By now you know that adding new content to your site not only helps you directly connect with patients but also drives traffic and boosts search engine optimization. Then comes the big question — how often should you post?
Blogging has become integral to any dental marketing campaign. When it comes to frequency, studies continue to prove that more blog posts mean more traffic to your site.
That being said, highly-regarded dental blogs can range from posting once a month to once a day. Whatever the amount, the key to a blog’s success is consistency.
Creating a regular posting cadence gives you credibility and takes away potential “oh no, I forgot about the blog” panic moments.
Whether you only want to commit to a few posts a year or are ready for a weekly schedule, these strategies for setting up your blog will help you define your goals and achieve them, one blog at a time.
Set short and long term blogging goals
How often you post depends on what you want to accomplish and how much time you have to allocate.
While it may be tempting to dive in and commit to two blog posts a week, it is important to focus on the quality of your blog posts rather than the quantity — especially when first getting started.
This means you should start slow and set goals that will help support the growth of your practice and other dental marketing efforts.
Blogging goals can include:
- Increasing traffic to your site
- Creating shareable content for social media
- Attracting new patients
- Targeting a speciality service that you provide
Posting once or twice a month for the first six months is a great place to start with the goal of increasing to once a week.
Eventually you may want to work up to posting a few times a week, but rarely do dental practices exceed this frequency.
Even the popular blog New Dentist Now, managed by the ADA with hundreds of contributing writers, only manages a daily post at best.
Again, consistency and quality win the race.
To help get your blog off and running, here are a few easy-to-execute blogging campaigns that will help guide both your monthly and weekly posting schedule in the right direction.
Posting once a month
Let’s say you have a goal of posting six blog posts in the next six months. Thinking of these monthly posts as the anchors for future content is a strategic way to create a sustainable, SEO-friendly blog for your practice.
These anchor blogs should be longer, more substantial posts — around 800-1000 words.
Topics like “When Should My Child First See the Dentist” or the “Biggest Dental Trends This Year” can have a wealth of information in a single blog that you will then be able to expand upon in subsequent posts.
Creating content under the umbrella of a specific topic also allows you to cross-reference your own content with internal links.
Linking to other content on your site helps boost SEO by creating “link equity.” It also keeps patients exploring your page and increasing the session duration, which is also good for your ranking.
Posting once a week
While it is more of a time investment, weekly blogging allows you to get more creative. You can try different formats to see what works best for your blog.
Again, creating shorter weekly blog posts that support your “anchor blogs” is a great way to create a natural posting frequency that boosts SEO.
You can supplement these larger blogging campaigns with weekly content like:
- Quick answers to common dental questions
- How do I know if my gums are receding?
- Top lists
- 3 ways to protect sensitive teeth
- Guides
- The ultimate guide to preventing cavities
- Seasonal posts
- It’s national nutrition month, here are our favorite foods that improve your oral hygiene
- Reposts from other dental blogs
- NOTE: This should only be done sparingly, as original content gives you far more credibility with readers
Weekly posting also allows you to be more flexible and write about topical issues in your practice.
For example, if you are introducing a new whitening treatment, write a blog post titled “3 Ways to Keep Teeth Whiter.”
This is a great way to target you specialty, attract new patients, and catch people who are naturally searching those terms on Google.
Make it manageable
Blogging can easily become a full-time job, but luckily there are people out there who have made it their jobs to do the work for you.
Hiring a freelance blogger to create regular content for your site can help you to stick to a schedule while minimizing any added stress for you and your team.
You can also lighten the load by assigning blog posts to team members.
This can help patients get to know the members of your team by what interests them. It also puts your staff in a marketing mindset to think bigger picture about their patients, even if it is only three times a year.
Also consider enlisting the help of guest bloggers to write posts. This keeps the blog interesting and can grow your audience, especially if the guest writer has a large following.
Another way to make the blog more manageable and rewarding is to always track your progress.
Record the number of visits per week and month to your site, track the number of page views each blog post receives, and note how your social media following changes as you start to blog.
This will help you learn what resonates best with your audience.
For example, if you find that answering uncommon dental questions gets more attention than top lists, then you can focus on answering more of those questions and cut down on the latter.
Blogging for your dental practice takes just that — practice.
But with a posting schedule to keep you on track, your blog can be the key to growing your practice online by creating invaluable open communication with your patients.
Learn more about how RevenueWell improves case acceptance and creates more close-knit relationships between dentists and their patients.
