12 Apr 22 | 15:33:26
Are you worried that not having an English or journalism degree might hold you back?
You needn’t worry, anyone can write good blog articles, it’s just a matter of sticking to a few simple rules.
We’re a marketing agency that helps Medical Device companies deliver comprehensive content campaigns and we believe there are no better people to write for a company than the ones who work there. So, we’re going to run through our tips for writing content that gets results.
Content marketing is all about giving your customer something without directly asking for anything in return. It allows you to add value to their lives in a way that convinces them of your value, creating a connection and building trust, which is incredibly important when it comes to increasing brand equity.
Content can come in many forms such as imagery, videos, slide shows and more, but written content can give you the chance to demonstrate your expertise and help your audience. It’s also a great way to optimise your website to rank higher in search engine results pages.
We’re going to delve into how you can write high-quality content that will not only create a great experience for your reader, but will also help you to rank higher on search engines.
If you don’t know who your audience is, how they think and what their challenges are, how can you be the solution they’re looking for? You can’t create high-quality content without high-quality content ideas.
We find that a great way to come up with ideas for content is to focus on the questions that your audience is asking. This is the information they’re looking for whilst they’re deciding whether or not to buy from you or work with you. Answering their questions before they even have to ask them will not only save time when it comes to sales meetings, but it will also earn their trust.
The likelihood is that you already have a very good idea of what content is required based on intuition alone, but involving your whole team can really help to generate amazing content ideas. Your customer facing teams are the ones who really know your customers, so it’s critical that they play a role in directing the content.
Keyword research can be also help you to understand your audience and generate content ideas, as it tells you what search phrases and topics are popular.
Additionally, other practices such as keyword stuffing can be detrimental for SEO. Not only is it penalised by Google but it also makes your content less readable. Keyword stuffing is when writers try to fit a targeted keyword in every possible location. The disruption this causes to your article’s readability is primarily why Google frowns on such practices.
Whilst you will need to keep Search Engines (SE’s) in mind whilst writing, the priority should always be the reader. First and foremost, SE’s are looking for content that is going to be the most valuable to readers. They are extremely sophisticated and they are able to detect when someone is trying to ‘cheat the system’ and rank, without putting the hard work in.
The bottom line is you need to create original content that is of value to your intended audience.
Copy for articles is not like traditional website or social media copy, it doesn’t need to be condensed down and so closely focused on your messaging (although of course your messaging should guide it). Instead, you can expand upon subjects and go into more detail.
The tone and writing style in articles should be determined by who you’re writing for. For instance, if you’re writing an article aimed at engaging healthcare professionals, you should use more technical language which will not need so much explanation, but if you are trying to target patients, you may need to take on a more reassuring tone and explain more complex concepts.
Before you can even think about writing, you should make sure you’ve gathered all the research necessary and take note of the references you need.
Ensure that you have read up on relevant studies and clinical papers around your topic as these provide a reliable source that will add credibility to your article. You should link back to these sources where applicable as this not only demonstrates to SE’s that your article is well-researched, it also provides a level of evidence for your readers as well.
Working out the structure of your article before you start writing is a great place to start as it helps you to determine the overall takeaway of your article, which will provide clarity and conciseness to your writing.
In terms of technicalities, here are a few things to look out for:
You should vary sentence length, with some long and some short. Too many long sentences can become wordy and hard to read, but too many short sentences may end up seeming almost monosyllabic.
Where possible, you should use the simplest word choice.
Even if you’re writing for HCPs with a formal tone, SE’s reward articles that are not too convoluted, as not all readers possess the same depth of vocabulary as you. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use technical language when needed.
We all do it, but multiple proofs from multiple people can help you to avoid them being published online for all to see.
We use Grammarly to check through all of our documents as well. You can either have it as an extension on your computer, so that it checks everything as you’re writing it, or you can upload documents to the online version to check all at once.
Make sure you take your time to fully grasp difficult concepts as this will help you to explain them better. Einstein once said ‘If you can’t explain it to a 6-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself’. This is something we live by at Podymos, as it’s so true!
Try to avoid using unnecessary words. For instance, the word ‘very’ is often overused when it doesn’t really add anything to your writing. Other phrases like ‘in order to’ and ‘all of’ can often be left as ‘to’ and ‘all’ without changing the meaning.
Unfortunately, despite all your hard work, readers are unlikely to read every single word that you’ve painstakingly crafted. Internet users typically scan copy to save time and find exactly what they are looking for, which is why main page copy needs to be so concise.
Having descriptive headings throughout your article will help readers find what they need, making your content much more useful.
It will also give your article a better chance of appearing as a featured snippet, also known as position zero. This ends up being the first result you see on search engines and often shows a breakdown of the headings so that the user knows what is contained on that page. When a featured snippet appears on a results page, it will be clicked more than the other results.
Often when writing for Medical Device marketing, there are a lot of long words and phrases that can be abbreviated. It is okay to do this, but ensure that the word or phrase is written in full, with the abbreviation after in brackets the first time it appears. That way, readers know exactly what to expect.
To help with this, you should use references or external links to show that you have read around the subject. When writing about medical devices in particular, references must be included with every claim, see our guide to the EU MDR for further details.
References and links also signal to SE’s that your article will be of more value to readers as it indicates that it is well researched. So, whilst it is regulation to include references, it is also beneficial for SEO purposes.
You should also ensure that your content is not biased in any way and that your article is written to be genuinely helpful for them, rather than promoting your business. You must be transparent, otherwise, readers will see through you and the trust is gone. This means presenting both sides of the argument, even if it doesn’t reflect well on you.
Podymos is a healthcare marketing agency, specialising in downstream Medical Device marketing and training companies to deliver high-quality content.
We’re more expensive than non-specialised agencies and freelance teams because we only work in the Medical Device space so we have specialist knowledge and experience that other agencies may not be able to offer you.
If you want high-quality, compliant campaigns that help achieve your business goals, we’d love to hear from you. Simply leave us your contact details below and we’ll get back to you very soon for a no obligation chat.
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