Paying excessively for your website hosting and maintenance?
Why migrating your website to Dental Media makes sense
Do you ever look at your dental website hosting and maintenance bill and wonder what you are actually getting for it? Is it good value? Are there alternatives? The answer is unequivocally “yes”.
I’m prompted to revisit this topic following two calls from dentists this week who were keen to seek an alternative supplier after the incumbent marketing company raised their prices by 15%. At a time when inflation is bubbling around 2%, this seems quite hard to explain?
Over the last few years it has become increasingly important for small businesses to examine their costs in fine detail and this includes their web maintenance and marketing spend. Historically, there has been a tendency for dental marketing companies to push monthly maintenance contracts onto dentists where, in most cases, this is unjustified.
These types of contracts typically offer small website updates and security patches for which you are expected to pay £750 -> £1000 + per year. You will also get the website hosting included in the fee. Considering that most dental practices will only make 5 or 6 updates to their website every year and that professional hosting can be purchased for less than £100, that’s an awful lot of cash for not much return. In reality, all you are doing is providing a guaranteed monthly income stream for the dental marketing company which they desperately need to cover infrastructure costs. This, of course, is why they push so hard to sign you up. Whilst I’m not suggesting that companies should work for free, I am suggesting that the value offered from this type of arrangement is often poor.
What are the alternatives?
Our support model at Dental Media is quite different and has proved very popular for dentists who are seeking high quality services but without restrictive tie-ins and excessive costs. The vast majority of our clients work with us on a pay-as-you-go basis for their website updates and maintenance which, on average, saves £500 -> £600 per year versus tie-in contracts. We also offer business quality hosting including multiple email accounts and daily back-ups at sensible fees.
Proactive support
Just because you aren’t paying large monthly fees doesn’t mean that we just abandon you to get on with it. We monitor legislation changes very closely e.g. new GDC standards and we will notify you if your website is affected. Similarly if your website needs a security update, we will notify you and then make your site secure. Changes to websites are all completed within a week depending on complexity, most within 2 days.
How do I transfer to Dental Media – is it straightforward?
Many dentists have transferred to our services without any issues and we manage the complete process on your behalf.
Ultimately it is down to the incumbent provider releasing your web files and domain name details in a professional manner, but as long as you have no financial disputes with them, then there should be no issue. The switchover can be completed in a few hours during which your website will remain on-line and email will not be lost.
How much does it cost to transfer my site to your care?
It costs nothing to transfer. As long as all of your website files are made available to us in a working format, the transfer will be free of charge and seamless.
I’ve been told I will lose my Google ranking
There are lots of scare stories raised to try and dissuade a client from transferring, all completely false. You will not lose Google ranking, emails or any other functionality – only the big bills.
Summary
We would encourage you to evaluate what you are spending on your website maintenance very carefully and consider joining the growing list of dentists who have migrated to Dental Media for their website hosting, maintenance and marketing. But please don’t just take our word for it – simply call our team on 01332 672548, let us know that you are interested in switching your site over and we’ll be pleased to provide client references.