We are constantly hearing about the importance of ensuring that your blog posts and articles you submit to help build backlinks and drive traffic to your website are Search Engine Optimized.
And, as someone that has been preaching the last 4 years about the importance of article marketing and blogging as a vital component of your online chiropractic marketing plan to dominate your local internet market, I have to make a confession.
When I first started submitting chiropractic articles online and writing blog posts for my clinics, I just wrote them without too much regard for optimizing them for the reader. Not that I delivered bad content in the least but rather my main focus was to just to create links back to my website by getting my address out there in cyberspace.
Today is a different story. Because of the volume of information and competition that has exploded onto the web, now more than ever your articles and blog content must not only give the search engines what they are looking for so that it will help your rankings but should also be the highest in quality for the reader as well so they will
Find Value in your Article
Enjoy the Reading Experience
Make Positive Comments
Click on your Website Link
Share it with Friends
In other words, your article or blog or even Facebook post should not only be search engine optimized but also Reader Optimized to help increase the likelihood they will stay on it and take action with it.
Hitting the ‘back button’ and moving on to the next article that promises to give them the answers they are seeking is all to quick and easy to do.
Follow these few simple rules for making your articles and posts a reader friendly experience for anyone who stumbles onto them and it will significantly increase the likelihood they will help your chiropractic marketing campaign by taking further action.
Keep it Simple: Minimize your technical terms and if you use one (notice I said ‘one’) make sure to define it. Think of an article the same as when you are face to face with a patient; using a term they don’t understand may mean you lost them for the rest of the consult or ROF.
Give Value: Let the person know in the title of your article what they can expect to get from it and then deliver on that promise in the body. This ensures a high value experience.
Use Formatting: Don’t let this part scare you. All I am saying here is that you should not expect anyone to just read paragraph after paragraph of your super-solutions to relieving headaches. Regardless of how good your information is, people want it delivered in short chunks or else they will back up and try the next Google search result. To give easy to read information, use headings, bullets, sub-bullets, bold print and italics. And most importantly…keep the paragraphs short so there is a lot of white space left in your article.
Check Spelling and Grammar: The last thing I’ll add is to be sure you have spell checked and re-spell checked your article. There is little more distracting than getting hung up on a misspelled word while perusing someone’s article. And in addition to that, many of the article submission sites are becoming more strict about the quality of the content submitted of which grammar and spelling is a big component.
Get Keyword Rich: This means that the article title and body has the keywords that someone in your area would use to search for your services. So for example, if you are a chiropractor in Dallas and your article is about relieving sciatica then you want to ensure those keywords are listed as such in the body and even title of your article. This will help remind your reader where you are and what you do AND of course help you tremendously with ensuring the search engines connect your article with people in your community that are searching for your services. [Sorry, just had to get that search engine ranking plug in there…it’s in my blood!]
When you are writing your next blog post, Facebook Note or submitting your article online, keep in mind that it’s not only the search engines you are trying to woo. You also want to use the power of the people to spread your message and create traffic to your website.
My motto is they need to read it, love it, click it and share it.
If you found this content to be valuable, please leave me a comment below! Thanks…Dr. Daron
