What Is A Dental Blogging Planner, And How Do You Create One?

There’s a reason why most dental blogs fail and it’s the lack of consistency.

As a dental content creator, I’ve seen hundreds of dental websites and I’d estimate that around 75% of them don’t have an up-to-date blog.

This could be because they:

• No longer have the time to commit to regular blogging
• Ran out of blogging topics/ideas
• decided it wasn’t working for them, or
• Realised soon on that blogging simply wasn’t a priority.

Of course, we know that dental blogging isn’t a short term solution to getting patients through the door, however, there is plenty of evidence to prove that frequent and consistent blogging works.

In fact dental practices that do blog notice a significant increase in traffic vs those that don’t

The key here is consistency.

That’s week after week, month after month, year after year. 

I won’t go into the ins and outs of why dental blogging works as I’ve already covered this topic in a previous post.

But If you want to know, you can find out more about it here.

You should, however, know that when blogging is carried out correctly, it’s an incredibly effective tool in your dental marketing arsenal.

So once you understand how blogging can help your dental business, how do you create content regularly and commit to it, for the long-term without running out of steam?

The answer?

Have a dental blogging plan!

In this post, we’ll explain what a dental blogging planner is, why you need one and most importantly, how you create one.

So let’s dive in and take a look.

What exactly is a blog plan?

Essentially, a blogging plan is a central place to document all your business blogging exploits. This includes posts you plan to write, posts you’ve already published, ideas for posts and posts you need to promote.

It allows you to get an instant overview of your whole blogging cycle in seconds.

In essence, it’s an essential tool that makes consistent blogging easier while creating an air of accountability.

After all, when a task is written down, you’re far more likely to do it, and that’s essential!

How do you create a dental blogging planner?

There are a series of steps you should take to create a blogging plan that is going to drive traffic. You’re going to be investing a lot of time and effort into this strategy so it needs to work for you in terms of results.

So here are the steps you need to take:

Step #1 – Keyword research

Step #2 – Create content ideas

Step #3 – Planning in time

Step #4 – Taking action

Let’s take a closer look at each step in turn starting with the first step:

Step #1 – Keyword research

Here’s the thing; when you’re writing content it needs to be engaging, helpful and well written, of course, but it also needs to be something that people are actually looking to read.

How do we know what people are interested in?

By finding phrases that people regularly type into Google.

So let’s say you fancy writing a blog post on ‘how dental implants are fitted’. The problem is that if you run it through any keyword tools, you’d know that this isn’t a popular search term. Therefore it’s unlikely to be found organically.

However, if you based your article on “what a dental implant procedure entails’. The key phrase ‘dental implant procedure’ gets around 880 searches per month. 

Therefore, it stands to reason that this would be a good topic to write an engaging post around.

There are a ton of keyword tools you can use, some paid and some free but they will all give you an idea of the type of phrases people are searching for.

As a top tip – When you start typing in a key phrase into Google’s search bar, it links together a whole series of other phrases known as Google Autocomplete. These are also great for understanding search intent and, in turn, generating keyword ideas.

Ideally, you really want to come up with somewhere between 50 -100 key phrases that you can make a series of coherent articles from.

Step #2 – Creating content ideas

Coming up with relevant content week in and week out is perhaps the most challenging part of blogging. So using the keywords you’ve collected, you can then apply it to a technique known as ‘content bucketing’.

So what exactly is that?

In any industry, there are key areas (topics) that collectively make up that industry. For example, in the personal fitness niche, you could have:

• Workout Ideas
• Diets
• Muscle Building and
• Fat Loss.

In the dental industry, this could be:

• Cosmetic Dentistry
• Preventative Dentistry
• Dental Education
• Emergency Dentistry

Each key area can be classed as a unique content category (bucket) to which you will add your content.

Within each designated category, you can probably develop ten blog ideas. For example, within the cosmetic dentistry category, you could have:

• Does Professional Teeth Whitening Work?’
• Veneers vs Crowns – Which Is Best For You?
• What Is A Smile Makeover?

Under preventative dentistry, you could have:

• 6 Easy Ways To Keep Gums Healthy
• What To Expect During A Dental Check-Up
• How To Prepare Your Child For Their First Dental Visit

Dental education might involve blogs like:

• The Best Foods For Teeth and Gum Health
• Is An Electric Toothbrush Better Than A Manual Toothbrush?
• The importance of Regular Dental Check-ups

And so on. And so forth.

If you have, say, five content buckets (categories) and come up with ten pieces of content for each bucket, that’s 50 content ideas.

Essentially, when used in conjunction with keywords, content buckets are a great way to develop multiple content ideas quickly.

Step #3 – Create your dental blog planning schedule

So now you should have 50-100 key phrases and 50 or so content ideas based around key phrases. What you need to do now is to create your content planning schedule.

So, consider how often you want to produce content

Is it daily, weekly or monthly?

Ideally, you want to opt for a time frame that’s not only reasonable, but achievable too.

Remember, it’s something that you’ll need to do on a consistent basis, so don’t commit to blogging 2-3 times a week if it’s not sustainable in the long-term.

For best results, I would suggest blogging once a week to start.

Also you’ll want to consider when to post.

There are numerous articles indicating the best days to post. Some say Saturday; others say Tuesdays and Wednesdays are ideal for maximising reader engagement.

Essentially, I would argue that the day isn’t overly important. Instead, what matters is that you post the same day every time.

Why?

Because people are creatures of habit and we like routine.

So, when you have subscribers, they look forward to receiving your post. If you start posting on a Tuesday, switch it to Friday the following week and then a Monday the week after, it can be off-putting.

Remember, you’re trying to build a rapport with your audience, and irregular posting is not the way. So pick a day that suits you or your team and make posting the blog part of your workday routine.

So let’s say you decide to post once a week because that’s an achievable goal given your other work commitments and you decide you want to publish every Thursday.  All you need to do is to write in the date of your content, what’s being published, and its status.

Here’s a rough example to see how a simple plan would look on paper.

Of course you can make it as easy or as complex as you like. The rule is to document everything and follow the task through.

Step #4 – Taking Action

The final step of the process is to take action. There’s no point in having a dental blogging planner if you don’t take action.

The good thing about documenting a plan like this is that it makes you more accountable. It’s easy to let a week slip when your head is full of other stuff, but when everything is documented in one centralised place, having a looming deadline forces you to take action.

So now it’s time to get your content written.

Start by addressing a problem. Talk about the topic or concern concisely. A question is always a great way to engage readers immediately.

For example:

If you’re writing a blog on teeth whitening, you could say something like:

“Did you know that 52% of people are unhappy with the appearance of their teeth?”

If you have a link to that statistic, even better.

Then try to engage the reader further. After all, if they’re reading a blog on the benefits of professional teeth whitening, chances are they want to know more about how it works, right?

So, you can say something like:

“if you can relate to this, then chairside teeth whitening may be for you.”

Once you’ve done this you might want to talk about the benefits of professional chairside teeth whitening vs over-the-counter brands.

Ensure the use of sub headers for each benefit and break longer sentences up for ease of scanning. Remember most people don’t read word for word. Instead they prefer to scan

Finally, summarise the article and finish with a solid call to action (CTA).

Once you have the bones of the article down on paper, check it over for flow and grammar.

As a top tip, AI-powered writing assistants like Grammarly are incredibly useful and can help you to polish up your post.

Once you’re happy with it, get a colleague to read it. A fresh set of eyes may pick up something that you missed.

When you’re good to go, the final thing to do is to add a relevant picture.

Now you’re ready to publish and share

Once your post is published, you’ll want as many people to see it as possible. If you already have a mailing list, why not send a quick email enclosing your blog post or incorporate it as part of a regular newsletter.

Additionally, don’t forget to share it on your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages.

So there you have it, what a blogging plan is and how to create one.

By putting plans in place for your content creation, you’ve taken most of the legwork out of dental blogging.

A good content plan allows you to blog consistently and repeatedly, and that’s the key to success.

If you need assistance with your dental blogging, I’ve got you covered. I help dental professionals like you create engaging blogs that appeal to your target audience.

To find out more, get in touch at [email protected] or visit dentaldale.com and fill in the request form.