Right now, Adwords is one of the top ways for medical doctors, dentists, hospital systems, and private practices to market their services. The goal of any advertising campaign is, of course, to connect with patients who need help.
To best reach those patients, advertising campaigns must be set up strategically. From the geographical area, demographics, and content, everything should be designed to catch the attention of potential patients who are using Google.
A vital part of any Adwords advertising campaign are the keywords you’re targeting. In fact, not putting in the time for keyword research can make or break your campaign.
For anyone in the medical industry, specific keywords like doctor near me, orthopedic surgeon, primary care doctor, and urologist for women are par for the course. However, some keywords relate to conditions, injuries, treatments, and procedures that are also key to capturing leads through advertising.
Anything from allergy testing, same-day hip replacement, and joint injections to brand-specific keywords like Emsculpt or Coolsculpting, are relevant to patients who are doing their research.
For a board-certified doctor or dentist, these keywords are part of the lingo they use every day in their practice. If it’s a service they provide, it only makes sense to build an Adwords campaign that targets these terms… Or does it?
Recently, Google green-lighted radical changes to their advertising policies that severely impact the advertising capabilities of licensed physicians.
You may have heard that Google Ads is a quick way to get ROI from search engine traffic. This is an appealing prospect, especially because Google runs on a PPC (pay per click) model where you only pay for traffic that actually makes it to your site. However, handing Google your money is a concerning prospect, especially if you’ve heard rumors that it can be cost-prohibitive if you’re bidding in a competitive space on some of the most expensive keywords.
The best thing you can do for your strategy is understand exactly how Google Ads determines cost per click (CPC) on specific keywords, what makes certain keywords more expensive, and how you can build your ad budget in a way that actually gives you ROI.
How Does Google Ads Determine Keyword Costs?
Google has many different sources of revenue, but one of their most noticeable is the ads that appear next to search results for specific keywords. How much that keyword costs depends, in part, on how often people search for it — the more people search for a certain keyword, the more expensive it is.
Ad placement is determined by an action system. The combined impact of these two factors will determine if and where your ad is placed on the page when a user searches for your query:
- The maximum bid you specify for the keyword
- The Quality Score that Google has given your ad
These two factors will help Google determine your ad rank. In short, higher bids and higher quality ads win the best placements.