Wanna follow along as a health and wellness copywriter creates an SEO-infused, click-worthy, top-of-the-search-results article? This is your chance. In this article, I’m walking you through the exact steps to take to get a blog post to rise to the top of search engine rankings.
Blogging is time-consuming, but when your efforts start compounding and traffic starts knocking on your door — it’s totally worth it!
Come behind the scenes and take a peek into how a health and wellness copywriter assembles the *perfect* health and wellness article.
How To Write A Blog Post About Health And Wellness
Do you have a content strategy that’s working? Social media is fun and, if you’re lucky enough to hit that viral jackpot, it can be rewarding. But, believe it or not, only maybe 5% of your audience actually sees that reel you spent 4 hours rehearsing. While social should definitely be a part of your content plan, there’s another, more efficient way to build your audience — no wiggling and pointing on camera required.
Yep, one of the simplest ways to start getting traction and build your audience is to begin writing weekly blogs.
So, if you’re tired of spinning your wheels, putting out social content that gets a few likes from your best friends…Or writing blogs without a solid strategy, you’re pretty much wasting time. You need to create your content intentionally to see the results you’re after.
You see, when you write a blog the “right way” it can serve as a traffic-driving, revenue-generating piece of content indefinitely.
And — constantly updating your website with blogs builds your site’s authority. Which helps it to rank higher in search results.
Plus, if you incorporate SEO best practices — like keyword research, formatting your URL properly, backlinking to sites with high authority, and nailing your meta description…a blog can drive a steady stream of traffic to your site.
Then, once visitors reach your site and read your article (assuming it’s engaging and builds that know/like/trust factor) — if you offer them solutions to what they’re inquiring about, you’ve suddenly got a customer.
Maybe you’ve heard of SEO and it sounded kinda intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be crazy difficult. I’m going to break it down for you so it’s easy to understand and execute.
Here’s how to write a blog that gets the results you’re looking for.
Research Health And Wellness Keywords Like A Copywriter
It’s all about the keywords. Allow what users are searching for to guide your content creation strategy. This helps ensure you don’t have to “think of things to write about.” And it’s a surefire way to get your article in front of the eyes that are actively searching for solutions.
#1. Open up a keyword research tool. I personally love and use Ubersuggest. But there are other options. Moz, Ahrefs, Wordtracker, etc. all work well and most have plans that allow you to use them for free to get to know which one you’re most comfortable with.
#2. Start typing in keyword ideas. The keyword researcher will show you how many people are searching for the term you’re hoping to target.
#3. Some tools will show you how “difficult” the term will be to capture. Ideally, you’re looking for high volume, low competition words, like this entry with 1600 search volume and a difficulty rating of 21.
#4. It may seem like the best idea to go for the keyword with the highest search volume, but that’s not always the case. Especially in health and wellness, there’s a lot of competition out there and some sites (like Healthline for example) have a lock on the top slots in the search results. Your goal is to find something that’s different, likely at a lower keyword volume. Capturing the top spot for a keyword that gets 1K searches or less may feel like you’re shooting too low, but it’s much more effective to convert a small percentage of 1K users than nothing because you’re buried too far down in the search results. Ultimately, if you keep playing the SEO long game, your site builds authority as more users choose your article in the search results.
How To Outline Your Health And Wellness Article
Once you’ve decided which keywords to go for, compile as many related keywords as you can to include in your article. This further boosts your attractiveness to search engines. Go ahead and put them all in your google doc. Here’s the list I made for the search term “low-carb diet.”
From here, create an outline. Choose the keywords with the largest search volume or the ones that seem to fit the best and format them as H2. To format as H2, highlight the text and select the dropdown that says “Normal text” — then choose Heading 2 from the menu. Capitalize every word in your H2s and H3s. Organize your other related keywords under the headings that make sense. Here’s how I organized the keywords above into an outline:
The Critical First Paragraph: How To Get It Right
Now that you have an outline, begin to craft your first paragraph carefully. This should go above the first H2 (Low Carb Diet: Healthy? above). If you can use your target keyword as the first word in the first paragraph, great. If not, just be sure it’s in there at least once. Try to make your first paragraph about 100 words or so.
Follow up your first paragraph with a short transition — two or three sentences is plenty here.
Next, craft your meta description. This part of the article should be between 120-156 characters long. A good meta description succinctly sums up the article and shows that it answers the question the searcher is looking to answer. For example, for the keyword “how to run a marathon” your meta could look like this:
Start training at least six months in advance. Begin with smaller distances three times per week to help build up your endurance.
To count the number of characters in your meta, highlight it and go to tools/word count/characters in Google docs.
When you’re done writing your article, be sure to pop this into the meta-description spot in the back end of your website.
Here’s an example of a good beginning article section to emulate:
Write Your Health And Wellness Article
From here, write each section of the article…the paragraphs under each section should be a maximum of 200-250 words. Be sure to incorporate as many keywords as you can. You don’t have to always use them *exactly* as they appear in the search tool. Google has gotten pretty good at matching related search terms. So for example, if your keyword is “food sensitivity test” you could use “test for food sensitivity” and likely capture the same search volume.
Keep your sentences short and punchy. Speak to “you” instead of “they.” Don’t be afraid to start sentences with “and.” Yes, you have to abandon the way you were taught to write in school. Ideally, run your writing through the Hemingway app (it’s free) and see if you can get your writing at a 6th-grade level or lower. Remember, you’re writing for the average population and search engines. Too complex and you’ll bore people, they won’t read your article, and you won’t make the sale. Too confusing, and search engines won’t be able to make sense of your content and recommend it.
Shoot for an article that’s at least 1200 words long. Search engines have a preference for long-form content. And if you’ve got a keyword that’s very near and dear to your business success — make that article as long as you can. 2K words and up are ideal for creating these pieces of pillar content.
Crafting Your Call To Action
Don’t forget to add a conclusion with your call to action (CTA). Your CTA is a crucial part of your strategy. Your whole article should be leading your reader to the conclusion that your CTA is directing them to. Some examples of CTA’s:
Book a call with you
Download a free guide that gets them onto your mailing list
Purchase your product
Follow you on a social platform
You can alternate which CTA you use in your articles, depending on what your sales goals are. You don’t have to stick with just one. Just make sure it’s really clear what you want the reader to do, and make it simple for them to do it.
How Do I Add References To A Blog?
Adding high-quality references to a health and wellness article is a must. And Google docs make it easy for you to cite pretty much any source. It’s as easy as opening up the explore bar, which I’ll show you how to do below.
References do help to boost your authority, build SEO, and are a requirement if you’re making statements of any sort of medical significance.
For example, if you say “low-carb diets have shown to be effective for blood sugar regulation” — you need to link that out to a credible study from PubMed or from the journal itself that supports that claim. Then, using your google doc explore bar, create a reference and put it at the bottom of your article.
To open the explore bar, go to tools/explore in Google docs and a sidebar will open. Copy and paste the address of the study you’re using into that bar.
Then, hover over the entry and a quotation mark will appear in the right corner. Click on it and it will insert a footnote in the document for you.
Cut and paste this footnote into your references section, and that’s it!
Don’t Forget Your Other Links
In addition to your references, each article you post should have a few links to your other content sprinkled throughout. It’s also a good idea to add a link or two to other reputable sites in the body of your article (if you’re not referencing medical journals).
Backlinks are also a great way to build up SEO love. If you have colleagues that are also trying to build up their SEO, try working together and link to each other's articles. You can also approach bigger websites with your blog content and try to get them to link to your valuable resource.
How To Choose A URL For Your Health And Wellness Article
It’s ideal to put your keywords right in the URL, too. Just add dashes in between each word. Here’s an example of a URL: how-to-write-blogs.
How To Write Claim Free Copy
Keep your copy regulatory-friendly. Be sure to check out this article for an in-depth guide to writing claim-free copy like a professional health and wellness copywriter.
Here are the highlights:
Don’t say anything without the scientific studies to back it up — insert a link and use high-quality source material and references to prove it (think PubMed or scientific journals)
Don’t imply that your product or ingredients in your product can diagnose, prevent, or treat a disease.
Don’t reference symptoms or conditions by name if you’re implying you can treat them.
Don’t call yourself a “specialist” unless you’re legally a specialist like a gynecologist or a dermatologist
Use the word “could” instead of “can” when talking about the ability of a non-FDA-approved substance to treat anything.
Don’t Forget Your Article Headline
Write your headline. Be sure to make it catchy and shareable. “How to XYZ” and “X ways to solve your problem” are easy formats that readers are drawn to. Format the title of the article as an “H1.”
Promoting Your Health And Wellness Article
Now that you’ve got a beautiful, SEO-rich article, it’s time to promote it.
This is another great thing about blogs. They serve as the foundation for your entire inbound marketing strategy. While they’re in the background, drawing people into your website like a supercharged magnet…they can also work other magic.
They give you a reason to email your list every week…and if you’re not doing that…then you need to start. Email marketing is still the most effective way to make money online (but that’s a discussion for another day).
You can also mine your blogs for endless social content. Even pass them off to a social media specialist who can create plenty of posts for you based on the content of the article.
If you’ve got a really great blog, you can also consider running paid traffic to it. Just make sure the CTA is clear and effective.
Launching a program? Blogs are a fantastic part of your pre-launch strategy to get your audience warmed up for a purchase. And...you can re-use them over and over again for future launches.
Basically - blogs are amazing, low-cost tools to grow your audience and maintain a relationship with them. And now, you're ready to start writing them!
Need Help Writing Your Health and Wellness Articles? Looking for An SEO Copywriter?
Griffin Copy is a team of blog writing pros that produce high-quality, SEO-infused health and wellness content every day. My team and I are here to help you get to the top of search engine rankings.