Why Blogging is a Waste of Time for Private Practitioners

This may sound odd coming from a blogger, but in my experience health care providers in private practice will not get much of a result from blogging, in terms of increased referrals. I’ve known several people who’ve done very useful, informative blogs with frequent posts, but have gotten very little traffic from them and even fewer (if any) referrals. 

The reasons for this are fourfold:

• blogs work best when posting strong opinions, and many health care providers (especially psychotherapists) don’t want to reveal too much about their personal positions on issues that may affect treatment
• unlike politics, news and technology blogs, healthcare blogs don’t tend to have enough ongoing, compelling information to get lots of people to subscribe to RSS feeds
• most healthcare providers don’t have the time, money or expertise to promote their blog enough to drive significant traffic
• blogs (and micro-blogging superstar Twitter) work best as a B to B (Business to Business) medium, not B to C (Business to Consumer).

Obviously there have been some healthcare blogs that have been very successful (see Dr. Joseph Merkola’s blog for example), but this type of blog is not focused on one provider’s practice, but rather on a range of related products, services and information.

Healthcare needs – especially those that can be treat outpatient – tend to be focused in time, and once the presenting problem or issue is resolved or treated, people are unlikely to revisit a blog or website unless there is a related range of services that continue to appeal to the person. People’s time and attention spans are just too limited to stay interested in a provider’s thoughts once a problem has receded into their past.

Better strategy? Build a list (SEO, PPC ads, Social Media) so you can, with permission, contact your list consistently over time with useful information that they care about.

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