Finding, vetting, and hiring expert technical writers is already difficult in many industry verticals. And creating high-quality content focused around healthcare and medical topics introduces many additional technical hurdles and quality challenges, including:
- Getting buy-in from clients in slow-moving, bureaucratic industries like hospitals and medical equipment manufacturers
- Meeting regulatory issues set by state and federal governing bodies
- Ensuring high-quality healthcare content that’s accurate and feels authoritative to the doctors, scientists, researchers, hospitals, experts, or equipment buyers who will be reading the content
If you manage medical and healthcare content marketing and are struggling to find the best medical writers, you aren’t alone. We chatted with some of the top marketers, SEO experts, and content experts who work in the medical space or healthcare field, and they all shared six very common challenges.
However, buying and publishing quality medical content continues to be one of the best ways to increase traffic or conversions on your landing pages or website. Don’t let these challenges stop you. We’ll show you how.
Top 6 Challenges For Hiring Medical Content Writers and Creating High-Quality Medical Content
1. How Do You Find High-Quality Medical Content or Healthcare Content Marketing?
Quality remains one of the top-cited problems for healthcare content marketers, and several medical field professionals suggested a few reasons why they struggle with creating expert medical content that engages readers and boosts traffic:
- Many hospitals, medical equipment manufacturers, and healthcare organizations don’t have a robust SEO plan for their content, in part due to regulatory challenges or client buy-in
- Many doctors, researchers, scientists, and in-house experts are too busy to create the content themselves
“The first challenge is getting healthcare organizations to buy into producing keyword-rich content that provides basic healthcare tips,” says Chris Craft, the founding editor at Inspire First. “This is understandable from their end because of compliance concerns and the challenge of producing one-size-fits-all content related to medical conditions.”
“Also, it’s a challenge getting the doctors to contribute to these types of articles because of their very busy schedules,” adds Craft. “The unfortunate result is typically a blog feed that’s filled with news items and company announcements that have a very short shelf-life.”
“The second challenge is creating helpful medical content that’s both easy to understand and authoritative,” warns Craft. “The reality is that most medical content for healthcare organizations is produced by marketing people and not medical professionals. And this poses a significant challenge in terms of content authority.”
That last point is critical for bother the readers’ trust, as well as the way that search engine algorithms now prioritize authoritative content written by true experts.
“With more scrutiny placed on the accuracy of online medical content as well as the reputation of its author/source,” points out Greg Bullock, marketing manager at TheraSpecs, “greater attention is having to be paid to the quality of the final output—especially for smaller businesses that are trying to compete with well-established authorities like WebMD or Mayo Clinic. This has translated to challenges for TheraSpecs in finding the right resources (both internally and externally) to create our content.”
For Bullock, his medical content quality problems typically arise because he wants to recruit and hire medical content writers who are able to:
- Identify and gather the appropriate research references with minimal guidance;
- Holistically understand the topic and explain it in a user-friendly way; and
- Carry the brand voice in a way that is consistent with other articles on the brand’s site
“We’ve definitely closed this gap over time through continued experimentation with different vendors and communication approaches, but there is still a good distance to go,” says Bullock.
Unlike other content marketing platforms, Verblio’s A-to-Z solution ensures your healthcare or wellness content is written exactly to your specifications by the world’s best medical content experts. With options like a dedicated account manager and built-in editing and SEO, we can help you to find and product the best medical marketing content that meets your high quality standards – hire our medical content writers today!
2. How Do You Find Healthcare Content Writers With Specific Expertise or Niche Medical Training/Certifications?
Some content verticals and industry niches can get by by hiring content generalists. But if you’re managing content marketing in the medical or healthcare fields, you need to find and hire medical content writers who truly understand the science, research, and terminology.
“Creating medical content has a few fundamental challenges,” says Chris Allen, head of marketing for Firm Tree. “It’s tough to corral the expertise required to get meaningful expert input; plus, it’s a high stakes game. What if you do all the research and still get it wrong? What if your expert got it wrong? This isn’t high-fashion or fitness information, this is a regulated industry.”
Allen says many agencies who work with medical or healthcare clients also struggle with scale.
“The more challenging the subject matter and scarcity of expertise, the more scale can be limited,” adds Allen. “This is why conducting expert interviews to create and validate concepts and the all-important substance review of the work product are essential. Finding a way to do this at scale is where the real treasure exists.”
SEO analyst Andrew King at Klood Digital agrees.
“The main challenge we have faced in getting content written for clients in the medical sector is finding someone qualified and knowledgeable enough to outsource to,” explains King. “While our in-house team can write more simple and generic pieces, the articles that were more technical needed to be outsourced to ensure they met our client’s standards. We had to look outside of the existing freelancers we used to find a content writer with the medical knowledge to satisfy our client for more in-depth pieces.”
At the same time, the expert writer needs to also maintain accuracy while making the content accessible to both readers and the search engines’ various algorithms. “I work as the primary content creator for a mid-sized HR tech company,” says Meisha Bochicchio, content marketing manager for PlanSource. “Our main pain point for creating great content is […] demystifying and simplifying the complexities of modern healthcare and technology.”
Bochicchio’s firm, like many other companies in such a technical field, is twofold: HR managers and benefits brokers. Thus, the medical content writers she needs to find, vett, and recruit have to speak to readers of varying backgrounds, motivations, and expertise levels.
“We have to do a great deal of research and then have to convey these complex ideas and concepts in a way that is easy to understand,” adds Bochicchio. “Healthcare and employee benefits aren’t getting any easier, so this is a challenge we anticipate to increase over time. We’re tackling this issue by tapping more internal subject matter experts as well as the sales team to ensure our messages are clear, concise, and, most importantly, correct.”
Verblio can help you find fully-vetted healthcare content writers who are true experts in your specific niche or industry. And yes, we’re scalable and flexible: both our technology and team are designed to flex based on need, and to accommodate special projects and other spikes in demand. See the Verblio difference and hire a healthcare content writer today!
3. How Do You Write SEO-Optimized Medical Content That Performs Well in Search Results?
Every year, Google releases a few core updates. These tend to have profound implications on SEO and content marketing, and the Medic update released a couple of years ago was no different. Many healthcare and medical websites saw themselves falling rapidly in the SERP for their targeted keywords, with many brands saying they lost most if not all of their traffic.
This has made it that much more important to find medical content writers who can write SEO-optimized content that addresses Google’s major changes.
“Creating content for medical organizations has become more challenging since Google’s Medic Update went into effect,” says Clair Belmonte, the founder and CMO of Belmonte Marketing. “Before, a talented writer with research chops could create meaningful medical content, but that led to health and wellness websites creating optimized content with unsubstantiated medical claims. This content could surpass less detailed but more accurate medical content from credible medical websites.”
“With this update, it became more important that content be authored by medical professionals with on-site bios detailing their experience,” says Belmonte. “Those expectations make finding writers willing to write affordable content challenging, as those writers are sacrificing a byline and frequently charge more for ghostwriting.”
Belmonte adds that to maintain high search rankings, medical content should be:
- Detailed
- Heavily researched
- Include multiple internal and credible external links, to increase the likelihood of ranking
“Finding writers with the experience to write this content and taking the time to have each content piece reviewed for accuracy by a doctor or medical professional can be time-consuming, so content strategy must account for lengthier lead times than previously necessary,” concludes Belmonte.
Sadi Khan, content marketing manager at RunRepeat, has similar warnings to anyone who wants to recruit healthcare writers and create medical content that ranks highly. “Medical and healthcare sites fall into the category of YMYL sites [and] these sites need to have a high E-A-T rating, which stands for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness,” says Khan.
“So, the content needs to be factually correct and backed with proper scientific evidence,” he says. “At the same time, you cannot create something dull and bland like medical journals because you want your content to get social shares, mentions, and backlinks. The biggest challenge is to find people who are qualified enough to write on these topics and they can also create interesting and engaging content that will do the job.”
When you partner with other content platforms, you may find that a lot of your medical content is plagiarized or too similar to other pre-existing medical content. This further sabotages your SEO and can cause Google to penalize your entire website.
“A lot of my clients are in the health industry,” says Jessica Mehta, owner of the content marketing agency Mehtafor. “ The biggest challenge for me is getting content to pass Copyscape (and not because of actual plagiarism). Medical language is often unique and quite long-winded. Plus, when you’re being asked to write on subjects like the opioid epidemic, it’s really tough to create genuinely unique content because most things have been said in every possible way. It’s a lot of tweaking to both get in the long-tail phrases while also pleasing Copyscape.“
All of Verblio’s medical content writers are well-versed in SEO and the implications of Google’s ever-evolving algorithm. Simply provide your full SEO requirements, including target keywords, and they’ll weave your SEO strategy into your 100% original content. Get started with Verblio’s healthcare content experts today – you can even add an optional SEO package for further optimization.
4. How Do You Buy Medical Content That Reaches Your Target Audience and Grows Traffic?
“The biggest challenge for healthcare content marketing is creating enough content tailored to the needs of the consumers,” shares Illia Termeno, director at Extrabrains Marketing Agency. “Our clients from healthcare organizations often provide extremely complex technical requirements to the content, and there are a lot of limitations as well due to the high levels of regulation in the industry.”
The medical content writers you hire must be able to straddle this scenario carefully. They need to ensure the right terms are used while also writing your healthcare content in a way that uses everyday language that ensures your content shows up in front of your core audience.
“It’s not easy to find a copywriter with medical background and experience to ensure that content is written professionally in a language that ordinary people can understand,” warns Termeno.
Verblio can help you find fully-vetted healthcare content writers who are true experts in your specific niche or industry, while also knowing how to write in a professional and approachable way so your target audience sees your content. See the Verblio difference and hire a healthcare content writer today!
5. Prices: How Much Does a Freelance Medical Writer Charge?
When you’re trying to hire a healthcare medical writer or content expert, some of the first questions that may come to mind include:
- Can I afford it?
- How much does a medical writer get paid?
- How much should my medical content writing budget be?
- Is it expensive to buy medical content for my website?
“One of my frustrations with getting medical content written is the price,” agrees Stacy Caprio, founder of Growth Marketing. “To find someone who knows what they are talking about and can write an engaging, accurate article, the cost is much higher than normal content.“
Get started with Verblio, where our scale and large pool of vetted, trustworthy medical content experts means you get access to quality content without breaking your budget. Prices are based on your requested word count requirements, and are fully backed by our 30-day money-back guarantee.
6. How Do I Get Stakeholder Sign-Off and Ensure the Right Medical Edits Are Made?
Once you have your expertly written medical content, you typically need to review it for quality, brand voice, SEO, and other key criteria. And that editing process can be tedious if you aren’t using a platform specifically designed to optimize and streamline the content editing and approval process.
“Health-related content can be extremely difficult to create for customers because…it usually has to go through a number of revisions with the customer to make them happy,” warns Ryan Bednar at RankScience SEO.
Stakeholder buy-in is also tricky. “Some healthcare professionals are highly skeptical about the whole concept of digital and content marketing,” says Jamie Cheng, co-founder of Digital Alpha Agency.
Receive, review, and edit content seamlessly with Verblio and our robust tech platform. You will only ever buy the content you like. Most clients get their first piece of content to review within 48-72 hours. Review your drafts and accept, decline, or request edits as needed. Publish fast with simple WordPress & Hubspot integrations.
…But It’s Not All Bad: The Biggest Opportunities in Medical Content Marketing
Despite all the above, recruiting and hiring expert medical content writers is key to your success.
“When it comes to working with medical and healthcare organizations, one of the biggest challenges SEOs and content marketers face is ensuring that the content that’s written is accurate, unique, and informative,” explains Audrey Strasenburgh, an SEO strategist at LogoMix.
“These days anyone can go online, start a blog, and spew out ‘medical information’ to the public—but the danger of doing this is that it leads to users being misinformed,” she warns. “When optimizing a website for medical and healthcare organizations, you want to make sure that your client comes across as the expert in their field.”
Verblio’s proven track record in helping you to find and build a team of expert medical content writers ensures your success, especially when it comes to research and quality assurance.
And while you might be focused on SEO and other technical factors, never forget the human side of things. That is key for connecting with your audience, and that connection is what drives engagement and conversion.
“The greatest challenge for content marketing agencies working with healthcare organizations, in my experience, is storytelling,” explains Autumn Sullivan, a content strategist at Big Sea Design. “I can do the keyword strategy and hire a freelancer to write another high-funnel blog based on that keyword, but how do you make it stand out from the crowd? The answer is storytelling, and that requires working with the client and their patients. To capture attention and keep it, you need exceptional, professional-journalism-level stories that contain organic keyword AND resonate with the reader.“
Any of this sound familiar? If you’re fighting an uphill battle in a quest to get high-quality, medical focused content created for your practice or client, give Verblio’s medical writing services a look.
While we can’t always recite negative drug interaction pairings by heart, or perform open-heart surgery, for that matter, we do have 120 writers with 5+ years of expertise in healthcare in our knowledgable community. Their expertise ranges from dozens of registered nurses to a director at an Alzheimers’ unit, physician assistants, professional counselors, and EMTs.
Ditch the headache, cut the cost, and get started with experienced expert writers from Verblio. Contact us today to see what solutions we can offer for your agency and your medical content creation challenges.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2019 but has been updated in Spring 2022 to reflect and include current healthcare content marketing trends and the modern needs of medical and wellness content writing.
