4 Strategies for maximizing PPC performance for dental practices

Dental practices, like many other small businesses, can benefit greatly from adding PPC advertising into their marketing plan. AdWords is Google’s Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising service. AdWords allows businesses to display ads on millions of websites within the Google Display Network. These include popular sites such as CNN.com and Dictionary.com, which generate a lot of traffic. It’s great for building brand awareness, and when used correctly, it can be a great lead generator. PLUS, all of this is in addition to the text ads you see when you search Google.

In order to get the most out of your PPC marketing, you need to implement four strategies into your campaigns. These maximize the effectiveness of your ads and bring in the best return on investment for your company.

Let’s take a look at them.

1) Create groups of relevant niche keywords
The most important aspect of your ad campaign is the relevance of your ads to your prospects’ search keywords. An ad for a discount on a dental cleaning is completely irrelevant to someone searching for a DVD player, so the ad is ignored. What you need to do is find out what keywords your particular prospects are typing into Google. Then, once you have all the words, you can divide them into relevant groups that focus on one particular service. You want your ad to discuss topics that are as close to a prospect’s search keywords as possible so it generates more interest from them when they see it.

For instance, dental practice prospects are probably using keyword phrases such as “teeth whitening,” “professional dental cleaning”, or “improving your smile.” With these keywords, you could place the first and third one into a group, and create an ad for cosmetic dentistry services. The second one would go into a group with other general dental hygiene keywords, and an ad would be created to target those needs. You need to organize your groups to best connect with the needs of different groups.

Organizing your keywords yields more relevant ads for searching prospects and a higher click-through rate.

These two results are precisely what you need to achieve a great quality score for your ads. Google assigns ads a quality score based on how helpful they believe your ad will be to their users. If it is highly relevant and generating clicks, they conclude your prospects will want to see it. They give ads with high quality scores better ad positioning and a lower cost-per-click rate. Who would say no to that? All you need to do is get organized with your targeted keywords.

2) Maintain consistency between ad and landing page
Another way to build your quality score is to maintain consistency between your ad, and your landing page, the webpage your ad directs prospects to. For each of your ads, you should have a landing page designed specifically for that ad. The ad’s job is to get the attention of prospects and engage their interest. The job of your landing page is to build trust and encourage connection through a special offer. Through this process your prospect needs to be fully engaged, as each step builds off the previous one. The transition from ad to landing page should be smooth so that the prospect doesn’t get confused or lose interest. Google knows this and gives advertisers brownie points for maintaining a consistent design and message through the PPC process.

The problem with inconsistency in design or message is that your prospects can have any of three reactions:
1. They think they have been directed to the wrong page and run for the “Back” button.
2. They think the ad was a scam, and your company set itself way back when it comes to building trust.
3. They conclude that your company is unprofessional, or at the very least disorganized, and choose not to give you a chance.

Those are all pretty bad, right? You don’t want any part of that, so make sure your PPC process feels fluid. Your ad and landing page need a matching design. Your landing page and text ads should emphasize the same topics or services. In every PPC campaign, each piece should be a building block constructing the overall marketing message of that campaign, whether it is for dental hygiene services or cosmetic services.

3) Optimize ads for phone responses
Clicks aren’t the only response you want to generate from your PPC ads. You also want to generate calls. There is one fantastic reason calls are better than clicks — calls are free. Google only charges you when a prospect clicks on your ads. You don’t pay a cent if a prospect sees your ad and calls your number. You can really boost your return on investment by generating free call-in leads. To do this you have to do two things — make sure your phone number is featured in all of your ads, and restrict your ads’ display hours to only the hours you’re in the office. This ensures that every call your ads generate will be handled by a real person, who can get prospects’ contact information and help turn them into customers. This is a great strategy to get the most out of your PPC ads.

4) Maximize your character limit with ad extensions
Your PPC ads have a very short character limit, so you need to maximize the ads ability to communicate your marketing information with as few words as possible. Google helps you out with this by offering ad extensions. There are six ad extensions, which communicate important marketing information without counting toward your character limit.

Here they are...

1) Location extension ― Shows prospects your address, and link it to a Google Map of your location so they can get directions.
2) Product extension ― This isn’t useful for dental professionals, because you don’t offer products in the traditional sense. This extension displays products and their prices from a business’s Google Merchant account.
3) SiteLink extension ― Adds links to several of your websites below your ad, instead of offering just one landing page.
4) Phone number extension ―Gives prospects your phone number, and makes it a click-to-call number for mobile searchers.
5) Social media extension ― Displays the amount of +1s your Google+ page has accumulated to enhance credibility with prospects.
6) Seller rating extension ― Shows prospects your seller rating given to you by customers. This can be a great trust builder because Google only shows your rating if it is four or five stars.

Dental practices can use PPC advertising to grow their clientele and their bottom line. Start implementing these four strategies, and your PPC marketing can be one of your biggest marketing assets.

Now that you’re an expert in PPC advertising, find out how to boost your local search engine results with a FREE marketing report! Or call 800-628-1804 to speak to a marketing consultant to learn more about your online marketing options.

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Joy Gendusa is the owner and CEO of the direct mail marketing firm PostcardMania. Joy began PostcardMania in 1998 with nothing but a phone and a computer, never taking a dime of investment capital. Joy originally started PostcardMania as a full-service postcard marketing company helping clients create turn-key marketing campaigns with graphic design, printing, mailing list acquisition, and mailing services. Since then, PostcardMania has expanded to offer its clients more services, including website and landing page design and development, email marketing, and full marketing evaluations — all while continuing to educate clients with marketing advice. Visit www.postcardmania.com for more information. Find Joy on Google+.