Google Ads for Dentists: How to drive more leads

Online advertising brought in a record $139.8 billion in revenue in 2020, up from $124.6 billion in 2019. Those revenue numbers continue to increase year-over-year and can be expected to be even higher in 2022. With Google responsible for over 60% of search queries in 2021, including Google Adwords for dentists in your dental marketing plan can drive more leads and significantly increase your revenue. 

Over 1 billion people use Google Search Engine regularly. While dental searches may only account for a small portion of the overall search results, dental ads can capture some of those users with optimized Google Ads campaigns. 

Google Ads is a pay-per-click (PPC) ad platform that helps businesses boost their traffic and increase their conversions when done correctly. It is about more than simply setting up an ad campaign and letting it run. While you may utilize a third party digital marketing agency to set your campaigns up, the maintenance will likely fall to you, so you must know how to use the platform correctly. 

There are several different ad formats to choose from since Google Ads come in a variety of flavors. You can run search ads, display ads, video ads, and more. There are even shopping campaigns for dental practices that sell products online and dental office ads.

You have the opportunity to reach new customers through google ads dentist campaigns. Not just the potential patients who are searching for a new family dental practice, but patients in need. If a crown breaks, a tooth chips, or someone is concerned about a potential infection, they will search for nearby dental practices. 

Your ads can appear at the top of the search results and get you in front of the right people when you target potential patients with the right keywords. This is especially helpful for dental practices that do not appear on the first search result page organically. 

Google Ads best practices

You can quickly set up a Google Ads campaign and ad groups, then let it run, sure. But if you are not optimizing your campaigns, you are setting yourself up for failure. If you want to drive more leads to your site, schedule more appointments, and bring in more patients to your practice, then you need to run your Google Ads right. 

Optimize your keywords

The keywords you choose to target can make or break your ad campaign. It matters what searches you’re showing up in. To keep your ad costs down, you want to target your audience specifically and bid intelligently. 

First, determine what searches you want to show up in. For example, do you want to target a specific neighborhood? Then, you will want to include the community, by name, in your longtail keywords. 

Are you targeting a specific service? Are you trying to bring in more patients for cosmetic dentistry? Perhaps you want more patients to come in for teeth whitening or dental implants. Know what you’re targeting and focus on your keywords. 

If you can narrow down your keywords, you can minimize your costs. Think like a patient and use your knowledge to narrow down your options.

Keyword Planner

Google’s Keyword Planner can go a long way in helping you narrow down your keyword selection. As Google says, “the right keywords can get your ad in front of the right customers.” 

The Keyword Planner helps you research keywords, providing search volume and bid estimates. It will also suggest new keywords to help you broaden your keywords list. You want about 10-20 keywords per ad group.

Longtail keywords

It is essential to understand the different keyword match types before making any official decisions. In addition to the match types, there are also short tail keywords and longtail keywords. 

Longtail keywords are three to five, sometimes more, words long. These keywords will typically have lower search results as they tend to get very specific. But the conversion rates on longtail keywords generally are very high. 

Search terms report

Once your campaign is up and running, you can check your search terms report. This is a list of the specific terms people searched that triggered your ads. 

This report is an excellent resource for keyword research. If you set up your conversion tracking correctly, these results can even tell you which clicks resulted in conversions. Pay attention to converting keywords that are not already on your list. 

This report is also excellent for determining which keywords you should add to your negative keywords list. The negative keywords list will prevent you from showing up in searches you have no desire to be in. You should be utilizing this. 

Target by location

Your dental practice is a brick-and-mortar location, meaning it is in one specific place. If you are not setting targeted geographic locations, you are showing up in searches worldwide. 

If your practice is located in Chicago, you don’t want to appear in searches placed in Los Angeles. You’ll get plenty of ad impressions, but you’ll be spending too much for a terrible return. 

In addition to setting the targeted geographic location for your ad campaigns, you can link your Google My Business (GMB) account to your Google Ads account. This will allow potential patients to see your location as well as your contact information. 

Optimize your landing pages

The landing page is the web page that the potential patient lands on when they click on your ad. It is the specific URL that you are directing your ad to. Landing page relevance matters. If your landing page is irrelevant to the search terms or the call-to-action is unclear, your bounce rates will be significantly higher and your quality score will be low. A low quality score means fewer ad impressions.  

You’ll be paying for clicks that have little to no chance of converting. You’re essentially throwing away money if you do not optimize your landing pages. 

The page should be specific to the search terms and the ad copy. Do not send them to a generic page on your website. Not only should the page match the ad, but it should drive your specific conversion. 

If your goal is to schedule more appointments, the CTA on the landing page should very clearly direct them to set an appointment and make it simple to do so. Optimized landing pages will generate more conversions and increase your return on investment (ROI). 

Optimize for mobile

While more conversions happen on a laptop or desktop, more than half of all web browsing happens on mobile devices these days. This is especially true for potential patients encountering an emergency dental situation. 

Your Google Ads will display differently on mobile than it will on a much larger screen. Tweaking your ads so that they are optimized for mobile as well as laptop/desktop devices is key to success. 

Run A/B tests 

If you are unfamiliar with the term, an A/B test (or split test) refers to an experimentation process where two or more versions of a variable are tested against each other. The goal is to see which yields the best results for your target audience. 

There are several elements you can A/B test with your Google Ads. You can test headlines, ad copy, landing page, call-to-action, and more. Be sure that you are only testing one element at a time, though, or your results will be skewed. 

A/B tests can help you determine what works specifically for your audience. They can help to optimize your ad campaigns and increase both conversions and ROI. 

Google has made it even easier to run A/B tests with its “ad variation” feature. 

Understand the Google Ads platform

While this may seem obvious, many will only learn the bare basics before starting with Google Ads. They are doing themselves a disservice. Understanding the intricacies of this platform, Google’s own recommendations, and how the platform can work for you will go a long way with your ad campaigns. 

Luckily, there is plenty of Google AdWords Support and an excellent collection of articles with their “Guide to Google Ads.” There is even an article specifically designed for those who are completely unfamiliar with the platform that covers all the basics. For instance, Google Ads recommends that you run three ads per ad group. 

Frequently check results

While you can technically set it and forget it, your results will not be optimal. Frequent check-ins are a vital part of using Google Ads. It doesn’t require a significant time commitment. Even 20-30 minutes a week can make a difference. 

When you do check in, you want to check your results. Look at all of your metrics at the campaign and ad group levels. Look at your search terms report and add any new negative keywords to your list. Adjust your bids as necessary. Look at your A/B test results as well. How are your click through rates? Your conversion rates? Your ROI?

You can look into your specifics for each campaign as well. For example, do some perform better at certain times of the day? Are some keywords performing much better than others? Are your potential customers using mobile or desktop? 

Stay up-to-date on Google Ads and Google Search

Google makes frequent changes to their Google Ads platform and the Google Search algorithm. You must pay attention to these updates as they can directly affect your campaign success. Thankfully, they will announce these changes well in advance. 

Using Google Ads to drive more leads

When you follow the best practices outlined above and optimize your Google Ad campaigns, you bring in more leads. Each click is a potential conversion. And, if you are targeting the right keywords and optimizing your landing pages, you can expect a great ROAS (return on ad spend). 

In addition to the leads you’re bringing in with your ads, the data provided by Google Ads can also be incredibly helpful with organic search results. The Google Ads data can provide you with a list of keywords that your converted clicks are actually using. 

If you take that knowledge and apply it to your website, you can boost your SEO (search engine optimization) and your organic search results. You can expect even more leads when your site shows up on the first-page search results organically.