Your 3-Step Framework for Launching a Life Science Blog
- Identify and create foundational content readers will want to know first
- Connect and engage with your peers, other blogs, and social media
- Attract readers by offering a useful resource upon launch
- Create a go-to knowledge base for your research field, products or unique offering
- Content that helps customers understand why they need your life science innovation
- A resource to answer those frequently asked questions
A Life Science blog can help build trust and your brand
A life science website blog is an investment in educating your audiences and prospects. Your blog content helps in building trust with customers or patients and positioning yourself as a thought leader in your field. Failing to create new website content and a blog at all puts you at a disadvantage with competitors, who potentially, are already maintaining an active and engaging life science blog.
However, posting irregular or unoptimised content may have the opposite effect, hurting your brand and reputation. Overall a blog is an essential tool for communicating complex life science or healthcare ideas to relevant stakeholders.
Contrary to what you might think, launching a blog does not start with making your first post.
You must lay the groundwork with useful, foundation-level content that speaks to what your audience is looking for.
While you are planning and drafting these posts, network and engage with other stakeholders communicating in your field. Get to know their communities, stories, and what content they find useful. Finally, once you have a content plan ready, you have the first few articles created, then you are ready to publish and launch.
With strategic planning, a little life science SEO know-how and some leg work in connecting with others in your field, your life science blog can be a fast-growing source of useful information. In previous posts, we have covered what makes a good blog and how to tell an engaging story. These tips will be useful in planning and creating your posts. By the end of this blog, you should know what you need to launch your own.
Why some blogs fall flat
Blogs fail for many reasons and often a combination of several things. Creating more engaging content is the top priority for website marketers. This also means knowing what effective content is, knowing the audience, and knowing how to repurpose content. Marketing guru Neil Patel compiled a list of why blogs fail, citing these reasons:
- Not creating more engaging content
- Not promoting yourself
- Being just like everyone else
Taking the time to think through and research your topics, what your audience wants to know, and turning that into an effective blog that sets you apart requires utilising SEO tools and dedicated time to being creative in building your blog. So, with these factors in mind, how can you launch a successful blog?
Step #1: Write what you know, and what the audience wants to know
Blogs do not have to be walls of text. Feature-length articles, webinars, posters, publications, podcasts, videos, and photographs can make up a blog post and tell an engaging story. To get started, focus on producing foundational content that will help any visitor to your blog. This can be a series of posts on the main things you want to rank for in a search engine.
Search Engine Optimisation of your content lets you deliver what your audience is looking for precisely. People frequently type (and speak) full questions into search engines, with the algorithm able to produce exact responses based on who has optimised their content best to answer it. You do not need to be an SEO expert to learn what questions people are asking around your keywords. A free handy tool like Answer the Public is useful for this, just be sure to tailor your content to answer their questions.
New and regular content, optimised for search engines, will help grow your audience naturally as they return for more. Search engines also favour frequently updating websites. While building these foundational blog posts, share them on social media and find out who else is using similar tags and posting in your field.
Step #2: Connect and engage with others in your space
Engaging with others communicating in your field is a great way to build an early readership when launching your life science blog. Read their blogs or newsletters, leave comments, and engage with them. If any feel approachable, reach out to introduce yourself by email. For a life science blog or healthcare blog, these communicators may be patient advocacy groups, charities, special interest groups, and other companies.
Building a relationship with others has its advantages - you can discuss audience trends and pressing issues in the field, share contacts and, if you are ever stuck for a blog topic, exchange guest blogs! Allowing others to share their story on your platform adds value for both you and your audience by sharing a new perspective.
As the old saying goes, a rising tide lifts all boats. Building a network can help promote your life science blog as well as the field itself, and may fuel ideas for future blog posts that set you apart.
Step #3: Launch officially by providing a useful resource
The official “launch” is whenever you want it to be. By starting the blog without an announcement, you can build up your foundational content and encourage early engagement through your networking and social media presence.
Once you have built up a few useful, foundational posts and connected with others in the space, you can officially launch with a big, useful resource that will get people linking and sharing your post. Some ideas can be:
- A How-To guide for a technique in which you specialise
- An eBook answering some commonly asked questions in your field
- A guide to helpful resources in your field
- A review of the latest research and what it means
The benefit of having foundational content online ahead of the official launch is so new readers enticed by this resource can see what else you offer, encouraging them to stick around. Ultimately, you want to encourage readers to share your content with others.
Do not simply post it and leave it
Blogs fail because they get neglected - either by lack of posts or not engaging the audience. A good blog needs to be posted regularly, with care and attention given to audience trends and reflect their needs. These become apparent through SEO searches and interacting directly. To maintain engagement:
- Post useful, downloadable content and encourage people to share it
- Repurpose older content to be more engaging and useful for the reader
- Answer comments, leave comments, and like posts - people like to be recognised
- Network with others in your field, maybe they (or you) can do a guest post
The Takeaway.
Building a blog following takes active investment but the benefits of blogging are obvious: you demonstrate your value, expertise, and trustworthiness to your audience be they patients, customers, or other stakeholders. Thinking about launching a blog? Here are several things to consider:
- Can you keep a schedule of regular content? (Do you have a content calendar?)
- Do you have time to engage regularly with peers or stakeholders?
- How do you keep up to date with the latest SEO trends on your topics?
- Do you have content resources that will attract larger audiences?
Arttia Creative an unrivalled, specialist company in life science communication, brand creation and web design. We can help you create all your content resources, tying together your blogs and web content with your online resources.
We can create a publishing plan and optimise your content for maximum visibility online. Whether you need to bring in partners, investment, talent or launch new products, we can tailor your content and website for all audiences in Biotech, Biopharma, Healthcare and MedTech.
Belinda White | Creative Director