SEO Packages – Be Cautious
Search optimisation – why package deals don’t work
Many of us will have seen the spam emails that hit our inbox advertising SEO deals, typically promising page one results for a few hundred dollars or less.
Similarly you may have seen packaged SEO services offered by dental marketing companies in the UK promising similar success for a set monthly fee?
Here we will take a quick look at why such packages don’t make the grade and can never deliver the success of a bespoke SEO service…..
Beware of the following….
This type of packaged website optimisation service nearly always advertises a list of features to be provided as part of a monthly deal. However, many of the methods advertised have been outmoded by Google’s recent search algorithm updates and will put your website at risk of receiving a ranking penalty. Features you may see offered might include:
- directory submissions
- article marketing
- paid incoming link campaigns
- blog and forum commenting
- and so forth….
This type of deal is often offered by off-shore suppliers who work for very low rates and don’t have the experience or skill to optimise websites correctly. The techniques they offer used to work to a degree but Google caught up and clamped down hard over the last 18 months. Now it’s just not worth the risk.
These tactics will invariably lead to a Google penalty and a long, hard (and costly) road to recovery. Very often, UK dental marketing agencies will outsource their SEO work to offshore suppliers with no means off quality control and incurring all of the same risks. Quite recently a large number of dental websites were badly affected as Google rolled out updates which penalised this type of activity.
So please be cautious, ask the right questions and avoid a Google “red card”.
The “one-size-fits-all” offer
This is where you are offered an SEO service at a fixed monthly cost, irrespective of your target audience, level of competition and aspiration. Let’s just think about that for a moment – each website is unique as is the competitive environment in which it sits. Consequently some sites need far more work than others and, logically, costs should vary depending on the level of service needed.
And yet many suppliers continue to offer “one-size-fits-all” optimisation packages irrespective of the different variables which need to be considered. Logically, you are either paying too much or too little and, quite likely, the service is being outsourced to a cheap and risky off-shore supplier.
Bespoke dental website SEO
Anyone close to the subject understands that the only truly successful SEO is delivered as part of a bespoke service, one that looks at all of the elements which are unique to your website, location and competition. This would include a detailed discussion about your target market, inspection and optimisation of the website (called ‘on-site’ SEO) and a thorough check on the competition. Following this, different forms of off-site optimisation would be use to help the website rise naturally and safely in Google – without the risk of penalties.
Summary
The world of SEO has rightly attracted some mistrust, particularly where unscrupulous or inexperienced suppliers have used techniques which have compromised their clients’ websites. Website owners need a reasonable knowledge of SEO to make sure that their provider of choice is not using outmoded and risky techniques, which, unfortunately are still all too common.
High quality SEO is not cheap and needs to be crafted expertly to the site in question, not delivered as part of a “packaged” bolt-on.
If you would like to know more about SEO and how Dental Media can help promote your website, please call us on 01332 672548 for a no-obligation discussion. We will be pleased to evaluate your website and makes recommendations free of charge.