A tale of two SEO campaigns

Aggressive versus natural website optimisation – what results can you expect?

Most dental business owners are likely aware of Google’s ongoing purge on websites which have used manipulative methods to improve their search ranking. Whilst Google have actually been chasing down manipulative practices for many years, it’s since 2012 that the real clamp-down has been in play.

As we’ve noted previously on this blog, unfortunately lots of dentist’s websites have come to grief over the last couple of years as Google progressively caught up with digital marketers who had used suspect tactics to optimise their client’s sites. Invariably this resulted in an irrecoverable ranking penalty where the business owner had to give up on their compromised website and start afresh with a new version on a new domain name. Of course this is a huge issue with fairly disastrous consequences for the business overall.

With this in mind, it’s quite surprising to see that some dentists are still entrusting their new websites to SEO companies who continue to use risky techniques to establish good Google positions. What follows is an insight into what can happen in such a circumstance.

Aggressive SEO – why you don’t want to risk it

Back in mid 2014 we were approached by a dentist who’s website had been penalised by Google. He’d previously been number one for a generic search term on a UK basis and had reaped the rewards. However, Google caught up with him and effectively removed his site from the search index – the impact was immediate and he effectively lost most of his new enquiries overnight. Fortunately he had already built a large business so wasn’t at risk of going out-of-business, however his expansion plans were instantly shelved.

His digital marketing agency had determined that they could not recover his domain and that he needed to make a complete fresh start which he subsequently did. However, he elected to move away to a new digital agency as he’d lost trust in the incumbent; so he approached us with a very specific brief to re-establish his old ranking positions in 6 months.

Our response was quite firm and whilst we were prepared to assist him, there was no way that we could realise his request in such a short time frame. Indeed he was potentially looking at 18 months or so of steady, careful work to start ranking in the extremely competitive positions he once enjoyed. This was not acceptable to him and he elected to go elsewhere. We were not unduly worried about losing this potential work as the client had unrealistic expectations; however we resolved to track his progress over the next six months to see exactly how far he got in his quest.

For us, this was an excellent way to monitor another companies SEO campaign to see just how far they would go and indeed, if they techniques they used would escape Google’s very sophisticated radar.

At the same time, we actually started a campaign for a dentist in the same location but using our usual ethical methods to improve search ranking i.e. blogging, content marketing and a range of social media activities. Hard work, but all within Google’s quality guidelines.

What happened next?

Were were able to keep a close eye on the techniques the dentist was using to optimise his new domain – our link tracking tools show us most of what is going on. Fairly quickly we saw that the new digital marketer had set up 4 or 5 micro-sites, each with a couple of pages linked back to the primary website. Also a couple of low-quality blogs with generic content were being used to create more back-links. Alongside this, we could see bad blog commenting and a bunch of forum profiles being used. Whilst the marketing agency was avoiding using over optimised link anchor text (a clear signal to Google), they were still using a lot of techniques that are now accepted as risky. I feared the worst and I wondered if the dentist was actually unaware of what was going on.

But what of the Google positions? To my surprise, the site quickly hit page two and within 3 months had appeared at the bottom of page one – and still no penalty. Even more surprising is that the site progressed up page one over the next 3 months with even more of the same dodgy tactics going on in the background. I was really shocked by this stage and I wondered if indeed there was something they knew which I didn’t. However, along came the next Google Penguin update – the algorithm adjustment that seeks out link manipulation – and you might guess what happened next. Yes, the guys website disappeared again overnight. Whilst he’d escaped a manual inspection by Google, their latest ranking algorithm update eventually got him again. Lesson learned? Clearly not.

So what was happening in the ethical SEO campaign being carried out by us?

At the same point as the dentist’s website got penalised again (around 6 months after he started his aggressive campaign), our client had just made it to the base of page one. Whilst he isn’t getting lots more traffic yet, the foundations have been securely laid for further progression up page one. I expect to get to the top half of the page in another 3 – 4 months time and the top three after 15 – 18 months. The guys back-link profile looks excellent and his domain authority and overall web footprint continues to grow steadily and sustainably.

What are the learning points here?

• Google is smarter than us and always will be
• Unless you are very lucky, if you use poor SEO tactics, you will get caught out
• There are no ninja or guru SEO guys who can trick Google – optimisation is about knowing what the guidelines are and working within them ethically to help improve a website’s ranking
• There are no quick wins, particularly where competition is fierce
• Good SEO is not cheap – it takes a lot of work (but the rewards are significant)
• Expensive SEO is not necessarily good – the guy in the example above was paying a lot to one of the supposed “best” dental SEO companies in the UK – and yet he still got penalised

So please don’t get caught out. The rewards of prominent search engine positions are huge but you can’t force it and you do need to be careful who you work with.

If you need some free advice about the best ways to improve the ranking of your practice website safely, please call Dental Media on 01332 672548.