AdWords for Dentists: 7 Killer Tips to Boost Profits
A dentistry practice, like many other business services, has much to gain by implementing a Google AdWords pay-per-click campaign. Paid advertising is among the most direct and as a result most effective channels for marketing your product or service. One of the greatest benefits of Google AdWords is the fact that it’s measurable. Any online marketer will tell you the value of working with quantitative data. In this post we’ll take a close look at 7 killer AdWords tips for dentists to boost profits and maximum their returns.
Google AdWords for Dentists
AdWords for dentists are especially useful for increasing relevance to prospects by breaking down the campaign into individual factors like:
Number of total clicks
Click-through-rate (CTR)
Costs-per-action (CPA)
Cost-per-click (CPC)
Cost-per-view (CPV)
These are just a handful of the elements you can measure by way of a Google AdWords for dentists campaign. Google ads are displayed in two main areas–at the top of search result pages and in the right hand side bar as you see below.
Screenshot
1. Designate Niche Keywords into Categories
It’s obvious that the objective of a campaign is to target your prospects using the keywords they typically search, but how do you organize multiple keywords? Say for example, your prospects are searching phrases like “deep dental cleaning”, “professional teeth whitening” and “porcelain veneers”. If you were interested in targeting these 3 phrases, you could designate the last two in an add for cosmetic dentistry. The first keyword could be designated in a broader ad group or category for general dentistry.
What’s the purpose of this?
Grouping niche keywords in more targeted ads typically contributes to higher CTRs. Furthermore, this contributes significantly to the quality score Google assigns you. This ad score is calculated based on the relevance of your ad to users and ads with a higher Quality Score receive better positioning.
It often goes overlooked but organized keyword groupings have compounding effects on your CTR, conversion, Quality Scores and CPA which cumulatively improve your ROI and as a result lower your overall costs.
Tip: Make your AdWords keywords as closely tied to each other and relevant as possible for Google users.
2. Take Measures to Boost Your Quality Score
There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to bidding for Google keywords. Rather than being a straight auction, Google designates a Quality Score between 1-10 based on whether it thinks your ad is relevant to users and the landing page that follows. This score is what determines how high your ad will rank in an auction so it’s worth paying attention to! Factors that affect your Quality Score include:
- Your ad’s CTR. Using the trial and error method has its advantages but when it comes to Google Ads, you’re better playing it safe for the sake of your Quality Score. Say, for example, your dental practice runs an ad and users don’t click on it, you Quality Score may be severely lowered, which ends up costing you more for ads in the long run.
- Set boundaries on the number of keywords per group. If you have 1,500 keywords (in one group) sending all your visitors to the same page, you may not be interpreted as relevant. Instead, focus your efforts on specific key phrases.
3. Understand how to Generate Phone Leads Via Google Ads
If your sights are set exclusively on clicks, you neglecting a very important aspect–phone responses. There’s tremendous benefit in having a Google user call your dental practice without clicking on your PPC ad since you only pay for clicks. Optimizing your ad for phone responses is a great way to capture a lead without paying a penny.
Screenshot
To make the best use of this, ensure that the phone number is present on all your ads and customize it so that it only displays during business hours (or mentions them somewhere). That way, the prospect can be captured by someone in your office and retained!
4. Practice Consistency On and Off Ads
As we mentioned in an earlier point, building a quality score is pertinent to an effect adwords campaign. Another great way to boost your quality score is to practice consistency on your ads and landing pages that your ad directs to. Every ad should have a designated landing page that serves to convert the lead. In many ways, there needs to be uniformity and a seamless transition from one to the other. When Google notices inconsistencies, that’s when they typically knock your quality score.
How can you create fluidity?
- Use corresponding language/keywords on landing pages and ads
- Structure your PPC campaign so that each portion builds upon the other
- Avoid making your landing page seem spammy or deceitful
Other ways to practice consistency include:
- Using similar messaging across channels (AdWords, email, PPC, social media posts) and the website navigation
- Keep visitors engaged by using conversion-centric design to guide their cursor
- Test, test and test some more to see what works best!
Check out this post on the 6 Essential PPC Landing Page Optimizations.
5. Take Advantage of Ad Extensions
Another way to increase visiblity and maximize your short character limit on PPC ads is with ad extensions. Ad extensions entice users to click your ad and therefore equate to a better return on investment. According to Google, there’s no cost for adding these extensions to your campaign, but you are charged the normal rate for clicks.
“…You’re charged for clicking on a download button (app extensions), on a call button (call extensions), on a directions icon (location extensions), and so on. Clicks on review extensions, social extensions, and seller ratings are an exception: we don’t charge you for these. AdWords charges no more than two clicks (per impression) on each ad and its extensions.” Source
6. In the Beginning Implement a Testing Strategy
An innate component of SEO and Google AdWords is the trail and error process. You’ll likely find that certain keywords outperform others, and likewise. Marketers need to always be testing (ABT) to determine what works and what doesn’t. If you’re just starting out create a campaign with 3 adgroups with 3 ads in each (8 keywords in each group). This combination allows you to test and monitor the individual components (i.e., headlines, descriptions, KWs) to see what needs slight tweaking and what’s successful.
7. Optimize Ads with Geo-targeting
Within Google’s Ad interface you have the ability to specify a location for PPC ads to show users. It allows your to customize it by zip code, city or proximity (miles/km) of your dental practice location(s). By doing so, your ads are hyper-focused on users that would actually visit your practice.
Location targeting helps your restrict where your ads appear, which in turn allows you to target the right customers and increase your return on investment (ROI) as a result.
AdWords for Dentists Takeway
Effectively using AdWords for dentists can have tremendous benefits. On the flip side, you can also waste a large portion of your marketing budget by making uninformed decisions. Review the aforementioned strategies and see how you can implement them in your AdWords for dentists campaign.
Have any additional killer AdWords for dentists strategies? Drop us a comment below!
