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The 10 Types of Dental SEO Companies You Need to Avoid Posted by Tyson Downs on 4/13/15 6:14 AM It's not unusual for local businesses to have SEO companies vying for their attention. After all, SEO is a very important part of a business's marketing efforts. In today's internet-based world, it is nearly impossible to succeed without some type of online presence, no matter how small it is.
Perhaps, as the owner of a dental practice, you've been contacted by SEO companies claiming to specialize in SEO for your niche. You may have even sought some out. That is commendable. After all, you don't want to work with anyone who doesn't know the needs of your patients or clients. You need a company that knows what its doing. An SEO company is simply a type of online marketing company. You wouldn't hire a shady marketing company, would you? Of course not. Yet, many dental practice owners fall for shady SEO companies every day. It isn't your fault. We're not blaming you. It's easy to fake things online. It's harder to see through slick sales talk and fake promises on the internet. You can lie and fake a lot more things electronically. So we're going to educate you on the ten types of dental SEO companies you need to look out for. After reading this, you shouldn't fall prey to shady SEO schemes.
1. The One that Guarantees First Page Rankings If an SEO company promises you rankings on the first page, run for the hills. It is almost impossible to guarantee you front page rankings in this day and age. The constant changes in search engine algorithms make it difficult. It was easier to do this a few years ago. The rankings would stick too. But once the search engines wised up to the techniques and began changing their algorithms, those techniques became obsolete. Now Google, Bing and other search engines expect you to play by the rules. Anyone who doesn't is penalized. Bing and Google have deleted thousands of websites from their search engines for trying to game the system. If they even suspect you're doing so, knowingly or unknowingly, you'll be banned. That means people will have zero chance of finding you online. The only want to guarantee first page rankings is if you aren't playing by the rules. The SEO company won't assume responsibility for the penalties laid against your site. You will. Just save yourself the headache and politely decline.
2. The One that Focuses on Quantity Instead of Quality Some SEO companies that work with dentists, claim that SEO is a numbers game, just like sales. The more things you do, the more responsive your campaign is. That buzzer you just heard means they're wrong. SEO isn't a numbers game. You can't just throw out a bunch of backlinks and articles and expect it to return results. It doesn't work like that anymore. In fact, this was the technique people used to get page one results mentioned earlier. Except submitting thousands of articles and backlinks now is considered spam. And if your website is connected to spam, it's going to get penalized sooner or later from the search engines. So if the SEO company rep says something like "We can get you 1000 backlinks a month, and spin and submit articles to 500 directories a month," tell them no.
3. The One that Only Uses One or Two Techniques This is the SEO company that only wants to do one or two things and guarantees success based on those techniques. So when you ask them "What is your plan to improve my search engine visibility," they tell you "We're going to set up a PPC campaign and update your blog on a regular basis." Little do you know they do that for all of their clients.
There is no 'one size fits all' solution for SEO. What works for one dental practice may not work for yours. Your results will depend on your budget and what you are trying to achieve. If you have a big budget, you can afford a PPC campaign. If you have a small one, you may want to focus on blog updates or a social media campaign. But just because that's what you want doesn't mean that's what you need. And, if they're automatically answering questions like that for you without auditing your site first, chances are they don't know what you're doing anyway. But we'll talk more about that later.
4. The One That Can't Answer Your Questions Have you ever had a conversation with someone who artfully dodged your questions? You asked them "What did you do this weekend?" and they reply with "What did you do?" Or you say "Hey, did you like the pie my wife made?" and they say "Oh, speaking of pie, let me tell you about what the dog threw up yesterday." What do you think when that happens? Two things: either they're hiding something or they don't want to answer your question for some reason. Either way, you're constantly wondering what is going on while they're talking to you. The same thing can happen with an SEO company. Instead of answering your question, they'll say something like "We'll tell you more after you pay us," or "I'm not really sure." How can you be unsure about something that is your livelihood? What if a patient came to you and said "How are you going to fix my toothache?" and you said "I'm not really sure," or "I'll tell you after you pay my fee." They'd turn right around and leave. Can you blame them? You just demonstrated you're either greedy or you have no idea what you're doing. I wouldn't want you poking around in my mouth either. Don't give your business over to someone who demonstrates those same qualities. The results would be disasterous.
5. The One That Knows Nothing about SEO
Have you ever been on the phone with a customer service rep for a company who had no idea what they were talking about? How frustrating was that? You're telling them there's a problem and they have no idea what you're talking about. They can, however, sell you a service, or transfer you to another department. Some dental SEO companies are like that too. The truth is, as the owner of a dental practice, you're a target for marketers and SEO companies. They know you probably have a bigger marketing budget than other companies. They hire slick salespeople whose sole job is to convince you to buy their services. But these salespeople often know nothing about the services they're offering. They're just trying to do their job of selling you so they can get a commission. You can't really be upset with them. They have families to feed too. But the least they could do is a little research so they can know what they're talking about. Even worse, sometimes you will buy SEO from a company and then they will compeletely outsource it to another company. So the company you're buying from is the middle man. You may not think this is a big deal, because companies outsource everything nowadays. But wouldn't you rather deal directly with the company doing the services, instead of the one presenting them to you?
6. The One That Sounds Too Good to Be True You know the old saying: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Part of the way SEO companies get clients is through testimonials. You'll see rave reviews all over their websites from
different business owners. All of them will be happy with the results they got. You may even see video testimonials. Did you know those can be faked? Here's how you can tell if those testimonials are real or just hype: read them. Are they general? Do they simply say things like "Good job" or "No other service compares to this one!" Or are they specific? It's not far fetched to think that someone would leave a one or two sentence review with a business, but being specific makes a testimonial seem more real. Of course, the best way to be able to tell would be to see if they have any white papers. Or, you can ask for a list of references and contact them yourself. Point being, don't base your decision to go with an SEO company on their testimonials, unless you can verify that they're real.
7. The One That Offers Keyword Packages "I can get you ranked on page one of Google for 5 of your main keywords." Then they proceed to quote a price. Learn What You Need to Know Before Hiring an Online Marketing Company No. Like we said before, there is no guarantee that you can be ranked on the first page of any search engine for any keyword. To promise to rank you for five keywords is next to impossible. Some of those keywords are highly competitive, even locally. Plus your past SEO efforts and your current ones all come into play. You may not even need to rank on the first page for those five keywords. If you're already getting a significant amount of organic traffic from the search engines, that means your SEO efforts are working. Don't mess it up by being greedy. Keyword packages are just a scam.
8. The One That's So Cheap It's a Steal If a dental SEO company comes by and promises you the world for an affordable price and results in a very short amount of time, look out. This isn't just about getting you on page one of the search engines. We're talking about an entirely successful campaign, complete with social media marketing, PPC, blog updates, internal SEO and a free trip to London for only $99 a month. How can someone possibly work like that for $99 a month? As a business owner, you know how valuable your time is. You price your services according to what your time is worth. It's highly unlikely you'd do a dental surgery for $99. It's a very complicated job that involves numerous tools and risks, as well as monitoring and follow-up appointments for the patient. Is all of that worth only $99? An SEO company has a complicated job. They run your campaigns for search engines. They do this in at least four or five different ways. Each technique they use takes hours to get up and running, and hours more to maintain them. Why is that only worth $99? You're right to be suspicious. How much should SEO cost? Read this post:
How Much Should Dental SEO Cost?
9. The One That Doesn't Give You an Audit Before a company can begin working on your SEO, they need to run an audit. An audit tells them where the weak spots are in your SEO. Once they see that, they'll know how to proceed. When you started your business, you had to do research. You had to learn about your potential patients, find a place to set up your practice, and see what marketing methods people responded to. You couldn't just open your business and expect to start getting patients. SEO companies are the same way. The audit serves as research. They need to know your site before they can create a plan that will get you results. This is why you should stay away from any company that doesn't do an audit first.
10. The One That Promises Quick Results "We can rank you on the first page of Google and Bing within 72 hours!" This is a scam. On top of everything we just discussed, even if the SEO company actually could get you ranked in a short amount of time, the rankings won't stick. The search engines will find you and ban you. You will always have someone that tries to game the system. People find shortcuts and holes in search engine algorithms all the time. They will exploit them. But once the search engines find out about them, they patch them up. Your rankings will fall, and your SEO will be shot. It isn't worth the trouble.
Now that you're armed with the appropriate knowledge, you can make an informed decision about hiring a dental SEO company. Do you have any other tips that you'd like to add to this list?