Pay-per-click, SEO or both?

Why sole reliance on PPC (AdWords) is a questionable marketing strategy.

Acquiring new dental patients from the web can be achieved in several ways; the main channels being via the free search results, pay-per-click advertising in the search engines or advertising via social media channels.

A balanced digital marketing strategy often includes all of these elements but sometimes we also see a dentist elect to pursue just one of them. In this blog post we will take a look at why some dental practices eschew search engine optimisation (SEO) in favour of pay-per-click and why this may not be a sensible, sustainable strategy.

Pay-per-click and SEO – quick definitions

Before we discuss further, it’s worth a quick recap on what SEO and pay-per-click (PPC) actually are, particularly for those who may just be starting out on their digital marketing journey.

SEO is all about improving the search results for website pages, primarily in Google (94% of all searches in the UK are made via Google). This can be done in many ways including techniques to optimise the “on-page” and “off-page” factors associated with a website. So ensuring that the website is set up correctly in the first instance and then building up the collateral around it elsewhere on the web. You will hear terms such as link-building, blogging, speed-optimisation etc which all need to be done methodically and professionally to move a website forward in the ranking results.

Pay-per-click is a method whereby you bid against others to place your advert in Google. In general terms, higher bids secure higher ad. placement with the intention that users click on your advert rather than your competitors. Each time your ad is clicked, you pay a fee to Google in their AdWords programme. You then hope that the user finds something attractive on your landing page and chooses to do business with you. As with SEO, configuring and managing PPC needs experience and skill to realise the best rewards.

So that is a very quick overview of the two methodologies, but is either one better than the other when it comes to securing new dental patient enquiries?

When are these strategies used?

There are no hard and fast rules here but typically good SEO results are built up over time; typically several months to gain traction and then consolidated ongoing. The main benefits are substantial in that it is accepted that the best quality enquiries come from the free search results rather than the paid adverts. Why this happens is discussed elsewhere in this blog. There is no click cost to pay to Google and once you have prominent ranking positions, you can usually hold on to them if you run your SEO campaign diligently. The cost to acquire a patient this way is also typically quite a lot less than via the PPC channel, even including your SEO costs.

PPC is typically used to gain quick results – you can be up and running and at the top of the paid listings on the same day if you wish. However, you will need a good budget to achieve this and, as it’s competitive, expect to pay a lot more for clicks on “top” treatments like implants and orthodontics and also if you are in an area where competition is significant. PPC can also be used for “topping out” an SEO campaign i.e. where the website already has good free results but the owner also wants to grab as much of the paid traffic as possible too. Sometimes PPC is very useful where the scope of an organic SEO campaign is limited by practice location i.e. an “out of town” address where searches may be limited by Google’s local search initiative. In this scenario, PPC allows a business to target nearby locations where they would be unable to get sufficient traction using traditional SEO.

Should I just use PPC?

Whilst PPC can be useful for new patient acquisition, we always recommend that it used as a complementary channel alongside SEO and potentially social media marketing too. Whilst an SEO campaign does take time and hard work to establish good results, the benefits are more sustainable and the quality of the traffic is generally better than paid channels. Once established, the “cost-per-acquisition” will typically also be lower than via PPC.

So if you are considering that organic SEO is not for you and that you will simply pursue the pay-per-click channel, please consider the following disadvantages of PPC before you move forward:

• You need a good budget to gain traction. There is attrition at each stage of the acquisition cycle and several hundred clicks may only result in a handful of enquiries.
• Increasing competition = increasing click costs.
• The quality of paid traffic is typically lower than that from the free results. So conversion rate is usually lower, even if your campaigns are correctly targeted and maintained.
• If you need to broaden your scope, you need more ad campaigns and larger budgets to work with.
• You need professional maintenance of your campaigns to ensure that money is not being leaked on low quality clicks with limited potential. Even then, you will still end up paying for some clicks which sneak through as a result of Google relaxing keyword matching parameters.
• When you stop paying for clicks, you likely drop near to zero on enquiries if you do not have good free search positions to back up. PPC is either on or off.

Summary

Pay-per-click is very useful in some scenarios but we are reluctant to recommend it purely as a stand-alone marketing channel. Without a complementary SEO campaign to generate prominent sustainable positions in the free results, you will be forever paying out click costs with no back-up. The quality of your enquiries will likely be worse and you may need a hefty budget to gain the necessary traction too. So use pay-per-click wisely and it will deliver returns, but think twice before eschewing other channels and relying solely upon it. You could get stuck down the track and regretting that you’d not take time to build up sustainable positions in the free search listings.

If you’re wondering about the balance between SEO and PPC and need some experienced guidance, the digital marketing team at Dental Media are on hand to help. We’ve been managing SEO and PPC for dentists for many years and we’ll be pleased to assist. You can reach us on 01332 672548.