Digital Content Writing Tips for Your Medical Practice

What Qualifies as Fresh Content Online? What Are the Benefits of Fresh Content?

When you’re looking to maximize your online visibility for your medical practice, keep this simple maxim at the forefront of all your efforts—“content is king.” As digital marketing has grown, developed, changed, and become more sophisticated, it’s still first and foremost about the message you convey to online visitors. Furthermore, you can’t simply craft a really strong message and cross that task off your list. Google and other search engines tend to give more weight to dynamic or “fresh” content. What constitutes “fresh” content and how can it help you build your medical practice?

What Qualifies as “Fresh Content”?

Before we clarify what makes content fresh or dynamic, let’s have a clear understanding of what we mean by “content.” It’s more than just the words on your website or social media site. Content includes anything that provides useful or relevant information to a potential patient and can include text, pictures, videos, charts, other graphics, or some combination thereof.

“Fresh content” requires more than just changing a few words or adding a sentence here or there. Typically, you’ll get more benefit with search engines when you add entire new pages to your website. Those pages can highlight specific areas of your practice, focus on recent accomplishments or awards, or address new technologies or treatments you offer.

Note that the “freshness” of your website content is not simply about how old it is. Google has an algorithm that takes a variety of factors into account when determining whether content is fresh. Those factors include the following:

• The amount of change to a page since it was first indexed
• The number of changes to the core content of a page since it was first indexed
• The frequency of changes to existing pages
• The rate at which new pages are created
• The extent to which backlinks are updated or added to the site

What Are the SEO Benefits of Fresh Content?

Regularly enhancing your website with new content can:

• Improve keyword density – Keywords are still an integral component of the search value of your pages. Search engines have become extremely sophisticated, so excessive and unnatural use of keywords and phrases may do more harm than good. In contrast, adding pages that incorporate natural use of appropriate keywords and phrases increases the density of those keywords on your site and improves the chances that your pages will be crawled and indexed for the types of words and phrases potential patients might type into a search box.
• More entry portals to your site – The more pages you have with good keywords, the more pages that might show up on a search engine results page (SERP) and lead potential patients to your site.
• Bolster your online authority – Search engines consider sites with dynamic content to exhibit a broader knowledge base and treat them as having greater authority. Enhanced authority means your pages are more likely to appear higher in search results.

Answering These Questions Can Make New Content More Effective

Here’s something to keep in mind when creating fresh content—engaging online content responds to three basic questions (representing the three types of information that most potential patients seek):

• Can you help me solve my problem? – People initiate a search for a doctor online because they have some medical problem they want treated. Answer this question by telling them what types of services you offer, being as specific as possible about your areas of practice.
• Where are you located? – While some medical information can be gathered remotely, a patient will generally need to come see you to get proper care. Your online content should tell them where your practice is located.
• Why should I hire you? – This is the most important question you need to answer. There may be many other medical practitioners who offer the same services you do. A potential patient needs to have a compelling reason to come see you. It might be your experience. It could be a unique approach you take to the practice of medicine. Think about what brought your existing patients to your practice and emphasize those attributes.

Contact InjuredCare for More Information About the Benefits of Online Video

To learn more about how we can help you market your medical practice online, contact us online or call our offices today at 866-952-7045.