Dental SEO vs Google Ads in the UK: when paid clicks win, and when they don't

The short answer

If you've got free chair time this month, know what a case is worth and can pick up the phone, start with ads on one treatment. If your patients think for weeks and you can wait, put the money into SEO. Plenty of guides will tell you to do both, which is fine if you can afford both. The useful question is which comes first.

PPC (pay-per-click) means you pay each time someone clicks your ad, and Google Ads is the usual place to buy it. SEO (search engine optimisation) is the work of showing up in the unpaid results.

Sojig is our product. It does SEO work and doesn't run ads, so we have a side in this. There are plenty of cases below where ads are the better call, and we've tried to be straight about them.

What a click might cost

Here's the awkward part. Three firms that sell marketing to UK dentists publish click prices (Whitehat SEO, Updent and Advertising Precision), and they don't agree:

Updent's figures are for mid-sized cities, and it says London runs 30% to 50% higher. None of the three explains a sample or method in enough detail to tell you why they differ, and we can't tell you which is right. They may each be describing different cities, searches and account set-ups.

So get your own number. Google's Keyword Planner shows estimated searches and costs for your area once your account is set up, and you don't need a live campaign to use it. Your price isn't only about your bid, either. Google's Ad Rank weighs your bid, the quality of your ad and landing page, the competition and the context of the search, and your bid is a maximum you'll often pay less than.

Do the sum before you spend

What you care about is the cost of an accepted treatment plan. Say you own a made-up practice in Stoke, and 10% of clicks become enquiries, 1 in 4 enquiries book a consultation, and 1 in 2 consultations accept. All of those rates are made up, so use your own.

If a case leaves you £1,500 after lab fees and clinician pay, the first two rows work and the third doesn't. Same practice, same ad, very different answer.

Now look at the budget. Whitehat says smaller practices may start at £400 to £700 a month and Updent says a budget for one treatment starts at £400 to £600. At £12 a click, £500 buys about 40 clicks. On the rates above, that's four enquiries, one booked consultation and perhaps one accepted case every two months. A budget that size can take many months to tell you anything reliable, so don't judge it after three weeks.

How the two compare

If SEO is the route you're leaning towards, dental SEO services covers what the work should include, and how long SEO takes sets expectations. Our guide for dental practices shows how search fits together across a practice.

When paid clicks beat SEO

• You have empty chairs now. A new associate, a quiet hygiene list or a new practice can't wait for rankings. Ads can bring in enquiries while pages mature, if the sum works.
• You're launching a treatment. Before you write six pages on aligners, spend a little to see whether those searches turn into consultations.
• You want to learn what people actually type. The search terms report shows real searches that triggered your ads. It's the most useful thing ads do for SEO, because it tells you what to write about.
• The unpaid results are full of big names. If directories and national brands hold the top spots for your main phrase, an ad may be your way near the top for that exact search. More specific questions may still be open to you through SEO.

It's the wrong move if nobody's answering. Every missed call is money gone at these prices, so run ads only for hours when someone can pick up.

When SEO is the better bet

SEO fits when patients take their time. Someone weighing implants or wondering whether aligners would work for them tends to read first, and a page written by your clinician, as in dental website SEO, keeps answering them without a meter running. For the treatment-specific angle, see marketing dental implants and Invisalign.

It also fits when the sum says no. If an accepted case costs more than it earns, as in the £40 row above, tweaking the ad is unlikely to rescue it. And it's the better choice when you can't keep paying. Say you have £6,000 for the year. At £12 a click, that's 500 clicks and then it's gone. Spent on pages, it leaves you something that's still there next year, although nobody can promise what those pages will earn.

It's the wrong choice if you need patients this quarter to cover an associate's pay. You can't speed it up on demand, and Google says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking. Be honest about the search numbers too: treatment searches in one town can be small, and Keyword Planner won't show very low volumes at all. And don't run ads hoping they'll help your SEO. Google says advertising won't affect your presence in its search results either way.

The rules that apply to your ads

We read Google's healthcare and medicines policy in its UK version in November 2026. It doesn't mention dental clinics. Most of what it says for the UK concerns online pharmacies and telemedicine providers, who need certification. But these do reach a dental practice:

• Prescription treatments. Google restricts prescription drug terms in ads, landing pages and keywords. Separately, the CAP Code says prescription-only medicines and treatments may not be advertised to the public, and CAP names Botox as one. If you offer facial aesthetics, keep them well away from your ad and its landing page, and have them checked.
• Patient lists. Google lists Health as a sensitive category. Advertisers in those categories can't use their own audience lists, and Customer Match, which uploads your contacts, is marked as not supported. Whether a given campaign counts is Google's call, so plan on keyword and location targeting. It also keeps you clear of the ICO's view that health-based marketing should have explicit consent.
• Tracking. Measuring bookings from ads usually means cookies. The ICO says you need consent for cookies that aren't strictly necessary, with particular care where they could reveal health details, and it's consulting on revised guidance. Google's consent policy covers UK users as well.
• Claims. The CAP Code wants evidence for objective claims, and the ASA has warned dentists about calling braces "less painful" or faster without clinical trials.
• GDC wording. Your ad is advertising. The GDC says advertising must make clear if the practice is NHS, mixed or wholly private, and must avoid unjustified expectations. It can't use "specialist" for anyone off a specialist list. Our guide to GDC advertising rules has more.

One more practical point. Updent suggests adding NHS and free searches as negative keywords, meaning searches you tell Google not to show your ad for. If you're wholly private, that saves money and stops you disappointing people who are looking for something you don't offer.

What about Local Services Ads?

These are Google's pay-per-lead ads, and you may have read about them in US articles, including our own local SEO for dentists. Google's UK help page lists Dentist as a category and tells you to check eligibility for your area, but it doesn't list countries, and we couldn't confirm dentists can run them in the UK. So check Google's eligibility tool, and don't build a plan around them until it says yes.

Which to start with

Where Sojig fits

Sojig doesn't run ads, write ad copy or manage bids. If ads are right for you, set them up in Google Ads yourself or hire a PPC specialist or agency, and keep the account in your practice's name.

It does the SEO side. Each week it drafts technical fixes, drafts pages and an article for you to approve, and it tracks your rankings on Google and Bing, including Google Maps from your town. If your ads' search terms show a question you're not answering, you can ask Ady, its assistant, to draft that page. Plans are priced in US dollars, from $99 a month as of November 2026. Business Profile replies and posts get drafted too, and you copy those in by hand for now.