Three do’s and don’ts for guest posting on healthcare blogs.
Guest blogging can be a great tool for any healthcare professional looking to gain authority in the online healthcare industry. Posting your work on other blogs as a guest can be beneficial on several levels, from building individual credibility and exposure to gaining traffic and links back to your personal blog or social media pages. To get the most out of your guest healthcare blogging experience, there must be a strategy in place.
At the most basic level, always keep in mind that guest blogging has to be a win-win situation for both yourself and the particular blog sharing your post. This is especially true for healthcare bloggers, where Google’s rules are especially strict. In order to build this sort of mutually beneficial relationship, it’s imperative that you know what to do – and what not to do – when exploring guest blogging opportunities.
1. Content is everything
No blog is going to post your work on their site if it is clear that you didn’t put much time or effort into the content of your post. Healthcare blogs need to be accurate, easy to read, and full of relevant information. Getting your name out there is certainly a perk, but it cannot be the sole intention of your guest post, that’s not how it works.
Here are 3 keys to healthcare guest blogging that every aspiring writer should keep in mind:
Even more so, remember that while the post may be showing up on someone else’s blog, it still has your name on it. Take some pride in your work and create something that is truly insightful and engaging for readers. Including links back to your personal blog or social media pages is definitely recommended, but leave the spammy self-promotion and sales pitches out of it that bring little value to the article, the blog, or their audience. In the healthcare industry, where expertise is very important, the need for effective backlinks is even more apparent.
At the end of the day, there are many tricks of the trade that can help enhance the success of a guest blog post, but without good healthcare content, those methods are utterly useless. Sweetener can make good coffee better, but it can’t make bad coffee good. The same goes for guest blogging. It all starts and ends with great content – the rest is just sweetener.
Related Article: 5 Content Ideas to Improve Your Healthcare Blog
2. Find the right opportunities.
Once you’ve created the healthcare content, the next step is finding the right outlet for your work. You don’t want to blindly throw your article at every healthcare blog you can find and hope some will take it. Take the time to look into each possible opportunity, and determine if that particular site is a viable option for you.
While searching, there are a few guidelines to keep in mind. First and foremost, find healthcare blogs that have posted relatable content to the topic of your post. Be sure to also review their guest blogging guidelines. You are using a different website to expose your work to their already-established audience. Therefore, blogs are much more likely to accept guest posts that relate to their niche.
Additionally, research if they have published any guest posts in the past, which were shared most often, and what could be improved.
Lastly, you also want a blog that is active on social media in order to help promote your post to a wider audience.
3. Pitch your post.
Once you’ve created your content and determined which healthcare website(s) is a good match for your guest post, it’s up to you to reach out to them. Unless you’re a somewhat prolific healthcare blogger, very rarely will a blog reach out to you and ask for your permission to publish your work on their site. It’s on you to take the initiative and explore your options – and it’s much more than simply sending them an attachment of your work.
Some blogs have sections where you can submit your post directly or leave an inquiry, while in others it’s best to email directly. Either way, there’s a right way and a wrong way to approach a blog about guest posting. First and foremost, check for any specific guidelines they’ve listed for pitching a guest post, and follow those closely.
In general, begin by introducing yourself and explaining why you are writing to them. Remember, it’s not all about you. Their first and only priority is finding good content for their blog – not promoting you. Find the balance between establishing your credibility without overdoing it to the point where it’s clearly just a personal advertisement. Show them you have done your research by explaining why your post would be valuable to their particular audience and citing relevant posts they have published in the past. Also, make it clear that you are a team player and are willing to make changes to your work in order to adhere to their blogging standards.
Lastly, it should go without saying that it’s essential to be polite and respectful. Just remember, you came to them, not the other way around. By keeping these things in mind, you can improve your healthcare blogging experience and, ultimately, improve your healthcare business as a whole.
If you’re looking for a place to start, we happily consider any guest posting opportunities that come our way. If you would like to guest post on the eMedCert blog, contact our blog editor at [email protected]