How to Write an LNC Blog Post
Do you want to learn how to write an LNC blog post?
If so, you are in the right place!
There are no magic rules about how often you sit down to write. You might sit down once a month and write four blog posts for a weekly blog if that pattern works for you, or you could sit down once a week and write a blog post.
Keep the distractions away. Let people know that you are not answering emails. Silence email notifications.
If you don’t want someone to walk in, you need something on your room door that says, “I’m concentrating. Leave me alone.” (Of course, this works best with adults.)
When recording my podcasts or a webinar, I have a purple ribbon tied to my office door telling my family they are not to walk in and disturb me. A signal is critical so you can concentrate, gather your thoughts, and write something that is coherent and of which you are proud.
Types of People Who See Your Blog Post
Two distinct kinds of readers come to a website to read your blog. Some people want to skim, and some people want to read. The skimmers are the ones who want the bottom line. They want the main points and will read more deeply if you capture their interest.
Skimmers
Skimmers want short paragraphs and for you to break up your text with headers and subheaders. Structure your blog post with different size headers.
H1 is size you use for the title of your blog. That is the largest font that appears in your blog posts. H2 is the next level down. It goes down to H3, H4, and H5. I rarely go beyond H2. Sometimes I use H3. Think of those as different-size fonts that you use in your blog posts.
When you see a long page of text on a screen, you say, “Ugh.” But when reading on a screen, your viewer is much more likely to read all the way through the blog post if they see short paragraphs. The white space in your blog post makes it easier to read your post.
Use of bullets and numbered lists that skimmers love forces you to be organized when you write a blog post. They allow you to find things that you can group.
Be ruthless in editing. Take out extraneous words, and then reread your post before you schedule it for release.
Readers
You also must consider that readers, the other group, will go through your blog post and read everything. They will read the headers, the bullets, and all the content. They will spend more time on posts that capture their attention.
The Components to Write an LNC Blog Post
Keywords
Your knowledge of the attorneys you want to attract drives your selection of keywords. Make a list of phrases that your target audience or buyer persona might use to search for your subject.
Suppose you are a nursing home expert and plan to write a blog about new changes in federal regulations concerning reporting falls. You might select the keyword “nursing home fall” throughout your blog.
Your blog posts center around a keyword you want to use throughout your post. Include keywords in the title, the first paragraph, sprinkled throughout the post, and the last paragraph.
Keywords are those words the search engines find memorable and exciting for your target market. Your keywords need to relate to the topic. You can no longer put in an irrelevant keyword. People used to game the system before Google caught on, and it continues to catch people who try to trick the search engine system.
Headline
Your headline should be rich in keywords, the terms you know your audience uses to search for information about your topic.
Use a descriptive headline, not one that is vague or cute. Put those keywords at the beginning of the headline or title of your blog post. For example, “Medical Malpractice Explained” is better than “How to Understand Medical Malpractice.” (I use headlines and blog post titles interchangeably.)
One of the catchy headline formulas is to have a list. In the Internet world, people respond better to odd numbers of items rather than even ones. “3 Tips,” “5 Hot Tips,” or “7 Reasons Why” are much better titles than ones incorporating 2, 4, 6, or 8. If you’re writing a list, look for that additional element that you can insert into that blog post that will make it an odd number, and use the number rather than the word.
Keyword phrases, or what some call “Long Tail Keywords,” perform even better than regular keywords.
Suppose your keyword is “pre-existing condition”. Your first sentence says, “Truckers may have three or more medical conditions that may increase their risk of being in a crash.”
Rephrase that: “Truckers may have three or more pre-existing conditions that may increase their risk of being in a crash.”
In the body of the blog post, use the phrase at least a couple more times but naturally, not “Truckers have pre-existing conditions. Legal nurse consultants help attorneys with pre-existing conditions and how they influence the case. Does your case have pre-existing conditions?” This repetitive use of a keyword is an example of keyword stuffing.
Images
Be incredibly careful about the images you use in your blog. Avoid downloading images you see on the Internet because they may be protected by copyright. Many companies very carefully police the use of their photos on the Internet, writing letters and asking for copious amounts of money for people who used their images without permission. Some vigorously pursue people for using their images.
Using an image from Google is dangerous. Just because it is on the Internet in somebody’s blog post or website does not mean you have permission to use it. It would be best if you were sure that you are using photos from royalty-free sites and that you have permission to use them.
Tips About Using Images
You can use several plugins and tools to compress files automatically as you upload them to your WordPress media library.
When you upload an image, WordPress automatically creates additional file sizes to accommodate the many sizes required by your theme for featured images or thumbnails. For every picture you upload, you will find two or three files in WordPress in your media library.
It is easiest when you are starting to work with square images.
No matter what shape you choose, it is best to resize or create your images relatively close to the size you want. Using a square image at 300 pixels in your post works well with most themes. Because most themes will have a sidebar on the right, you have to allow space for that.
Large images slow page load speed. Page load speed is essential not only to bods (as in humans) but also to bots (as in search engines.)
As important as images are to grab a reader’s attention and give your posts some life and interest, you need to use them wisely. It is worth investing a little time to resize and compress those images to ensure your user’s experience is good. You are only ever one click away from goodbye.
Call to Action
Avoid writing in a monotonous and robotic way. Strive for a natural flow, and then at the end, add a sentence: “Do you have a case in which pre-existing conditions influenced the crash? Call us. We can analyze those records and summarize them for you.”
A call to action is typically at the end of the blog post. These are invitations like,
“For more information, click here to contact me.”
“For assistance with your next case, give me a call.”
“Do you have a similar case to the one I just described? Call me. I will be happy to assist.”
You can put a call to action into the blog, which will work for people who read your posts.
Consider this approach. Suppose your call to action is “Contact us if you’re an attorney who needs help summarizing medical records.” Rephrase it as a question. “Are you an attorney who needs help summarizing medical records? Contact us.”
Insert a click-to-call button or a click-to-contact us where they can fill in a form. Always ensure on your contact page that you say, “You can use the form below if you’d like us to call. You tell us the best day and time.” Provide a timeframe, morning or afternoon. Put that into the message: “One of our team will call you.” Make sure your contact page says, “We promise we will respond to you. This request is not going to go into an email void.”
The Purpose for Your Call to Action
People respond well to those calls to action when you make it plain. “Click here and call me,” or “Click here and contact me.”
Confine your call to action at the end of the blog. Yes, you want people to hire you, but people will not read a blog saying, “Hire me! Therefore you should hire me. Did I tell you to hire me? Hire me.” They want to get content, tips, and valuable information.
By sharing your expertise, you will attract people to you. Using language that they understand will help them figure out what it is that you have to offer. Be pertinent in what you are sharing. Focus on the needs of your target market.
Guest Bloggers
Once you become comfortable with blogging, consider how you could involve others. Do you know who could do a guest post for you? In my legal nurse consulting business, because I supplied expert witnesses, I contacted ones were under contract with me. I asked them if they would like to do a guest blog. And then, in the end, the call to action was, “Do you have a case involving this expert’s area of expertise? Contact Med League (the name of my company), and we will connect you.”
I did not give the contact information for the expert. I wanted that contact to come through my company. Some of my experts took me up on writing blog posts, and we put them on the website. Some people didn’t see that as something they wanted to do or ignored the opportunity, so they did not benefit from our website’s exposure.
My in-house LNC employee wrote excellent blogs also.
Writing a blog post about your target market and subject matters requires knowledge. This approach is where we shine as legal nurse consultants because we have the medical expertise attorneys seek.
Conclusion
It takes time and commitment to be a successful in LNC blogging. It takes time to write thoughtful content. I would never want to pretend to you that this is something that you can sit down and do for a few minutes and you will have a blog post. Typically, you must invest, at least in the beginning, about an hour to prepare a blog post. It could be less or more, depending on your topic.
Readers are now looking for more depth and detail in blog posts. They expect that if they give you their valuable time, you will give them something valuable in return. Most importantly, they do not want fluff. They want content. Particularly for the attorney audience, that is what they seek. They are coming to you because they want your expertise.
Learn how to create your LNC Blog with my book, “Blogging for Legal Nurse Consultants”. Get it here.
Pat Iyer is president of The Pat Iyer Group, which develops resources to assist LNCs in obtaining more clients, making more money, and achieving their business goals and dreams.
Pat’s related websites include the continuing education provided on LNCEU.com, the podcasts broadcast at podcast.legalnursebusiness.com, and writing tips supplied at patiyer.com.
Get all of Pat’s content in one place by downloading the mobile app, Expert Edu at www.legalnursebusiness.com/expertedu. Watch videos, listen to podcasts, read blogs, watch online courses and training, and more.