Health care copywriting is challenging. Unlike most fields, what you can put on the web faces regulatory and legal guidelines, to say nothing of what it means for your office’s professional reputation. The challenges make it all the more important to get it right and the rewards—increased online traffic and ultimately more patients—are worth it.
Here are some tips for health care copywriting.
Tip #1: It starts at the top.
In most businesses, the owner can delegate the creation of online content and not give it a second thought. Medicine is not one of them. The doctor is going to have to get involved in the process and with everything else that’s on their plate, it may not be the easiest sell.
The job of a marketing consultant is to make the doctor’s involvement as seamless as possible. Can they get on the phone with a content writer for 20-30 minutes once a month? At the very least, the doctor has to review content before it gets posted.
Tip #2: Plan your content calendar.
Everything will go smoother with the head of the office if the subject matter has been decided long in advance. This shouldn’t be a problem. You know what subjects patients are talking about at a given time of year and can easily plan out 12 months’ worth of blog posts at a time.
Tip #3: Get to the point.
The content can’t be designed to impress people with how much you know. Yes, your credibility is important, but it’s even more important that people understand what you’re trying to communicate. Otherwise, they’ll bounce off your website, Google will notice and you’ll drop in the search rankings. So just use bullet points and summarize a point concisely.
Producing quality health care content writing is not easy and shouldn’t be done on the cheap. If a doctor were appearing at a convention with thousands of possible patients, they would take their appearance and presentation seriously. That’s the same attitude to take toward their web presence.