Google for Therapists, Part 3 - Keys to Successful Google Ads
In Part 2 we talked about the nuts and bolts of Google Ads. Here in Part 3 we need to talk about what you need to do in order for your Google Ads campaigns to be successful and get more patients.
As you’re starting to design and plan for your Google Ads campaign, you will likely spend some time online reading informational articles that give you a wide range of tips and tricks to improve your campaign. All of this information may be relevant and helpful, but to keep it simple, here are a few main keys to a successful Google Ads campaign. I’ll go through these three tips below, and don’t forget, the RevKey can help you create and run a successful Google Ads campaign.
Appropriate Budget
Having a large enough budget is key in any campaign. If you set your budget too low you will get a few clicks each day before running out of your daily budget and potential new patients will never see your ad. If only 40 users come to your website through your ads in a month then you are not likely to get many phone calls or emails. At the start of a campaign it is safe to assume that only about 5% of people will try to make contact with you, so if you only have 40 clicks, you might only receive 2 website forms or phone calls. You should aim to get at least 100 clicks per month to give your ad campaign a chance to succeed.
Keyword Research & Use
Be careful using the keyword “Therapy” by itself in you can. Pairing Therapy with another words like “Depression Therapy” or “Couples Therapy” is great way to specify what the user is looking for and is something you should be doing. However, if you do use “Therapy” alone you will have your ad show up for irrelevant searches like “massage therapy,” “copd therapy near me,” “Chemo therapy in houston,” etc. My personal favorite weird therapy I have seen come up in a search report was “cuddle therapy”. I am not sure what that entails, but I am pretty sure you don’t provide it. So, don’t pay for someone who’s looking for it.
Be careful using Broad Match Keywords in your campaign. While these will put your ads in the most places, they can also lead to searches best avoided. Make sure you mix in “Modified Broad Match Keywords” and “Phrase Match Keywords” that you can be fairly sure will be for services you provide. For more information about keyword match types, go back to Part 2 of this post.
Finally, make sure that you put in keywords for each of the services you provide that you want to advertise. If people aren’t looking for your “niche” service, find out what they are looking for. In many cases, you can get a more specialized keyword ad at lower pay-per-click rates from Google since fewer practices will want to use these words, but your ad is less likely to be seen because people aren’t as likely to search for this service. Conversely, choosing a really broad term like “Counseling” may have a much higher average cost per click because so many offices will want to use these words, and while your ad will get searched for, you are going to have a lot more competition. The ideal keyword will fall somewhere in the middle.
Negative Keywords
Above, we talked about non-relevant searches that can cause your ads to come up in a Google search. One way to stop this is by putting Negative Keywords in your campaign that tell Google to not show your ads if a certain word is included in the search. Some broad types of searches that you would want to avoid your ads being in would be for other types of therapy (examples: massage, physical, pet) jobs (example: job, jobs, resume, resumes), local competitors (examples: XYZ Counseling, ABC University Counseling).
Don’t pay for searches like this
Using negative keywords will allow you to save your ad budget from people looking for services you don’t provide. This is essential to any successful campaign.
Have a Good Website
What happens after someone clicks on your ad? They are sent to your website for the next step in their journey to becoming a patient. A robust website with a page for each type of service and specialization you provide is ideal, but at the bare minimum, you should have a page that fully explains services referenced in your ad campaign. For example, if you are trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) then you need some content on your website about that specialty. If a user clicks on your ads for EMDR and comes to your website but sees no content on that topic or only a single bullet point they are not likely to call you or fill out a form on your website.
Let RevKey Help
At RevKey, our goal is to make running a Google Ads campaign simple, successful, and stress-free. Whatever your location, keyword, budget, or goals, let us help. With enough time, money, trial, and error, you will likely be able to create a good campaign on your own, but why reinvent the wheel? I have already done the research and gone through the trial and error process for you. Start out your Google Ads campaign with help from an expert, so you can sit back and wait for the new clients to start calling.