Blogging might seem like what everyone and their momma is doing to make a living online, especially in this generation of side-hustling.

 

But there’s much more to blogging than making money. Health businesses everywhere need to start blogging for multiple reasons. Blogging is an easy way to create shareable content without spending so much on cameras for video or graphic designing for picture editing. You can easily and quickly share your expertise by giving away free information, which leads to trust. And once your audience trusts you, they’ll buy from you.

 

Just look at the greats: Mayo Clinic, WebMD, PlannedParenthood. These are all organizations that invest in content writing services because they want people to know that they care to help without your wallet.

 

They know there are compelling reasons for health blogging. And if you didn’t know them, here’s why your health and wellness business needs to start blogging.

Why Health and Wellness Businesses Need to Start Blogging

 

1. People are becoming more health conscious.

After years of hearing how obese and unhealthy this country is, many Americans are trying to change that narrative. In a consumer research study, The Nielsen Group reported that 55% of respondents in a study purchase food based off of reading the nutrition facts and ingredients.

 

In another study by Pew Research, 1 in 3 adults go online to try to identify a diagnosis. In English, if you own your own clinic or practice and you wish to serve people, answer their questions online. You can easily help them understand what’s going on with their body and also encourage them to come in to get a more accurate diagnosis. We can’t let WebMD have all the traffic.

 

Maybe you don’t work directly in healthcare, but rather you create all-natural protein bars. You still need to blog.

 

A report from Research Online Buy Offline (ROBO) concluded that 82% of smartphone users consult their phones before buying a product in-store.

 

Just put yourself in the consumer’s shoes. Say you’re getting into weight lifting and you just got paid but you never have enough money to buy everything. Yet you know you need a new protein shake with the best muscle-building ingredients but doesn’t taste like cement. Would you rather go to your nearest GNC, scan the thousands of protein shakes, and hope to find one that fits your nutritional needs without getting upsold by persistent employees? Or would you rather look up your options online and make a decision before stepping on the gas?

 

Transparency is important in the health and wellness field, and people want to know the health benefits of everything before they try. Adding a consistent blog with content that shows off your ingredients and your authority means that you’ve got nothing to hide. You know that your audience knows better than to blindly buy something without research. Having online content for your audience is the new try before you buy.

 

In addition, if you’re selling products using keywords like “all-natural” and artificial flavor-free”, you seriously need to promote that on your website. The Nielsen report support that products with “all natural” and “organic” saw a 24% and 28% increase in growth in 2013. What better way to brag about how natural, organic, and nutritious your products are than with blog posts that show why your brand is the best brand?

2. Blogging shows that you care about your audience

It’s wonderful that we’re all becoming more health-conscious. But because so many industries trying to hop on the health and wellness wagon, it can be hard for people to trust companies. There’s a LOT of contradiction and too many big words. And for the layperson, it might seem like a bit much.

 

By creating engaging, easy-to-read content for YOUR audience (and not for fellow doctors or pharmacists), you can help answer their questions without them even having to leave their home. You can empower them with knowledge and help them make well-informed decisions.

 

It’s no secret that the healthcare field needs a big makeover. Physicians can be intimidating, hospitals can be cold, medication directions are difficult to understand, and no one knows how much they need to pay, but that’s a topic in itself. It makes people…not want to get healthy.

 

Although we can’t fix it all, we can start small. Health literacy is how well a person can find and understand health information. Health literacy can predict just how people take care of themselves.

 

Lots of health and wellness information online is either totally wrong or just completely boring and difficult to understand. But you can fix that by adding blogging to your marketing strategy. Here are a few blog post ideas you can use for your health and wellness business.

Say you’re a doula or work as an OBGYN. Make a blog post on how you’re supposed to feel during every trimester. It would even be cute to have a graphic highlighting the growth of the baby side by side too (you know, remind them that all the morning sickness is not all in vain!).

 

Maybe you’re a meal prepping company or you sell supplements. Ketosis is a big topic right now. Weigh in on the pros and cons of the ketogenic diet.

 

Any pharmacists in the house? Allergy season is right around the corner. You can create a blog post on the best ways to prepare for the upcoming allergy season (sprinkling in the blog post with your products of course). Going into detail on how the products help also helps you establish credibility. Being credible AND showing that you still care is the winning combination because people buy from authoritative people that care about them.

 

3. It’s an easy way to boost your SEO.

 

SEO is search engine optimization. Essentially how well can Google figure out what your website is about so that they can show it to the right people?

 

Gone are the days that we wait in line to find answers. With a blog and good marketing strategies for your store, hospital, or practice,  you can answer a person’s question without having them leave your home.

 

I know what you’re saying –but Blossom, don’t we want them to come in our store?

Of course, but as we discovered in the first topic, people are going to research a question or a business way before they decide to shop there. And if you don’t even come up on a quick google search, you don’t have a horse in the race.

 

Let the work work for you online so that when they come in offline, they’ll know exactly what they need, and might even be willing to pick up a few more things too.

 

And if you don’t have a brick and mortar business, you can use blog posts as a way to collect emails. If you’ve been in business long enough, you’ll know that the $$ is in the email list! That’s your OWN hub of people that have already shown interest in your business. If Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter all crash tomorrow, you will still have a list of people that trust you and just might buy your products in your email list.

 

Want to start blogging? Click below to get my FREE  list of blog posts to write about for supplement stores, clinics, meal prep services, and more businesses in the health niche!

Or if you’re bogged down by all the blogging, let me take the load off. I’m a content marketer that specializes in turning science into English. Give your audience the solutions they’ve been looking for without spending hours of your life figuring out how to create them online. Contact me here!

 

Do you like to blog? What are some things you want to add to your strategy this year?