Healthcare is one of the most expensive categories in US paid search and one of the most rewarding in local SEO. A practice that gets both right pays a predictable amount per new patient; a practice that gets either wrong buys clicks from people who will never book. This is how we run Google Ads and local SEO for dentists, clinics and specialists across the United States.
What a new patient actually costs
Across the US practices we manage, a booked new-patient appointment from Google Ads lands between $90 and $250 for general dentistry, higher for implants and orthodontics where the case value justifies it, and lower for urgent care and physio where intent is immediate. Local SEO, once it is working, produces new patients at a fraction of that — but it takes three to six months to compound. Plan for both: ads for now, SEO for next year.
Local SEO: the work that compounds
- Google Business Profile is the whole game for "near me". Correct primary category (Dentist, not Health), every relevant secondary category, services listed with descriptions, real photos monthly, Q&A seeded with the questions patients ask, and a booking link that goes straight to your scheduler.
- Reviews, systematically. A text or email after every visit with a direct review link. The practices ranking first in most US metros have 300+ reviews at 4.8 or better and receive new ones weekly. Respond to every review — Google reads that too.
- One page per service, one per location on the website, each with the questions and prices patients search for. This is covered in detail in our US practice website guide.
- Citations and consistency. Same name, address and phone on Healthgrades, Zocdoc, Yelp, your insurance directories and the state board listing. Inconsistency here quietly caps your ranking.
Our free local SEO checklist scores a practice on all of this in a few minutes.
Google Ads: the settings that stop waste
Healthcare campaigns lose money in the same five places every time:
- Broad match without negatives. "dentist" attracts "dental assistant jobs", "dental school", "free dental clinic". Start with phrase and exact match and a negative list of 100+ terms on day one.
- Radius too wide. Patients rarely drive more than 20 minutes for a general dentist. Target by drive time, not county.
- Sending clicks to the home page. An implants ad should land on the implants page with the price band and a booking button, nothing else.
- No call tracking. Most healthcare conversions are phone calls. Without call tracking and conversion import you are optimising blind.
- Ignoring Local Services Ads. Google's Local Services Ads now cover many healthcare categories in most US metros; the pay-per-lead pricing is often cheaper than search for high-intent terms.
The compliance lines
Google's healthcare and medicines policies restrict some treatments and require certification for others; ads for prescription-related services, certain cosmetic procedures and addiction treatment go through additional verification. Meta restricts targeting for health-related advertisers and stopped accepting certain health-inferred audiences in 2025 — plan campaigns around location and interest, not medical condition. On your side, no HIPAA-covered data may flow into ad platforms through pixels on appointment pages, and any "before and after" or testimonial claims must be truthful, substantiated and, where a patient is identified, authorised in writing. The FTC's 2024 rule on fake reviews also makes buying, gating or incentivising reviews a federal problem, not just a Google one.
"In healthcare, the cheapest patient is the one who searched for exactly what you do, in your city, and landed on the page that answered them."
How we run it
Fixed monthly management with the campaign structure, negative lists and call tracking set up in the first fortnight, reported in the same performance report our clients see every month — spend, calls, bookings, cost per booked patient. Start with the growth planner for a budget recommendation based on your case values, or talk to the USA team.