Search engine optimization(SEO) and Google AdWords are both highly effective marketing techniques used by therapists throughout the country. They both have a unique set of strengths and weaknesses and can both help a therapist attract new clients. Understanding those strengths and weaknesses is imperative for those who only have enough funding to chose one of the two options. In such a case, which of the two strategies would be the smart pick?
What Is Google AdWords?
Before choosing only one option, you need to fully understand what both marketing techniques have to offer. Only then can you make the right choice and invest your money wisely. First on the list is the Google Pay-Per-Click(PPC) advertising system known as AdWords.
AdWords is easily the largest PPC advertising network on the internet. Technically speaking, it has the potential to reach even more people than SEO alone. This is because the advertisements are not only shown on the Google search results page, but also on a massive network of websites known as the Google Display Network.
Google uses an auctioning system to determine which advertisements are shown for a particular keyword. Companies will bid various amounts to have their advertisements shown at the top of the search results for specific keywords. These bids are one of Google’s main sources of revenue.
The average cost per click of a Google advertisement shown on the search results page is between $1 and $2. Advertisements that are shown on websites in the Google Display Network are much closer to the $1 average. There are several factors that will influence the average cost of an advertisement. For example, trustworthy businesses with high-quality ad campaigns will enjoy lower costs. Meanwhile, ads for extremely competitive keywords can cost as much as $50 per click.
Overall, Google AdWords is definitely the more expensive of the two options. The average small business will spend around $100,000 a year on AdWords. A giant retailer can spend as much as $50 million during the same time frame. In either case, the business owners always consider it a smart investment.
Fast results is one of the major advantages that AdWords offers therapist offices. It can take a search engine optimization campaign for more than six months to deliver very small results. An AdWords PPC campaign will start to drive sales immediately. Every dollar spent has the potential for an immediate return.
AdWords also makes it easier to work with serious competition. Outranking a well-known therapist option for a highly competitive keyword is extremely difficult. It can take years to pull off and is never a guarantee. But with proper bidding, high-quality ads, and an understanding of the Google AdWords Quality Score system, you can guarantee that potential clients will see your Google advertisement when they Google a particular phrase or term.
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Google AdWords even has features specifically for helping small businesses compete with larger brands. One example of this is the “Target Outrank” automatic bidding feature. By implementing this feature you let Google know you want to have your bid automatically adjusted so that it will outrank the competition during the auction.
The “Target Outrank” feature is just one example of the many different automation options that Google offers natively with their AdWords platform. There are dozens of different automation options that are also offered through third-party platforms. This makes running an AdWord campaign for your therapy office much easier. You’ll spend less money on expensive marketing firms and more money bidding on keywords with high visibility, which is what will bring in more clients.
What About SEO?
By no means should search engine optimization be overlooked or forgotten. It is still one of the most effective and important digital marketing strategies available. It may not have the power to immediately drive traffic to a website so that a business quickly gains clients, but it offers a type of long-term growth that no other marketing technique can duplicate.
SEO is all about implementing a series of techniques that will cause your website to rank highly for a particular keyword. When a website is ranked highly it will show up closer to the top of the non-paid search results when a person Googles that phrase. In comparison, the paid AdWords advertisement will appear at the very top in a section of three paid results.
You may wonder why it’s important to appear high in the organic rankings when you can simply pay to immediately be placed at the top of the paid results. The truth is that the majority of people who use Google do not click on the paid results.
Roughly 72 percent of all Google clicks go to a link on the first page in the organic results. The next two pages only receive around 6 percent of clicks. The remaining clicks are divided between clicking on paid ads and leaving the search results altogether. This means that if your therapy office is not ranked on the first page of Google’s organic search results for relevant keywords, then it’s losing a significant amount of business. This is something that AdWords cannot make up for.
Which Is Better For Bringing In New Clients?
If you only have the funding to invest in one of the above marketing techniques for the purpose of attracting new clients immediately, then Google AdWords is the way to go. You will quickly begin to build website traffic, generate leads, and sign up new clients. However, you should simultaneously be making an effort to improve your SEO campaign.
One of the great strengths of an SEO campaign is that you can work on it yourself without spending a dime. There’s no way to run a PPC campaign without money, but you can write blog content and use appropriate keywords for an SEO campaign without spending funding. In time, those SEO changes that you implement will begin to accumulate and produce results complement the AdWords campaign. And when your PPC and SEO campaigns with www.scottkeeverseo.com are in full swing you will be attracting more new clients than ever before.