Wednesday, April 2, 2014
In my last article for Dental Compare, I offered you a Crash Course in Dental Pay Per Click. This is great if you need an overview of what PPC is and why you should use it. It’s like the view from the Goodyear Blimp at a major sporting event—super helpful at orientating you with the layout of the field/course/stadium, but lacking in specific details.
In this article, I want to give you some “on the field” insight. Specifically, I’ll show you:
- How to identify the best ad type for you
- How to pick good keywords for your practice
- How to use PPC insights to improve your other marketing
So get suited up and let’s get into the game!
(Ok, that’s definitely the last of the sports references…)
Choosing The Best Ad Type
When you first encounter Google AdWords, you will likely be overwhelmed. If you’re not, you’re probably some kind of marketing superhero. (By the way, I will focus on Google’s PPC tools because they are far and away the most popular. For the most part, the principles transfer to any other system.) When you create your AdWords account and go to make your first ad, there are more options than you expect. But essentially, there are only two kinds of ads you have to work with: Search Ads and Placements.
A Search Ad is a small text ad that appears above and to the right of Google’s search results. For example, if you search for “postcard marketing” in Google, you should see PostcardMania’s website in your search results. Additionally, you will probably see our Search Ad either above your results or on the right hand column of the page.
A Placement Ad is either a text or image ad that appears on a website outside of Google’s search results. These websites could be Google-owned properties such as YouTube and Gmail, or they could be websites that have agreed to join Google’s “Display Network.” The Display Network consists of the millions of websites that have signed up to show ads for Google, and pretty much every major site is included except for sites such as Facebook that operate their own PPC marketing systems. We’re talking about legit sites here such as CNN.com, Dictionary.com, HGTV.com, etc.
Basically, AdWords lets you target dental patient prospects based on what they type into Google (Search Ads) and/or the websites they visit (Placement Ads).For dentists, search ads are the obvious play. You want people searching for dental practices in your area to find you. Placement ads can work, but you need to decide if there is a kind of website your ideal prospects visit regularly. If so, go for it!
Finding Good Dental Keywords
The Keyword Planner is a tool created by Google to help you analyze search terms for popularity, traffic, and competition. It also provides assistance in finding new keyword terms to target. The Keyword Planner helps you make wise decisions about which keywords to target, how much to bid, and even how to create content for your website. You used to be able to use the Keyword Planner without an AdWords account, but now it is required.
Note: When you sign up for an AdWords account, you will be forced to begin your first campaign, but you can always pause it later.
Using the Planner, you can discover the search volume (number of people searching monthly) and competition level (volume of businesses bidding) for a particular keyword term. Additionally, you can see the projected daily impressions (times your ad would be shown) and projected daily clicks for different bid levels. This helps you manage your cost per click (CPC) to get the most out of your budget.
Here’s how it works:
You sign into your AdWords account and navigate the Keyword Planner under the “Tools & Analysis” tab.
You choose whether you want to:
- Search for new keyword ideas
- Get search volume (how many people are searching for a term) for a specific keyword term
- Get traffic estimates (how many clicks you can expect for your bid) for a keyword
- Multiply keyword lists (get new ideas based on previous keywords)
Then simply type in some keyword ideas and get the information you need to pick high quality keywords for your practice!
Spread The PPC Wealth
The information you gather from the keyword planner tool gives you amazing insight into the mind of your target market. For example, the keyword phrase, “what is a veneer” is searched for 390 times per month, and there is low competition for it. In other words, there are not many practices bidding on that keyword. This tells you a couple things:
- Many people don’t know what a veneer is. So don’t use it in marketing unless you are positive the audience will understand what you are saying
- There is an opportunity to rank highly for that keyword if you can benefit from that
See how that works? By analyzing the search volume on certain keywords, you can gain a better understanding of your prospects, and then use that knowledge to create more effective marketing.
These tips should make it easier for you to start growing your practice with PPC. If you still have questions, feel free to email me at [email protected]