You are considering running Google Ads for ear wax removal in your clinic. Before you set up a campaign, you ask yourself: is there enough demand in my area?
This is the right question to ask. And it is answerable in minutes with a free tool.
Google Keyword Planner shows you exactly how many people search for a specific term in a specific location every month. Not estimates. Not guesses. Real search volume data from real searches.
The difference between running ads in an area where people search 1,200 times a month for your service and an area where they search 40 times a month is the difference between a profitable campaign and a waste of budget.
This post walks you through how to use it.
- What Google Keyword Planner shows you
- How to access it
- How to search for your service by location
- Reading the results
- What search volume actually means for your ads
- Real examples: high demand, low demand, and the cities in between
What Google Keyword Planner shows you
Google Keyword Planner is a free tool built into Google Ads. It shows you:
Monthly search volume — how many times people search for a term in a month.
By location — narrowed down to a specific country, region, city, or postcode radius.
Historical trends — whether searches are growing, shrinking, or stable over time.
Competition level — how many advertisers are bidding on the same keyword.
Suggested bid range — what Google estimates you will pay per click if you run ads.
For a clinic owner, the monthly search volume by location is the only number that matters at this stage. Everything else is secondary.
If nobody searches for "ear wax removal" in your town, no amount of bidding or optimisation will fill your diary. If 2,000 people search for it, you have a genuine market to reach.
How to access it
Google Keyword Planner lives inside Google Ads. You do not need to run ads to access it.
Step 1: Go to Google Ads.
Step 2: Click the tools icon (wrench) in the top right. Select "Keyword Planner".
Step 3: You will see two options: "Discover new keywords" and "Get search volume and forecasts".
Choose "Get search volume and forecasts". This is the one that shows you historical search data by location.
Step 4: Enter the keyword you want to research. For example: "ear wax removal".
How to search for your service by location
This is where precision matters.
Do not just search "ear wax removal" and look at UK-wide numbers. The UK average is worthless to you. You need to know what people search for in your specific town or postcode area.
Step 1: In Keyword Planner, enter your service. Example: "ear wax removal".
Step 2: In the location field, enter your town or postcode. Google will let you select a specific city, county, or radius around a postcode.
Step 3: Select your target location from the dropdown.
Step 4: Click "Get started" or "Get search volume".
Keyword Planner will show you the average monthly search volume for "ear wax removal" in that specific location.
Repeat this for every variation of your service that patients might search:
- "Ear wax removal [town]"
- "Microsuction [town]"
- "Ear wax clinic near me" (location-agnostic, but useful to understand "near me" demand)
- "Blocked ear wax [town]"
- "Ear wax removal [town postcode]"
Each variation has a different search volume. Most clinics miss the variations that actually get volume.
Reading the results
Google Keyword Planner shows you three columns: keyword, average monthly searches, and competition level.
Average monthly searches is the number you care about. It is the average number of searches per month over the last 12 months.
Google rounds the numbers — you might see "1.2K" instead of 1,200 — but that is fine. You are looking for scale, not precision.
One important note: the numbers are average monthly searches across your specified location. If you search for "ear wax removal Manchester" and it shows 390, that means 390 people in Manchester (or within the radius you specified) search for that exact phrase each month.
The volume includes all searches — people researching, people ready to book, people looking for NHS options, people looking for DIY advice. Not all of that traffic will convert. But it tells you the ceiling of potential demand.
What search volume actually means for your ads
A search volume of 390 per month sounds small until you think about conversion.
If 390 people search for "ear wax removal Manchester" every month, and 20% of those clicks lead to a booking inquiry, that is 78 potential patients per month. If your average ear wax removal fee is £120, that is £9,360 in potential monthly revenue from a single keyword in a single location.
Whether you actually capture that depends on your ads, your landing page, and your conversion rate. But the demand exists.
Now consider a town where "ear wax removal [town]" gets 40 searches per month. At 20% conversion, that is 8 potential patients per month, or roughly £960 in potential revenue. Running a full Google Ads campaign in that town might not make sense. You are not going to make back your ad spend.
This is why knowing local search volume before you launch is critical. It tells you whether a service is viable in an area or whether you need a different strategy.
Real examples: high demand, low demand, and the cities in between
Let me walk through real-world examples.
Example 1: High-demand location
Keyword: "Ear wax removal" Location: Birmingham
Search volume: 1,200/month
In a city the size of Birmingham, 1,200 monthly searches for ear wax removal is high demand. Running Google Ads here makes sense. You have volume to work with.
Example 2: Low-demand location
Keyword: "Ear wax removal" Location: Redditch
Search volume: 40/month
Redditch is a real town, but at 40 monthly searches, ear wax removal demand is tiny. If you are a clinic in Redditch, running Google Ads for this service at scale does not make sense. You might get 2 to 4 bookings a month from ads. Your ad spend would not justify the return.
Example 3: Medium-demand location
Keyword: "Ear wax removal" Location: Leeds
Search volume: 640/month
Leeds is a large city, so 640 searches is decent demand. You have a market to reach. But you are not in Birmingham numbers. Your budget needs to be realistic.
Example 4: Service variation matters
Keyword: "Ear wax removal near me" Location: UK-wide
Search volume: 18,100/month
The "near me" variation is significantly more popular than "[town]" variations. This tells you that many patients search using "near me" without specifying a location. If your clinic is visible on Google Maps (Google Business Profile), you will capture some of these searches without running ads.
Example 5: Different service, same location
Keyword: "Travel vaccines" Location: Manchester
Search volume: 510/month
Keyword: "Weight loss clinic" Location: Manchester
Search volume: 1,850/month
In Manchester, weight loss has three times the search volume of travel vaccines. If you offer both services, you should allocate more budget to weight loss ads. The demand is there.
What to do with this information
Once you know the search volume, you can make a decision.
If search volume is high (over 400/month for your exact service + location): Run Google Ads. You have demand. Focus your budget on this service and location.
If search volume is medium (100-400/month): Consider Google Ads, but start small. Run £5-10 a day for a month and see what happens. Your costs per booking might be high because there is less total volume, but it could still work if your conversion rate is good.
If search volume is low (under 100/month): Skip Google Ads for now. Instead, focus on SEO, Google Business Profile optimisation, and organic content. Build authority in your niche. Ads will not have enough volume to justify the spend.
If search volume is zero: Your service may not have search demand, or the way you described it does not match how patients search. Try different keyword variations. If all variations are zero, you need a different customer acquisition channel.
This research takes 15 minutes and costs nothing. It prevents you from spending £500 on ads in an area where there is no demand.
Beyond your own service: understanding the market
Once you get comfortable with Keyword Planner, you can use it to understand your entire market.
Research every service you offer. Research variations of those services. Research competitor terms. You might find that your third service actually has the most demand, and you should be marketing it harder. You might find that demand is concentrated in one suburb, not evenly across your entire catchment area.
This is market research that used to cost thousands of pounds. Now it is free.
The clinics that use this data systematically — before launching services, before running ads, before hiring new staff — are the ones that grow sustainably. The clinics that guess are the ones that waste budget.
Before you spend a pound on Google Ads, open Keyword Planner and search for your service in your town. The 15 minutes you spend will tell you whether ads make sense or whether you should focus your money elsewhere.
That is a decision worth making informed.
