What are the best keywords for dental Google Ads?
The best keywords for dental Google Ads are the ones that show a patient is ready to book: urgent searches, treatment searches with a suburb, and your own brand. Broad information searches cost money and rarely book. The right mix depends on your suburb and your chairs.
Key facts
- Highest intent
- Urgent terms, such as emergency dentist and a suburb
- Treatment terms
- A service name plus a suburb or "near me"
- Brand terms
- Your practice name; cheap and worth protecting
- Match types
- Exact, phrase and broad match (Google Ads settings)
- Cost per click by keyword
- See the benchmarks for sourced comparisons.
Which keywords book the most patients?
Urgent and local terms book most. Examples are "emergency dentist" with your suburb, and "dentist" with your suburb. A person who types these needs an appointment soon. Treatment terms with a suburb come next. A person who searches for a treatment may still be comparing practices.
What are negative keywords?
A negative keyword tells Google not to show your ad for a search. Add words such as "jobs", "courses", "salary" and "free". This stops you paying for clicks from people who are not patients. Review the search terms report each week, because new unwanted terms appear all the time. Shoutout Digital's agents check this report every hour.
What should dental ads not say?
Ad wording follows the Ahpra rules. Avoid "best", "painless" and "guaranteed" results, and avoid patient testimonials about treatment. See Ahpra advertising rules for dental marketing.
Questions
Which dental keywords should I start with?
Start with urgent terms, treatment terms with a suburb, and your own brand.
Urgent searches such as "emergency dentist" with your suburb show a person who needs an appointment soon. Treatment terms with a suburb or "near me" come next. A person who searches for a treatment may still be comparing practices.
Brand terms are cheap and worth protecting. Broad information searches cost money and rarely book.
The right mix depends on your suburb and your chairs, so check which terms book patients before you add more.
Why add negative keywords?
They stop you paying for clicks from people who are not patients.
A negative keyword tells Google not to show your ad for a search. Add words such as "jobs", "courses", "salary" and "free".
New unwanted terms appear all the time, so review the search terms report each week. Shoutout Digital's agents check this report every hour.
Without negative keywords, part of your budget goes to people looking for work, study or free services. None of them is a patient, and none will book an appointment.
Can I use the word "best" in my dental ads?
No. Ad wording follows the Ahpra rules.
Avoid "best", "painless" and "guaranteed" results. Avoid patient testimonials about treatment too.
Write ads that state what you offer and where. For example, name the treatment and the suburb, and leave the superlatives out.
The rules cover more than these words. See Ahpra advertising rules for dental marketing for the full guide before you publish an ad, and check each new ad against it. Check the headline, the description and any extra text in the ad.
How much will each keyword cost?
Google charges per click, and an auction sets the price. It varies by search term, suburb and competition.
Judge a keyword by what it costs to book a patient, not by its price per click. A cheap click that never books costs more than a dearer click that does. Pause any keyword whose cost per booking passes your target.
See the benchmarks page for sourced comparisons from other countries, each with its country and year. Do not read them as Australian click costs.
Your own account shows the real cost of each keyword. Check the search terms report to see what you actually pay.