The Clinic Marketing Podcast - Local SEO & Healthcare Digital Marketing Tips for Clinic Owners & Wellness Providers

How to Structure Blog Posts That Rank on Google & Attract Patients [Propel Playback]

• Darcy Sullivan

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Ready to transform your blog posts from forgettable to remarkable? The structure of your content matters just as much as what you're saying—perhaps even more.

In this value-packed episode, we dive deep into the anatomy of truly effective blog posts. I break down the five essential structural elements that separate high-performing content from everything else cluttering the internet. From crafting headlines that demand clicks to conclusions that drive action, each component plays a crucial role in your content's success.

Webpage Episode: https://propelyourcompany.com/anatomy-blog-post/ 

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Speaker 1:

Well, hello, hello, hello, welcome back. I'm your host, darcy Sullivan. With Propel Marketing and Design, we're currently in a series dedicated to helping you put together better blog posts. Some of the items that we're touching upon in this episode are pulled directly from one of our Ready Set Rank DIY SEO programs called Ready Set Blog. If you're interested in learning more about Ready Set Blog or Ready Set Rank, you can do so by visiting our website, propellyourcompanycom, or you can simply check out the show notes for this episode.

Speaker 1:

In this episode, we're going to be discussing the anatomy of an effective blog post. We're talking all about the actual physical structure and the way you should lay out a blog post. So what we're assuming here is that you've already identified your target audience and that you've already identified the SEO keyword or keyword phrase that you want to target for a specific blog post. Here we're also assuming that you have a little bit of understanding of SEO search engine optimization, because some of the items that we're going to be going through today overlap or are SEO related, but we don't have time in this short episode to do a deep dive into every element of SEO for blogging. That's where that Ready Set Blog program comes in, where we do tackle a deep dive on how to create SEO-friendly blog posts. If you look at the benchmarks of the relationship between the length of a blog post and the results that that blog post drives, you'll see that you want to write long-form content. We can't get away with just putting together 300 to 500 words like we used to be able to years and years ago. I tend to suggest to those people that blog posts that are between 700 to 1500 words I like to say aim for a thousand, because I know if I say aim for a thousand, most people are likely to hit 700 versus. If I suggested to you to aim for 700 words, then you might fall short and hit around the 400 to 500 mark. So that's why I typically suggest we want to go and hit between the 700 and 1500 mark. So just aim for that spot of a thousand and see where you end up.

Speaker 1:

Originally I was going to call this episode let's write a blog post together, but then when I looked at the way I had organized what I wanted to touch on in this episode, I realized that would have been way too long of an episode. So, as I mentioned before, in this episode we're simply talking about the structure, and I have one example that I am going to use throughout this to give you an example as I talk about each of the elements. The main audience that's probably tuning into this episode are either clinic owners, chiropractors, physical therapists, etc. I don't want to give something that's so specific to them that they would just take exactly what I'm saying and run with it. So instead, in this example, I am turning to my dear puppy for some guidance. So in the examples that I am going to give, I am going to use the keyword phrase how's training a puppy. So as we go through these core elements for the anatomy of an effective blog post, just keep that in mind.

Speaker 1:

In the example that I gave of House Training a Puppy. Sure, I could just call the blog post House Training a Puppy, but that's not very exciting. If I were to hit to Google and search terms related to house training a puppy, I would find more exciting articles that I would be more likely to click through and read versus something that just said house training a puppy. Here are some examples of ways that I could rename the title and still keep that keyword freeze in there. I could call it house training a puppy colon. Three things they don't tell you, or three things nobody tells you about house training a puppy. See how both of those examples are a little bit more exciting than just saying house training a puppy. The same goes if you were a chiropractor and you were going to write a blog post about back pain. It's not as exciting to just name the blog post back pain. Right, I think you get it.

Speaker 1:

So here are some things that you can consider when writing a catchy headline or title for your blog post. You can keep it rational, include things like tips, tricks or hacks We've all seen these right Five tricks to fill in the blank, or blank life hacks to help you fill in the blank. You can use numbers, which is one of the things I did in the examples I gave you. You can use adjectives to make it more exciting, free, must-have, useful. You want to make sure that you're targeting your key word. You can also use trigger words like why or how. Once you have an idea of what you think would be a good title for your blog post, brainstorm it out a little bit more. It's always good to write down two to ten ideas for a title and then pick the one that sounds the most interesting Once you've got your title in place. Again, the assumption is that you had listened to the previous episode where we talked about tips for writing better blog posts. One of those tips included outlining your blog posts before you dive in. So if you've already outlined your blog posts, these next elements are going to be easier to implement.

Speaker 1:

Element number two in the anatomy of an effective blog post is an introduction. In the introduction, you want to make sure that you're not only using your keyword, but that you let readers know what you're going to be talking about. Have you ever heard that old saying that when you go to give a presentation, you should tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them. Blog posts are kind of like that. In the introduction, you want to let them know what you're going to tell them. So in the introduction paragraph, you want to make sure that you let them in on what you are going to cover in the blog post.

Speaker 1:

In the example of house training a puppy, I might say something like before I brought my new fur baby home, I had no idea about house training a puppy. In this blog post I'm going to break down for you three things I wish I would have known, and then in that section I would bullet point those so they could be how to prepare your house before the new puppy arrives, the four products you'll want to have ready before your fur baby comes home. And then the third bullet point, the five strategic steps to house training your puppy. So here in this introduction, I have told them what we're going to cover, and then I like to use a transitional phase. So this could be let's get started, or are you ready, or let's dive in, or in this case I might say something like grab your favorite squeaky toy and let's get started.

Speaker 1:

Now we've already identified the subheaders, which are our next section that we're going to talk about. We identified these because one we already did an outline about what the blog post was going to cover, and then we did the statement up in this blog post. We already did an outline about what the blog post was going to cover, and then we did the statement up in this blog post we're going to talk about, and then we had the bullet points of the three items that we're going to talk about, and you'll also notice that those three bullet points sound enticing, right? It's not prep your house, get products, house train puppy. It's how to prep your house before the new puppy arrives, the four products that you'll want to have ready for your fur baby, and then the five strategic steps to house training your puppy. So that in itself is the introduction. That's a great start, and then we're moving into those subheaders.

Speaker 1:

So the first subheader for this example would be how to prep your house before your new puppy arrives, and this section, like we want to do in all the other sections, because we want to think of the blog posts like you would a book. In a book, you have chapters, just like you have chapters in a book, you want to make sure that you have subheaders and sections in a blog post, Since and I hate to get a little technical here, but your title for your blog post should be an H1 header, your subheaders should be H2 headers. So we're not just like going into these sections and making bold for the sections and then putting those sections in there. We're identifying that they're headers, just like you would identify chapters in a book. What this does is it not only tells Google, but it tells your reader, who is usually scanning articles how to jump to the section that they might be most interested in.

Speaker 1:

So once we've got our subheaders in the section, under each of the subheaders we wanna make sure that we're using short paragraphs, that we're breaking up long sentences when appropriate. We want to use formatting of bold and italics. We want to include internal links when it's appropriate. So if I mention an item as I'm writing under one of the subheaders that references another blog post or a page on my website, I would want to link to that. If I'm going to cite a source in this section, I would also want to link to that. But if I am citing a source and referencing something that is outside of my website, I want to make sure that that link opens up in a new window. I would go through that same process with the other two sections that I want to write about Now. One thing that I want to mention is one of those was the four products that you want to have ready when your new fur baby comes home, or whatever I called it In that section. So the four products you want to have ready section, I would use that subheader again as your H2, but then under that, as I'm breaking down those four products. I might want the titles of those four products to be H3s, and then I would have the text that relates to them directly under that.

Speaker 1:

The next item in the anatomy of an effective blog post is to include visual elements that are relevant. I get it, sometimes you need to use stock photos, and that's okay. You can totally do that. But what you want to do is you want to make sure that, if you're using stock photos, that you're not going to a stock photography website and searching most popular, because those are the images everybody else is using. You also want to make sure that you insert your featured image, that the images that you're using are sized appropriately and that you're adding proper alt image text to those images. Other visual elements that you can use include the obvious videos, but you could also do infographics or anything like that.

Speaker 1:

The final element to an effective blog post layout is to include a call to action, and that should be in the conclusion. So remember when I gave that example of what they used to say about when you were to give a presentation tell them what you're going to tell them. Then tell them. Then tell them what you told them. In that conclusion, you not only want to like hone back on telling them what you told them In that conclusion. You not only want to like hone back on telling them what you told them, but you also want to make sure that you give them the next steps or the actions to take.

Speaker 1:

Back to the house training, a puppy example. I might set up the conclusion to say, to say, let the puppy training begin. And then, under that header tag, I would put in a couple sentences they might be something like with the proper preparation, if you do A, b and C, highlighting again those bullet points that I mentioned at the beginning and that were then the subheaders throughout bringing home a new puppy can be easier than you would think. And let's just say, in this example, this blog post was sitting on a website that sold puppy products. I could then highlight just remember, for all your puppy products needs, we're here for you. Please check out our shop and link to the shop.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you're a clinic owner and you were writing a blog post on, let's say, you're a chiropractor and you're writing a blog post on back pain, you want to do a conclusion that wraps it up and ties it back and it ties to what you offer them. So it could be. If you're suffering from back pain and live in name of area, be sure to book an appointment with us today. We would love to help and link to the book page on your website. So let's review those elements before we wrap up. We have creating a headline that's click-worthy, including an introduction, including subheaders with information below them, using visual elements that are relevant, and then wrapping that blog post up with a pretty little bow. We call the conclusion with a call to action. That's all for today's episode. Thanks for listening. If you feel that you know anybody who would benefit from listening to this podcast, please be sure to share it with them.