This is the smallest paid search market on this hub, and the honest advice starts with saying so.
What your clicks actually cost, which searches are wasting money, and what your cost per new patient looks like. Fifteen minutes, and you keep it either way.
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A small market, cheap clicks, and two things on it actually worth advertising.
When we pulled this data, Google’s own keyword tool returned no cost estimate for podiatry, podiatrist near me, orthotics, plantar fasciitis or heel pain in Australia. What it did return is on this chart, and it is small. Childrens podiatrist is $4.09 on 1,000 searches. Orthotic insoles is $1.60 on 1,900. That is the honest size of the paid opportunity, and it is a lot smaller than any agency will tell you.
Average cost per click across Australia, from Google Keyword Planner. What your account pays will differ with location, competition and quality score. The gap between these rows is the argument, not the exact figures.
Five rows, none above five dollars, and the largest of them at 1,900 searches a month. Compare that with the building industries on this hub, where single searches run past 20,000 a month, and the shape of the problem becomes obvious.
The two rows worth your attention are childrens podiatry and orthotics. One is a distinct patient group that a parent searches for deliberately. The other is a product with a real margin that patients buy, replace and buy again.
Three numbers, and only the last one decides anything. It is the same chain our Brisbane digital marketing agency works through in every industry, only the dollar figures change.
We work it right to left. What a job is worth sets what a lead can cost, which sets what a click is worth bidding.
Cost per click is the easiest number to improve and the least useful one. Bid on cheaper searches and it drops immediately, whether or not those searches ever turn into work. That is why we will sometimes tell you to pay more per click rather than less.
Google Ads is the fastest of the three and the only one you pay for by the click. Here is what the other two do, and where the expensive clicks eventually stop.
THE SLOW ASSET
This is where the work belongs in podiatry. Condition pages that answer what somebody is worried about, a Google Business Profile built properly, and a review process after appointments. The searches with the volume are the ones you cannot buy, which makes ranking for them the whole game.
THE FAST LEVER
A small, tight account. Childrens podiatry and orthotics as separate campaigns, exact match, and a modest budget that is not asked to do more than the market can support. Negative keywords so you stop paying for podiatry courses, podiatrist salaries and university entry. Booking tracking, because appointments are made online as often as by phone.
THE ONE MOST CLINICS SHOULD START WITH
The cheapest reach available, and in this profession probably the most important of the three. When the search market is this thin, being known locally does more work than bidding does, and that is not a conclusion we reach often.
We start from what a patient is worth over the years they stay, not what a click costs. In podiatry that calculation frequently points away from paid search, and we would rather say so. Google Ads does the fast work, SEO is where most of this profession’s demand actually lives, and Meta Ads builds local recognition. We will tell you if one is not worth running.
Not a strategy document. These are the two campaigns we would build for a Brisbane clinic and the one we would not, given how small this market actually is.
Built around “orthotic insoles”
1,900 searches a month at $1.60 a click, the largest and cheapest row available. Orthotics are a product with a real margin, they wear out, and patients replace them. Your competition here is online insoles, so the page has to be clear about what a custom device does that a shelf product cannot.
Built around “childrens podiatrist”
$4.09 a click on 1,000 searches, and the most deliberate search in the profession. A parent typing this has been told to see somebody, usually by a GP or a school, and they are choosing a clinic rather than wondering whether to go. Small volume, very high intent, and the family often stays for years.
Built around the searches we exclude
Podiatry courses, podiatrist salaries, university entry requirements, shoe retailers, insole products sold online, and the very large volume of people trying to work out what is wrong with their foot before they pay anybody to look at it. On broad match you buy all of it, and in a market this small that is fatal.
Send us access to your Google Ads account and we will come back with what it is wasting, which searches are costing you the most for the least, and what we would change first. Fifteen minutes, no obligation, and you keep it either way.
Two clicks can cost the same and be worth completely different amounts. That gap, not the click price, is what decides whether an account works.
Four dollars for the click and a parent who has been told to bring somebody in. Childrens podiatry has the highest intent of anything in this profession, the appointments continue as the child grows, and the rest of the family tends to follow. It is small and it is the best patient on the chart.
Your Google Business Profile, suburb pages, and local listings optimised so customers in your area find you first.
Technical fixes and service-focused SEO that make your site easy for Google to understand and trust.
Build your reputation through reviews, with monthly reports tracking rankings and leads from organic search.
Seventy eight cents a click, and mostly people working out whether they can deal with it themselves. It is the cheapest row here for the same reason cheap rows are cheap everywhere on this hub: the person typing it has not decided to pay anyone yet.
Site speed, crawlability, schema markup, and Core Web Vitals sorted so Google can index and trust your site.
Service pages and suburb landing pages written to rank and convert, not just fill space.
Backlink building and on-page optimisation that compounds month over month.
Three things come up in nearly every Google Ads account we audit for a podiatry clinic.
The single largest search available here has 1,900 a month. An account given a budget sized for a normal health vertical will spend it on broad matches and irrelevant traffic, because there is nothing else for it to spend on.
Tight exact match campaigns on the two searches worth having, a budget that matches what 2,900 combined monthly searches can actually support, and the rest of the money put where the demand really is.
Heel pain, plantar fasciitis and ingrown toenails are what people actually search. Google returned no advertising data for any of them when we looked, and a broad match campaign will still find that traffic and charge you for it.
That demand is real and it is not for sale, which makes podiatry one of the few verticals where the honest recommendation is to spend more on ranking than on bidding. We would rather tell you that than take a management fee for a campaign with nothing to buy.
Podiatry is a regulated health profession. Testimonials about clinical outcomes and before and after imagery are restricted under the National Law, and plenty of agencies write them anyway because they do not know the rules apply.
We keep clinical claims and patient testimonials inside what the National Law allows, and hand the copy to your principal podiatrist to review before anything goes live rather than publishing straight to the site.
We start with what a patient is worth over the years they stay and work backwards to what a click can cost, and how many are even available.
A callus appointment and a child who attends for six years cannot carry the same cost per click. We work out your patient value across the years they stay, because in a market this small the lifetime figure is the only one that makes paid search defensible at all.
Two campaigns, exact match, and a budget that matches the demand. Podiatry is the one vertical on this hub where we will actively argue you down on spend, because there is nothing useful for the extra money to buy.
Search terms reviewed weekly and negatives added, because in a market this thin a single week of broad matching can spend a month of budget on shoe shops and symptom research. Then monthly reporting on cost per new patient.
Worth saying before you enquire, because it saves everyone three months.
More often than in any other vertical on this hub. If you do not fit orthotics and you do not see children, there is very little left here worth buying, and the honest answer is to put the money into ranking and into your Google Business Profile instead. We will tell you that on the call rather than three months into a retainer.
Fast answers, clear decisions.
Spend, leads and trends at a glance.
Your data, your accounts.
Budget goes to what converts.
4+ years average client retention.
Specialists across each platform.
Less often than for anything else on this hub, and we would rather say so upfront. The largest buyable search in this profession has 1,900 a month. If you fit orthotics and see children there is a small, cheap, high intent account worth running. If you do not, the honest answer is to spend the money on ranking instead.
When we pulled this, Google’s own keyword tool returned no cost estimate and no volume for podiatry, podiatrist near me, orthotics, plantar fasciitis or heel pain in Australia. We are not going to speculate about why. What matters practically is that the searches with the demand are not available to buy, so they have to be earned.
Agency fees usually work one of three ways: a percentage of ad spend, a flat monthly retainer, or a base fee plus a percentage above a threshold. Percentage models get expensive as you scale and quietly reward the agency for spending more of your money. In a market this small a percentage model makes very little sense for either side.
Less than you have probably been quoted. Two campaigns against 2,900 combined monthly searches can only absorb so much, and any budget beyond that gets spent on broad matches and shoe shops. This is the one vertical where we will argue you down rather than up.
It is the largest and cheapest row on the chart at 1,900 searches and $1.60 a click, and it is a product with a real margin that wears out and gets replaced. Your competition is online insoles, so the page has to be clear about what a custom device does that a shelf product cannot.
Small volume and the best patient in the profession. A parent typing it has usually been told to see somebody by a GP or a school, so they are choosing a clinic rather than deciding whether to go. The appointments continue as the child grows and the rest of the family often follows.
Within limits. Podiatry is regulated under the National Law, which restricts testimonials about clinical outcomes and before and after imagery. Explaining what a treatment involves and what it costs is fine. We write to that line and hand the copy to your principal podiatrist before anything goes live.
Two places, and both come from the same cause. A budget larger than the market can absorb, which forces broad matching. And the symptom traffic that broad matching then finds, which is enormous and mostly people deciding whether they need anyone at all.
Almost certainly cut the budget and tighten the match types. In every podiatry account we have looked at the spend is larger than the available demand, which means most of it is going to searches nobody chose. After that, move the difference into ranking for the conditions.
We look at what it is wasting, whether the budget is bigger than the market, how much is going to symptom and retail traffic, and whether anything published sits outside the advertising rules. If the answer is that you should be spending less, that is what the report will say. You get it in writing and you keep it either way.
