Dentists have asked me why blogs are better than websites. Dental blogs advantages over static dental websites — what are they?

As I wrote in the January 2008 Dentistry Today article, page 118, websites have an important role if you want high rankings on Google and lots of high quality traffic.

And blogs have a role too.

There is no magic to a blog. But if it is properly designed it offers three key advantages over just a static dental practice website:

1. You can update it in moments from any computer without special software
2. It pings RSS aggregators and ultimately feeds very quickly to search engines
3. It is recognized as a blog by the "community", so people expect it will be updated frequently and therefore each updated post is fodder for spreading the word.

But, if your dental blog is not properly designed, it may look great, but it will contain a lot of duplicate content issues which will impede your rankings on search engines…and also will vastly lower your conversion rate for visitors.

Update your dental practice blog without special software

Updating a static website often involves using a package like "Frontpage" and special software including "ftp access".

A dental blog makes it easy to edit and easy to create new content without having any special software. You can log into your blog from an Internet cafe in Kauai or Cannes and update the blog (if you are fortunate enough to vacation there.)

A dental blog pings other aggregators

When you make a new post, spread the word. A blog should automatically ping, or notify, search engines and websites that you have updated the blog. Static websites don't automatically ping. You are relying on periodic visits from the search engine spiders with a static website. With a blog, pinging makes spider visits much more frequent.

A dental blog is recognized by the Internet community

Blogs are accepted by the Internet community. If you have a static website and update it, nobody cares much. But if you update a blog, you have created a new post and that new post is "news". There are a ton of places including Google that want to know about new blog posts.

News, that is fresh new content, is what the Internet is about. With a blog, you are telling the rest of the Internet that you are creating that type of content. This brings you a lot more attention.

What to avoid in your dental blog

A "regular" blog often has multiple ways of accessing the same content, which will trigger duplicate content filters on search engines. When duplicate content is seen on the same site, it can often become a *penalty*. There are various ways to overcome this. If you use Wordpress as your blog platform, you can use a plugin called SEO All-In-One that helps to prevent this penalty.

The other part of blog problems that I see is that they are often distracting. For visitors, if a blog contains a lot of distractions, it won't convert well.

I do blogs to get business, not to just have an outlet to write, so converting visitors to clients (or patients) is most important to me.

For more information see Dental advertising: What works better than Google Pay Per Click?

And also, more about dental blogs and dental blogging.

If you are interested in doing a blog for your practice, or you want to find out how I can create and run a blog for you, join my high quality email list. I will give you instant access to my acclaimed bestselling book on case acceptance and dental marketing, now in its third edition, which sells for $59.95 but is yours free. I never share your information with anyone and you can opt out by clicking on a single link that I put in every email I send you. Thanks!