With the added concerns caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, medical institutions have had to make changes to provide patients with safety reassurances that diminish their worries about getting sick during a healthcare visit. Healthcare companies and clinics must consider the most effective ways to attract new patients to their business every year. They must be visible and active in the digital world to connect with patients spending more time online. How can medical institutions like dental clinics expand their online presence to increase patient volume in 2022? One way is by using Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC). This blog will discuss acquiring new dental patients with PPC advertising for your dental clinic.

Boost Your Search Visibility with PPC Advertising

Most healthcare businesses cannot wait extended amounts of time for a long-term SEO strategy to start creating noise. Although a well-established SEO strategy can bring in new patients over time, paid search can work cohesively with organic SEO to produce new patients faster. Paid search helps healthcare providers gain visibility in competitive markets because their ad campaigns are the first things seen on Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). These paid ads also act as a placeholder for where you will build your organic SEO later. For example, if you want to increase the ranking for a competitive local keyword, like “dentist San Diego,” but aren’t seeing immediate results, PPC can place an advertisement at the top of the search engine to be seen before other results. You then derive clicks from the ads and your organic SEO. As soon as they are launched, PPC advertisements work to generate new patient leads.

Patient Acquisition with PPC Campaigns

Attention to how search engine advancements have changed how PPC works will help you create a campaign that will bring new dental patients to your clinic every year. With proper timing, when your PPC campaign goes live, it can find itself on the top of a search engine page and in front of every person researching your keyword. This visibility then lands your business a new dental patient, appointment, or booking. Placing the appropriate PPC campaign at the right time ensures that they work effectively to acquire new patients. Because of how fast search engine technology changes, you must research the best practices to ensure you get the most out of your PPC campaign.

Below are a few things to keep in mind:

  • There are new ways of optimizing keywords. New advancements in tech have made the old way of optimizing for keywords less efficient. Today, all ad campaigns need to connect and engage with audiences by presenting the perfect solution at just the right time. Throwing a bunch of weblinks and keywords into an ad won’t work anymore.
  • Broad match is officially gone. Check that your campaign doesn’t rely on broad matches before sending it out to search engines. Many healthcare providers use inefficient campaign structures that can quickly become costly, and you don’t want to be one of them.
  • Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) are now the default. RSAs only show patients the most relevant ad copy, significantly improving campaign performance and Return on Investments (ROIs). Many healthcare providers used to rely on expanded text ads, but now responsive search ads will be the only search ad type allowed in search campaigns. Becoming familiar with RSAs will help your campaign immensely.
  • Performance Max Campaigns are a new way to buy ads across various channels, including YouTube, Display, Search, and Discover. Healthcare providers should take full advantage of Performance Max Campaigns to attract local patients because it is becoming the next step for local campaigns.

If you leverage Google Ads for patient acquisition now, it’s worth conducting an audit before switching to any new strategy. A comprehensive audit will show you how to optimize what you already have and make up for what you’re missing through PPC campaigns.

We hope that this blog has taught you more about PPC campaigns and how acquiring new dental patients with PPC advertising is possible. Call us at (858) 228-7697 or visit our website to learn how Fotex Labs can help you formulate an SEO strategy that will get you on search engines in no time.