This is a free SEO white paper about an Atlanta dentist that wanted his site marketed. This Atlanta dentist had hired a dental marketing company to handle their social media networking needs, PPC ads, as well as their opt-in emails and newsletters. The dental marketing/ SEO company in Atlanta was apparently a jack of all trades. They had built the dentist's website in WordPress, which is fine, but they hold told the dentist to do SEO on each page is very difficult, as such; it was going to cost more. This dentist was doing quite well in his practice, so he did not mind paying $15,000 per year for all of the above, which included some basic on-site SEO. Plus he felt they had built his WordPress site, they were hosting it too. Moreover, they were maintaining his Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Pages, where they would make four posts per month on each social networking page. So the dentist felt the price was warranted, as it all seemed like loads of work.

However, the dentist's SEO work wasn't ranking very well. His site would not come up for the keyword cosmetic dentist Atlanta. His site did come up for teeth whitening in Atlanta GA, but that was low hanging fruit; a keyword that was rarely searched for exactly that way. So the dentist gave the dental marketing/ SEO company in Atlanta a call, and asked them what it would take to get the keyword cosmetic dentist Atlanta in the first page of Google. He was told they had to do an analysis on that key phrase and get back to him. The following day, they sent him a report that looked like it had taken hours to prepare. Unbeknown to the dentist, that report was generated within seconds using a Woorank hack.

Towards the bottom of the report, it had a cost breakdown section, and the SEO company in Atlanta reported it would take another $1,500 per month to get that key phrase on the first page as well, and of course there would be no guarantee if it got there or not, they would merely try. Our dentist felt the additional expense wouldn't be bad if it brought in just 2 more cosmetic dentistry clients per month, but he thanked them and started searching online to get some other pricing ideas. He ended up on our site and called us.

The dentist was flabbergasted at our prices. He could not believe them to be true. He started to ask for examples of our work. We showed it to him. He asked us for referrals, we gave it to him. He asked us if we had done dentist sites before, we told him over a 100 dentist sites in total. He asked where we are located. "Surely you are located off-shore he said;" we said no, we are in Glendale CA. He asked where Glendale is, and we explained it is in Los Angeles County. He called back the SEO in Atlanta and they said it can't be true too. No one can do SEO at those prices was what they told our client. Yet, we had been doing SEO for about 10 more years than that SEO in Atlanta. So the dentist made the SEO Company in Atlanta an offer. He said he will maintain his account with them, and give us a try. He then asked us to work with his dental marketing company. We agreed. We ultimately got the site on the first page of Google Places, as well as on the first page of Google's organic listings. The dental marketing company stopped offering their SEO services and now refers all of their SEO cases to us. They decided to focus on what they do best, building dental websites and managing the SMM (social media marketing) and SEM (search engine marketing) via PPC ads for their clients.

Here is What We Learned:

Dental marketing companies charge a whole lot of money to dentists, and it seems dentists don't mind paying. In the end, we honestly feel the dentist was paying too much, but the dentist didn't feel that way. If the dentist is making 50 times what he is paying that dental marketing company, than to him the expense is warranted. However, we choose not to do business that way. We state our prices clearly on our site, so there is no manipulation that can happen when a rich business owner calls us. Our price is the same for a multimillionaire, as it is for a total start-up with $0 in sales.

SEO Lesson:

Do not place all your marketing eggs in one basket! Architects usually give the same advice to their clients, do not use the same contractor for your kitchen remodeling to do your roofing, plumbing and painting too. Spread out the work so that if one of those vendors fails to provide a service, you have the others that you can rely on. Never turn over your SEO case to a jack of all trades online marketing company. They may be very good at search engine marketing via PPC ads, they may be very good at SMM (social media marketing), but that does not mean they are very good at SEO.