The idea of blogging can feel so 2001. Even the word “blog” conjures images like those colorful iMac computers, early seasons of Survivor, dELiA*s catalog fashion, and an iconic duo wearing denim on denim. But, unlike Britney and Justin, blogs have actually stood the test of time. 

For a media outlet that pre-dates Facebook and Wikipedia, the fact that blogging still holds value in the digital space is really impressive. In a world where 30-60 second videos dominate our internet consumption time, here you are reading plain old words in black and white – and proving my point.

Less for entertainment value these days, blogs still fill a space for users seeking long-form informational content. When thinking about how blogs might be relevant to your dental practice, think patient education and online exposure. Articles are an opportunity to expand on topics you might only touch on in a social post, or even during a patient visit.

If you haven’t heard, creating quality blog content on your website is essential for helping your website rank on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).  

What is the purpose of a blog article?

In 2024, blogs tend to come in two forms: 

1. Editorial articles
2. Performance articles

Editorial articles 

These are blog posts that focus less on ranking in Google and more on generating attention for your brand. Think of essays, press releases, announcements about your practice or team, etc. This type of content is often called "thought leadership." 

The key idea is that these articles don’t need to be optimized for search engines. They also tend to cover topics that aren’t getting much search volume because they usually introduce new ideas and start conversations.

Performance articles

As the name suggests, performance articles are designed to rank well on Google and increase your brand’s visibility through organic search. You can measure the effectiveness of this content through metrics like the number of clicks, marketing-qualified leads generated, and traffic driven to your website.

It's important to understand that not every piece of performance content is meant to convert visitors into leads. Some articles are focused on raising brand awareness, while others are geared toward helping users who are already considering your practice take the next step—whether it’s booking an appointment, calling, or completing some other key action on your site.

The success of performance content lies in addressing the questions your target audience is actively asking. The top-performing articles are those that engage readers and thoroughly answer these questions. 

While editorial content sparks new conversations, performance content adds to ongoing discussions, which is why keyword research is crucial. By identifying what content is already performing well, you can create strategies to outrank competitors.

As your website builds a strong foundation of high-quality content, Google will begin to recognize your site as a valuable resource. This happens when your content consistently demonstrates Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T), which are key factors in Google's evaluation of content quality.

How to write a good blog article

When it comes to performance content, a "good blog" is one that ranks well on Google, increases your visibility with potential patients, and ultimately drives leads through your website.

The key isn’t to churn out dozens of keyword-stuffed fluff pieces. Instead, focus on creating thoughtful, engaging content that directly addresses the questions your target audience is asking.

For example, if you’re writing an article on why someone should choose Invisalign over braces, a basic blog might briefly compare the pros of Invisalign with the cons of braces, offering a short introduction and a closing call to action to book a consultation.

A better blog, however, would start with an overview of all teeth alignment options, offer a clear preview of what the reader can expect from the article (perhaps highlighting key points for quick skimmers), and then thoroughly explore the main question while also addressing related or adjacent concerns.

A good blog isn’t just about the information you provide—it's about how you present it. Google doesn’t only consider the keywords on your page; it also looks at how long people stay on the page, whether they click through to other sections of your site, and even how far they scroll down the page.

While these aren’t direct ranking factors, they’re strong indicators of the overall user experience. To write an effective blog, it’s crucial to keep these signals in mind from the very beginning, even before you start writing.

Using ChatGPT or Gemini

This could be a topic for several blog posts of its own, but here are some basics when it comes to using AIs like ChatGPT and Gemini to write a blog article for your dental practice. 

With the powerful options we’re seeing today, it can be tempting to go straight to ChatGPT to do all the work for you. However, we know that as AI gets smarter, so do search engines – Google can (and does) detect AI-generated content with accuracy. It doesn't necessarily penalize sites for AI-generated content—its priority is whether or not the site has quality content, AI-generated or not. 

ChatGPT and other LLMs like Gemini and Claude can be valuable supports to your content writing process, but they are not outright replacements for good writers.  Remember: an objectively good article tends to be original, thoroughly covers the given topic, and engages the reader.  

Long story short? Posting an AI-generated article is not a tried-and-true method of improving SEO.

So how should you use AI to support your content writing? 

Given the versatility of tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, there are nearly endless ways they could help you create quality blog articles. But below are some tips to help you get started.

• Topic ideation: Use AI to give you a list of topic ideas, helping you jump-start the process.
• Article outlines: If you tell LLMs like ChatGPT to write an outline about your blog idea, it can do so with great detail. Once it gives you an outline that’s satisfactory, paste that outline back into it as a prompt and watch it produce a first draft that you can later edit. 
• Spell check: Just like Grammarly, ChatGPT can provide spell checks for your content. 
• Suggest alternate phrasing: Want to turn a stale explanation into an analogy? Change the way you phrase something to sound more academic or more casual? AI can do just that, and you can even tell them to provide you before and after examples, highlighting the specific changes they made and why. 

For all these things, AI requires at least a little thought and intention to input information in order to get a good output. 

So when it comes to AI, have fun, use caution, and always manually go through the information afterward!

Using more than words to add value

Trying to please Google (and other search engines) can be like applying to an Ivy League college. They don’t just look at your good grades and SAT scores (your keywords, metadata, core-web vitals), they want to know about your stunning extracurricular resume (originality, images, the human factor). 

Having important information in your blog doesn’t mean it has to be dry. Make images, gifs, and emojis your friends and use them freely!

While the world of digital marketing appears to change rather rapidly, one thing that has stayed consistent is the fact that Google values quality, relevancy, and authenticity more than it values quantity.

Anyone who has ever fallen victim to the long-dismissed tactic of keyword stuffing can likely attest to that! Posting once a month is a great goal, but it's more important that you’re posting a quality article. If that means having to post less than a month, that’s ok—you can build up to that. In terms of how long your blogs should be, there’s no real magic number. The guiding principle should be to make the article as long as it needs to be to thoroughly address the topic in question. In 2024, that almost always means writing an article between 1,000-3,000 words. 

Focus on answering questions that often come up when you’re speaking with patients, or hone in on a specific service you offer that you can talk widely about to help establish a sense of you being the trusted authority on the subject.

Metadata and Blog Structure

Each time you add a blog article to your website, it will create a new page. On Google’s SERPs, you’ve got one shot at getting a user to click through to that page, and the main factors that influence that decision are the page’s title and its description.

Title tag 

This serves as the title of your page that people can click to get to your website when viewing search results. Generally, this should be within 50-60 characters in length so that it fits most spaces provided by search engines.

Metadata description

This is a little summary of what the page is about. It should be long enough to give a good description to users but short enough that Google doesn’t crop it (around 160 characters), so choose your keywords wisely!

Below you can see an example of what the title tag and meta description look like in practice.

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H1 text This is the title of your article and should include your primary keyword.

H2 text These are like chapter titles, or section titles, that use similar keywords to the H1 tag.

H3 text These are subcategories that further organize your blog content to make it easy for users to find the information they’re looking for.

Some strategies to get you started:

• Pick a theme for the month, like favorite oral hygiene products and habits. Make it the focus of your monthly blog post and weekly social posts.
• Write an article about a newly added service or piece of technology and focus on why this adds value for your patients.
• Inform your patients what you or your team learned at your latest CE course! Patients will feel like you’re super invested in your job and their health.
• Throughout the year, write multiple articles about your favorite service. More content with those keywords could mean you attract more patients seeking those services.

Another strategy: use a trusted marketing agency like Studio 8E8 to help you with SEO content! Our team of SEO Strategists is eager to share their knowledge (they kind of nerd out about it) and help increase traffic and leads to your website.