Writing Good Articles For Your Veterinary Hospital’s Blog

Writing interesting articles for the internet, and especially for your veterinary hospital’s blog, is not only free advertising, it also builds your credibility, spreads the word about your hospital’s services and establishes you as the expert in the veterinary and pet-related fields. Providing that your blog is incorporated into your veterinary hospital’s website, the articles that you post (on your blog) are extremely useful for increasing your website’s search result positions on Google and the many other search engines. In fact, there is probably no better method for increasing the Google rankings of your veterinary hospital’s website than writing articles on your blog.

Before writing your articles, there are a few very important points that need to be considered. They are:

• –Keep your article simple and avoid medical jargon.
• –Keep the article short. Four or five paragraphs are enough. Visitors don’t have time to read extensive postings.
• –Make the article as personable as possible. Your visitors are coming to your blog to read about your personal experiences. This is not the place for fact-filled medical or technical articles.
• –Write the article in a friendly tone. The pet owner should not feel guilty about choosing an alternative that you may not necessarily recommend.

Some Example Articles That You Can Write For Your Blog

The Latest Pet News – Do you have some little tidbit that you might want to share with your community?

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions – What are your clients asking? List the 5 questions that are asked most often and provide simple answers. Ask your receptionists what the clients are asking.

Employee Interview – Interview your head technician or head receptionist. Interview a student employee. If you don’t want to conduct an actual interview, just email your employee a questionnaire.

Case Study – Focus on the personal aspects of the case, not the medical procedures. Briefly discuss the role of each employee and how well-behaved and heroic the pet was.

Seasonal Issues – Don’t just list the usual chocolate intoxication and antifreeze warning. Write a small personal story that ends well.

Your Pet’s Big Day – Briefly describe what goes on behind closed doors when a client brings his / her pet to the veterinary hospital for a dental procedure. After your pet is whisked away by the veterinary staff, what happens?

Personal Events – Hospital employees’ birthdays and how they are celebrated at the hospital.

The Hospital Pets - Most of your clients know who they are but do they know how they ended up at your hospital?

A Personal Story – About your weekend hike or your camping experience with your dog.

Highlight A Client’s Pet - As you know, every client has an interesting story to tell about their pet. Really…some are very interesting!

Taking A Stand On An Animal-Related Issue - Whether its dog fighting, bull fighting or the extinction of the polar bear, this is a great way to get your visitor’s attention and comments.

Keyword Usage For Your Blog Article

Now that you have written your article, think about keywords that a visitor would type into Google in order to find it. If the keywords are not in the article, go back and include them. In fact, there are certain places where your keywords should be placed.

Always have the most important keywords in the title of your article and include them in your first sentence. Mention them again in the first paragraph or at the top of the second paragraph. You should also mention these same keywords in the first line of the last paragraph. Sprinkle all your keyword throughout the article but no more than a 2 percent ratio of the total words. Don’t overuse the keywords or Google may blacklist you. It is very important to make sure your article reads well and that the content is not compromised. Follow all of Google’s rules pertaining to keyword usage, article content and layout. Never ever think that you can fool Google! (Within the next few weeks we are planning to post a simple article about the Do’s and Don’ts for Google – Follow Us On Twitter to see when the article will be posted.)

Your article should have backlinks to pages on your website. If you are writing an article about dentistry, your backlink should take the visitor to the dental page on your website. When you are sending visitors to pages on your website, make sure these pages contain excellent and up-to-date information.

Writing for your blog is an art. With time you will improve your skills and become more effective. Before you know it, you will have a large following and your rankings on Google will increase. And of course, the better your following becomes, the more new clients you will get.

Written and Copyright ©
Mark Feltz, DVM
VetNetwork, LLC 2010
www.vetnetwork.com