To chiropractors (and people in many other types of businesses, really),
Blogging can help chiropractors achieve two things:
1. it can help you get more clients
2. it can help you deepen your relationship with existing clients
Here are some ideas for how to do that:
Firstly set up a blog on your business website if you don’t already have one – WordPress is by far the best platform for a blog, so preferably you should have a WordPress website for your business, if you are blogging.
I suggest you publish one post a week – this may seem a bit too much work if you have a sole practice, especially if you are not a natural writer, but as you read on you might find it isn’t as much work as you think.
If you have two or more chiropractors in the practice you could take it in turns to publish posts, and if you have other staff at the practice who are personable and have solid chiropractic knowledge, such as a receptionist who is also a chiropractic student, they could do regular posts, too.
Sharing the load will make it easier for each person and you can support each other as well. And blogging is such a great marketing tool you really should be giving it a go.
Here are three places you could look for blog topic ideas:
1. Blog topic ideas – from discussions with clients
Probably the best things to write about are things you have been discussing with your clients recently. This gives your writing a natural sense of immediacy and relevance, and posts will be easier to write. Here are two examples:
Example 1. You may have been suggesting a client sleeps with a contour pillow, and you may have suggested a particular brand as well. Then write down what you told them, including the brand. When someone does a web search (usually on Google) for “pillows”, “contour pillows” or that particular brand of contour pillows, there’s a good chance your blog post will come up in the search results, and they may well click through and read your post.
When non-clients find your article through a web search or though a share on social media, they could become clients, or at least start thinking about it if they live near enough. Or they may suggest you to someone they know.
Getting found in search results (called SEO) will be more likely if you publish regularly, because Google “likes” websites that update often.
When you share your blog post on your business Facebook Page, some of your current clients will read it, so they will get the benefit of the discussion you had as well. And they may well talk to you about your article, giving you an extra opportunity to engage with them.
And of course many of your current clients will be glad to share your post with their friends, furthering your reach. It’s a matter of giving them something to share.
If you write that you sell that brand of contour pillows, with a picture of them, that’s extra effective (actually, you could write about discussions you’ve had about any products you sell, as long as you are complying with your local regulations.)
Example 2. Another example is that a client may have asked you about the pain in their lower back and what they could do for it. If you made particular suggestions, write about those, even write a series about lower back pain. Then people searching on the internet for solutions to back pain, and your other clients, may read the article(s), possibly leading to new clients and more engagement with current ones.
2. Blog topic ideas – from chiropractic newsletters
Your industry newsletters will have an abundance of topics you can use as inspiration.
For example, here is Australia, most chiropractors have attractive printed newsletters sitting in their rooms, that are personalised to their business.
You could look through newsletters like these for ideas – here’s a list of articles I’ve made from a browse through some of these Australian newsletters:
Surviving summer travels
Wise walking
Stay positive
A stronger better you
Your personal smoke alarm
Christmas challenges
Text neck
Finding the sun
Sizing up symptoms
Tendons versus ligaments
The mind/body connection
Pain has a purpose
Step into spring
Where is your wallet?
Sitting down on the job
Dreaming of a good night’s sleep
Winter’s woes
A breath of fresh air
Chiropractic care helping hamstring injuries
Eating the Mediterranean way
Reducing your baby’s allergies
Strengthening your back
What is Trochanteric Bursitis?
…you get the idea.
You may be able to get permission to reprint some articles, I don’t know about that, you would have to ask the publishers. But I don’t think you would need to – it would actually be better to look at articles like this and write your own thoughts, anyway.
3. Blog topic ideas – personal news
It certainly doesn’t hurt to share some personal news now and then – you are human and have a life, and so are your clients and potential clients, and they are going to feel closer to you if they know something about you personally.
Of course use common sense here, don’t share everything, and not too often, but news about births, marriages, your sports/fitness and major holidays away from home (with photos!) are nice for clients to read.
If you ran in a marathon, write a story about that – what happened, your feelings, your pals, your training, plans for your next marathon. Include a photo or two.
Also write about your professional development activity – seminars, workshops, and courses you participate in, organisations and groups you belong to, and what you get out of it. And how this benefits your clients.
Successful blogging
The thing is, for a blog to be successful you don’t have to write a lot of words, and your articles don’t have to be masterpieces – people don’t actually want to read too many words on a computer, phone or tablet, what they want is a succinct, take-away, friendly message.
And what Google likes is a website that has regular updates (and a few other factors, but that’s another story). So weekly short posts are better than occasional long posts or no posts. You could post fortnightly if you really can’t manage weekly.
Suggestions
Your articles will be more effective if they have at least one good-sized image in them, this makes the post more engaging for the reader and more sharable on social media, and Google likes it, too.
For your post titles, do make them descriptive of your main points. For example, say ‘Contour pillows to help with neck pain’, rather than ‘Dreaming of a good night’s sleep’, the latter we saw in my examples from newsletters, above. Print is a different animal from web – having focussed titles will help enormously with getting your post promoted by Google (the Google robot which crawls around websites takes a lot of notice of titles, as well).
I would suggest that you check spelling and grammar before posting, you could ask someone who you think is a pretty good writer to run their eye over your creation – and they are going to be happier about doing this if your posts are not too long :)
If you do have a blog idea that is quite long, consider breaking it up into a series of 2 or 3 parts, making sure the reader understands there will be more to come next week.
If you have any questions, please go ahead and ask me in the comments section below.
Cheers – Robin
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