“One size fits all” SEO packages
Why they are best avoided.
Readers of this blog will know that we usually recommend the benefits of bespoke design and digital marketing services over “one-size-fits” all packages.
These types of packages are popular amongst dental marketing suppliers and whilst they might seem convenient, they are usually very restrictive and often used to “up sell” clients to more expensive products over time. This applies to web design and SEO packages too, and it’s the latter we will take a closer look at in today’s blog.
Can a fixed price SEO package deliver?
The answer is “possibly” but if you consider the nuances of SEO and how the work required can vary dramatically from location to location, then it’s fairly easy to see that a fixed-price package will never be as successful as bespoke. You will usually either be paying too much or too little for the services your business actually requires.
Let’s take a closer look at a few examples….
If we consider a dentist who has very limited local competition, then a good quality website, Google local business page and a few business directory citations will usually be all that is needed to get a prominent place on page one of Google. There will be little reason to do much more as far as search ranking is concerned. So a fixed price package (usually not cheap!) would be overkill for this scenario.
However, if we consider a dentist in a small town with perhaps five or six practices competing nearby, the picture changes quite significantly and the Google competition ramps up accordingly. Here the practice may well need a fair bit more than just a good quality website – so likely some blogging activity, steady input to social media channels, good-quality link-building and citations in online business directories. This level of activity is usually sufficient to gain ranking prominence, but the extent of it can only be established following a close analysis of competitor ranking and digital marketing activity. So some campaigns will cost more, some less depending on exactly what is required.
Now if we consider a dentist who has recently opened a practice in or near a large city, then the level of competiton will naturally increase, with several dental websites already likely to be entrenched on page one and with well-established SEO campaigns. This level of competition will also be reflected across the whole digital marketing spectrum, for example, click-costs for AdWords campaigns will be significantly higher, particularly when you consider the extremely popular “implant” and “ortho” terms. For this scenario, you need to have a much larger marketing budget and a good degree of patience – it simply isn’t possible to launch an aggressive organic SEO campaign these days and expect Google to let you get away with it. Progress must be steady and natural to avoid having your website slapped with a Google ranking penalty.
Is SEO even worthwhile in a highly competitive environment?
Notwithstanding the comments about expectation and patience above, the answer to this is an unequivocal “yes”. Whilst some dentists give up on organic (free) search ranking and push their budget towards pay-per-click, they fail to understand that the quality of traffic from free Google positions usually converts *much* better than paid channels. It is also very useful and rewarding to gain website traffic from long-tail keywords, even if you can’t get to number one for the generic “dentist” term.
In line with the increasing popularity of PPC, there is a current tendency for orthodontic reps. to push their clients towards paid Google ads, specifically for their own product; but this is rather short-sighted and not in the dentist’s best interest. Whilst a complementary pay-per-click campaign may be very useful, the mid to long-term goal of achieving good free search engine rankings remains the top priority. So please be wary of what some may try to talk you into.
Summary
Every dental business is unique and subject to different levels of local competition. The extent of work needed to promote such businesses varies considerably and this is reflected throughout the free and paid digital marketing channels. The level of activity needed to compete (and win) cannot be fulfilled by “one-size fits all” digital marketing packages – you will either be under or over subscribed depending on your own particular requirements. To achieve success and gain the best value from your marketing efforts, your own requirements and expectations need to be carefully established in line with what the competition are already achieving. Only when this analysis is complete, can a bespoke campaign for your own dental practice be configured and put into practice. Bolt-on, one-size fits all packages will always under-deliver in comparison.
If you are considering marketing your dental practice on-line and need to understand more, don’t get pushed into a seemingly convenient package which will likely under-perform. To gain a clear insight of what you really need to achieve success, please call us for free advice.
Or perhaps you are already bought in to a digital marketing package which is not delivering? Whatever your goals, our digital marketing team will be pleased to help on 01332 672548.