Pay per click advertising can feel endlessly frustrating. Shortly after getting your ads up, you find that they’re not behaving the way you want them to. But is this related to user error, to the audience that you’re targeting, to the ads themselves, to the budget, or something else entirely?  Unless you’re familiar with Google Adwords it’s going to be pretty difficult to tell. That’s why bringing in a pay-per-click marketing expert is going to make a significant change to your ads and also to your daily frustrations.

There are certain issues that tend to befall first-time AdWords users – and with Google’s frequent changes to ad policies, structure, and display, what worked in the past may not be successful today.

 Solutions to Common PPC Advertising Troubles

• Learning curve – Getting started with AdWords feels like an uphill battle, in large part because there’s so much information to take in. Check out some AdWords-specific primers for information on which metrics are valuable, and which ones you can ignore.
• Competitive pricing – Your ads will only show when you’ve beat the keyword bids of other advertisers in your area. This can sometimes result in a bidding war, in which you’re constantly trying to one-up your competitors. Instead of going for the ultra-expensive keywords, find long-tail phrases (more detailed queries like “best cosmetic dentist”) that aren’t as competitive but will actually draw in more motivated leads, who are ready to commit.
• Ads structure changes – Google loves changing its ad campaign structure to keep us all guessing. In the last two months alone, they removed sidebar ads, making it more expensive and more difficult to get an ad in the first or second position on the page. But the SEM community has your back – when you’re not sure how to react to an advertising change, go to the experts.
• Ad not approved – Depending on your service, it can be tough to get the ad you want approved (this is especially true for branded treatments like Botox or Juvederm). When you see the dreaded “not approved” message, take a look at what Google said about the ad, and make necessary adjustments to get into their good graces. If you just can’t get a specific ad approved, no matter how many changes you make, it might be time to scrap it and try something new.
• Overly large radius – It’s important to check on the radius that Google sets for your ads as default. For many practices, depending on location, a 20-mile radius is just too big. Experiment with a smaller search area and see if your ads end up leading to more leads, as opposed to empty clicks from users who abandon the page when they see your address.
• Measuring conversions – AdWords provides many ways to track and measure conversions, but they’re not all immediately noticeable. From submissions of your website’s forms to clicks of your phone number to calls after the user has arrived at your website, these can all be measured to inform your advertising efforts – just ask if you need help implementing.

Your website looks great and is performing…fine. You’re just not getting the leads you’d like to see, and good rankings aren’t making a difference. You feel like there’s something more that could be done, but you’re not sure exactly what it might be. When is it time to turn to search engine marketing?

It feels like a big plunge to take, but PPC (Pay Per Click) ads don’t have to be stressful or overwhelming. Identify your present marketing goals and take a look at your budget to decide whether ads will be effective for your needs. They could provide just the lead boost you’re looking for – or they could end up being overly expensive and under-performing. The trick is to start with the right intents.

 Sound Familiar? It’s Time to Try Pay-Per-Click

• Hoping to increase online leads – This seems obvious, but it’s important to note just the kind of lead influx you’re hoping for. Ads create leads – that much is certain. Simply put, you’re going to be impressing upon hundreds more searchers per day. Clicks are just one measurable metric for your ads: be ready to record the conversions you receive so that you can tell which ad sets are leading users all the way to contacting your practice.
• Have specific practice specials – You need to be able to stand out within the ad block. Those who click on your ads are choosing you over the other ad sets visible at the time, and they’re choosing you for a reason. Whether you have a whitening special, an excellent before and after gallery, or $ off a routine cleaning, be sure to build your ads around what makes your practice the right choice.
• Live in a highly competitive area – If you’re facing practice competition at every turn, ads can give you an extra edge. When your ad is in the top 3 positions in Google search results, interested users click the ad before they even make it to the organic listings.
• Ready to monitor your ads – You’ll need to make sure that your ads are working well, and not let the cost run away with you. If ads aren’t bringing in conversions but are racking up worthless clicks, it’s time to make some adjustments to your strategy and save money.
• Consider the value of your leads – Even if your advertising is bringing in leads, those leads may not be the kind that ultimately show up for their appointments, or they may just be price-shopping. Keep track of which leads actually wind up in the dental chair, and track the source of their conversion.

Our agency offers pay-per-click management within each of our monthly marketing plans. If you’d like some help getting your ads off the ground, just get in touch – we’re ready to design, optimize, and monitor ads on Google, Facebook, or other search engines or platforms of your choice. Not sure where to advertise? We’ll identify your current top sources of traffic and go where the action is.

We always have big plans for ourselves – but can the reality meet our expectations? Once you put something into practice, it’s often more time-consuming or more difficult than you thought it would be. Time passes, and you stop working on it, and the idea bites the dust. So it goes with countless abandoned blogs across the internet.

But while a personal bottlecap collecting blog may not really benefit from frequent posting, your dental practice’s blog deserves attention. Consistent, high-quality content creation is important for many reasons, some of which appeal to search engine robots, and some of which appeal to potential patients. You owe it to your business to find a way to blog regularly and update your site on an ongoing basis. These tools will help you keep that goal from falling by the wayside.

How to Have an Active Dental Blog

• Content calendar – It’s easy to say that you will write a blog post at some point in the next month. Why not assign it a date? Setting up a regular blogging interval helps you create rules for yourself that you’re far more likely to follow than a vague intent. Spending even 30 minutes on a post helps keep your site looking active and gives search engines more valuable content to index.
• Stay informed – Set up news alerts on your aggregator of choice for issues related to oral health, dentistry, general health, or specific technologies/procedures. When a new study or product is released, write out some of your thoughts and capitalize on the link power of that news.
• Use what you’ve got – Have a new set of before and afters from a cosmetic patient? Put them up in a post about the procedure(s) used in their case. Just hire a new staff member? Introduce them on your website. You practice is always changing and growing, and it’s not hard to translate that to web content – just be sure to take that step.

Dental Blogging for Your Practice

Still too swamped to find time to blog? Our agency offers practice-oriented, thoroughly researched, and completely unique content that helps your business shine. Just get in touch to speak with a copywriter.

Google’s always tinkering with its search engine algorithms, but some changes pack more of a punch than others. Last April, Google released an update that did more to bring site design into 2015 than any motivation to upgrade possibly could. Now, if you’re not mobile-friendly, your rankings are lower than your more responsive competitors. And that translates to a big loss in traffic – up to 5% of organic visitors.

Not only does Google penalize a poorly-responding site, but new visitors are far less likely to put up with a difficult-to-use interface. If they’re visiting on a phone or tablet and struggle to find the information they’re looking for, they’re going to restart their search and avoid your practice in the future.

Instead of worrying about how additional updates could make this traffic loss even worse, take action. With device traffic continuing to outpace desktop, there’s no reason to cling to an old design or a separate mobile site (which can also harm your rankings if it’s not set up perfectly).

How to Tell if Your Site is Responsive

Google offers a quick, simple tool that immediately tells you how it’s seeing your site pages. But that’s not super in-depth – although you can check and see if different pages are more or less responsive than one other by inputting a variety of URLs into the checker.

Even more simply, you can just click and drag the edge of your browser when visiting your site – as you make it smaller, a responsive design will adjust the element size and placement to fit with the new window size.

Make Sure That Everything’s Up to Date in Your CMS

Depending on your CMS, you may be able to find fast, low-effort ways to improve responsiveness. Plugins, themes, and other modules need to be updated (especially on WordPress) to adhere to current design guidelines.

Check On Different Types of Site Content

While some pages might look great on your cell phone, others buck responsive prompts. This might have to do with the type, size, or alignment of images, videos, and other elements you’re using within site pages. Take the time to consider what types of content are displayed on your site, and which pages might be behaving strangely. If you have your site set up in Google Webmaster Tools, you can also check their guide to which pages show errors during crawls.

Get Mobile-Responsive Today

Not sure how to approach a less-than-responsive design? We can help. Request a free website evaluation to learn more about getting to that happy, responsive place!

If you’ve dabbled in SEO, you’ve probably heard of “landing pages.” These are the catchy pages set as destinations for various routes of contact and leads-generators (like PPC campaigns), and they’re designed to act as the final step, where leads submit their information and become patients. Each landing page is designed to elicit responses from a certain buyer/patient profile. So, why not take them a step further and add some geo-targeting?

Local landing pages can make a difference for single-location businesses hoping to cast a wider net. If you’re surrounded by suburbs, one of the only providers in the area, or otherwise standing to benefit from drawing neighboring locations, local landing pages are a great plan. But how do you set them up, how do you choose your targets, and what results can you expect to see? Read on to learn more, or contact our team to bring us into your marketing plan.

Anatomy of a Local Landing Page

• h1 – Your page title and URL will be the city and service that you’re promoting (i.e., “Chicago Web Design”). The h1 is one of the biggest signals to Google, and when paired with a consistent URL and more detailed variations in the content, it will rank.
• Image: Local landing pages aren’t just for search engines. Find content that will help you appeal to the specific patient that you’re trying to bring in with this page.
• Content: The page content should communicate well with search engines, but never sacrifice the user experience. Google’s algorithm updates are continually heightening their quality standards, and emphasizing that the content that really counts is that which is useful, appreciated, and shared. Discuss the service and why it might be appropriate for users in that business area.
• Form: Give leads a simple way to reach you. By including a form directly within the landing page, you give your visitors a way to get in touch immediately, without even leaving the page.
• Meta Title, Meta Description: Make sure your meta data supports the other keyword phrases you’re using across the page, and include the primary keyword phrase in both (Yoast’s SEO plugin helps make this simple). As always, your meta title should be catchy enough to bring in folks that glance it in the search engine results.

How Do Local Landing Pages Rank?

This all depends on where your office is, and the kind of competition you’re facing. Unless you’re up against a big city, the results are typically good – especially if you focus on long-tail keywords and specific suburbs or towns. By pairing common search terms (i.e. “city” and “treatment”), you provide patients seeking those out with relevant Google results.

Ready to get ranking, and build your patient base? Let’s talk local SEO.