It’s easy to see why Google is such a successful company. Unlike traditional channels such as print, TV, and radio, search engine marketing targets only users who have already expressed interest in what you have to offer. Furthermore, you pay only when a potential patient clicks on your ad and goes to your website. This targeted advertising in Google’s search results has been incredibly successful for small businesses, and ultimately fueled the tremendous success of Google and their shareholders.

So why not create and manage the campaign yourself? While it’s easy to set up a campaign and start seeing your ad appear in search results, it takes trained professionals to properly create, track and manage a campaign to maximize results for your advertising dollars. Read on to learn how many practices waste a large portion of their money by trying to run their own campaigns.

Google Makes it Too Easy to Get Started

When you use Google AdWords to advertise your practice you have control over the keywords you target, the total amount you want to spend on advertising, when & where your ads appear, and what your ad text says. Google promotes self-managed AdWords campaigns and AdWords Express accounts in which “Creating your ad takes just a few minutes, and that’s it,” however, there are crucial aspects that most beginners will not even know to consider.

Google’s Default Account Settings Are Dangerous

When you add keywords to an AdWords campaign they are automatically added as “broad” match by default. Under broad match Google will show your ad for variations of your keywords that they deem relevant: singular/plural forms, synonyms, phrases containing your keyword, and what Google deems as relevant variations. While this can help attract many relevant variations, it leaves it up to Google to determine relevancy.

Google’s relevancy is extremely far-reaching, for example:

• “eyelid surgery” matches “eye patches,” “eye makeup,” “eye candy,” and the music band “third eye blind”
• “liposuction” matches “lip piercings” and “lipo batteries”
• “laser eye surgery” matches “spine laser institute”
• “tms” matches “team management system”
• “plastic surgery” matches many celebrities including Michael Jackson, Kim Kardashian, and Joan Rivers

30% of Your Advertising Dollars Can Be Wasted

The possibilities with Google broad match are endless. Google’s irrelevant matches can end up costing you a bundle, estimated at 30% of your budget. At MedNet, we begin every campaign with a list of “negative keywords,” or words that if contained in a search query will make your ad as ineligible to appear. Some of these negative keywords include a list of celebrities that are commonly associated with plastic surgery, adult terms synonymous with pornography, and words that may sound similar but have very different meanings (e.g. liposuction and lipo batteries). Your account is then continually reviewed to see what search queries triggered your ads. If there is anything irrelevant, it is added to the negative keyword list. You also benefit from MedNet being a specialized healthcare agency, in that we stay on top of industry trends and will quickly identify trending topics. (e.g. After Michael Jackson’s death searches for his plastic surgeries rapidly increased.)

Trust Our Team of Professionals

MedNet Technologies is a Google Adwords Certified Partner, and our team has the skills and experience to deliver the most results for your budget. If you currently run your own AdWords account or are interested in starting one, call 1-877-MEDNETT or fill out our contact form.

While sponsored listings in search engines have existed for 10 years now, there are still many common misconceptions that we hope to debunk in this issue of MedNews. Not only is SEM (Search Engine Marketing) the only guaranteed way to get placement in search results, it is arguably the most effective form of advertising in existence today.

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White Hot

Search Engine Marketing, otherwise known as "pay per click," is the hottest business technology in the world. It has posted a 214% growth over the last two years. It is the power behind Google’s awesome growth curve and the force behind Microsoft’s $44 billion offer for Yahoo!®. The search engine marketing frenzy has caused a rush of companies to embrace the Internet marketing channel. The medium allows companies to accurately target consumers at a fraction of the cost from standard marketing mediums.

Let’s put it in perspective:

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Establish a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Campaign to Augment Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Efforts

Even the most aggressive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Plan can benefit from a SEM Campaign.  Why?  Because Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads can be used to maintain your website’s visibility regardless of the constant ups and downs of your organic rankings.  Because the position of PPC Ads can be controlled, they guarantee that your website will appear among the results of the search terms that you want to be found under.

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