How to Advertise Psychology & Therapy Services Online

Advertising of a brand in a specific industry requires detailed research. Most often, it is expensive to hire a dedicated team for your industry (healthcare professionals or psychologists, for example).

It is good to know some tips and techniques that work in almost every industry-focused advertising as well as those belonging to a really specific industry and need more attention.

Main advertising challenges of major industries:

High competition level

Many industries like healthcare, insurance, IT have a very high level of competition in advertising. It makes it more difficult and resourceful to create Ads, pick the right keywords and play with bids accordingly.

Expensive keywords

Together with a high competition level, keywords become more expensive with demand. In order to stay competitive and to win among your competitors, it is important to keep a wise and balanced keyword strategy as well as a great Quality Score.

Outstanding landing page

It is vitally important to work on your landing page. There’s some special about every business that must be reflected in the Ad as well as on the landing page. Also, the keywords should correlate with the landing page to allow your Ad to be shown more than others.

Overspending the budget

It is the trickiest part as Google AdWords helps you spend more. Raising bids is one of the major recommendations. Especially in complicated and vast campaigns, it is quite easy to get lost and to miss some important check on keywords one more time.

Now, you are familiar with some things to face when building your Ads campaign.

If you plan to advertise a business in the healthcare industry, however, there are many more things to discover!

TOP advertising challenges in Healthcare:

Remarketing is not allowed.

That is a huge disadvantage of Google Ads in healthcare. The thing is that normally remarketing is the most successful advertising strategy, especially when it comes to a long sales cycle.

In general, any industry uses remarketing with a lot of benefits. Healthcare builds its client base on a longer sales cycle (except the emergency healthcare). Not using remarketing cuts a huge portion of potential clients and makes it harder to keep users engaged.

Extremely high competition.

It is a great battle to stay on top of the competition. More than a third of all Google searches may be related to the healthcare industry somehow. EHR systems, health professionals, hospitals, health providers – anyone is facing strong competition.

Sensitive information

Medical and healthcare industries have their own HIPAA regulations. In order to advertise your business, you need first to make sure it is HIPAA compliant. It means processing and submitting patient information within strict privacy laws, using legal software and API. They must be not just legal but respect HIPAA compliance in detail. It involves extra funds spent to meet these requirements.

Certification

In order to comply with Google policy, pharmaceutical manufacturers should be certified and legal.

Bulk drug manufacturers, medical professional suppliers are only allowed to serve Ads in Canada and the US.

Ad language restrictions

Google implies language restrictions in multiple industries. Certain words just can’t be used without getting a Google disapproval. Among them, drugs, alcohol, gaming, adult content.

In healthcare, there are even more restrictions in terms of languages used in Ads. For example, “prescription drugs” terms can only be used in the following countries: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Japan, New Zealand, Netherlands, Slovakia, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom, and the United States.

You can advertise over-the-counter medicines uniquely in a narrow list of countries. Check Google Support for more information.

Unapproved substances

There is also a list of unapproved supplements and pharmaceuticals that are strictly banned in any Ads. For example, anabolic steroids, weight-loss substances, ephedra and more.

How to advertise therapy services online?

Due to multiple precautions, you need to take, advertising your services may appear tough. So, here are the steps.

Steps & tips to build a successful campaign:

1. First of all, you need to ensure the complete legality and certification.
2. Become familiar with Google regulations as per advertising healthcare products.
3. Dig into detailed keyword research to find a balance between expensive and competitive keywords. Let’s say, you provide CBT services online. According to Google Trends, CBT competition varies from Medium to Low (while all “online” terms result in High competition) The bid is from 5 to 7 USD.
4. Include synonyms and different variations, possibly with location triggers. There are some available words to build keyword expressions around: therapy, therapist, counseling, psychotherapy, practitioner, treatment. For example, anxiety treatment, depression treatment.
5. You can also focus on some other words to build your targeted expressions. They may not be exactly related but also involve that a person looks for treatment: exercises, self-help, self-esteem, anger management, trauma, approach, pain.
6. Research the industry itself. What about your competitors? Who are they and what are they doing? What specific industry-related details have you missed?
7. Remember you can’t use remarketing in your Ads. Instead of this, it is better to focus on Callout Extensions and contact information so that a user doesn’t have trouble contacting you straight away.
8. Adjust age and demographic targeting in search Ads. In the healthcare industry, age and location play a huge role to get a successful campaign. Learn more about your audience and define preferred age groups.
9. Use specific location targeting. Even if you offer online services, you might not speak the language of your potential client. It is more strategic to define an area where you can serve.
10. The first thing you should put in perfection and the last thing to re-check is your landing page. It should be highly relevant, appealing and unique with no extra information dragging a user away.

Conclusion

When building a business in the healthcare industry (in particular, psychology & therapy), it is good to follow the guidance tips for better progress.

Key things to note

1. Find out who your audience is. Research the variety of potential customers who might need your services. Divide them into main groups and target them accordingly. Make sure you identify the specific stages of the buying process where your consumers are involved.

2. Announce your contact details and use extended callouts to lead your potential customers towards acquisition. This is crucial for both B2B and B2C. Contacts are essential if a patient needs emergency care. They also serve as an information point among other medical professionals.

3. Improve your landing page conversion. Make it highly related and optimized, capable to boost the immediate action.

4. Ensure that your website is mobile-friendly.

5. Keep up with daily monitoring with impressions and average positions for your main targeted keywords.