Adwords For Dentists

Being responsible for several dental practice locations can be a big responsibility. The performance of each location can often weigh heavily on your mind.

Are some performing offices performing better than others? Are they generating enough new patients to cover overheads?

The idea of having to close an underperforming office can be daunting.

After all, it took a lot of time and planning to break ground on that new location.

Historically you could boost a dental office’s performance with a yellow pages ad, but now with the majority of your patients online, you need to go digital.

SEO Vs. Google Adwords For Dentists

Optimising your dental website for Google is critical,  this gargantuan search engine is the number-one source of new patients. However, improving your organic rankings does take time, and being competitive for all of your locations can be an extremely challenging proposition.

Click Here if you are interested in learning more about SEO for Dentists

Google Ads help you to bypass this obstacle by giving you instant visibility to a precise segment of people – which helps you fill schedule openings in all of your locations.

SEO gives you “free” traffic to your website by allowing you to rank organically in the search engines, and although SEO is important for the long term growth of your locations, pay-per-click (PPC) marketing complements your strategy with precise control over who visits your website.

Google Adwords for Dentists allows you to set a budget, choose relevant keywords, and write ads customised to a specific geographic area.

Say that you have locations in three Devon towns (i.e. Exeter, Torquay, and Plymouth). Based on the number of patients you serve at each location, you decide on the following PPC budgets:

Exeter: This location is underperforming, and you are considering closing your clinic here. You create a monthly PPC budget of £500 to attract patients in and around the Exeter area.
Torquay: This location is performing well, but you still have schedule openings. You create a monthly budget of £250 targeting those living in and around the Torquay area.
Plymouth: You have more patients than you can handle, so you leave Plymouth out of your PPC budget.

Differentiating Your Ideal Patients

Demographics, habits, and needs can differ from town to town. That’s why your PPC ads should be used to speak to each local audience with different, targeted messages. Using a generic targeting strategy for each of your locations might fall on deaf ears.

The goal with Adwords for Dentists is to connect with your target audience specific to each location.

For example: Do your services vary from one location to another (i.e. you offer orthodontic care only at your Exeter location)?

Do you have more private patients at a particular location (i.e. you might offer a new patient special campaign at your Torquay location)?

When building your campaigns, pay special attention to where you target your ads. We recommend drawing a radius that targets patients who reside within 20 minutes of your practice (depending on population density and competition, you might need to expand your radius).

A key benefit of Ads for Dentists is that you can easily target prospective patients outside the town that your office is located. For instance, if there are three towns surrounding your Torquay office that are within a 20-minute drive, you can target people within these neighboring towns as well.

Localise Your Ads and keywords

Running a budgeted campaign begins with keyword targeting. What’s the goal of your keywords?

To reach potential dental patients who reside within 20 minutes of your practice.

Let’s say that your Exeter office specialises in cosmetic dentistry. One of your keywords might be, “cosmetic dentist in Exeter”. Say that you want to target prospective patients in Plymouth who need Periodontics. You might target a keyword such as, “Plymouth periodontal dentist”.

No different from the local approach you take to choose keywords, your ad copy should also be localised. For example, here is what your ad might look like for your Exeter location:

Cosmetic Dentist in Exeter

Teeth Whitening Special Offer

Get 30% Off Throughout May

We can offer Customised Payment Plans to Fit Your Budget.

Visit Our Website to Book Your Appointment Today!

Localise Your Landing Pages.

You’ve set your budget. You’ve chosen your keywords. You’ve written your ads. You’re done, correct? Hardly.

You still have to send people to a landing page on your website.  It’s not uncommon for a dentist to link a PPC ad to their homepage.

This is a huge mistake. Getting someone to click is one thing. Getting someone to act is another.

Each location should have a unique landing page, customised for that location’s audience. Say that you are building a landing page for your Torquay location. It should include the following elements:.

Incorporate local keywords on the page (i.e. Torquay dentist).
Show a photo of the dentist [s] at your Torquay location.
Tell the story of how your Torquay practice opened.
Include a call to action that encourages prospective patients to schedule an appointment.

Key Takeaways:

  • While SEO is important, it is a long-term strategy; Google Adwords for Dentists help expedite new patient growth.
  • PPC gives you precise control over how and where you target prospective patients.
  • Find the unique aspects of each practice location and incorporate those aspects into your ads.
  • Localise your campaigns by drawing a specific radius around each office location.
  • Your ad copy and landing pages should sync together with similar keywords and content.

To get the most out of your PPC campaigns, you must think about what’s important to each target user in each location. A cookie cutter approach for all of your locations will have limited success.

Using a generic targeting strategy for each of your locations might fall on deaf ears.

Prime Health Leads can help set up winning campaigns that cover everything we have discussed on this page, get in touch with us for more information relating to our Adwords for Dentists and Dental Practices, you can send us a message via our Contact page, or Book a FREE 45 Minute Strategy Session with us to really dig deep into what would work best for you.