5 Addiction Rehab Blog Topic Ideas to Inform Patients

Addiction rehab marketing requires tact.

The choice to seek treatment is a personal and difficult matter for so many.

At the same time, the competition is stiff. Recent data indicates that there are over 14,000 addiction treatment centers in the US. Your center needs to stand out online while remaining professional and building authority.

Fortunately, blogging allows you to do just that. The path to higher rankings in the search results and increased visibility starts with a well-crafted blog.

Incorporate the addiction recovery blog topics below to create posts that engage readers and build up your center’s authority.

Why is blogging important for addiction treatment centers?

The choice to seek help for addiction is a private and often emotional journey. Many prefer to retain anonymity as they search for resources and information. Naturally, they turn to search engines for answers. For instance, someone might search “what are the signs of drug addiction” and get a page with results like this.

As you can see, this portion of first page results comes from the websites of addiction treatment centers. Since Cirque Lodge produced a blog post on this common topic, the center was able to rank for this keyword, allowing more people to find it. This benefit of increased visibility comes from search engine optimization or SEO.

In short, quality blogging brings about SEO benefits like higher rankings on the results page. Higher rankings lead to more people visiting your center’s website, learning about your offerings, and eventually choosing your center over others that never appeared in their searches.

In addition to increasing brand awareness, a blog builds trust with readers. In fact, 68.5% of consumers agree that a blog adds credibility to a website. Positioning your treatment facility as an authoritative and credible source is crucial to instill confidence in potential patients. A blog is a great way to display the expertise and knowledge that your facility brings to the table.

5 blog topics for addiction treatment centers

Quality content doesn’t just happen out of the blue. It’s important to select the keywords carefully you’ll target and topics your blog will cover. Peruse this list of five addiction rehab blog topics to set your site on the right track.

1. Posts that feature a guest

You’re not the only addiction rehab blogger on the block. Consider partnering with an addiction blogger to increase your reader base. Many individuals blog about addiction and how it has affected them or a loved one. Each blogger has a specific niche audience that he or she appeals to.

Take Cathy Taughinbaugh, for example. Her blog focuses on helping parents who have children struggling with addiction. Some of her posts receive hundreds or even thousands of shares on social media.

If a blogger like Cathy made a guest post on your blog, she would promote her content to her existing audience leading to increased exposure for your center. Likewise, readers of your blog would learn about Cathy and may decide to check out her work. This mutually beneficial relationship works best with blogs that have similar audience sizes.

2. Expert opinion posts

As mentioned previously, credibility is vital for a successful addiction rehab blog. Put the experienced medical professionals working at your clinic front and center on your facility’s blog with a few “Ask the doctor” style posts.

If your center employs certified counselors or therapists, enlist the help of these individuals to write articles focusing on the behavioral therapy aspect of treatment.

You can also source topic ideas from doctors to find out what common questions patients often ask or questions they notice that patients are shy about asking. Then, provide detailed answers to these inquiries in the doctor-led blog posts.

3. Treatment process posts

Fear of the unknown and misinformation about the rehab process can hold people back from stepping into a recovery program. That’s why this addiction rehab blog topic is so important. Demystify the process with blog posts surrounding different steps and what patients can expect at each point.

As your center expands treatment offerings, be sure to write blog posts to explain the process in detail. Maryland based treatment center MATClinics did this after it began offering virtual treatment options.

4. Resource directory posts

Another addiction recovery blog idea is to compile a list of helpful online and in-person resources so searchers can access the many sources from one place. These can range from local AA groups to online support groups, for example.

Consider tailoring these types of posts to a specific audience. For instance, create one resource directory for those struggling with opioid addiction, another for family members of people with addiction, and another for people who have recovered from addiction and are seeking support.

The list of potential categories goes on. Be sure to include resources that your center offers in these types of posts. That way, you can display the value your center offers without coming across in a promotional way.

5. List posts

Your center has a lot of useful information to share. List posts organize this knowledge into easily digestible posts. Plus, they offer a unique advantage. An analysis of 912 million blog posts across the internet revealed that list-style blog posts get the highest amount of shares on social media.

There are countless options of list posts that your center can create to add value to readers. The Raleigh house addressed addiction recovery with a list post showcasing immune-boosting foods to eat.

Other examples include “5 benefits of recovery support groups” and “7 signs of opioid addiction”. You can also create lists posts that place a specific treatment style in a positive light. For instance, a clinic that uses Suboxone to treat addiction may write a post entitled “4 ways Suboxone can bring lasting recovery”. The options abound, so get writing!

Finding addiction recovery blog topics using Google Trends

To ensure consistent posting, it’s great to have blog topics stored away for future use. Fortunately, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time your center needs a new blog post.

Google Trends offers a free method of uncovering popular search terms. This way, you’ll only be a few clicks away from some new addiction rehab blog topics. Let’s walk through the process together.

1. Type in a broad term relating to your industry

We type in the broad term “substance abuse”. The display produces a graph of search popularity from the past 12 months. You can change the duration of time to a shorter period, but viewing trends over a year paints a clear picture of interest in the topic over a longer period.

This term has a consistently high popularity. The end of the graph seems to indicate a slight uptick in interest. So this term has enough interest that it’s likely worth addressing. But it is broad. Let’s get more specific.

2. Scroll to the ‘Related Queries’ box for specific keywords

Under the main graph on Google Trends, there are more sources of data on the keyword at hand. One is a section called ‘Related Queries.’ This is a source of long-tail keywords that relate to the shorter, broader topic at hand.

The percentages on the right hand side reveal how much popularity is rising for each specific query. You’ll likely have to sort out trending topics like the first one here from viable blog topic ideas. But with five pages of results, it’s not difficult to find some related topics with high levels of interest.

Finding addiction recovery blog topics using Google Suggest and People Also Ask

If you want to find multiple ideas at once, we’d like to introduce you to a couple of free tools that are built into Google. Read on to see just how simple it is to use Google Suggest, and People Also Ask.

1. Let Google Suggest be your guide

Type the start of a question or topic in the search bar. We’ll type “what does drug rehab” and then refrain from pressing enter. Instead, we examine the potential searches that populate below. It is Google Suggest at work. As you can see, a myriad of potential blog topics appear, giving you plenty of material to work with.

2. Find related ideas using ‘People Also Ask’

Another repository of addiction recovery blog topics is also found on the search engine result page (SERP). To access it, simply type a query into the search bar. Let’s go with the second result from our example above. So we’ll type “what does drug rehab do” and hit enter. Near the top of the page, a box with the heading ‘People also ask’ appears.

This is a great place to find specific questions relating to your topic. You can use these ideas to form sections for a blog post addressing the search question or as the main question you’ll answer in a post.

Best practices for using addiction rehab blogs as a marketing tool

No matter how you find new addiction rehab blog topics, crafting quality content takes time and resources. Make sure your efforts are not in vain by incorporating best blogging practices from the start.

Follow these tips to maximize the reach and effectiveness of your blog.

1. Set measurable goals for your blog

Deciding what topics to write about, planning a content strategy, and gathering a team are all easier done with a guiding goal in place—craft blog goals to support the broader goals of your treatment center. For instance, if your center plans to expand to locations in new cities, blog goals can be centered around targeting users in that area.

2. Improve technical SEO

Don’t let your content be digitally invisible. Improving the technical aspects of your website leads to higher rankings in search results. Technical SEO improvement includes things like the mobile usability of your website (can people access it easily on their phones?) and loading speed (people will leave a site that takes too long to load).

You can address multiple technical issues and find areas for improvement using a tool like Google Search Console.

3. Write enticing titles for each post

A good title attracts more searchers to click through to your article. Remember, the search engine results page is filled with options of other articles that people can click on. So take some time to write a title that is interesting in some way. It should have a hook to draw readers in and make a person feel as if the article will add value to their day. You can browse popular content websites like Buzzfeed to gain inspiration for truly click-worthy titles. Then, tailor this style to meet your brand.

4. Post content regularly

Trust stems not only from what you post but how often you post as well. To reap the SEO and trust-building benefits of blogging, a consistent posting schedule is key. This is because it lets readers know that the website is providing new and updated information. And search engines favor fresh and relevant content, so this increases ranking opportunities.

Don’t take the blogging journey alone

The consistent posting and attention to detail required for blogging mean your center’s blog will need a lot of attention, especially when it’s just getting off the ground. Fortunately, you don’t have to do it alone. Skip the uncertainty and partner with a team of SEO experts. If you want your blog to rank, why not trust a team that specializes in helping companies appear on the SERP?

At Markitors, we understand how to take your blog to the top. We offer keyword research services, technical SEO assistance, content writing, and more. Drop us a line today to see how we can be of service.