The short version: commodity content is anything a competitor or an AI tool could publish tomorrow without knowing your practice. Non-commodity content draws on something only you have, such as your clinicians’ experience, your outcomes data, or the voices of patients and creators who have lived the journey. Google rewards it, patients trust it, and it keeps working for years.

Why commodity content stopped working

Generic health articles are now cheap to produce at scale. Ahrefs found that 86.5% of top-ranking pages contain some AI-generated content, yet pages written entirely by AI rarely reach the number one position (Ahrefs, 2025). Google’s own guidance asks whether content “provide[s] original information, reporting, research, or analysis,” and it holds health topics to a higher standard than most (Google Search Central).

When every practice publishes the same article, none of them stands out. When an AI Overview can summarize the generic answer on its own, the practice that gets cited is usually the one that added something the summary could not invent.

What non-commodity content looks like

• Clinician knowledge. The questions your team answers in every consultation, written down in their words and reviewed by them.
• Your own data. Outcomes, success rates, and timelines from your practice, published with one consistent number everywhere it appears.
• Named, credentialed authors. Author profiles with credentials and schema, so readers and search engines can see who stands behind each page.
• Patient and creator voices. Firsthand stories, shared with consent, that answer the emotional questions clinical content cannot.

In our six-year case study, the top five clinician-informed articles drew between 27,000 and 81,000 pageviews each in a single year.

How I manage creator relationships

Creators can be the most trusted voice in a patient’s research, but trust in health content is fragile. Pew found that about 40% of US adults get health and wellness information from influencers or podcasts, yet only 10% of them trust all or most of it (Pew Research Center, 2026). The way a practice works with creators decides which side of that line it lands on, so these are the principles I follow.

• Long-term partners over one-off posts. I look for creators whose own story overlaps with your patients’ journey and build ongoing relationships, which is also where Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2026 survey shows brands heading, with more than half planning to expand with micro and nano creators (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2026).
• Their voice, your facts. Creators speak in their own words about their own experience, while any clinical or statistical claim is checked against your published data before it goes live.
• Clear disclosure every time. The FTC’s Endorsement Guides require material connections, including free services, to be disclosed clearly and conspicuously, and the FTC expects closer monitoring when claims involve health (FTC).
• One piece of content, many uses. A single long-form video can become short-form clips, quotes inside pillar blog posts, and email content, and a creator who also writes can contribute bylined posts with a full author profile.
• Measured like any other channel. Creator traffic gets its own channel in GA4, so we can see the visits, registrations, and inquiries it produces.

That last point matters. In one client engagement, TikTok produced 1,045 program applications in a single year, more than any other channel, which is a reminder that short-form video can drive conversions as well as awareness when the content is something only that brand could have made.

Book a strategy call to talk about building a content program around what makes your practice different.