In today's digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for attracting new patients and growing your dental practice. One of the most popular and powerful tools for online marketing is Google AdWords. However, without a proper strategy in place, the cost of advertising on Google can quickly become exorbitant. One important aspect of using AdWords is to create negative keywords that will prevent your ads from showing up for irrelevant search terms. A negative keyword is a term that you don't want your ads to show up for. For example, if someone types in "doggy teeth cleaning", you probably have a keyword in your campaign that is related to teeth cleaning, but you're not willing to do it on a dog, right? In AdWords, you can create negative keywords to make sure that if someone includes the word "dog", "cat", "doggy", "horse", or any other animal with teeth, your ad will be removed from the search results.

Another important aspect of using AdWords is to remove the names of other dental offices from your search criteria. Originally, you may have thought that you could pick up some patients from other offices by including those names, but very quickly you found out that if patients were typing the office name in, they were not looking to switch to another dentist. By removing the names of other dental offices from your search criteria, you can prevent your ads from showing up for irrelevant search terms and decrease the number of wasted clicks.

It's also important to remember that negative keywords need to be updated regularly. This is because the terms that people are searching for can change over time. By updating your negative keywords on a regular basis, you can ensure that your ads are only showing up for relevant search terms and that you are getting the most out of your AdWords budget.

In conclusion , using negative keywords is an essential aspect of using Google AdWords for dental practices. By creating negative keywords that prevent your ads from showing up for irrelevant search terms and removing the names of other dental offices from your search criteria, you can increase the effectiveness of your ads and decrease the number of wasted clicks. Additionally, by regularly updating your negative keywords, you can ensure that your ads are only showing up for relevant search terms and that you are getting the most out of your AdWords budget. To create effective negative keywords, it's important to research the terms that people are searching for and identify the terms that are not relevant to your dental practice. For example, if you don't offer teeth cleaning for animals, you should add "dog", "cat", "doggy", "horse" or any other animal with teeth as negative keywords. By doing this, you can ensure that your ads are not showing up for irrelevant search terms and that your budget is being used effectively.

Video Transcript

You know, I always try to think positive thoughts and have positive feelings towards other people. But you know what? Sometimes it's good to be negative, but only when it comes to Google AdWords, so there are a lot of terms that people are typing into the search engine that produce a bad result for you. Let's say for example, that someone types in doggy teeth cleaning. Well, you probably have a keyword in your campaign that is related to teeth cleaning, but I'm pretty sure that you aren't [00:00:30] willing to do it on a dog, right? So in AdWords, you can create negative keywords to make sure that if someone includes the word dog, cat, doggy horse, or any other animal with teeth, you could remove your ad from anyone that's searching with those keywords in there. It's also a really good idea for you to remove other dental office names from your search criteria. 

Originally, we thought we could pick up some patients from other offices by including those names, but very quickly we found out that if patients were typing the office name in, they were not looking to switch to another dentist. So I highly suggest that you pull out all of your main competition. I would say about 30 to 40% of all clicks in the dental market are wasted clicks because marketers or dentists don't know how to do this or they just don't do it. This is a huge mistake and should be watched closely and updated often. If you'd like some more helpful hints on creating negative keywords, please let me know and I'll be happy to help you where I can take care.