The population of the United States has become more and more tech-savvy with each passing year. Gone are the days when a person would look up the local provider’s office or hospital system in the yellow pages and schedule appointments without further research. In fact, the 2020 Constant Contact Guide to healthcare marketing documented that 68% of people look for medical information online, and 77% of patients engage with online content about a provider or health system before they choose to schedule an appointment.
A healthcare system or practice with high-quality, credible content and a frequent publishing schedule is likelier to rank higher on the result list when searching online. A higher ranking means a higher click-through rate translating into more patient appointments. In a 2020 study, Google published the click-through rates of the 1st through 10th ranked search position results. Position one resulted in a nearly 30% click-through rate, twice the second and third-place results, and more than ten times the click-through for the tenth-place search-ranked organization. It is essential to note click-through rates are directly correlated with scheduled appointments and rendered services.
The team at NurseWritersGroup conducted an internet search to find out the length, frequency, and quality of healthcare content needed for OSR and SEO to be in the top space. While there is a mix of statistics, most sources agreed posts of 1000 to 2000 words were the ideal length, with a frequency of three to four times per week, authored by credible clinician sources. Generic healthcare publications did not yield the same OSR and SEO, and click-through rate as high-quality, clinician-authored healthcare content.
This poses a challenge for many healthcare organizations. Many marketing departments are focused on finding new patients and promoting services; however, the team members of the marketing departments are rarely clinicians. This means the content produced may not engage patients and the public in ways that increases trust in healthcare providers, which in turn, may not result in scheduled appointments or services rendered. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) discovered high-quality, evidence-based, clinician-created content resulted in higher patient satisfaction scores for communication with their provider or health system, a decrease in medication-related illnesses and a decrease in post-hospital infections related to clinician-authored content, and increased trust in the providers rendering care. Increased trust translates into patient appointments and services rendered.
The demand for length and frequency of clinician-authored content burdens healthcare providers and systems. However, there is good news! Freelance Nurse Writers, like those employed with NurseWritersGroup, are available to remove this burden. Nurse writers are uniquely qualified to create materials for patients, families, caregivers, and the public that are easy to understand and help to improve health literacy. This means when nurses write patient education materials, disease or condition-based blogs, newsletters, white papers, and other content, patients who engage with the material are more satisfied and have a better relationship with their providers than those who may engage with generic content. Nurses are familiar with the search engine optimization (SEO) keywords patients will look for online. In short, nurses speak both scientific and patient language; translating complex information into patient and public-friendly verbiage that improves understanding and health literacy. Nurses are a key to patient satisfaction, safety, and provider success.
What do you think? How can the team at NurseWritersGroup alleviate your evidence-based content burden? Contact us today to find out!!
