Dr Ivan Bristow, PhD, is a podiatrist who has been interested in dermatology for over thirty years. He has published over 100 papers on this subject, teaches it globally, and has a highly successful podiatry dermatology blog, www.foot.expert. He is passionate about promoting podiatry and dermatology to the profession and the public.
In this episode, we discuss the power of websites and blogs to promote our podiatry work and the profession as a whole and to help keep podiatry alive. If we don’t write about foot problems, other healthcare professionals will, and we will lose that space.
Talking Points:
- Promoting Podiatry is not up to the professional bodies.
- Why we should all be working hard to promote the podiatry profession.
- Mandatory Promotion should be part of our CPD and registration.
- Blogging is a good way to get your message out in the world.
- Simply communicating with your patients will get them interested in podiatry.
- The power of blogging and copywriting.
- Font size, spacing, more white space, shorter paragraphs, good headings.
- How to be loved more by Google.
- Why are your old websites doing you harm?
- Investing in your website…don’t be tight.
- Using a copywriter
- Your website is your shopfront.
- Always write blogs about what you want to promote.
- Using Google to help you create titles. Learn what people are searching for.
- www.Answerthepublic.com
- blogging helps you become an authority in your area.
“Yeah, and ultimately, I’d like to see all members of our profession blogging. Whether it’s blogging about podiatry as a career, promoting what we do, or promoting services, it just makes a small profession globally much bigger across the internet. And I think that’s important. That’s the key point here. And it’s very, very easily done with a little bit of time and investment.” – Dr Ivan Bristow.
You can connect with Dr Ivan Bristow on LinkedIn @ivanbristow, or you can email him at ivan@foot.expert.
Dr Ivan Bristow has also been on two other previous episodes:
Episode 168 – Foot Dermatology
Episode 199 – Writing Letters, Reports and Referrals.
How to Write Blogs
On my YouTube channel, Tyson E Franklin, you will find a short three-minute video titled How to Write Blogs.
If you have any questions about this episode, you can contact me at tyson@podiatrylegends.com
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Full Transcript (Unedited)
[00:00:00] Tyson E Franklin: Hi, I’m Tyson Franklin and welcome to this week’s episode of the Podiatry Legends Podcast. With me today is Dr. Ivan Bristow. He has a PhD in dermatology where he has had a special interest in dermatology related to podiatry for well over 30 years. He’s written hundreds of papers, teaches globally , and he has a dermatology blog, www.foot.expert, so go over there and check it out.
[00:00:29] He has been on this podcast twice back on episode 168. We spoke about foot dermatology and the other one was episode 199, writing letters, reports, and referrals. This is going to be episode 319. So it has been a long time between drinks, Ivan. It’s good to have you back
[00:00:46] Dr Ivan Bristow: on.
[00:00:47] Thank you very much. Yeah, it’s good to be here. And yeah, let’s get going.
[00:00:52] Tyson E Franklin: Okay. So this is a different topic. Actually, what’s funny, it’s an extension of 199 because when I went back to see [00:01:00] the titles or the topics that we spoke about, And I realised we were talking about writing letters, reports and referrals, which isn’t exactly what we’re talking about today, but it could also be used in that aspect.
[00:01:12] Dr Ivan Bristow: Absolutely. Although my clinical interest is dermatology, as you know, I run the blog, a key part of what I do, a key part of what every podiatrist does is communication and communicating with healthcare professionals and also communicating with the public, which is really of interest to me.
[00:01:27] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. Okay. What is today’s topic going to be about? I know we’re going to start talking a little bit about copywriting and with using your websites and your blogs, but I want to go through a bit of the story and how this subject came about and why we’re talking about it.
[00:01:45] Dr Ivan Bristow: Sure. It came about, often tuning into many of your podcasts and reading communications and something just a little bell rang with me when I received an email from you a couple of weeks ago. One of the things you said was about promoting podiatry. It’s not up [00:02:00] to professional bodies.
[00:02:01] It’s up to us. I remember that. Yeah. Do you know what? This is so true because people always think it’s someone else’s job. We’re a small profession. There’s nobody, nobody looking after us. Apart from organisations, which are, all organisations are run like by people like us. So we have to take the, take the bull by the horns and we have to do that job to make sure, firstly, that people know what we do.
[00:02:26] But I think more importantly, quite recently in podiatry in the UK, I’m sure it’s the same in Australia, we’ve seen a drop in recruitment. People are not looking at podiatry as a career.
[00:02:36] Tyson E Franklin: Oh, definitely. And that’s, seems to me every country is talking about that problem.
[00:02:42] Dr Ivan Bristow: The only way we’re going to get out of this is to really work hard, all of us, to get the message out there.
[00:02:48] But my belief is that everybody should be, communicative. On whatever they want to communicate, just promote podiatry, whether it’s for patients, prospective students, or to other [00:03:00] podiatrists, I think it’s great, and I think it’s so important. Communication is the key.
[00:03:04] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah, it’s one of those things that, like up here in Cairns, for example, we have a career expo, , 4, 000 students come through this career expo every August.
[00:03:15] Physiotherapy is represented, optometry is represented, everything, all these professions are represented. There is no podiatry representation at this career expo in Cairns. Now there was years ago when I had my podiatry clinic, I actually set something up there myself to promote podiatry, but also promote my clinic to these 4, 000 potential patients in the future.
[00:03:37] But since I sold the clinic, That sort of stop. And I know it’s one of the things like that was that little bit that I did for the profession up here in Cairns. But if everybody just did a little bit to promote the profession, we would be so much better off.
[00:03:54] Dr Ivan Bristow: Yeah, and my, one of my ideas, is that in the UK we have to undertake [00:04:00] CPD as every other profession does in the world and part of that should be, I believe, mandatory promotion.
[00:04:06] That all of us should at least, if every podiatrist did one promotional event to students every year, just think of the power that will be, just to turn. One careers fair, one school, one group of, 16, 17, 18 year olds. It doesn’t take a lot, the power of many just by doing a small amount can make a big difference.
[00:04:27] But you’re right. It’s, it needs to, we need to improve on that.
[00:04:32] Tyson E Franklin: I think that is a fantastic idea that as part of your registration, you’ve done something to elevate the profession.
[00:04:38] And you can prove that you’ve done it.
[00:04:41] Dr Ivan Bristow: Yeah. And it’s so simple, and sometimes it can happen, you’re invited to a school or a college. Even sometimes you get patients who come in and you get the odd queries like what do you do? Cause you speak to many of the younger people and you say how did you get into podiatry?
[00:04:56] It’s because I went to one. That’s, a powerful sort of way [00:05:00] of reaching patients, to almost converting some of your patients into podiatrists. I don’t know whether that’s legitimate, but what
[00:05:06] Tyson E Franklin: happens though, like I will admit that I probably didn’t do my first talk in front of anybody because I was absolutely petrified.
[00:05:18] I managed to get through Primary school, high school and university without ever getting up doing an oral presentation. I just avoided it. So what, so people that are scared to do public speaking, but they could still be involved in other ways to promote the profession.
[00:05:36] Dr Ivan Bristow: Yeah. And there, lots of way of doing it.
[00:05:38] And, myself with my blog I’m promoting podiatry. Okay or be it to podiatrists, I’m promoting a specific sector, but getting it out there and getting people reading and looking at what you’re doing. It doesn’t take a lot. Sometimes it doesn’t take a lot. It doesn’t have to be like my very first live gig, if you like, was way back in second year at college.
[00:05:59] We were dragged [00:06:00] out to a women’s institute in some village hall and it was about minus five in the middle of winter and we had to go and give a talk to about 50 ladies all waiting to inquire about the problems with their bunions everything else. And yeah, it was a memorable experience.
[00:06:16] It’s things have changed, thank goodness. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:06:19] Tyson E Franklin: At least one of the things, and like I said before, like I was petrified to do public speaking, but then I read somewhere once and said, if you can overcome that fear, so many doors will open up for you and so many opportunities for your career and business.
[00:06:33] And I went, you know what, I’ve got to stop being scared and just do it. So I did the first one and it was atrocious. It was, it was really bad. Even the doctor came up to me and said, can you promise me you’ll never ever do public speaking again? , yeah.
[00:06:48] Dr Ivan Bristow: And, I did my first few talks, I can remember that the WI was not the best at the same thing, but the more you do it the easier it gets.
[00:06:56] And it helps if you, as I always call it, play a home game. So you’re [00:07:00] talking about, no, away matches never end well, if you’re, you’re less informed than the audience on some topics. So it’s always good to, talk about what, you know, small groups building it up.
[00:07:11] Tyson E Franklin: Can I ask you a question though?
[00:07:13] Yeah, sure. You go to the foot and ankle show?
[00:07:15] Dr Ivan Bristow: Yeah, from time to time.
[00:07:17] Tyson E Franklin: Not a regular. No, did you go to the first one that Jonathan Smalls spoke at?
[00:07:22] Dr Ivan Bristow: Oh I know Jonathan Small was there the one I went to. I don’t think it was the first one though. Yeah,
[00:07:26] Tyson E Franklin: because somebody told me, like I saw Jonathan speak, he was fantastic.
[00:07:31] And since then he’s just gone in leaps and bounds. But somebody told me, when he, some of his first presentations, they weren’t very good. They weren’t very good at all, but it was the same thing. He improved that skill as he went along.
[00:07:45] Dr Ivan Bristow: It takes time. And I, I was just looking through my CV, which I still regular update.
[00:07:50] I don’t know why, but it’s just something I always do. Um, Yeah I look at the number of talks I’ve given nearly 400. I’ve spoken [00:08:00] at, let alone all of the smaller events and you think I’ve come a long way, but I enjoy it. I enjoy it. And it becomes, I think it should be, it’s part of the job that we do, promotion and it’s underplayed as part of our skills as podiatrists, but promotion should be there and key and included in the curriculum but it isn’t it’s more clinically focused.
[00:08:21] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. I remember one. One of the last talks I did up until selling my Clinic, and it was to a group of about 150 young girls between the ages of about 12 and 17 on how to do ankle and knee strapping for netball. And I did all that, and I didn’t believe how many people turned up for it, but I also threw in a few jokes, a bit of humor, had them laughing, had people getting up testing different things.
[00:08:47] And I hope that talk had an impact on those 150 kids. But when I was at the Foot and Ankle Show, And it was probably the only podiatry conference I’ve ever been invited to, to speak at. [00:09:00] And I remember a girl from the crowd came up to introduce herself to me.
[00:09:04] And she says, you may not believe this, but I was a patient of yours in Cairns. And because I saw you as a podiatrist and just the work that you did, that got me interested in podiatry. And now I’m a podiatrist in the UK. Okay. And she thought, she said it was really crazy seeing her up on stage talking, knowing that you were my podiatrist in Cairns.
[00:09:23] So it’s the impact that we can actually have on young people in our clinic on a day to day basis, which is part of the communication, whether we’re doing talks or it could be written content. Do you like the segue into that?
[00:09:40] Dr Ivan Bristow: That’s good. That’s good because yeah, it leads us in very nicely.
[00:09:44] As you know, I blog, I love writing. I love, publishing and communicating in dermatology. But yeah, some, something interesting happened in my world last year when I was introduced to the world of copywriting [00:10:00] and I linked with a copywriter who writes blogs and I thought, this is interesting ’cause I’m a blogger too right now, where we have very similar interests and so on.
[00:10:10] But the more more I spoke with her, the more I realised that actually I thought I was getting it right. And then when I spoke to her and she’s written far more blogs for me. She does it for a job. She, she’ll write thousands of blogs, not just on one topic, but very cleverly, someone who would do the research and write on any topic.
[00:10:28] That’s the professional copywriter. And so she basically went through she Randomly selected two of my blogs and she started to pull them apart and said, no, you shouldn’t be doing that. You know, there’s, There’s the, the font size and also the spacing. You need more white space and all the technicalities.
[00:10:46] I thought I knew this game, but. I didn’t. So she said, why don’t you, why don’t you try my blogging course? It’s an online course that you can do, a recorded course. And I did that. It took me about four hours of learning in total now. And it completely [00:11:00] changed my approach to blogging.
[00:11:01] And I thought, this is really good. Learned so much, but suddenly I noticed what an impact it was having on my blog. Just in terms of people reaching it. Why were more people coming to it? Because actually, the changes I’d implemented had meant that Google was able to read it, was able to categorize it, was able to remote it more.
[00:11:21] And all of this I completely missed. So then I said to her, and this goes full circle here, Tyson, because I said, why don’t you come and do a talk for us? I don’t do public speaking. I said no, no, no, no. It’s not about public speaking. You know so much. Oh, people know all this already. And it’s one of those situations, you think because you know, everybody else knows.
[00:11:40] I said, no, come and talk because, far more than you actually realise. And so, um, I think it was middle to late last year, we did an hour on blogging and had a tremendous response. Podiatrists, you know, were thinking actually the power of the blog is, is quite phenomenal in the sense that [00:12:00] just a very simple point.
[00:12:00] If you have a website, Google eventually will come along and it will index it. Yeah. But If you don’t change it much, then Google will just put it down the ranking. But if you add content to it on a regular basis, Google really likes that. The bots that Google, they like websites, which are up to date and constantly refreshed, and just by adding a blog, I don’t know, one a month or two a month or whatever, it keeps you up there.
[00:12:31] And then Google will push you up in what’s known as domain authority if it’s good stuff. Google will find it. And suddenly you will find that when people, I don’t know, if you’ve done a blog on heel pain, you’re on the first page. And it costs nothing. You’re not paying Google AdWords. You’re not paying for sponsored.
[00:12:48] You’re organically growing. That’s
[00:12:50] Tyson E Franklin: the best part about it too. Blogging just takes time and a little bit of thought. It’s not, it doesn’t actually cost you a lot of money. I used to write a blog every week a new blog [00:13:00] would go up on our website. And I wrote that many articles that no matter what you searched back in the day, I was going to, I had every spot almost.
[00:13:09] Dr Ivan Bristow: And it’s surprising what a little bit of blogging does for one’s, online presence, because as you say, unlike AdWords it’s free. You can do whatever you want. You’ve got a complete free reign and I’ve seen, on my control panel, I’ve seen more people coming in from all over the world, reading the blogs, which is fantastic.
[00:13:28] It’s a nice feeling. But still we have, and this is slightly, slightly off topic here, but we have a lot of podiatrists who have websites that are very old.
[00:13:37] Tyson E Franklin: Oh, it’s funny you should mention this. I was talking with someone this afternoon just about their website and blogging. And I said, show me a couple of other websites around your area.
[00:13:47] So he sent me some links and I looked on one of them or just, I went, my God, if I was a patient and this is the website I came to. And you look at it and it’s that really skinny, old fashioned [00:14:00] website and all the photos. looked like they were 20 years old. Everything about it was terrible. Yeah. And it was, yeah,
[00:14:11] Dr Ivan Bristow: it was awful.
[00:14:13] Not even if it’s not optimized for a mobile phone. I’m going back a few years, you know, Google will automatically push it down the ranks and, that was a few years ago, but I started working in a new clinic last year and they had a one page website from goodness knows when.
[00:14:30] And so I said, no, we need a new website. So invested a bit of money on a new website, had the content copy written, had had the professional design done. So it cost a bit of money. But already within two or three months of launching my my colleague who runs the practice is saying, do you know what?
[00:14:47] We’re having so many more phone calls. People have seen us on the website. And we have a blog and so on and it pays off. Oh, definitely.
[00:14:55] Tyson E Franklin: Cause when you’re talking about the Google, like Google ads, [00:15:00] like I know myself, if I’m searching for something online and it comes up and it says sponsored and it’ll have the maybe two or three sponsored there were people trying to rank higher.
[00:15:09] I avoid them and I go straight down to the organic search because I think if somebody has, written about it or promote or done something on their website about whatever it is I’m searching for. I want to reward them, even though I know that’s not what everybody does, but about 70 percent do. I’m pretty sure that was a stat last time.
[00:15:29] 70 percent of people skip the sponsored ads and go straight to the organic search.
[00:15:34] Dr Ivan Bristow: And that’s what, that’s what people want. They want, you know, they want the real. And the clinic now is getting far more interest. And started a blog and we’re adding blogs to that. And, okay, so say a website costs 2000, you know, a lot of podiatrists may say that’s a lot of money.
[00:15:49] But do you know what
[00:15:50] Tyson E Franklin: happens? That’s because they’re tight. They’re tight podiatrists. They’re, I get the shits. I really get upset when I hear podiatrists complain about how much it costs to get a [00:16:00] website or do business coaching or just do go to a course. Yet, there The same as a complaint, Oh, I can’t put my fees up because my patients can’t afford it.
[00:16:10] So they’re already telling you’re too expensive. And then they’re already saying for their patients that they’re too expensive for the patient. They can’t put the fees up. And I just don’t, I don’t understand that mentality of not investing in yourself and in your business and in your website.
[00:16:26] Dr Ivan Bristow: Exactly. If you think about a website costing 2000 pounds, for example, if you picked up I dunno, three new, long term patients, that’s more than going to pay for it, isn’t it? Over the course of a few years. Absolutely. It’s nothing. And the other sort of thing that I realised is that when I was first doing the website, I wrote it myself and I thought I was pretty good at doing that job.
[00:16:51] But then when I involved the copywriter in this, I realised that I didn’t quite have the hang of it. And so this time I’ve re revamped my [00:17:00] website. I’ve got a copywriter to do that for me, and it makes such a difference, I dunno about you, you can miss. Grammatical errors, but it’s not even just about grammatical errors and spelling.
[00:17:10] It’s about writing the text to the style that you want to portray your business with and that’s the copywriter.
[00:17:18] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. And that’s the amazing part because sometimes on some websites that they want, everyone just wants to add more information on a particular page. And sometimes less is more.
[00:17:28] Putting less on the page. And like you said before, more white space, different size headings, depending on what you’re doing, because a lot of people will scan through a page. They won’t read every single thing and they’ll quickly go through it. When they capture the part that interested, they’ll read that section, but they also don’t want to read war and peace.
[00:17:45] They just give me the facts. Just give me it in a concise form so I can make a decision. Because everyone’s tired.
[00:17:52] Dr Ivan Bristow: And this is what I learned from, working with a professional copywriter is exactly that. She said, whenever you write a page, don’t write a [00:18:00] page. People are going to scan and read it.
[00:18:01] So plenty of space, very short paragraphs. And exactly as you say, but by the same token, when you have a blog, what you can do is start to put your, sell your pitch because there are lots of podiatry clinics, there are lots of websites, but often people don’t realise that the website’s your shop front.
[00:18:20] So use the blog to promote what you want to do and keep doing that and it will attract the right kind of customer because if they’re searching for, I don’t know, swift microwave treatment and you’re blogging about it a lot, Google will put you up there and suddenly you’re the number one go to place. So you’re screening out some of the patients you don’t want and bringing in the ones that you do want.
[00:18:45] And I think that is, that is just marvellous because you hear people saying, Oh, I don’t need a website because I’m too busy. And you ask them what they’re like it’s okay, but it’s just the same old. Why don’t you start to select the type of patients you want and use tools like websites, [00:19:00] blogs, and, social media to bring in what you do want to do.
[00:19:03] You’ll be far happier. You’ll be better in your work. You’ll have a better lifestyle and so on. It’s very simple on one level.
[00:19:10] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. When I do a lot of my talks, I have this five step diagram that I show and it’s a progression of people going through their career from a student to a new graduate.
[00:19:19] And step number three is what I call a frustrated clinician. That everybody at some point in their career could happen in the first week, might happen after 10 years, but everyone gets frustrated a little bit. And then, but the next step is become a happy podiatrist. And above that is having a thriving podiatry career, depending on what, how you define that, but you can’t go from a frustrated clinician to having a thriving podiatry career until you become a happy podiatrist.
[00:19:47] And you only become a happy podiatrist when you’re doing more of what you like and less of what you don’t like. And this all comes back to you, your website, your blog. If you don’t like treating ulcers, do not write a single thing about [00:20:00] ulcers on your website. Do not put anything anywhere about ulcers.
[00:20:04] As though it doesn’t exist because let them go
[00:20:06] Dr Ivan Bristow: somewhere else. And that’s, you know, you’re in control of your own destiny, aren’t you? And there are three types of people in life, as I always say. Those who, you know, those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who say what happened.
[00:20:21] Sometimes you want to be in that first group, really to push it forward. And for me, same thing. I got to a certain point in my life and I thought, I’ve got to this stage, I want to do what I want to do. I don’t want to do what other people say I should be doing. And that’s important. And building all this around you and this infrastructure is important, I think.
[00:20:41] And it, it makes such a difference because you want to get up in the morning.
[00:20:45] Tyson E Franklin: The part with it though, so you had this lady come on and do the one hour blogging session with you, then from there you went and did her online course.
[00:20:53] Dr Ivan Bristow: Yeah, and thoroughly enjoyed it, made a lot of changes to the way I write blogs, which was great.
[00:20:59] And then [00:21:00] I I said to her, you really should come and, you should come and speak to the uh, yeah, speak to podiatrists. And she said she didn’t do public speaking. And I thought there’s an opportunity for someone’s personal development. So I twisted her arm. And she did it. She did such a great job and really enjoyed it.
[00:21:17] And sometimes you’ve got to do something that frightens you, haven’t you to make a discovery. If you’ve got to do something which is well out of your comfort zone to realise, Oh, this is interesting. On the response to that, we had a great response. We had lots of people online and I said to her, why don’t we run the blogging course as a weekly, a weekly course.
[00:21:35] So we did four hours, one hour a week for four weeks. And we had um, Rachel, her name’s Rachel Bray. She was running it from the Monday on starting where to get ideas from. Now that’s interesting, Tyson, because you mentioned Google. Now, if you’re going to write blogs, if you want to know what people are thinking, Google will tell you what people are thinking because you mentioned about looking at sponsored at the top and missing [00:22:00] those and going to the organic website.
[00:22:02] I absolutely agree with you. Do you know when you’re writing a blog, so for example I’m going to write, I’ve written two blogs on oral terbinifine because there’s a lot of mysticism about how safe it is and what it can do to your liver and does it, can it, will it, so on. Yeah. So I think I’ll write a blog and it will be the safety of oral terbinifine, I’ll call it.
[00:22:22] So I’ll put that into Google, because what you want to find out, what people are searching for. And if you look in the organic search of, look in the search of Google, scroll down the page, and then you’ll find questions, what other people have asked. Yeah. And Google tells you what people are searching for.
[00:22:39] That’s the brilliance of it. So you look down what people are searching for, and it’ll give you four or five, ideas and you think if I use that as my title, then I know a lot of people are already looking for that. And that’s what I did. And suddenly I found that my page was being read far more because I’d asked Google what words people use to search on that [00:23:00] topic.
[00:23:01] Tyson E Franklin: Another place that I heard is a really good place to come up with topics is YouTube. It’s just type in a disorder. Just say, for example, it was heel pain, . Put in heel pain and all of a sudden it’ll give you a big list of all the things that people are currently searching for with that particular topic and you can take that whether you’re going to do a video or if you actually want to write a blog article.
[00:23:21] Dr Ivan Bristow: Yeah. And there are lots of others. Having done the course it, it takes, she takes you through the different types of um, tools. I’m trying to get the other one. I think it’s asktheaudience or askthepublic. com. I think it’s called something like that. And that does exactly the same and also give you more ideas as to what you should be, what you should be using, what keywords and and so on.
[00:23:41] But, the tools are all there. They’re all free. And just, investing a little bit of time, five, ten minutes, looking at what you’re going to call it, where it’s going to go, makes a big difference. And now my website, I’m up to about, I think about 170, 180 blogs, something like that. I’ve got pretty good [00:24:00] authority in terms of you put something, anything foot dermatology related, I’ll be on that first page, probably on the top or near the top, but it’s, it’s just keeping it there. Yeah,
[00:24:10] Tyson E Franklin: but let’s just let people, remind people again, go to www.foot.expert to go and check out , Ivan’s
[00:24:18] Dr Ivan Bristow: blog. Yeah, and what I would like to see , ultimately, I’d like to see all members of our profession blogging. And whether it’s blogging about podiatry as a career, promoting what we do promoting services, it just makes a small profession globally much bigger across the internet. And I think that’s important. That’s the key point here. And it’s very, very easily done with a little bit of time and investment. And writing a blog is so different from seeing a patient. I create variety. I love variety. I like to do different things every day.
[00:24:48] And having done the blog, it’s an escape thing. Wow. Yeah. Today I’m going to write a blog. I don’t have to see a list of patients. Much as I love my patients. I love my work. It’s The variety is key for me. Okay,
[00:24:58] Tyson E Franklin: what about people who say, [00:25:00] but I can’t write, I’m no good at writing, I’ve always been a terrible writer.
[00:25:05] What would you say to that?
[00:25:07] Dr Ivan Bristow: Having done the blogging course, that’s the first thing that’s talked about, the first thing to talk about is I was forced to write. Literally, they just she just paused and said I want you to write for five minutes. On what?
[00:25:19] Anything. Go for it, and the more you do that and just randomly write, it’s, it gets better and better. It’s like public speaking, Tyson. It’s the same thing. You just have to keep doing it and do it. And you get better. And, I look at, same thing, I look at my first few blogs and think, Oh, I wouldn’t do that again, or that was really terrible, but you know what?
[00:25:40] It evolves and it doesn’t take long. And it’s like any skill you keep doing often enough you get better. And it doesn’t matter what you write. The fact that you do it and you put it out there is a good start, and it will only get better from there.
[00:25:53] Tyson E Franklin: Did she make any mention about using AI tools?
[00:25:56] Like I use Grammarly myself. I would be lost [00:26:00] without Grammarly because I go back to some of the old stuff I wrote and I look at it now and I give it to Grammarly and Grammarly laughs at me. And so it said, obviously failed English at school. And I also use chat GTP4 for other types of things.
[00:26:18] Dr Ivan Bristow: Yeah, one of the points that she made was that she actually demonstrated on the course how Grammarly can help, but also how Grammarly cannot work or how it fails and she did a live demonstration and you thought, actually, it shows you how even AI and tools like that do have their negative aspects and they don’t always work as they should be.
[00:26:39] But one of the key points was that you can use AI to help. But don’t get it to write your blogs because one thing that Google and search engines will notice is AI written content. That it’s very astute. What it wants is all human content, which is rather strange because these companies are selling us chat, [00:27:00] GPT and all the rest of it, but still, when it comes to what they want organic human written content and certainly you shouldn’t be relying entirely on AI tools to do that for you.
[00:27:10] Okay, it’s okay to help, but make sure it’s got your unique, stamp and it’s human and not not written by robots. I’ve tried it and I don’t know if you’ve done the same, but often the articles that they produce are quite hollow.
[00:27:24] Tyson E Franklin: I think when you write your own blogs too you end up finding your voice the way that you write. When I wrote the world’s greatest podiatry business book, It’s No Secret…There’s Money in Podiatry but when I wrote that book and I sent a copy to my brother and my brother, when he received it, he rang me up and he said, I’ve just finished reading your book.
[00:27:42] He said, which surprised me. You wrote a book considering you failed English at school. He said, but, and I’m thinking, Oh, who did you get to just give some pointers to him? They wrote the book for you. He said, but when I read the book. He said, I knew you wrote this book because it, I could hear your voice in the words.
[00:27:59] And I [00:28:00] think if you’re writing blogs for your podiatry clinic, and you have a voice and that’s completely different to what AI will do for you.
[00:28:08] Dr Ivan Bristow: And that’s an important point, because again, the difference between a blog and writing an essay, as you would, you know, at college, at university, is that it puts your mark on it.
[00:28:18] And, you hear patients saying I’ve actually, I actually came here because I like the sound, I like the sound of what you’ve got to say. I’ve read a couple of your blogs and I, I align with your thoughts. Thoughts, and you are a real person. It’s not just a cold clinical aspect, and I feel like I know you to a certain extent, and that’s the big difference between writing, just writing and writing a blog.
[00:28:38] It’s more a bit like public speaking, getting a message out there, but public speaking, putting your stamp on it. And that’s, that’s important too, because people like that. They like to feel connected and that’s what the, the internet is all about. It’s about connecting the
[00:28:51] Tyson E Franklin: world. Yeah.
[00:28:52] And I think we’ve all received emails from people over the last year or so, where you just know [00:29:00] it’s AI has written this thing. It’s just the way that has been written, the way it’s been presented to you. And that’s why I like on a lot of some different things that I’ll sign up for and even LinkedIn. My first name, I actually have, instead of just having Tyson, I have Tyson space E for my middle name.
[00:29:17] And I’ll get a message from someone and say, Hi Tyson E, how are you doing today? And I go, straight away. I know you haven’t put any thought into this because my name is not Tyson E. That’s just what I’ve put in there. So straight away. I don’t even read the message. I just, just delete it straight away. But they’re using programs to do all this for them.
[00:29:34] And the program doesn’t realise. Tyson E isn’t a real name.
[00:29:38] Dr Ivan Bristow: Yeah, and you can spot them. But, be authentic, be yourself in your writing and so on. So the upshot of all of this blogging is that we now, hopefully, I’ve made a small dent in the UK and I’ve got A few more podiatrists out there who are regularly blogging, because one of the most disappointing things that I see on the internet is podiatrists who’ve got a brand new website, looks fantastic, [00:30:00] they’ll start blogging, yes I’m going to have a blog, and then you look at their blog, and the last blog that was posted was like two years ago, and you think, no.
[00:30:09] Tyson E Franklin: Always my favourite thing to do is when I’m talking to a podiatrist, they’ll reach out to me and say, hey Tyson, can we work together doing something? Not a problem. And one of the first things when I know where they’re working or what the business name is, I’ll say, I’ll say your website went up on the 21st of April, 21.
[00:30:26] They go, yeah, how did you know that? And I go, Oh, cause there were four blog articles that particular day. There was one a month later, there was one six months later, there’s been nothing since. So I assume that was the day your new website went up. Oh, I keep meaning to do it, but I just, to me, it’s just one of those things.
[00:30:42] You just, you need to find A formula that works for you. Did the lady you did the course with, did she mention at all The length of a blog. What’s a good size? Yeah,
[00:30:51] Dr Ivan Bristow: that’s a good question.
[00:30:52] There are varying views, but you, she was suggesting, based on evidence of other work, that, start from [00:31:00] 500, but you don’t really want it too long. You don’t want a big essay. It depends what you’re writing, of course. Yeah. But 500 is a good start. And myself, I find my normal is 500 will be short for me, a thousand will be about average, and that’s what I try to aim for.
[00:31:15] And again, I think it’s like you say you establish your rhythm and so on, and you know exactly what sort of size of blog that you want. But, 500 upwards, absolutely fine. But don’t make it too long unless it’s very specialist and, likely to be read. But
[00:31:31] Tyson E Franklin: I’ve heard different things because I’d heard once before 200 to 400 or 250 to 400 was a good size just for a podiatry article aimed at patients.
[00:31:41] I’m expecting like the articles, you’ll right. A little bit more technical, probably aimed towards. the podiatrist, so I’d expect them to be a little bit longer, but I had a friend who said one of his best blog articles ever that still just performs to this day was 6, 000 words. It was just amazing, but he just [00:32:00] said it, whatever, I can’t remember what the topic was, but whatever it was, once people started it, they literally couldn’t put the put their laptop down.
[00:32:07] They just kept reading it. And that’s always been his most popular one. He’s written ones since then, the same length. And they’ve all failed. But that one particular one just seemed to do really well.
[00:32:20] Dr Ivan Bristow: And the other thing, I suppose it’s been a bit like being, I don’t know, being a, being a songwriter, is that songwriters write songs, and they’ll think this would be a good one, or I don’t like that one.
[00:32:32] And the same with blogs. And if I go back through my catalogue of 170 blogs, and I’ll ask, I’ll ask the system to tell me which are the most read, which are the most, viewed. And it’s always a surprise. And you think, I really didn’t like that one. I really didn’t think that was a very good one.
[00:32:48] Or I thought, no, I didn’t like that. And that one I thought was really good. It’s average. So it just goes to show, you know, you, you, sometimes you’re not even the best judge of what you do. You let the public decide, [00:33:00] let the readers decide because one of the top ones, I think mine is melanoma or hematoma, that, that was something I wrote literally, I wrote it in about 10 minutes.
[00:33:11] And that’s the other thing, when you’re writing blogs, sometimes it can take you a day, sometimes you, it just flows and you can write it, and that was a 10 minute job, and became, one of the most popular blogs of all time on the website.
[00:33:23] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah, one of the tips I was given was a way to format your writing to help you, help you be able to write more and write more consistent, consistently. And what they told me to do is put a certain amount of time aside and just think of headlines and then have somewhere where you store your headlines. Or if an idea just pops in your head, have somewhere where you can store these ideas that you can come back to later.
[00:33:46] So I use my Google Calendar because on Google Calendar has a task thing. One of my tasks that I have there. Um, Headlines. So when an idea pops into my head, I just put it in there and I’ve got like a hundred of them [00:34:00] there at any time. I can just go across and I find it, then it’s taking the headline, putting it aside and coming up with five dot points that you do, and that’s all you got to do and then put it away and then you come back to it and write 20 to 30 words on it for underneath each dot point, then put it away and you come back to it later on and you just keep, and you do not edit at any time while you’re doing the writing, the dot points.
[00:34:25] And then finally you put it there and you finish the thing off all in one go. And that was, that’s how I do it and it seems to work well.
[00:34:34] Dr Ivan Bristow: Yeah, and the same thing. If I look at my blog folder, I’ve got two folders, one which says published and unpublished. And in unpublished, there’s usually about 20 articles.
[00:34:43] And like you, I go in, write a bit when I have a thought, put it back on and think yeah, maybe I’ll pull that one out. And so we all have our different methods, but that’s, that’s the thing. One of the things that was always told to me when I was at university, one of my course tutor was a professor of sleep [00:35:00] studies, which it sounds bizarre, but actually, there’s always a tie in somewhere. He was an expert on sleep and he always said that what you should do, the old saying, sleep on it is one of the best things that you can do. But always keep a notepaper or something to write something down and record something by your bed at night.
[00:35:18] Okay. Because, Ultimately, your best ideas, if you ever had this moment Tyson, we’ve had a problem, you’ve gone to bed and then you half wake up in the night and you have a solution or you have an idea and you think, yeah, that will be good. And then in the morning, you’ve forgotten it
[00:35:33] Tyson E Franklin: again.
[00:35:34] That’s I’ve woken up sometimes I’ve gone. That is such a good, that is so good. It is so good. There’s no way I could forget that, because it’s too good. And then I wake up that morning, I’m going, You’re shitting me. Why can I not remember? It was so good and it’s gone.
[00:35:50] Dr Ivan Bristow: There is a scientific explanation for this because what I said why is that?
[00:35:55] Because he used the analogy of Mozart. Mozart used to hear all of his best [00:36:00] concertos when he was dropping off to sleep or when he was waking up or in the middle of the night. And he used to write the music on hotel walls in charcoal so he didn’t lose the essence of the music.
[00:36:10] And he said there is some logic to this because when you go to sleep at night, what happens is, remember your brain is in two halves, a left hand, left half and a right half. The right half is the dominant logical side. The left hand side is the creative original thought. Normally the right, the left hand side of the brain is dominated by the dominant right.
[00:36:30] But when you fall asleep, the right hand side of your brain will fall asleep quicker than the left hand side. So for a brief period when you’re falling asleep and when you’re waking up, the left hand side of the brain has an absolute free creative reign. And that’s at the point when you have the lightbulb moment. And that’s why you need to write it down, record it, whatever you do, because that’s when it happens. And it happens so often that yeah, you have that moment. You think, Oh, I must remember that. But the problem is if you fall back asleep, you’re like to have [00:37:00] forgotten what you thought in the first place.
[00:37:01] It
[00:37:02] Tyson E Franklin: definitely does happen that way. I like, I love this topic. I hope everyone who’s listening to this actually just makes a little bit more effort. On, even if you write one article, like you said, just once a month, just get something out there because the more podiatrists that can write on particular topics as well, because there’s other professions that are writing on topics.
[00:37:24] So if there’s certain spaces that we want to own, we have to be writing about that as a group and not just sharing it with other professions that may not know as much as what we feel that
[00:37:35] Dr Ivan Bristow: we do. And that’s the important thing. One other sort of point I know is that once you start writing on a topic, you become an authority, in a sense.
[00:37:44] So one of the side effects is if you blog regularly, then if someone wants to get in contact, say the local media, the radio stations often pick up stuff from somebody locally who’s written on that topic. They will research Google and ask who’s on this topic and your name will come up. And that is [00:38:00] another form of self promotion, but it’s a side effect, but a really good side effect of having a regular blog.
[00:38:05] You become known locally as the expert or the person in that area. And before you know it, you’re talking to, sometimes local and even national, media and stuff, which is absolutely fantastic for the profession. Nerve wracking, but
[00:38:18] Tyson E Franklin: I actually got contacted by a magazine in the States, in California, a couple of days ago, just about a particular podiatry topic.
[00:38:26] And they asked if I wanted to have my two cents worth. I said, yeah, why not? So they said, and they’re going to pay me for it too, which
[00:38:34] Dr Ivan Bristow: is even better. That’s a bonus. Yeah.
[00:38:37] Tyson E Franklin: But, and I tell people too, when you’re thinking about, like we mentioned, look on Google, look on YouTube to come up with headlines.
[00:38:45] But one of the other things I’ve told people too, is Try and also consider what’s on trend at the moment. , especially like when Wimbledon’s on, for example, everyone knows about Wimbledon, every day I sit there and search lower limb [00:39:00] injuries, foot injuries, Wimbledon.
[00:39:01] And I would keep track of every injury, and if all of a sudden there was a problem, like a sesamoiditis problem had happened with Roger Federer, bang, I would start writing a couple of blog articles around sesamoiditis. I’d mention Roger Federer, I’d mention tennis sesamoiditis, and it was surprising, all of a sudden we’d get an influx of tennis players that would come into our clinic, because we had written numerous articles about it, because it was on trend.
[00:39:28] People were searching for that.
[00:39:30] Dr Ivan Bristow: And again, yeah on the course that uh, that I went on the, the, the amount of tools like every day is a something world day, isn’t it? Yeah. Like today is, I don’t know, world ingrown toenail day or whatever, and having a calendar like that in front of you helps to say what am I going to write a topic?
[00:39:49] What’s going to be the blog to hit that trend, to make sure you’re bang on trend and just using those tools. You’re absolutely right. Be there, because once it’s gone, you’re yesterday’s [00:40:00] news on that topic. You have to move forward and keep on trend. But yeah, absolutely important. So for example, we’re coming into spring in the UK here.
[00:40:07] That’s when I’ll start talking about some protection things related to UV and so on. And you do have seasonal variations and that’s important because that’s what patients want. Chillblains, in the UK here, start blogging about that in October, November time. And then in the springtime, of course, people are coming out of their houses.
[00:40:23] They’re looking forward to the holidays. So they’re going to want treatment for their fungal nails and so on. It’s all trends. And Google will tell you those trends. Google Trends tells you exactly what people are thinking about and at what time of the year. So it’s all there for you, isn’t it? Must
[00:40:38] Tyson E Franklin: be good having four seasons, where I live in Cairns, it’s hot or hotter, that’s how it works.
[00:40:45] Little variation, absolutely. I have really enjoyed this topic, if you happen to get the details of that lady and want to send it to me, I’ll put it in the show notes. Yeah, sure. And maybe we will be able to organise something in the future as well. [00:41:00] Because I mentioned to you before we came on here that, I actually have a copywriter that I know, Joe Cunningham, Joe the copywriter, who’s going to be coming on towards the end of April just to talk about copywriting as well.
[00:41:10] So I’m going to try and produce a few more episodes around this topic and blogging. Why don’t we get a website person to talk about it as well? Because I think it’s a really important area that we, like I said, we can all do it just a little bit more. It’s going to be beneficial for everyone. Yeah,
[00:41:29] Dr Ivan Bristow: absolutely.
[00:41:30] And I think, it’s a way forward and going back to our very first point, if we all do a little bit more, we can make collectively make a big difference.
[00:41:38] Tyson E Franklin: I think so. So Ivan, I want to thank you for coming back on the Podiatry Legends Podcast. I’m sure you will be back again at some stage. Do you always seem to be doing something, even though Dermatology is your thing and people need to go to www.foot.expert
[00:41:53] Now, I know I keep saying the W’s all the time, and a lot of younger podiatrists are probably saying Well, you don’t need to use the W’s anymore. [00:42:00] But, because it’s, if I just say go to foot. expert, it might confuse people.
[00:42:05] Dr Ivan Bristow: Yeah, and people always try and put a com on the end or something else, and you say, No, it is foot.
[00:42:09] expert.
[00:42:10] Nothing more. It’s as simple as that. Yeah. And
[00:42:13] Tyson E Franklin: you have a PhD in this as well. So you are an expert. You can say that.
[00:42:16] Dr Ivan Bristow: I don’t know about that. It was just a domain name that came up at the right time that was very handy.
[00:42:22] Tyson E Franklin: So I want to thank you for coming on here.
[00:42:24] This has been fantastic. And if anyone wants to reach out to you, do they do it just through the blog or is there a specific email address you like people to reach
[00:42:33] Dr Ivan Bristow: out to you on? It’s very easy. You can do it through the website or my email address is ivan@foot.expert oh, that’s
[00:42:40] Tyson E Franklin: easy Nice and simple.
[00:42:42] Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much and look forward to talking again soon. Thank
[00:42:46] Dr Ivan Bristow: you. Tyson. Thank you