By
•
Apr 26, 2022
Not impressed with the results you’re getting from your PPC ads lately? Feel like they’re no longer enough to keep your dental practice ahead of the competition?
What if we told you that using pay-per-click ads along with SEO might just be the solution you’re looking for?
As a dental marketing agency that has worked with hundreds of dentists across the country, we’ve seen how effective this strategy can be.
This post will tell you everything you need to know about the benefits of combining SEO and PPC in your dental marketing strategy. You’ll discover how using them in tandem can take your practice to the next level.
Search engine optimization increases a site’s organic traffic through online visibility and site authority. Pay-per-click advertising, on the other hand, seeks to boost traffic by creating and targeting ads in search engines, social, and other popular online locations.
While both tactics are encompassed under the umbrella of search engine marketing (SEM), there are tons of attributes that set them apart.
First, PPC advertisers have to pay every time someone clicks on the ad. This is never the case for SEO practitioners, as no money is spent when obtaining clicks from organic listings.
Second, PPC ads produce immediate results – be it traffic, awareness, or conversions. This may sound promising, but as soon as the promotion comes to an end, the website’s metrics will likely go back to pre-campaign levels.
In contrast, SEO often takes a long time to gain momentum and yield results. Businesses may have to wait several months, or even years, to see a return on investment. However, once the results come, they represent a tremendous, long-term impact.
Lastly, paid ads normally show up at the top of search engine listings, just above the organic rankings. These organic rankings would stem from SEO implementations.
Both SEO and PPC are focused on driving traffic to a website and generating conversions. Although the former achieves this by climbing the search results organically and the latter achieves it through paid means, the two share the same goals.
They’re also both keyword-driven strategies. PPC advertisers conduct keyword research to determine relevant phrases to bid on and irrelevant ones to exclude. SEO professionals use suitable words or phrases to optimize on-site elements, which in turn boosts rankings.
Dental practitioners who are loyal to SEO will never find themselves using pay-per-click ads, and vice versa. What they don’t realize is that getting these two channels aligned is one of the most effective ways to improve their overall online dental marketing performance.
These are the benefits of using SEO in conjunction with PPC:
75% of searchers don’t go beyond the first page of any search engine, which is why securing a spot on the first page is crucial.
Using both SEO and PPC is a surefire way to make that happen.
When someone in your area is looking for a dentist online, they’ll see your ad right at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). If they decide to ignore that ad, they’ll still encounter it as they scroll along.
The mere fact that your dental practice appears in organic results and an advert will display legitimacy and increase your chances of acquiring new patients. People will most likely pick you over your competitors.
Remember, PPC will get you on top, and SEO will get you to stay there. Just because you already have a good position doesn’t mean that you should neglect PPC and shift to SEO right away.
It goes without saying that online reputation plays a vital role in marketing. It affects how people think of you, and whether you will enter their minds whenever they’re planning to book a dental appointment.
This is where combining PPC and SEO efforts comes in extremely handy. That’s right, the combined use of organic and paid results can elevate your online reputation.
Keep in mind that a strong reputation requires enhanced visibility. If your practice isn’t ranking high on Google or other search engines, PPC ads can help you get your name in front of prospective patients in your area.
The same can be said about search engine optimization. In the long term, it can help you create a consistent brand online, eventually growing your popularity in the virtual world.
Familiarity increases the effectiveness of marketing, as revealed by a recent study. People exposed to repeated ads from a brand they know are less likely to experience “brand fatigue,” as opposed to those who are exposed to repeated ads from an unfamiliar brand.
That being said, using SEO alongside paid ads can greatly boost the reputation of your dental practice among folks who are shopping for a dentist online.
In most cases, SEO takes between four and six months before you can start seeing results. PPC advertising provides immediate results that will last throughout the span of the campaign, although this traffic will stop when the campaign is paused or halted.
Using paid social media ads to target your content toward bloggers and influencers can be a shortcut to link building. And, you might already know by now that link building has a massive impact on driving traffic through SEO.
By piecing SEO and PPC together, your dental website will be overwhelmed with quality traffic – something that will certainly make you smile like your patients would after you treat their teeth.
Having both PPC and SEO in your dental marketing strategy makes it possible for you to analyze the data. You’ll find it cheaper and easier to identify how your keywords are performing, allowing you to make an informed choice as to which keywords to keep using and which ones to stop.
Whether you’re having a hard time bringing more traffic to your website or new patients to your door, using SEO and PPC together is the way to go.
If you’re aiming for the best results, Digital Resource is your best bet. Having worked with countless dental practices across America, we know what it takes to get you to the top using these tactics (and many others).
Contact us today to get started.
Think you've got what it takes to hang with the pros at Digital Resource? Check out our Careers page to browse current job openings!