by AdminPosted on Posted in pay per click

Why Google Ads for dentists make sense.

Many of our dental marketing clients run Google Ads, also known as pay-per-click (PPC), alongside their search engine optimisation and social media campaigns. For those dentists who may still be skeptical about PPC, perhaps worried about the cost, in today’s blog I’ll explain why PPC is important and also very effective when done well. Hopefully this will give some confidence that it’s a promotional channel well-worth investigating in the new year ahead.

First let’s have a short recap about what PPC is and then how you can use it to your advantage.

Google Ads – how they work

If you use Google, and who doesn’t these days, you’ll very likely have seen the three or four results at the top of the page which advertise various products and services, including dentistry. These ads are typically very prominent and look very much like the traditional organic (non-paid) results. What is very important to know is that around 30% of all traffic from Google now results from clicks on ads.

In basic terms, Google Ads are a form of auction whereby the advertiser bids on clicks – so every time someone clicks your ad, you pay a sum of money to Google. The more you bid for clicks, typically the higher up and hence more prominent your ad appears in the Google results. There are actually quite a few more factors in play, not just your click bid, but in principle you can consider that Google Ads is an auction of the type just described.

When a user clicks on your ad, they will be taken to your landing page (an optimised page specific to the treatment you are advertising) or a selected page on your website. Alternatively you can also deploy your ads with call assets attached, so people call you directly from the ad instead.

Understandably, competition plays a big part in Google Ads bidding and treatments such as implants and Invisalign tend to attract higher click bids than other treatments. This should be kept in mind when starting an ads campaign and factored into the return-on-investment calculations. Seasoned PPC practitioners such as the team here at Dental Media, will be able to advise.

So now we know a little bit more about what Google Ads actually are, let’s consider how and when a dentist might use them to bring new patient enquiries to the practice.

When should dentists consider using Google Ads?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Website

Here’s why persevering with an outmoded website is a big mistake.

It’s likely that a lot of dentists who don’t update their old, failing websites secretly know that it’s costing them money. Perhaps what they don’t realise however, is just how much it’s costing them and the key reasons why. In today’s blog I’ll list the main reasons why old websites are a drain on your budget as well as failing to convert web visitors into useful treatment enquiries. I’ll also illustrate why your old website is very likely pushing potential new patients across to your competitors.

Dated dental websites are uninspiring and don’t engage visitors

In this fickle world we live in, increasing numbers of people are shopping around when seeking out dental treatments, particularly where those treatments require a significant level of investment such as orthodontics and dental implants. It can’t be stressed enough that “first impressions count” and a potential new patient’s first port of call will often be your website.

Consider then, what happens next? Will the patient be engaged and impressed by your dated website that doesn’t showcase your facilities, skills and patient successes appropriately and professionally. Or will they more likely enquire at the local competitor practice with the new, professional dental website which shows off the practice and services to best effect? The answer is clear and also backed-up by the huge amount of statistical data we see from the numerous marketing campaigns we manage.

Missing out on a few high value treatment cases because patients were enticed to look elsewhere means a lot of lost revenue on a recurring basis, funds that could easily have covered the cost of a new website and much more to boot. It’s really easy to demonstrate this but unfortunately a lot of dentists still ignore the advice and subsequently miss out.

You’re likely still paying your existing web designer over the odds for looking after an underperforming website

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Advice

These important Internet elements are key building blocks for your web presence – here’s what they do and why.

Here at Dental Media we provide fully managed website and digital marketing solutions for dentists ensuring that dental professionals can concentrate on what they do best whilst we look after their web presence.

However, even with a fully managed web service, there are a few key elements which a dentist or dental practice manager should understand and how they support important website and email services. So for example if they wish to change provider at some point, then they know exactly what needs to be shifted over and how to make sure it’s done quickly and efficiently with no loss of service.

In today’s blog we will discuss domain names, the DNS system associated with domain names and website and email hosting. These are the key elements which work together to support your online presence. How they link together and how well they are managed is important for any business to understand, dentists included.

Let’s step in and take a closer look.

Your dental website domain name

This is effectively your Internet address, often prefixed by www (world-wide-web) albeit that isn’t essential these days. There are numerous domain extensions e.g. .com, .co.uk etc and you can ‘rent’ one of these as the address for your website. It’s probably worth clearing up here that no-one actually owns a domain name, it is leased to you by a domain authority for a certain period of time via companies called domain registrars. However, the domain is for your exclusive use as long as you keep paying the renewal premiums.

Dental Media manages many hundreds of domain names on behalf of dentists but it is also possible for the dental practice or dentist to register and manage their own domain name(s). The key considerations for a domain name are a) make sure it is registered in your name and not the name of an agency who may be looking after it for you and b) ensure it does not expire – we see this too many times where a client manages their own domain name and simply forgets to renew. This results in a panicked call to us to report that their website and email has stopped working!

If you do decide to allow your design agency to manage your domain name, please be certain that they are trustworthy and will transfer the domain elsewhere quickly and professionally should you ever need this to happen. Unfortunately we’ve seen quite a few cases where an agency has ignored domain transfer requests and made it as hard as possible to take over the website and hosting services. Whilst there is a domain recovery service, for example via Nominet for .co.uk domains, this is convoluted and should only be a last resort.

The DNS – domain name system

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by AdminPosted on Posted in pay per click

Why you need a realistic budget to succeed.

Last week we added two more dentists to our popular Google Ads (pay-per-click) management portfolio. They had both been trying to run Google Ads themselves but not getting any meaningful return on their investment; fairly typical for DIY Google Ads in the dental sector unfortunately.

On checking closely, it became obvious why their ad campaigns were failing, including basic set up problems but also unrealistic click budgets. It’s the latter element, click budget, that we’ll focus on today as it seems that there is very limited understanding amongst the dental community of what is realistic

We’ll also make a quick review of what Google Ads actually are, how they work and why the budget you allocate to click costs is a key to whether you succeed or fail.

How do Google Ads for dentists work?

We’ve reviewed this in detail elsewhere in the Dental Media blog but as a quick recap, let’s take a look at Google Ads in the context of an online auction. When running an ads campaign, you effectively bid against competitors with similar interests in your location. Every time a user clicks on your ad, you pay Google the “click cost” – this can range from pence to several pounds depending on the level of competition (“the auction”) in which you are taking part.

Whilst there are numerous factors which dictate where your ads appear in Google searches, one of the key factors when it comes to who sits at the top, is your click bid i.e. the money you are willing to pay to Google when the ad is clicked. In very simple terms, those who are willing to spend more, can typically expect their ads to appear highest. Hence the importance of your “click budget”.

What is a realistic budget for your Google Ads?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Lead

Diligent new patient lead handling is the difference between success and failure

We recently had a client cancel their high-performing Google Ads account as they were quote “unable to respond to the leads fast enough and by the time the reception team responded, the patient had gone elsewhere”. This is really frustrating for us as marketers but also a critical “fail” on behalf of the practice. I discussed the data with the practice principal and also the feedback which had come back from the practice manager (see above) but to date, the client still hasn’t re-enabled their ads.

To put it in context, these were highly qualified leads from focused Google Ads campaigns – so folk who had searched on Google with specific intent for certain types of dental treatment. The leads weren’t the more speculative type that you can expect from social media ads, so even more frustrating that they weren’t being responded to promptly.

At the other end of the spectrum I recently discussed the progress of various ad accounts with a client based in Oxfordshire – these accounts also perform very well. However, a key difference is that the principal has worked really hard to ensure that the conversion process i.e. leads to treatment at the practice, is as good as it can be. This isn’t just the reception team and TCO, but also the dentists themselves. Indeed his opinion was that in the overall lead conversion process, 1/3 is contributed by the marketing team, 1/3 by his support team and 1/3 by the clinicians. What the actual contributions are is debatable, but I believe that is an excellent rule-of-thumb to start with.

What I’m illustrating here is the huge gulf in the understanding of lead conversion between various practices and how some principles really “get it” whereas others still expect the treatments to fall into their laps – even after we try to educate them about the importance of having competent, committed staff following up on the leads promptly.

What needs to be in place for successful lead follow-up?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in seo

What are doorway pages and why are they bad news?

I never thought I’d have to write a blog explaining what doorway pages are in the context of search engine optimisation and why they are a very poor idea these days. However, I’m prompted to raise awareness again after a client was recently poached by another company offering the ‘moon on a stick’ for his Google rankings.

Why did the client move?

The backdrop is quite disappointing for our SEO team particularly as the website is quite new. In a few short months we had elevated the client’s ranking positions so that he was in the top three for many important searches in his competitive location in London. Several key search terms were actually top. His website traffic had also increased markedly but unfortunately he still elected to move on the back of promises made by another company and incorrect interpretation of data.

In terms of his website enquiries, these had also ramped up very quickly as the Google positions improved, however he had noted a small reduction as the summer holiday period approached. This is not atypical and there will always be blips, some of them outside of a marketing company’s direct control. For example, general cost of living rises alongside non-competitive treatment fees can be difficult to counter.

As part of our closing discussions we advised that step changes in Google traffic were now not possible, simply because he was already very well placed in the search rankings. Incremental improvement would be possible but not at the rate of the first five or six months.

It seems that the new company advised that his website could also rank top for locations outside of his area, but of course, this is not really possible due to Google’s localisation policies. All of this was duly explained but it appears the promises made elsewhere were irresistible.

The effect of Google Consent Mode

Over the last 6 months or so we have been implementing new cookie and general tracking control features on our client’s websites. This is effectively mandatory and you can read more about it in our recent blogs. The upshot of this implementation is that website users can easily opt out of being tracked as soon as they land on a website which then knocks through to analytics data etc.

Step changes in “apparent” website usage can result as you might expect and even though this is easy enough to explain, it still causes unease for some website owners. It appears that this also happened here, so even through it was simple to demonstrate that website traffic had not decreased by looking at raw server data, the client was still fixated on changes in his Google Analytics data which of course was reflecting the new tracking controls.

The result of all of this was the client elected to move unfortunately, but what is worse is the techniques he revealed that his new supplier proposes to use – and this bring me on to “doorway pages”.

Doorway pages and why you should not use them

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by AdminPosted on Posted in TikTok

Is it worth it or just another fad being pushed by dental marketing companies?

Over the last few months I’ve seen an increasing number of enquiries from dentists, both existing clients and others, who want to know more about TikTok and if it’s worthwhile for marketing purposes.

Their interest has been piqued by a couple of dental marketers who are bombarding the community with messages trying to sell TikTok services and understandably, dentists want to know what it’s all about.

Unfortunately some marketing companies will seize the opportunity to sell a new service to an unsuspecting dentist irrespective of whether it’s actually worthwhile or not, so today I thought I’d dig into the pros and cons of TikTok so you can make an informed decision about whether it’s likely to work for you or not.

Let’s start with the basics.

What is TikTok?

TikTok has actually been around for a while, first appearing back in late 2016 from where it slowly gained traction to become quite popular, particularly with younger people. In essence, it’s a Chinese developed social media platform dedicated to sharing and viewing short video clips, typically comedy, singing, dancing and the like.

So it’s a very visual channel and with the usual messaging and sharing facilities that you may well be familiar with from other social platforms.

Usage is slowing down a little now but the platform is still projected to reach around 950 million world-wide users in 2025.

Is it sensible for dentists to run a TikTok account?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Google

Expect these changes in your dental Analytics and Ads accounts

Over the last couple of months the Dental Media team has been actively engaged in work to ensure that clients’ websites are compliant with the latest requirements for Cookie management and data acquisition. This is broadly known as Google Consent Mode and its latest evolution is Version 2 – please see our recent blogs about the topic and why it’s essential if you use Google Analytics and/or Ads.

In a nutshell you now need to give users of your website the choice of whether they accept cookies universally, selectively or not at all. This requires updating of simplistic, old-style cookie banners to dynamic versions which vary the type of data being sent back to Google based on the user’s preference, actually quite a complex implementation.

As noted in an earlier blog, if you are a digital marketing client of Dental Media, we have already completed this work for you. However, if you are not a marketing client but still use Google Analytics and/or Ads, you need to get in touch to discuss making your website compliant. Failure to do this will very likely result in Google suspending your Analytics and Ads account at some point later this year.

I’m compliant but what should I expect the effect to be on my Ads and Analytics accounts?

That’s a really good question and one we’re still evaluating as implementation of the new standard is still in its infancy. However, initial observations suggest the following.

Ads personalisation

With the enhanced user privacy controls introduced by Consent Mode V2, it has become harder to personalise ads to audiences – this is understandable where a user opts out of cookies. Consequently we should expect ad targeting to suffer as a result of this; however all is not lost as Google is developing methods to model missing data to “fill in the gaps”. We have to see how this evolves.

Apparent reduction in website traffic

We are already seeing apparent falls in traffic across websites where the new cookie control is implemented and it’s fair to say this has caused alarm for some clients who also monitor these trends. However, what we have been able to illustrate is that actual website traffic, search positions and activity at the practice is not down, simply the recording of such due to folk opting out of tracking. Effectively a new baseline is being set.

Apparent reduction in conversions (goals)

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by AdminPosted on Posted in pay per click

Understanding the level of input required for effective PPC ads.

Here at Dental Media our PPC team looks after hundreds of Google Ads campaigns for dentists across the UK. Quite a lot of the approaches we get for this service arise when dentists try to run DIY campaigns but find them overwhelming and loss-making. They know that PPC (Google Ads) can deliver good returns but eventually realise that it isn’t really sensible to do it ‘DIY’ and it’s at this point that they seek help.

So why is it difficult to run DIY Google Ads successfully?

To try to understand this better, I thought it would be useful to show the main elements of dental PPC campaigns our team maintains and how frequently they do this.

How often do we maintain dental Google Ads campaigns?

There is no precise answer for this as it depends on the scope and maturity of the campaign. However, to give an idea, for new PPC campaigns for dentists we will make updates daily for the first couple of weeks and then typically twice a week once the campaign settles in. This can range from 30 minutes per intervention to an hour or more depending on the work required.

It should also be noted that campaigns may undergo quite significant changes even when mature and then the intervention will increase until those changes have settled and been validated.

Why aren’t Google Ads “fire and forget”?

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by AdminPosted on Posted in Advice

Is your dental website now compliant with Google Consent Mode V2?

In a recent blog we updated our readers about the relatively new Google Consent Mode V2 requirements and what it means for your dental website, Analytics and Ads. In a nutshell, if you haven’t implemented granular cookie control on your site i.e. where a user can accept, reject or choose which types of cookies they will accept, then Google will likely suspend your analytics and ads account in the near future.

You can read more about the requirements and the penalties resulting from failure to comply at this link – Google Consent Mode For Dentists.

Having gained an understanding of these new and important requirements, how then can you check to make sure that your dental website designer or digital marketer has implemented the correct controls on your behalf? We know of a few examples where dentists have been told that their websites are compliant because they “have a cookie banner”, however the old style banners which were essentially just advisory and didn’t selectively block cookies, are now completely insufficient. What’s more, if you try to rely on that, expect to have your Google Ads and Analytics accounts suspended, assuming you use them.

There are three main things to check as follows.

Has the cookies banner on your website changed?

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