How to blog for new patients

Editor's note: Richard Geller's column, Marketing Madness, appears regularly on the DrBicuspid.com advice and opinion page, Second Opinion.

This article will show you how to create a blog, what should be in it, and how to create articles in five minutes per day even if you have no time.

Last year I put together some killer blogs and ran them for a bunch of dentists. The object was to get search traffic and traffic from sites such as Facebook to the blogs.

We did get loads of traffic and the blogs got my docs ranked No. 1 or at least on the top page of Google searches for stuff such as "city implants," "city porcelain veneers," or "city sedation dentist" (where "city" is the doc's hometown).

But I pulled the plug after a while.

Why did I kill a seemingly successful project? Because it was wildly successful from a traffic point of view. But the traffic was bad traffic.

When you get traffic to your Web site, what good is it if you are in Los Angeles and the traffic is from Anchorage, AK?

In fact, if you are in Beverly Hills, CA, what good is traffic from Riverside, CA, given that Riverside is 60 miles from Beverly Hills?

But I did learn some things. Big takeaway: Have a blog because it will raise the chances that patients who come to your Web site will learn about you, like you, and set an appointment.

A blog should reflect your personality and should educate and inform your patients about who you really are. It is a tool to convert a higher number of Web site visitors into patients, because the blog is the way for people to peek into who you are and decide if you are the type of person they will like.

So now that we have established the reason for a blog, let's find out the answers to these three crucial questions:

1. Why should someone want to read your blog?
2. What should you write in your blog?
3. How often should you update it?

Why should someone want to read your blog?

If you put stuff in it that projects your personality and polarizes, if it shows who you are and talks about dental problems, you will get people to read your blog.

So, if you want readers, talk about implants, talk about fear of the dentist, talk about major dental cases. That's what people want to hear about.

If you want nobody to read your blog, be impersonal, use "we" instead of "I," and don't be controversial or have any point of view.

What should you write in your blog?

Covered that above. The short answer is: implants, veneers, sedation, or anxiolysis -- even if you don't place implants, doesn't matter.

Write about personal stuff, about cases and patients, but personal. Disguise the identities of patients, of course, for privacy, but strive to make the reader feel they know you and know your patients.

How often should you update it?

Update it at least weekly if you can. Daily is awesome, but who can realistically do that? If you use a service such as Jott that lets you call a phone number and record a message, they e-mail it to you as a transcription, and you can have someone post it to your blog. Voilà, a blog in five minutes a day!

I am doing a webinar on how to get unlimited patients from Google. If you want to attend, register by joining my list at www.Cases4Dentists.com/webinar. Thank you!

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