They want to know if it’s worth the effort (i.e. “Will I get more new patients if I blog? If not, why do it?”)

Going into blogging with that mindset is a sure fire way to hate blogging and wish you never heard of it in the first place. Even if you were getting new patients from doing a blog, if you don’t like it, it’s not going to be fun and it will eventually fall off no matter what results you’re getting.

Who are the only chiropractors that should blog?

Who are the only chiropractors that should be blogging? Those that want to blog. I mean, really want to make it a fun thing to do! Those that have a passion (or at least an real interest) in sharing health information with their patients, potential patients, and the community – or even the world!

You want blogging to be something you look forward to doing so that it’s never really “work.” You also want to have a vision as to who your target audience is, so you can think of that person when you’re writing. Having a focus or direction where you want your blog to go will make a difference in the success and the overall readability of your posts.

Is your blog geared towards education and helping new patients find you?

Then give them some reasons to seek out chiropractic care. Give them a sense of who you are, because people love to “research” their potential doctor online. If they don’t really get a feel for who you are as a person, your blog won’t be effective.

Is your blog geared towards educating your patients?

Then you should only include information about that. Keep that in mind that your patients don’t necessarily want to be hit over the head with negative or anti-medical statements. They are more likely open to interesting information and things they didn’t already know about.

The only real rule of blogging is that you can’t be boring. If you want people to read your stuff again, you want to inform with quality information every time and don’t just rehash what’s out there.

Help solve problems and people will find you. Be visible online and establish yourself as a chiropractic expert in your community. Who doesn’t want to see the expert?

So they decide to find a chiropractor in their area and do some research.

Research is a vital component for the educated person looking to make an informed decision about their healthcare provider. Some chiropractors seem to think that the person doing the research wants to know as much as possible about chiropractic, but don’t have an interest in learning about the doctor.

That’s the problem I see with some of the chiropractic websites out there. They have a bunch of articles (not written by the doctor) that fill their site, and a “coming soon” or “under construction” label on the “about the doctor” page. With some sites, we get lucky and at least find a little bit about the doctor’s education, but not much else.

I’m also not a big fan of a page filled with generic information about the doctor. “The doctor wants to help the community with chiropractic.” Well I hope so! This doesn’t tell the potential new patient anything about you.

The current online environment is that people want some level of transparency, they want to know some personal stuff. You don’t have to give your height and weight or your kids’ birthdays, but how about the reason you got into chiropractic? Do you have any interesting hobbies? What will someone find interesting to know about you?

The transparency isn’t there to be some kind of invasion of privacy, it’s there to establish trust. The patient looks at five sites, finds almost no information about the doctor on four of them and finds some interesting stuff on your site. Who are they going to trust? Who will they choose to entrust their spine?

Focus less on giving people overwhelming reasons to try out chiropractic, and focus on giving them overwhelming reasons to choose you.