Establishing an effective online marketing strategy is an essential step for any modern dental practice looking to enhance its patient base. Many practices have recognised the need for a well structured and well presented website that is search engine optimised to encourage the most ‘clicks’. However, there are many more tools at your disposal that will ensure you achieve the maximum coverage.
One such tool is pay per click (PPC). Essentially this is a method by which you can ensure that once your website has been set up, it can be found by potential patients. Pay per click is an online advertising model that is used to direct internet traffic towards your website. It works by sing key words that solicit a reaction from a search engine such as Google or Bing in an auction based system (you bid what you would want to pay for a single click on an ad and the highest bid stands the greatest chance of ranking number one on the ‘sponsored’ results).
So for a dental practice this might be ‘dental implants’ or orthodontics’, which when entered into the search engine by interested patients will provide a link to your website. his link will appear in the ‘sponsored’ results section of the search result pages (rather than the ‘organic’ section) and you will only pay a fee each time someone clicks on and is taken to your site.
The key to a successful PPC campaign is through knowing your Pay per click target audience. Finding niche keywords and optimising positive and negative terms will ensure that when people do click on your ad it will result in a conversion rather than merely a click and ‘bounce’. When compared to SEO techniques, PPC has a much higher conversion rate and will generate more regular ‘clicks’ and much faster results. while SEO has a much slower start, but could provide more long lasting results and may be more cost-effective.
For both approaches the end goal is ultimately the same: to increase the number of patients you see in your practice by achieving an enhanced level of traffic to your website through appearing higher on the search engine results pages. A truly successful online campaign will exploit both SEO and PPC for the maximum coverage and response. For the best results always seek the help of expert online marketers, such as Dental Focus. Experts will be able to combine the two disciplines (SEO and PPC) to create a solid foundation by which your website will achieve its maximum potential. Pay per click can provide a starting point for a newly created website and is a great way of testing which keywords will garner the optimum outcomes for SEO.