4 ways Cleveland Clinic data draws millions of readers to its blog

Editor’s note: This story is taken from Ragan Communications’ distance-learning portal, Ragan Training. The site contains hundreds of hours of case studies, video presentations and interactive courses.

Let’s say you’re writing a health blog post recommending oatmeal for breakfast, and you’ve dug up two alternatives to illustrate your story.

Each photograph shows a bowl of hot cereal topped with blueberries. In one, somebody has stuck a spoon into the oatmeal. In the second, there’s no spoon.

At Cleveland Clinic’s wildly successful Health Essentials blog—a place where they “eat, breathe and sleep data”—there’s no question which photo to choose, says Amanda Todorovich, director of content marketing.

“If we showed food in a bowl with a spoon, it out-performed food in a bowl without a spoon,” she says.