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You might be familiar with blogging, but did you know having a blog linked to your practice can help you grow your business in Functional Medicine? Think about it. When a patient is looking for a new provider, they immediately search the internet hoping to find one that meets their needs. Having a blog on your business website not only helps build that trust with your audience but also establishes you as an expert in your field. 

Contrary to popular belief, you can still run and maintain a successful blog while giving your full attention to your practice and assisting your patients. If you’re still not convinced, let me explain why it’s important to have a blog on your business website to grow your practice and how you can reap the benefits of business blogging.

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Establish Your Expertise in Functional Medicine

As a healthcare provider, you have a website similar to an online business card. It tells current and potential patients about you, what your practice is about and the services you provide. However, a blog takes it one step further and gives you the chance to explain, in detail, what you do and share your knowledge and expertise within your field.

With a blog you can address frequently asked questions, specific problems your patients experience regularly and educate those who may not realize the problems affecting their health. A blog allows you to demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about and shows that you want to ensure your patients are making the right healthy, lifestyle choices.

This will eventually lead to stronger relationships with your readers and potentially drive more traffic to your business because you’ve established a foundation of trust through your expertise. The comment feature is also a great way to engage your community to start conversations, share experiences, or ask questions. 

Having a blog is also a great way for your patients to find the answers they need if they’re unable to get a hold of you for any reason. You become an authority they can rely on to provide the information and treatment options when they need care. As you continue to build trust with your readers, they return to your website and eventually decide if you’re the provider they’ve been searching the internet for.

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Rank Higher in Search Engines By Creating More in Depth Content

Blogging allows you to explore content in more depth. As a provider in Functional Medicine, you can utilize blogs as a way to address certain treatments, medicines, new technologies, and/or research in more detail. You can go as far as explaining the pros and cons of a specific treatment or simply share your professional opinion on several topics.

You also have the opportunity for internal linking throughout your site. With this, you can lead your readers to learn more about topics you cover in your blog by hyperlinking to another one you believe your audience could benefit from. Linking to other articles is also a great way to complement your topic of discussion. As you become a reliable source to your audience, they will start to trust that whatever it is your linking to will be just as valuable, if not more, to them.

The more content you write about and the more keywords you use, the more search engines like Google will put your content in front of people who find the information relevant to them. 

This is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

What does SEO do for your practice?

• Helps Google understand what you do and how to place your business in front of the right audience 
• Bring more traffic to your business with consistent, quality blogs
• Increase your Google search visibility for integrative physicians in your area
  • This helps fuel the search engines to continuously attract a stream of visitors 
• Establish authority, traffic, generate leads and give your audience an incentive to subscribe to your posts
  • This is especially true in the long term

When you continue to provide valuable content, your readers will keep coming back for more because they know they can rely on you to help guide them to a healthy lifestyle. 

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Provides Cost-effective Marketing & Long Term Results

There are no extra costs to have a blog on your website, but by creating one you’re giving your business a free marketing tool that lasts a lifetime. This can boost brand awareness and give your readers something valuable to share with others.

Similar to social media, blogging is a cost-effective marketing tool that facilitates business growth. However, the difference between the two is that YOU own your blog, whereas you do not own any of your social media accounts. Let’s say Instagram or Facebook decided to shut down, you would lose everything connected to that platform. 

However, this shouldn’t prevent you from sharing your content on social media platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. Doing so allows your content to be seen from many locations, by different audiences, and is a free way to get you more viewership as people engage, “like” and share your posts.

A blog also proves itself as cost-effective in an economic crisis. It decreases your cost of advertising and puts your marketing and sales on autopilot. Patients can continue to access, share, and engage as long as your blog is up and running – an easy and free way to market your practice.

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Get That Blog Started Now

Taking care of one’s health is extremely important and it’s not always easy to understand. If you create a blog for your business website and share your expertise, explore functional medicine in more depth, and clarify the difficult terms, your business will continue to grow.
But if you’re concerned that you don’t have the time or no one will read it, you shouldn’t give up altogether. Consider outsourcing this task to a Medical Copywriter, like myself. My name is Bailey Petrucelli and I specialize in integrative and holistic health copywriting and would gladly take on the task for you. If you have any questions or would like to get in contact, you can find me here. We can also set up a 15-minute consultation to discuss what works best for you and your practice. You can also find me on Instagram!