Why Blog?
Top 10 Reasons why Medical Artists can Benefit from having a Blog
1. Free Marketing
Blogging doesn’t cost anything. By writing interesting posts people will spread the word and link to your blog through the various social bookmarking sites. They might even review your blog on their own blog and create a permanent link.
Social bookmarking site examples:
2. Networking
Blogging allows you to connect with people from all over the world. It gives you the ability to contact and network with the top professionals in our field, in the medical community, the art/design community and beyond.
Simple ways to network through blogging
- Ask to do interviews for your blog
- Review a product, program, or company
- Comment on other blogs, forums, and social bookmarking/networking sites and always leave a link back to your blog
3. Building a Community
Successful blogs have extremely loyal readers that will subscribe ( 
Feedburner) to their favorite blog and check it several times during the week to read new posts. Leverage the power of this community. Ask them to critique your work. Encourage their opinions. They can be your toughest critics.
4. Improve your Writing, Research, and Communication Skills
In order to be taken seriously as a blogger, especially in the medical community, you have to write clearly, use proper grammar, and provide accurate information.
Tips on how to write good blog posts
5. Gain visibility as an expert
If you’re one of the few people blogging on a topic and you’re doing it well, people are going to regard you as an expert in your field. With so few blogs covering medical illustration/animation, there are many opportunities to become a respected blogger and regarded expert by starting a blog.
6. Branding
You can really start building a brand around your name or your studio’s name through blogging. Use a logo and establish a color palette for your blog that’s consistent with that of your portfolio site. Think of your readers as consumers of the content on your blog. Give them a good experience and they’ll become loyal to your brand.
7. Higher Search Engine Ranking
Search engines love blogs because they have many pages, links, and keywords associated with them. They also prefer text above images. That being said, your blog will most likely rank higher than your portfolio site on a search engine.
8. Keep on Top of the Latest Trends in our Field
By researching topics for blog posts you’ll automatically keep abreast of the newest technologies, what the top people in your field are doing, and the latest techniques and programs.
9. Bring Exposure to our Field
Medical illustrators don’t have much of a presence in today’s “social web.†The more medical illustrators and animators that blog, the more people will begin to grow knowledgeable about our field. This can hopefully make people aware of our skills, not just as artists, but also as researchers, educators, creatives, and business people.
Current blogs related to medical illustration
10. Earn Passive Income
You can earn money by
- selling advertising space on your blog (Google AdSense, BidVertiser, Text Link Ads)
- selling your own illustrations
- selling products
- through donations from your readers.
A lot of bloggers have made it as successful entrepreneurs because they were able to leverage their blog into significant sources of income. Tip: Blog because you’re passionate. Don’t blog to make money.
4 Things to be Cautious of when Blogging
1. Copyright
Ask permission before using an image from another website. Make sure you always give credit to the source of your images and information. This can be done by including a simple linkback to the original website with the author’s name.
2. Protect your Own Content
Just like you must cite sources, you should also watch that other bloggers give you credit for information they take from your blog. There are a lot of people out there that take content word-for-word from other blogs and post it on their own blog in order to make money from advertising. Don’t be afraid to ask for credit or to remove your content from their blogs.
3. Post Accurate Information
Make sure you do your research before writing a post. Check references and obtain your information from reliable resources. If your content isn’t trustworthy your authority as a blogger will suffer and you will lose readers.
4. Watch What you Say
Remember that what you say on your blog can spread to hundreds even thousands of other blogs and websites. You can easily hurt your career or chances of having a career by offending the wrong people.
Questions to Ask yourself Before you Start Blogging
Do I have a topic to blog about?
Am I passionate about my topic?
Can I commit time to blogging on a regular basis?
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