATIENTS!