DISQUS

Sam Muslin · 1 year ago

These steps sound simple and logic - but not if you have a small business, or more specific, a dental practice.

How many pages of meaningful content could you really add to a dental site? I am adding case studies as I complete them – but this amount to few pages. I publish Press Releases as often as I can – but how newsworthy is dental work really? The press people feel obliged to turn me down as my news is not really news.

It leaves me with one thing – finding links. Google suggests that if your site is good, then links will find your site. This may work for big business, but not for dentists! As natural link building (Google talk) excludes the buying of links, I find myself up against a brick wall.

Quite frankly, I don’t believe that the SEO model can work for small business websites!

Roderick Ioerger · 1 year ago

@Sam - If you really want to succeed with a small business SEO and you haven't been able to do it on your own then you should work with a professional to help you plan and implement a strategy that will work.

There are many strategies that would work for a dentist depending on what your goals are. But you cannot have all three of the following at the same time. Inepensive, Quick Results (this is a relative concept), and High Quality. You only get two of the three and that is often what side tracks small business.

Sam M · 1 year ago

I have no argument with this and have long accepted the fact that a website needs ongoing marketing investment and that there is no silver bullet for quick lasting results.

However - where do you spend the money? Every solution seems to be based on some form of link building which actually comes down to buying links. (I'm talking organic - not PPC). Any form of "link enticement" through blogging, articles, etc seems unnatural - which are the common solutions offered.

Whereas good SEO initially seemed to make it possible for both large businesses (e.g. Superpages, Yellowpages, etc) and small businesses (e.g. Dental Websites) to compete, it now seems that the only way is through PPC.

Search Engine Optimization Jou · 1 year ago

Gee whiz. Who would have thought SEO works? Great to hear another study on the subject which proves its success. As for Sam - the only "unnatural" way to build links are spammy ways and a "natural" way truly is to write quality content that is worth reading by someone within your industry or someone who is interested in your industry. Since you are not putting up junk to artificially boost your website's rankings, it is the most sure fire way to not only contribute to the online community but to build a reputation and quality links to your site. You could write articles on a growing trend within dentistry, a new product or truly anything. As long as it is well written and thought out, there is no reason why it shouldn't be published on the web. There is a niche for every industry and people who want to read it. It doesn't have to be completely "newsworthy" in everyone's eyes and you can use an online press release service to talk about new changes within your office even. Again, unnatural ways would be completely spamming sites and buying links here and there and everywhere. Quality content is what will get you on your way regardless to what industry you are in.

Tom Beaton · 1 year ago

SEO is so full of secrecy that people easily get confused about what exactly it entails. The fact of the matter is that people just need a little guidance a lot of the time. SEOs have the problem of having a bit of a shady reputation.

Gratefullab · 1 year ago

Hi Tom,

SEO's not full of secrecy. There is plenty out there that is transparent, most of the white hat techniques have been stated, reiterated and regurgitated so many times that people take for granted that the basics really do work. Now, if you get into some more complicated areas, you may not understand the terminology you see in forums or blog posts, but that doesn't make them secretive. Keep up at it and you will get the hang of things....

Tom Beaton · 1 year ago

That is not exactly what I meant. A lot of it is open and clear. The problem is that anyone can call themselves a SEO and tout for business, no matter how good they are. Firms who do not know much about SEO can find it hard to know if what is being done for them is being done properly, or whether they are being cheated. SEO cannot guarantee results.

Gratefullab · 1 year ago

I can see your point. A lot of people are down on SEO due to a bad experience but, in the long run, most SEOs should have a history of results and show the ablity to help clients increase conversions. You cannot guarantee results, but with experience you have a pretty good idea if you stand a chance in the vertical you are attacking with your given resources.

Tom Beaton · 1 year ago

I think in this year everything will become a lot more formalised and everyone will be more comfortable with the concept. Firms will have more referrals and testimonials. It is still a pretty new concept after all.

GoWFB · 1 year ago

With all the blood sweat and tears that people put into SEO, it should work! And even if it cannot guarantee results, it is, to large extent able to be accurate.

Nicole · 1 year ago

LOL. Just putting well known information in different terms does not make this report any more valuable.

Mike Touch · 1 year ago

Seems like the formula for SEO is the same from whoever's mouth you hear it from.

Increase on page SEO, increase quality original content and increase number of backlinks to your content.

The main ideas are pretty simple, it's the execution which gets a lot of people!

Seomotion · 1 year ago

Multilingual comtent is the really good way to increase website traffic. Last year I made one experiment: I made German, French and Chinese website versions of my website. After 2 month I increaseв website traffic 430%.

Mike Montague · 1 year ago

I love the multi-lingual idea. I've seen that on a couple sites lately, as was very impressed.

Jayson · 1 year ago

Yep no surprises and no secrets! Google tells you exactly how to get better rankings and if you do what they say continuously, and are patient, the results will come. It won't happen over night.

Craig · 1 year ago

SEO is becoming one of the hottest job fields. Its only going to get bigger as the internet marketing medium grows.

Ryan3PRIME · 1 year ago

@Sam, you need an SEO that can speak with you about your business and find creative methods to add new content. You might find dental content very vanilla, but if I assign a writer to your needs, they, not being dentists, can probably think of a dozen questions that you could answer, each of which is a content piece. Give us a call and I'll show you all about it!

Sam M · 1 year ago

SEO is not a secret - it is actually so simple that it does not justify an industry or a career! It is simply about feeding the information industry with information. If your "information" is a repeat and a re-write of someone else's, then you need the SEO magicians to do something for you - which will be short-lived. Google's goal seems clear: keep on improving the search algorithm to improve the quality of information - not the quantity.

symbian · 1 year ago

We all know that SEO works even without adding any new content.

Utah SEO · 1 year ago

Multilingual content is tricky because different geographic locations respond differently. It isn't as simple as translating your content to another language. So if done correctly, I could see a huge increase in traffic with just that alone.

Prosperity Writer · 1 year ago

simple solutions are the best ones in most cases. but then again if it were that easy, most SEOs will be out of business.

Natasha · 1 year ago

With regards to Sams dilemma, I would employ lateral thinking in search of links for SEO. As a food orientated site I for one would be happy to host an article relating eating to dentistry - I mean after all they do go hand in hand.