SEO vs Google Ads for Healthcare Practices: Which Actually Delivers Patients?

What does Google Ads actually cost for a healthcare practice?

Let's look at real numbers. Google Ads work on a pay-per-click model. Every time someone clicks your ad, you pay. The cost per click varies by keyword and location.

UK benchmarks for healthcare keywords in 2026:

• Dental: £5-15 per click for general terms ("dentist near me"). £15-30 for high-value terms ("dental implants," "Invisalign").
• Aesthetics: £3-10 per click ("Botox near me," "lip filler clinic").
• Veterinary: £2-8 per click ("vet near me," "emergency vet").
• Chiropractic: £3-12 per click ("chiropractor near me," "back pain treatment").

Now factor in conversion rates. A well-designed landing page converts roughly 10% of clicks into enquiries. So if you're paying £10 per click, each patient enquiry costs £100. Not every enquiry becomes a booked patient either, so the true cost per acquired patient is typically £50-200 depending on your conversion funnel.

A typical monthly budget for a dental practice running Google Ads in a mid-sized UK city: £800-2,000. That might generate 8-20 new patient enquiries per month.

What does SEO cost and how does it compare?

SEO costs are structured differently. You're paying for the work of optimisation, not for each individual click. Common pricing:

• DIY: Free (your time). Viable for basic Google Business Profile optimisation and review management.
• Managed service: £300-800 per month for a local SEO provider. This typically covers citation building, content creation, and ongoing optimisation.
• Premium agency: £1,000-3,000 per month. More aggressive content strategies, link building, and technical SEO.

The difference: SEO traffic is "free" once you rank. There's no per-click cost. A blog post you write today can drive traffic for years. A Google Ad you run today stops delivering the moment your budget runs out.

Over 12 months, a practice spending £500/month on SEO (£6,000 total) might be getting 30-50 organic enquiries per month by month 12. That's a cost per enquiry of £10-17, and it keeps dropping as the months go on. Google Ads at the same spend deliver enquiries at a fixed rate that never improves.

How long does it take before SEO generates patients?

This is the honest part that SEO agencies often gloss over. Here's a realistic timeline:

Month 1-2: Foundational work. Google Business Profile optimisation, citation cleanup, website technical fixes. You might see a bump in map pack visibility, but no flood of calls.

Month 3-4: Content starts getting indexed. Blog posts and service pages begin appearing in search results, but usually on page 2-3. Traffic trickles in.

Month 5-6: Rankings improve. Some pages reach page 1 for less competitive keywords. You start seeing 5-15 organic enquiries per month that you weren't getting before.

Month 7-12: Compounding kicks in. More pages rank. Each piece of content reinforces the others. Monthly organic enquiries climb to 20-50+, depending on your market.

The frustrating reality: months 1-3 feel like nothing is happening. This is where most practices give up and go back to ads. The ones who stick with it are the ones who win long-term.

When should you use Google Ads instead of SEO?

Google Ads make sense in specific situations:

• New practice launch: You need patients now and can't wait 6 months for SEO to kick in.
• High-value treatments: If a dental implant patient is worth £3,000-5,000, spending £100-200 to acquire them through ads is a solid return.
• Seasonal promotions: Short-term campaigns for teeth whitening before summer or Botox before Christmas.
• Testing new services: Want to see if there's demand for a new treatment? Run ads for a month before investing in SEO content.

The trap to avoid: treating Google Ads as your only marketing channel. You end up on a treadmill where stopping the spend means stopping the patients. Every practice should be building an organic foundation alongside any paid campaigns.

What is the best approach for most practices?

Run both, but with a clear plan to shift budget over time.

Months 1-6: Split your budget. Put 60% into Google Ads for immediate returns and 40% into SEO for long-term growth. Use the ad data to learn which keywords actually convert, then target those with your SEO content.

Months 7-12: As organic traffic grows, shift to 40% ads and 60% SEO. You should be getting enough organic enquiries that you can reduce ad spend without losing total patient volume.

Month 12+: Many practices reach a point where organic search generates enough patients that they only run ads for specific high-value services. Their monthly marketing cost drops while their patient volume stays the same or grows.

This is what good marketing looks like: investing in assets (content, rankings, reviews) that appreciate over time, rather than renting attention through ads indefinitely.

If you're ready to start building that organic foundation, Logara's Local SEO service handles the heavy lifting while you focus on running your practice.