What Is Pay-Per-Click? How Does It Work? How Can You Use It to Build Your Practice?
The digital marketplace is a highly competitive environment. When you’re trying to build a medical practice, you need an online presence. A well-optimized website and a properly-structured social media campaign are a good start, but they won’t do much to bring in new patients. To maximize your online visibility, you want to consider a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign. With PPC, more potential patients will see your digital advertising.
What Is Pay-Per-Click Advertising?
PPC is a digital advertising approach where the costs are directly tied to results. With a PPC campaign, you essentially bid for keywords or keyword phrases, identifying the maximum amount you will pay. When a web user searches a keyword on which you’ve bid, the search engine conducts an instantaneous auction, providing an advertising link to the customer who bid the highest amount for that keyword. That link typically appears at the top of the first search engine results page (SERP). If the web user clicks on your link, you’re charged the amount of your bid. You incur advertising costs only when a web user clicks on your PPC advertisement.
How to Maximize Your Chances of Success with a PPC Campaign
First, you must be willing to bid high enough to win the auction when a keyword you’ve bid on is entered into a search engine. It’s also essential, though, that web users contact you. If they click on your ad, but don’t reach out to you, then you’re spending money for no results. And if someone does contact you, but it’s not a patient you can help, then you’ve incurred PPC cost with no return on your investment.
What are some of the best strategies for ensuring the success of your PPC campaign?
- Bid on long-tail legal keywords—Long-tail keywords are phrases that specifically narrow your target. As the term suggests, they are longer phrases. For example, “Mountain Brook allergy diagnosis and treatment doctor” is a long-tail keyword, but “Birmingham family doctor” is not. Because long-tail keywords are tightly focused, they have a smaller potential audience and show up in fewer searches; however their ability to convert web visitors into patients is higher. In addition, because there’s less competition for long-tail keywords, they cost less per click. Make certain, though, that your long-tail keywords include specific medical terms and that they appear in the headers and body of your PPC ads.
- Explain how your practice is unique—Use your limited advertising space effectively by setting yourself apart from the crowd. Chances are there are a number of other medical practices that offer the same services you do. Help potential patients understand what’s different about your practice. If you have significant experience with certain conditions or treatments, highlight that. If you don’t, find another way to stand out.
- Focus on specific geographic locations—Make certain that your long-tail keywords include the geographic locations you serve. You want to know that a prospective client seeing your ad can easily travel to your offices. The more specific you can be, the better. You’ll have less competition for smaller communities, so your cost-per-click will be less.
- Use Google ad extensions—Google offers a number of features, known as “ad extensions,” that are supposed to improve your click-through rate (CTR). The most popular ad extensions are location information, call buttons, and direct links to specific pages on your website.
- Optimize your website and PPC for mobile—Most searches worldwide are now done on a smartphone, tablet, or other mobile device. If your content doesn’t load well on a mobile device, you may end up spending money for PPC without the outcome you want.
- Monitor and modify your PPC—Unless your PPC campaign is producing more leads and/or clients than your firm can handle, you should regularly evaluate the results of your campaign and take steps to maximize performance
Contact InjuredCarePracticeBuilder.com for More Information About the Benefits of PPC
To learn more about how we can help you market your medical practice, contact us online or call our offices today at 866-952-7045.
