Of all the content strategies in online marketing, blogging has held on as the most effective despite the rapid changes that have taken place on the internet. While maintaining a dynamic and frequently updated dental blog is easy, ensuring that it draws avid responses from readers is a whole different ball game. The “silent blog syndrome” afflicts a large majority of blogs as they fail to elicit queries, comments, appreciation, or arguments.
Your dental blog has served its purpose only when it successfully captures your readers’ attention by getting them to comment regularly. By using different techniques in combination with some compelling writing, you can get your readers to respond, garner reader loyalty, and extend the blog’s visibility online by sharing it on social media platforms.
Employ Persuasive Writing
When you are picking topics for your blog, try to choose ones that are recent and relevant to your target audience. Take time to come up with a catchy headline that grabs your readers’ interest and urges them to read the rest of your post. Make the post engaging and enlightening by including quotes, examples, and data. Be prudent about the graphics and visuals you put in your blog post. Impressive content will pique your readers’ interest and prompt them to respond to your blog.
Provide for Smooth Commenting
When a blog does not have a smooth and simple system for commenting, it can discourage reader reaction. Requiring a login and password, faulty Captcha codes, and the need for an avatar can deter readers from commenting. In some instances, readers might not know where to click and leave a comment. These are all common issues, and addressing them can lead to increased responses.
For example, Word Press offers a default commenting framework that’s easy for readers to use. Readers also should be able to go directly to the comments without having to scroll through your entire post. Try not to put a lot of design elements into the end of the blog, though, since they may distract commenters.
Give It a Personal Touch
Since many blogs are created to represent business establishments, most professional bloggers don’t reveal their identities. However, this can make readers unwilling to respond since they cannot associate a face with the blog, making it impersonal. Readers will more likely comment and interact with a blog that they know is operated by an individual with a specific purpose, knowledge, shareable experiences, emotions, and passion. Customized, individual blogs generate more interest and tend to be popular.
Be Unique
It is important to stay unique even when sharing developments, current news, and events in the dental arena through your blog. By sharing your original ideas, suggestions, and views, you can build up a loyal and responsive readership.
It can be difficult to stay unique all along, though. Just be your natural self, and don’t try to sound like someone else. Sharing the knowledge of dental experts is fine, but try to give it your own touch by providing suggestions and opinions as much as possible.
Mix Up the Topics
A blog is always at risk of turning monotonous. You can avoid this tedium by ensuring your readers get something new and interesting to browse through every time. When your blog posts become boring or repetitive, you are likely to lose readers.
Content that is fresh and creative always garners greater responses and shares as opposed to information that is stale or predictable. Write in a conversational manner and use simple language that is easy for all kinds of readers to grasp.
Stay Connected
Publishing a blog post is akin to initiating a conversation. So, you should aim at continuing the conversation and address the people who respond to your post. When readers ask a query or seek some clarification, it is up to you to make sure that you respond appropriately and resolve the matter to their satisfaction.
When someone appreciates your blog, make it a point to thank that reader, even if it is just a few words. If you don’t respond to those who comment, you will dissuade them from responding in the future. This will also impact other readers adversely.
Provide Value
You should ensure that your readers get something of value through every one of your blog posts because they are spending precious time on it. They should leave every time feeling that your blog has provided them with something new.
Pick trending topics and the common worries that your patients face or those you see voiced on social media. Try to solve your readers’ problems, answer the questions they ask, and give them advice and information that is fresh and relevant.
Invite Responses
Seek responses from your readers at the end of each blog post. Prompt them to respond by posing a leading question that is likely to get them thinking. You can also seek opinions and suggestions from readers about what you have conveyed in your post. Asking questions about particular issues your blog mentions is yet another way of taking the discussion to your readers.
Just keep in mind that your dental blog is similar to all other forms of human-to-human communication. It must create a dialogue, not a monologue. You can express your expert opinions, but at the same time keep an open mind. You must be willing to lend an ear to what readers have to say, empathize with their views, and make them the focus of every engagement and interaction initiated via your blog.
Mr. Arulrajah is president and CEO of Ekwa Marketing, a complete Internet marketing company that focuses on SEO, social media, marketing education, and the online reputations of dentists. With a team of more than 140 full-time marketers, ekwa.com helps dentists who know where they want to go get there by dominating their market and growing their business significantly year after year. If you have questions about marketing your practice online, call (855) 598-3320 or email naren@ekwa.com.
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