Lift Your Practice With Great Healthcare Content Marketing

Through a well-designed website, doctors, dentists, surgeons, dermatologists, and other medical specialists can help patients achieve wellness. An effective healthcare content marketing strategy promotes expertise online and leads patients to the clinics of these professionals.

But it takes more than your average website content to drive success. Let's look at the latest content marketing tactics, such as

• Classifying and using content topics
• Using SEO strategies
• Promoting content through social media
• Creating consistent, high-quality content

Are you ready to improve your content marketing with the latest healthcare content trends?

Let’s go!

Information Gathering for Healthcare Content Marketing

Before healthcare practitioners even heard about content marketing, they relied on traditional strategies to gather medical information. Health practitioners and providers once relied on hospital case studies, research, journals, and organizational data. Information collection used to take a great deal of time, patience, and ingenuity to be successful.

Patient information was collected from forms patients filled out in a doctor's office. Customer contact points like patient forms, quizzes, and surveys were also used to create marketing campaigns. These traditional ways of collecting data relied on patients' active participation, which is very different from today's information gathering in healthcare.

Nowadays, medical information is still gathered through research and case studies, but at the same time, it is possible through apps, web visits, and wearable devices. Forbes revealed that about 30% of the world’s data volume is healthcare data. This vast amount of patient information continues to increase because of the use of apps and wearable devices.

Because of these dramatic changes in data collection and information gathering, it's a must for practitioners to use an efficient content marketing strategy. A good plan will ensure effective and efficient data use, plus safe and secure handling of personal health information (PHI).

4 Effective Healthcare Content Marketing Strategies

Gone are the days when the sole purpose of content was to rank a website higher. Nowadays, content marketing is about creating effective, informative, and high-quality content to benefit your audience. The following are strategies for effective healthcare content marketing.

     1. Classifying and Using Content Topics

When creating content for healthcare providers and practitioners, it's not enough to write good content. The topics must engage your patients. The content must move them to take action and push them to make sound health decisions.

It’s a matter of classifying your content topics to suit your audience’s needs. Remember, your audience is looking for something in particular.

For instance, a cardiologist’s target audience would likely look for content related to heart health, hypertension treatment, heart attack prevention, etc. Meanwhile, a cosmetic surgeon’s audience would engage more with topics like facelift surgery, noselift procedures, skin rejuvenation, etc.

Think of your area of specialty and base your content topics on your specialization. Here are a few strategies to formulate content topics.

• Check Google's search suggestions for your practice.
• Look at reader blogs and social media comments.
• Interview patients as they visit and ask about their health habits.
• Check out competitor websites.
• Base content on recent events if it fits your practice.
• Use YouTube search suggestions.
• Create topics around new technology or products.

     2. Using SEO Strategies

Your website may have the best, well-written content, but this won't matter if your patients can't find you online.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a collection of online strategies that promote a website and increase traffic. SEO tactics improve site rankings and content visibility. Using the right SEO strategy, you can promote your website content and practice online.

As of July 2022, Google remains the most popular search engine, with an over 80% share of the global search market. Optimizing your content to work with Google’s ever-changing algorithms should be one of your priorities. Consider these content optimization strategies:

• Create content using relevant keywords for your practice.
• Find top keywords using Google Keyword Planner and other keyword research tools.
• Ensure title tags and meta descriptions are of the correct length and contain keywords.
• Go for original healthcare content because this shows your authority and expertise.
• Add a sitemap to help Google index your web pages and understand your content.
• Use local search marketing tactics and make sure your business is in local directories.
• Create a blog and promote your content through regular blog posts.

     3. Promoting Content Using Social Media

Link your website to your social media pages to promote your content. Pages you share on your social media platform signal to search engines that they have high-quality information and relate to your expertise.

Create and share content about your practice, brand, services, and recommended products. Experiment with different types of content to further engage your audience. Try videos, photos, infographics, or podcast content to connect with your patients better. Remember that promoting your content through social media starts with a good outreach strategy. Here are a few tips.

• Create S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goals.
• Develop patient personas, which include what your patients want to see, the content they prefer, and the platform they use.
• Understand your competitors through an analysis of their marketing objectives and strategies.
• Use a social media content calendar to schedule content posting, track deadlines, review content, etc.

     4. Creating Consistent, High-Quality Content

Always aim for content that will be useful to your patients. Google has established guidelines for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) content. E-A-T is one of Google's algorithms to determine site quality. This means that a site with a high E-A-T rating is ranked among the highest on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Here are some tips for creating E-A-T in healthcare pages.

• Collaborate with other healthcare experts to create the best content.
• State the purpose of your content and make it easy to understand.
• Link your content to high-quality sources.
• Introduce yourself and your expertise in the healthcare industry.
• Create content that considers different viewpoints.
• Update your content regularly.

Summing Up

You can succeed in your healthcare practice with the best content marketing for healthcare. Consider classifying and using content topics, taking advantage of social media, and publishing consistently high-quality content. Don't forget to optimize your content using the latest SEO strategies.

Follow these content marketing strategies to get the best results in promoting your practice online. Contact Digital Authority Partners for more content marketing ideas, and let's discuss content success!