Upping Your Google Game: Trying AdWords

There’s no denying that Google is the king of search. There are several other search engines out there, and they all have their benefits, but Google has taken the top seat in the search world, and that doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon. “Google” has even become a verb to simply describe the act of using a search engine to find something online! For a medical professional working on your internet marketing, working with Google is an effective way to help your patients find you. However, there’s another way to invest in this search engine and bring you up at the top of the page: AdWords.

AdWords is a special program that allows you to purchase ads that run at the top of search results. You’ve seen these before—you enter your query into the search bar, and when the results pop up, the first three or four results show up at the top with the word “ad” beside them. Why pay for these ads? Because the top results are prime real estate in online search.

The results at the top of the page are the first articles your potential patients see. This also makes these links more likely to be clicked through to your website. That is why people are willing to pay for their name or practice to appear in one of these top spots. AdWords allows you to do this.

Running an AdWords campaign isn’t just for big companies, either—those top spots are not necessarily as expensive as you might think. Absolutely anyone can use this program and potentially benefit from it. You choose what search terms and keywords you want your ad to be connected to, so when people use those terms, you and your practice come up in one of the top spots.

How much you pay will depend on you and the success of any given campaign. AdWords allows you to set a unique budget of how much you are willing to spend.  This is money that you only pay if a person actually clicks on your ad and goes through to your website. If no one clicks, you do not pay.