GOOGLE ADS FOR DENTISTS

A BEST PRACTICE GUIDE FOR DENTAL SURGERIES

Regardless of what industry you work in, Google Ads is one of the most important marketing tools you can use to increase your online presence. Dental surgeries are no exception to this - if you are looking to attract new patients to your surgery, Google Ads is an excellent route to take. 

The primary aim of this article is to outline ways in which dentists and dental surgeries can make the most of Google Ads campaigns.

Understand and Define Your Goals

Before you begin to put a Google Ads campaign together, it is important that you both understand and define your goals. For instance, do you want to increase the number of appointments booked through your website? Or do you want more people to call you and make appointments over the phone? Perhaps you want to promote a new procedure or service that you are offering?

By understanding and defining what your goals are, this will help you to create a more effective campaign and measure its success more accurately.

Choose Relevant Keywords for Your Dental Surgery

According to Google Ads, their definition of keywords are: “words or phrases describing your product or service that you choose to help determine when and where your ad can appear.”

In other words, keywords are words or phrases which people use to search for information on Google. For example, if you are searching for “new dentures”, you will be directed towards results that show where, when and how you can get new dentures.

Say that you want to offer a teeth whitening service. You may choose to select keywords such as “teeth whitening” or “whitening procedures”. However, if you are unsure of what other terms you could use to direct people towards your website, you can always use Google’s Keyword Planner. 

In fact, it is highly recommended that you do use Google’s Keyword Planner. The Keyword Planner will show you the most relevant and effective keywords for your campaign, and thus help make your ad as effective as it can be.

Create a Great Ad

Now it’s time to create your ad! A good start is to think of what makes an advert particularly appealing to you. Some of the most common factors which make the best Google Ads are listed below.

Attention-Grabbing Headlines

Making sure that your headline grabs potential customers’ attention is key to a successful Google Ad, and especially so when you are creating Google Ads for dentists.

For example, simply putting “Local dentist offering new treatment” isn’t going to attract half as many people’s attention as something like “Teeth Whitening Right Here, Right Now”. Be creative with your headlines, it can pay dividends in the end!

Clear Descriptions

One of the next most important elements of your ad is to make sure that the description is clear. You want to take the time to carefully craft the description, making sure that all of the relevant information is listed, without taking up too many characters - the maximum you can use is 90 characters.

Filling it with keywords for the sake of keywords will also neither impress Google nor your customers. Your ad description should always convey concise, clear information which is readable by a human, not a bot or a software tool.

For example, simply filling your description with “teeth whitening service teeth whitening local best teeth whitening procedures dentist” makes no sense to anybody, and people will be less inclined to click through to your website.

However, if you write something like: “Local brand new teeth whitening services available near you”, people are going to be more inclined to click through and into your website, because it is readable and genuine.

Use Relevant Imagery

Images are a great way to direct people to your dental surgery - the same applies on Google Ads. For instance, an image of a car on a dental surgery ad will not entice people to click on it, as it is completely irrelevant.

Using high-quality images is another way to make people click on your ad. Using a blurred or copyrighted image will only cause you issues, but a good quality, stock image - or even better, a good quality photograph - can help people see that you are offering a good service. 

It is worth bearing the phrase “an image speaks a thousand words” in mind when selecting a suitable image for your Google Ad.

Who Are Your Target Audience?

Knowing your target audience is another important factor to consider when creating a Google Ad, and especially so for dental surgeries. 

For instance, if you are based near a university, do you want to offer student deals and bring in students as your main demographic? Or perhaps you are based in a small village with an older population - offering dentures or attracting an older demographic to your dental surgery may be what you are striving to do?

Thankfully, with Google Ads, you can not only decide which demographic you want to target, but also by location and interest.

In turn this means that if you want to attract people within a 10 kilometre radius to your surgery, you can set this up within Google Ads. Similarly, if you want a wider audience, you can change the setting accordingly - maybe you want to become the most successful dental surgery in the South West?

Whatever your goals are, making sure that you know your target audience and how to build your Google Ads around this can help you significantly in the long run.

Take Care of Your Campaign

Once your ad is up and running, make sure that you don’t forget about it and just leave it.

Think of your Google Ad as your teeth - as a dentist, you know that you should brush them twice a day, at least. You don’t necessarily need to check up on your ad twice a day, but by keeping a constant eye on it, you can monitor its developments as well as its performances.

There are a number of tools available within Google Ads which can help you to monitor your campaign, including looking at its insights including conversions, tracking and even clicks.

By monitoring your insights on Google Ads, you can adjust as necessary so that you can fulfil your goals. For instance, if you are not getting as many conversions as you would like, you could try expanding the geographic reach of your ad, or perhaps editing keywords so that you reach more people who are searching for the specific services which you offer.

The Importance of Landing Pages

If you are unsure of what a landing page is, it is simply the page of your website that a user arrives at (or “lands” on) after they have clicked through your ad. Therefore, it is absolutely imperative that you use an effective landing page when you set up your Google Ad. 

Having a good landing page is clinical to getting more conversions and people clicking through your ad. For example, if your ad is promoting teeth whitening services, and the ad leads to a page dedicated to children’s dentistry, then people will leave because it is not what they are searching for, and not what they wanted to see.

Your landing page needs to provide certain key information for users who click through your ads. It needs to have clearly written information, which is what the ad discussed in its headline, description and imagery.

It also needs to provide the information which your users searched for, hence why its relevance to your ad is so important.

Budgeting Accordingly

While Google Ads can be an expensive investment at first, when they pay off, your cost per click (CPC) can be relatively low, and your return on investment (ROI) high, thus being very rewarding for yourself in the long run. 

By preparing a suitable budget for your ad, you can eliminate or certainly lessen the risks of spending too much with little to no return on it.

Google Ads also has some tools which you can use in order to sort this out, including bidding strategies, which can help you to get the most out of your budget by optimising your bidding strategies.

Helping you to get the most out of your money is a key feature of Google Ads and can ensure that you do not waste your time and money on a campaign that does not go anywhere or provide any results.

Conclusion

While setting up a Google Ads campaign for a dental surgery can seem a daunting task initially, it is one of the most effective digital marketing tools to help expand your business.

Whether you want to attract your target audience via their geographic location, or by their age range, it is important to bear certain factors in mind.

These factors include designing an effective ad, including its headline, imagery and description, and by also monitoring your ad carefully so that you can make any adjustments in case it is not performing as you want it to perform.

By bearing these tips from this article in mind, you can be the creator of a successful Google Ads campaign for a dental surgery.

For any more information, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

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