How to Write a Healthcare Blog

TL;DR: Your healthcare marketing blog may be the most undervalued tool you have in your digital marketing arsenal.

Just think about it: having a medical blog can improve your organic search rankings, build credibility in your industry, and increase your authority with search engines. Effective content creation improves your visibility and makes it easier for your business to be found online, ultimately building relationships with prospective and current patients.

However, blogging goes beyond jotting down a few thoughts or having ChatGPT rattle off a few posts and call it a day. Creating effective, popular content requires a layer of expertise, especially in an industry that falls under Google’s Your Money Your Life (YMYL) classification which incurs even more restrictions and rules. If you want to run and maintain a successful health or medical blog, it is essential to dedicate enough resources to ensure your content meets Google’s helpful content standards, as well as those set by organizations like HIPAA that are specific to healthcare.

To make the most of your healthcare marketing strategy, let’s review how to write a healthcare blog.

4 Tips for Writing a Blog Post

1. Find the right topics.

There is a surplus of medical content on the internet, which means trying to target keywords and topics about high-level conditions and symptoms is not worth your time. WebMD, Mayo Clinic, the CDC, and other similar industry giants capitalize on their posts about those popular topics. Instead, develop content that will resonate with your consumers. Use tools like Ahrefs, a favorite among our team, to help uncover the niche keywords that will help you rank faster and in a better position than trying to rank for terms owned by more authoritative websites.

Patient experience stories can help portray a complex medical subject in a relatable context. For example, a medical device manufacturer can write a synopsis about a successful application of their technology in a patient’s life or a LASIK practice can discuss the quality of life improvements of a happy patient.

Actionable, advice-based blogs are another way to engage with your audience. Rather than simply discuss the symptoms behind a herniated disc, a spine surgeon can compile a list of suggestions for pain relief. Overall, it is important to cater to your customers by mapping out content around your healthcare buyer’s journey.

2. Get the right people to review your posts.

Most physicians simply don’t have the time to write blog posts regularly. Even if they do, they don’t have the same skill sets that marketers possess. While AI tools like ChatGPT can be a useful part of your content creation process, it takes a level of expertise to organize and optimize blog posts so they’re found by search engines because readers find them helpful. Additionally, blog posts written by ChatGPT may not always be entirely accurate, which is important for healthcare professionals.

As intrepid marketers, it’s your responsibility to find ways to highlight the expertise of your clinical team. From ghostwriting and interviews with subject matter experts to video and audio blogs, there are numerous formats to explore. Figure out which makes the most sense for your efforts—and be sure to test which method works best. Google’s EEAT guidelines emphasize showing expertise, so it is vital to include professional opinions to prove your experience.