You can never do too much when it comes to marketing your business online. In the past, veterinary hospitals could scrape by with a Yellow Page listing and maybe a small landing page. Today, you need to be everywhere all of the time. Four billion people worldwide are connected to the internet. They are searching for information and content faster than it can be created, so creating more avenues to get found is more important than ever.
You need a blog now more than ever, and it’s important to understand why your veterinary website needs a blog to help bring in new traffic. Think of your blog like your other marketing channels—social media, SEO, online listings, advertising, and yes your blog, are all important.
Blogs drive more traffic to your website.
Google loves when you create new content, and the search goliath immediately begins to index new pages and posts when created and added to your sitemap. Well, each new blog is a new page on your website with fresh content and a new, searchable topic. New pages mean more potential business. More from Hubspot:
Increasing Google Indexed Pages by 50-100 Causes Double-Digit Lead Growth
Our analysis of over 1,400 firms shows a clear positive relationship between pages indexed by Google and the leads a company generates; companies with more indexed pages tend to generate more leads.
Blogs are typically about a single topic that someone can be searching for and allows you to strut your stuff and explain your reasoning behind the problem you are trying to solve. (Side note: hello to everyone that searched “does my veterinary website need a blog?” and found this blog post!)
New content is never a bad thing, and good content is always a great thing. Having a blog full of new information on your website is not a luxury but a must-have feature.
Blog posts can be repurposed for all of your marketing endeavors.
Are you struggling to come up with content ideas for your social media page? How about your next email blast? It’s a lot to think about! A blog solves that problem by giving you new content to share through all of your channels because you never know if your Facebook audience, email list, or Instagram fans will see it when posted. The more avenues you can share your new content, the better.
In fact, creating evergreen content gives you the ability to have content that will be searched for years to come. The amazing “Evergreen” is based on topics that don’t go out of date. It revolves around topics that will always be relevant to your readers, no matter what is happening. Ideas for evergreen content are:
- “What foods are poisonous to pets?”
- “How to help my pet lose weight.”
- “How to enrich my cat’s life.”
Why is it called “evergreen content”? Evergreen is a plant that has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season.
The best thing about evergreen content is that it can be shared often on your social media. So next holiday season, you don’t have to write a big blog post about how bad chocolate and onions are for pets because it’s already written, and not much has changed. It’s that simple.
Blogs can turn readers into customers.
Your website is probably already getting good traffic from organic search if you have a good website company (Hi, we’re WhiskerCloud, and we build the best custom veterinary websites on Earth. Click here to learn more) that focuses on SEO. With a team writing your blog for you and focusing on proper keywords, you will get more traffic to your website, but it doesn’t stop there. Once you have people visiting your website or blog, it’s crucial to have strong call-to-action buttons to ensure that they become customers of your business.
You can also load these pages with special offers that help convert on the spot. Perhaps you offer boarding in your hospital and want to offer a free night of boarding to anyone reading your new post titled “Tips to Make Your Pets Next Boarding Adventure Relaxing For Them” – simply add a call-to-action box to the post about a special offer just for reading that blog post. Readers will be sure to follow up on future blog posts to make sure they don’t miss anything.
Even if you don’t have a special offer to share, you can still showcase your services to potential customers reading your blog post so they have a better understanding of what you can do to help them.
Don’t have time to write blogs? With WhiskerCloud, you have the in-house social media and design team you’ve always dreamed about. Click here to learn more about how we can help.
Your blog can be used to share updates and company news.
While your blog seems like a great place to share tips and tricks for pet owners, or tips on making their next visit a great one, you can also use this space as a news center to share big updates with your current customers. Instead of cluttering your website with pop-ups and other news bars, you can drive people to a full landing page on your website that shares news about things like new hours, building expansion, new services, or COVID-19 updates.
This will ensure that current clients have a place to get tips and keep up with everything you have going on. Plus, it’s another piece of content to add to your social posts, email blasts, and more.
A blog is a place to build a relationship with your audience and to build trust with them. Sharing tips, showcasing products, and sharing a look at life at your business is the best way to grow your blog, increase traffic, and convert readers into customers.
Writing blogs takes time if you want to do it well.
Make sure that your blog posts are clear, engaging, and at least 300 words so that Google feels they are relevant to share. If you are strapped for time, the team at WhiskerCloud is happy to help! Our team of copywriters has worked in veterinary medicine and specializes in creating relevant and educational posts for pet owners.
WhiskerCloud websites are fully loaded with everything you need to grow.
We offer cloud hosting, SEO, real-time website tracking, reputation management, social media management, and advertising — and all of it comes with unlimited support from our team.
