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10 Questions You Need to Ask A Prospective Dental SEO Company Posted by Tyson Downs on 4/27/15 7:38 AM Let's face it, if you want to grow your dental practice, then you probably need a dental SEO company to help you reach your online goals. SEO, when done right, is a very effective marketing strategy. Making your dental website visible to search engines means more potential patients will find you. More patients means more money coming in to your practice.
You may love what you do for a living, but you still need to make a living. That is the entire point of an SEO marketing campaign. It helps you make a better living and be a more successful dentist. Since you don't have time to sit around and do SEO for your practice, you should probably consider to hiring a dental SEO company. These are the companies that specialize in SEO for your specific niche. They are much more effective than any other SEO company, because all of their clients are dentists. Before you run off to hire one, here are ten questions you need to ask them. Think of them as a pre-qualifying screening for a new employee. The answers to these questions will help you decide whether a dental SEO company is legitimate or worth hiring.
1. Can You Guarantee Rankings on the First Page? No one can ethically guarantee rankings. It doesn't matter how big or small your budget is. If they say they can put you on the first page of Google, they're probably using techniques that Google frowns upon. The truth is even if you do everything right in your campaign, you still may not rank on the first page. Keywords are extremely competitive. Google's algorithm changes constantly. What works for one website may not necessarily work for another one, and it may not work for yours. I know it sounds good, and you want to hear a company say "Give us a year and we'll have you in the top three spots," but it's just not realistic.
2. How Do You Keep Up With Algorithm Changes? Any dental SEO company worth its salt needs to keep up with algorithm changes. They happen constantly. In fact, only major changes are announced to the public. The smaller ones go unannounced; it is estimated that search
engines make hundreds of those a year. Reading major search engine press releases, subscribing to websites and blogs isn't enough. The best way to keep up with these changes is to combine the updates they recieve with what they know from their test sites. What are test sites? Test sites are sites that SEO companies have that they use specifically to try new techniques and monitor algorithm changes. If they notice a drop in rankings in one of their websites, they may check to see if it coincides with an algorithm change. If it does, they will make the necessary adjustments. If it doesn't, they should still be able to pinpoint the problem and correct it. Once they achieve success with their test sites, they can apply those techniques to their clients sites if they've been effected. Don't be fooled by a company that says they have someone who works for a search engine. That person could be a janitor for all you know - if they even exist. If that's their secret to algorithm changes, you don't want to work with them.
3. How Often Will I Get Reports? You require anyone working with you to regularly contact you when it comes to the job they're doing. Your SEO company should be the same way. Some companies vary on how often they send reports. The frequency varies from daily to never. You need a frequency that shows that the company will keep in contact with you. Daily is of course a bit too much. Most companies go for weekly or monthly reports. This is good. It's just frequent enough to keep contact regular. If they only send reports every 2-12 months, then you probably don't want to work with them. As a dentist, you know that a lot can happen in 12 months. A patient can have zero cavities one year and five when he comes back for his checkup. The same thing can happen with your website. It can start out fine, but then you get your yearly report and it shows it's in dire straits. What happened in 12 months? A weekly or monthly report would have caught that decline. Bringing it up could have helped the company to bring it under control. Don't go through all of that. Instead, stick with a company that sends you a report at least every month.
4. Is Social Media a Part of Your SEO Strategy?
Social media should be a part of almost every SEO strategy. There are some businesses who will get zero benefit out of a social media campaign, but those businesses are few and far between. The truth is, social media can play a big part of rankings in search engines. The more your content is shared, the higher potential you have to get more visibilty to your practice. This doesn't mean you need to get 100 shares per post. Even one or two shares shows the search engines that you are sharing content that people find valuable. Your dental SEO company should not only employ social media, they should be able to tell which social media outlets your practice will benefit from. This means they will examine your campaigns and find out which ones are most effective. If they see potential, they can improve a campaign. If they think it's a waste of time, they will tell you, and focus their efforts elsewhere. Be sure to check out this post on social media:
The Top Mistakes Dentists Make with Social Media
5. What Types of Tools Do You Use? There is no reason for any SEO company to hide the types of tools that they use. Some will say that they use "secret" tools that are only available "in house, for their paying clients." This is your cue to run far, far away. You want to be able to see the tools yourself and what they do. They may use a mixture of free and paid tools, but they should have a list of tools that they are prepared to show you. You can either ask them for it or get it off of their website.
Why are their tools important? You want to know how the SEO company works. If they use legitimate tools that are recommended by well-known professionals and/or are used by reputable companies, then you're in good hands. If, however, their tools are secret, this shows that the company isn't transparent. You won't be able to trust them if they won't show you what they work with and how they do their work. Look at it like this: a plumber is over your house fixing a leak. You ask him how he's going to fix it and what tools he's going to use. He tells you "It's a secret." Would you trust him to fix your leak? No way. You'd probably put him out of your house, because you don't know what method he'd use. He might just put gum on it and charge you $400. Likewise, don't hire a company that won't tell you what SEO tools they use. A few tools that Titan Web Agency uses include Ahrefs, Bright Local, Open Site Explorer, and Agency Analytics . Here's a screenshot for some of the data that we gather from Bright Local which shows us the citations (business directories) that a particular client has and compares them to a few of their competitors.
6. What Are Your Views on Content Marketing?
Every company needs content marketing in some way shape or form. This isn't as simple as updating your blog or distributing articles to PR websites. Content marketing involves any type of content created for your business for the purpose of marketing your company. Some SEO companies only focus on links or social media. But written content is the very core of your business. People still read information online. If it's valuable, they share it. So content marketing efforts need to be focused on highquality content with the reader in mind. If the company doesn't do content marketing, you may want to go with someone else. It's difficult to find a separate SEO writing company to work with an SEO company. Content marketing needs to be a part of a wholistic SEO strategy, not an extra feature that's added on for more money.
7. Do You Outsource Your Work? This isn't a big deal, but you still need an honest answer to this question. It's nearly impossible to have all SEO work done in-house. Something as complicated as SEO requires many different things to make your strategy work. Not to mention, if there's an emergency or they're suddenly swamped with new clients, they need to be able to distribute the workload evenly. The answer to the question doesn't matter. They should just answer the questions honestly, and not lie about it. This is part of transparency and trust. Your SEO company should show that they have nothing to hide.
8. How Experienced Are You and Your Staff? There's nothing wrong with having a new SEO company do work for you. But just like your patients want a dentist with experience, you probably want an SEO company with experience. The staff should have at least 2 years of experience under their belt in their field. This is per person, not collectively. You want someone who knows what they're doing, or has worked for another company in the same capacity they're in now. As a bonus, it's even better to find a company that is experienced and focuses on your industry, because while the principles of local SEO are the same typically, there are intricacies in the dental and other industries. The rep you're talking to doesn't have to rattle off an entire resume. But they should be able to tell you how much experience their staff has in a couple of sentences.
9. How Do You Define Success? Generally, success is defined by many different things. In SEO, success can be narrowed down to a few things:
rankings, conversions, or traffic. Optimally you're looking for a combination of all three. Traffic is the main purpose of your SEO campaign. Increase traffic means increased conversions. Increased conversions means increased sales. Rankings plays a role in traffic. The higher your rankings, the more traffic you'll get. The more traffic you get, the more calls you'll get. The more calls you'll get, the more patients you'll get. This is how it works theoretically. In reality, you can actually have the number one rank on Google, and get all of the traffic you want. But if it doesn't convert, it's useless. There is no point wasting money on SEO if it's not doing what it's supposed to do. Poor traffic can be just as bad as no traffic, so just traffic or just rankings isn't enough. You can get a hundred hits a month, but if you get one new customer out of those one hundred hits, then the amount of traffic you're getting doesn't matter. The point is that your traffic converts. As long as the SEO company's answer isn't just one of the three things mentioned, you shouldn't worry. If the answer isn't a combination of these three things, or some form of them, then you probably don't want to work with that company. The best thing that you can do is to let your SEO company know your goals and how you will measure those goals. Then work closely with them as needed, getting them the information they need to make your campaign a success.
10. Do You Have Contracts? Some dental SEO companies lock clients in with a contract. Others have a no-contract business model. You can pick whichever one works for you, but if you decide to sign a contract with an SEO company, there are a few things you need to know first. The terms of the contract should be well defined. It should explain what the company will do for you, how they will do it, and how long the contract lasts. It should also explain what you are paying for, which fees are non-refundable, and how you can get a refund. The fees for the services should be stated clearly. There should be no guess work. If they quoted you a price, that price should be in the contract. If it isn't, don't sign the contract until it ends. You need to know what happens after the contract ends. Do you get to keep any content they put on your site? Do they remove all SEO changes they made? It might sound silly, but you'd be surprised what SEO companies take with them when your contract expires. It's not always as simple as ceasing SEO updates. Make sure you know what you're getting into before you agree to sign a contract and pay a company.
A good prospective dental SEO company will answer all of these questions correctly. This is how you can distinguish between a company that just wants your money, and a company that is going to do the job you pay them to do.
Topics: SEO