10 Tips for Nursing Blog Success

This post will outline tips and strategies to build a successful nursing blog.

Nursing blog success doesn’t have to be an elusive dream. You can make an impact on nursing and the world if you implement strategies to ensure that your message is clear and far-reaching. I’ve spent years building a personal and professional brand and want to share some key strategies that will bring your success with your nursing blog.

I received a very flattering email from an aspiring blogger who fancied me as “whimsical” a little while back. They wanted my advice about starting a blog as a healthcare professional. Of course, in my usual rambling style, they got a short novel for their answer. Since I had already written it out and everything, and I enjoy sharing things I have learned with others, I decided to write a post detailing some of the things I’ve learned after over a year of blogging as a nurse. Frankly, all nurses should blog.

The Book on Blogging for Nurses

There are hundreds (if not thousands) of books about blogging. However, to my knowledge, there is only one book about blogging specifically for nurses. There are several nuances and uniqueness to blogging as a nurse. From HIPAA to employment concerns, The Nurse’s Guide to Blogging is a step-by-step guide to feeling confident as a nurse blogger – whether you’re doing it for pleasure or for profit.

The Nurse's Guide to Blogging: Building a Brand and a Profitable Business as a Nurse InfluencerThe Nurse’s Guide to Blogging: Building a Brand and a Profitable Business as a Nurse Influencer10 Tips for Nursing Blog Success - AmazonBlack e1413517778206

A few things that I think has made my experience with blogging more fulfilling and have increased my reach, and consequently expanded the impact of my voice in the blogosphere:

Write Awesome Content

Lots of its, and good SEO optimization. Half my traffic is from google. Actually probably 1/4 of it comes from one topic “lateral violence” or “bullying in nursing” or some form of that phrase, and I have less than 10 post out of nearly 200 that deal with that subject…. it’s sad that people google that at all, but writing about topics that people face but don’t talk about, especially personal experiences, are what readers are looking for. They are looking to see they are not alone in what they face. They want a connection. Give yourself to your readers, be professional, but personal and treat your blog like your child and not like a job. You’ll enjoy it more and it will show in your writing.

There are so many types of nursing blogs that you can write, and the content varies between them. Whether it be a nursing lifestyle blog, a diversity nursing blog, a nursing education blog, or a nurse coaching blog, you have to produce quality content.

Be Present on Social Media

My favorite social platform is Twitter. It’s easy to hop on throughout the day and participate in engaging in conversation with tweeters, not just tweeting blog updates or personal musings. You don’t have to spend all your time on social, but you should at least have an account on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

When you share blogs links on Twitter, remember to include “via @theirtwittername” when you share, so they’ll see it, and they’ll likely come and read your blog and return the favor. IT’s like the unwritten blogger code… and now that I’ve written it down, well I may be forced to turn in my copy of WordPress and be banned from my WYSIWYG editor… gah. I hope you are worth it! 🙂

Comment on Other Nursing Blogs in Your Niche

Find other nurses, doctors, and healthcare bloggers, comment on their blog. Hopefully, they’ll return the favor, your content may even inspire them to post, and they will link back to you. This is GREAT for google search and sends others to your blog. -Other bloggers are going to be your biggest allies in spreading the word about your blog. Make yourself known, do a little ego stroking by commenting and spreading their content.

Guest Post on Other Blogs

At first, you’ll be doing this for free, but after a while, you may be approached to write for blogs on a paid basis. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when someone offered to pay me to write for them. If you don’t do this at least comment on other blogs a lot. (But only thoughtful, meaningful, and relevant comments!)

Be mindful that many may not be interested in a guest blog, especially from a stranger. Do your best to attempt to build a relationship with the blogger via social media or other means before making this request. Nobody likes a cold pitch email with a request for your time and access to your platform and audience.

Mention Your Blog on Social Groups

Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups are a great way to build a network. Once you’ve established yourself as valuable in the group, you may be able to reference your blog or specific posts. Do this only when relevant and be sure to abide by any rules that the group has. If you’re not sure, then ask the group admin.

Make Your Content Easy to Share

Make sure your sharing buttons are obvious but not intrusive. If your social buttons aren’t easy to find, people are going to be a lot less likely to share your content. I recommend that you use a social sharing plugin and include the big 5 (TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram) plus LinkedIn. You can find the social share tool I recommend on my blogging tools page.

Engage with Others

I can’t say that enough. Blogging is unique because it’s about personality and community. Your readers will come because they saw a random link, but they will come back because they enjoyed what you had to say or how uniquely you said it.

Make your Blog Beautiful

Invest in a good theme that’s built for SEO and allows you to easily customize it for the look you want. Genesis framework, by Studio Press, is one of the most popular, and I think can be had for between $60 and $300 depending on the options you want. It has tons of options for good customization and great SEO built right in. I should really just suck it up and spend the cash to get something good!

Don’t Be a Downer

Your content as a healthcare blogger will get you a good amount of search results. Write about what you know and love. Write about what you hate as well, but try not to be a downer. We all need to rant and enjoy reading a good rant every now and then, but the healthcare profession needs more uplifting individuals representing itself in the blogosphere. So do us all a favor, and make our professions look good!

Write with Passion

Share your passion with the world. If you do what you love and love what you do, it will shine in your writing. It is so uplifting to read the writings of inspiring nurses, doctors, and other healthcare providers who take the time to share what they do with the world. I have found that our stories can touch the lives of those who don white coats and those who don’t.

Bonus: Promote Yourself in Your Emails

And because I love all you folks in the blogosphere so very much, I’m gonna go ahead and throw in a bonus tip for you. Yep 11 tips for the price of none, cause you’re getting them all for free anyways. Make yourself a nice email signature with your social media links. This should include your blog address, email, and primary social media outlets.

Grow Your Tiktok and Promote Your Business

TikTok is THE place to be if you want to grow a following fast. Once you get to 1,000 followers, you can add a link to your bio. Once you get to 5,000 followers, you can promote TikTok shop items as an affiliate. Whether you plan to start a nursing blog or launch another nursing business online, you need to have a strong presence on Tiktok. I can teach you to both, fast!

Some More Great Nursing Blogs to Follow

Every year, I see nursing blogs fall on and off the top nursing blogs lists. Here are some of the best nurse blogs that have consistently been producing content and providing valuable resources to nurses and nursing students for years.

Frequently Asked Questions about Nurse Blogging

Do nurse bloggers make money?

Yes. Some nurse bloggers make money. It depends on why you start a nursing blog and your end as to whether or not you make money. Some nurses feel guilt about money and will never pursue blogging for financial gain. Others earn a healthy living by leveraging their nursing expertise into skillful content and information.

How do I write a nursing blog?

You write a nursing blog like you are educating a patient… expcet not a patient and tpyically not health information. Nursing blogs are about storytellinga nd informaiton sharing. You’ll also want to eventually learn digitla marketing skills llike search engagine optimizaiton (SEO), social media marketing, email marketing, and more. Some technical skills are also a nice touch.

What is a nursing blog?

A nursing blog is a continuously updated website, or portion of a website, that has new and revised articles on a regular basis. Topics and themes of a nursing blog vary, but many focus on nurse lifestyle, nursing education, or nurse advocacy.

How do I look after myself as a nurse?

This is such a difficult question to answer. But for me, blogging was one of the ways I started looking after myself as a nurse. It helped me focus my energy on learning and gaining skills that helped me grow in my procession and escape bullying and other difficulties I faced early in my nursing career.

18 thoughts on “10 Tips for Nursing Blog Success”

  1. Blogging and site-building is a means of expressing your emotions, inner thoughts, findings, concepts and knowledge for some individuals to share with you, though the approach we take to independently blog is different from each other based on feelings as well as creativity at that time in time you’ll take pride in depends on precisely what purpose we thought we would blog site. Some people obtain inspiration in order to blog through rage and when they are angry, several acquire ideas coming from depressive disorders and several don’t realize inspiration to publish coming from curiosity about composing, pastime and existence encounter.

  2. Thank you for the great tips on creating a successful blog. I agree that sharing a passion with the world makes it easier and more enjoyable to write. I have heard of StumbleUpon, but have never considered using it.

    1. I get boatloads of traffic from stumbleupon. The posts where I write about quirky gadgets or something funny usually do the best.
      Doesn’t seem like a ton of nurses are stumbling, but my nursing posts still get some action.

  3. Those are really great tips. My blog is simple as is more of a static informational type of blog. Definitely not as lively as yours.

    And as you say, if you’re passionate about something, then just get out there and do the blogging thing. I had no idea about the blogging world, and I started mine out of a whim one night because I was tired of other colleagues giving some bad advice about the job….and I don’t like writing much, but I was able to write 5 main pages in one day.

    I should definitely try the stumble thing, but I’m too lazy even to look that up. Great post!

    1. Your blog is a FANTASTIC resource for budding informatics nurses. There are many who don’t want to share their “secrets” in the field, and I found it very helpful.
      But you HAVE to go check out stumble upon! It is the BEST waste of time on the internet!

      And thank you very much!

      I see that you changed your layout around some 🙂
      I changed my layout 10 times yesterday. This one loads SO slow. Couldn’t find one I liked. I really need to break down and spend the money on genesis. Blah… I hate to spend money on software.

      1. Thanks. My main intent was to share the secrets as you call them, but I think I need to start charging for them. ahahah

        And stumble upon sounds addictive already. I’m already supposedly spending too much time surfing the web on news aggregators like reddit.

        Also, have you put your site through http://gtmetrix.com/ ?

        I spent two days making sense of their recommendations and after spending about 2 days messing with my htaccess file, I’m getting a 90% on my rating.

        Yslow which is on the same site, still is a C grade for me, but is b/c of adsense and won’t get rid of that. But i went from 12 seconds average loading time to 4 seconds.

        Before you change themes, run the site through them and see what you can fix. I had to add expiry headers on the htaccess file, moved from w3 cache to i think wp super cache, and also using wp minify. Anyway, got that from gtmetrix. Check it out.

        1. going to work on your suggestions.
          I spend more time tweaking my blog than I do writing!

          I have some database issues that are causing most of the cache plugins I try to break my entire blog.
          I’ve gotta figure out what is wrong, been dropping old tables, it seems to have helped, but I’m nervous to work with the database. Hate to accidently delete something needed or content!

  4. Thanks for this post, great tips! My biggest problem is being consistent with content. It’s not that I don’t know what to say I’m just finding it hard to find the time. But I like your suggestion of treating your blog like your child and not like a job, that tip alone has helped me to see things a little differently. Great writing, I love reading your blog.
    Tina

    1. I find myself filled with fantastic topics for blogging and very long-winded discussions I can have when I don’t have an opportunity to actually write. But I find that if you blog for joy rather than making it a commitment, it is far more rewarding.

      Thank you for reading! I love your comments!

  5. The tips are great for any blogger! Thanks for sharing. I also love that you are willing to admit to the areas in your blog you would like to change such as the design. I think the design is great but the fact that you take a critical look at your own blog makes us know that you are offering help, not saying you are God’s gift to blogging! =)) Have a good day!

      1. Errr…ummmm…welll…..what I meant was that YOU didn’t ACT like you were but most certainly, you ARE even though you don’t ACT like you are. Ahhh…yup.

    1. Oh, stumble upon is a thief I tell you! A thief of my internet time! I cannot tell you just how much time I have “wasted” finding the coolest stuff on the internet there! You will either love or hate me for that!

      Always love connecting with nurses and bloggers! And I’m totally checking out your blog!

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