Claiming SEO Services But Really Pay-Per-click

[Czubmeister]

I just started marketing to dentists. I spoke at a local gathering to about 6 dentists and 3 of them said they were using SEO services. I looked at their sites and absolutely no SEO of anything was performed. They were quite taken back by this. Page titles all the same, no page descriptions etc.

These dentists were paying about $800 per month and some had micro sites set up for them. It appears that this SEO company was using Google adwords to "artificially" drive traffic to the dentist or dentist micro site... and calling themselves an SEO company.

This SEO company was also using tracking phone numbers on both the primary and micro sites. Which I've read can harm local NAP issues.

I'm a bit worried that if I tell these dentists to stop using this company and go with me that the traffic will decrease while I work on real SEO. Maybe I should use adwords too until the "organic" power of SEO kicks in and they cut back until traffic stabilizes?

[flowsimple]

I agree with Kane. While the other service provider isn't be forthright, they could still be delivering results to these dentists. Question is, are they showing it with phone calls and etc? Generally it'd be nice if ALL internet marketing providers were transparent, but it's wishful thinking.

But I'll also add that any smart dentists takes advantage of both SEO and PPC to drive traffic and new leads. While I focus PPC services I encourage my clients (some dentists) to also engage in SEO services because they are complementary. A recent study from Google Research shows that even with high organic rankings, paid ads will add incremental traffic.

[Czubmeister]

One of the dentist that I pitched said he has a dedicated front office gal that does the seo for the office two hours a day. After I showed him my SEOmoz reports including his page titles and descriptions, he said "Where do I sign!"

[KaneJamison]

To clarify, you're suggesting that it is better to optimize sites that they own? Just want to make sure you're not suggesting that they do the optimizations themselves, which I'd disagree with wholeheartedly.

[Aran_Smithson]

As the guys above have stated. Cards on the table and tell your potential clients what will happen if they switch and how you can help remedy the situation. Also its worth noting that in the long term they will be better off optimising their own sites.

[KaneJamison]

It sounds like they're paying $800 a month for the leads from a microsite that they don't own. Technically they did hire a SEO company, but the SEO is being performed on the microsite that will always be owned by that company, not the dentist. It's not a dishonest service, it's just being packaged in a dishonest way.

The tracking numbers can cause issues depending on how they're implemented. Services like Mongoose Metrics can be used in SEO-friendly ways since the numbers are changed using javascript, IIRC.

If the dentists (or you) can track whether they're getting $800 worth of leads from that service, then it's easy to determine whether they should keep paying for it - that decision will have little to do with your services. If the $800 is paying for itself then they'd be smart to continue paying for it AND hire your services.

Your sales pitch will be that you're actually going to help their domain - not some microsite - and that will be a permanent beneficial change, not a rented source of leads.

[Keszi]

Hi Bob,

I wouldn't advice you to "trick" your clients or potential clients. I personally like to play with the cards on the table and this is a win-win situation because even if they had a bad experience with previous SEO service providers they will now earn your Trust (Don't play with that, because it will be hard to re-gain their trust and bad reputation can cause you headaches).

I hope this helped,

Istvan