How Much Should Dentists Pay For Local SEO and PPC?
Dental Local SEO and PPC pricing.
Most dentists interested in local SEO ask us “How much does dental local SEO cost?” and “How much is dental PPC?” In order to make informed decisions on what’s right for your dental practice, it’s helpful to first ask: What’s the potential value of dental SEO to your practice? What can PPC really do to increase patients and sales? What goes into dental practice marketing?
Costs for dental local SEO.
At Dagmar Marketing, dental local SEO campaigns cost between $1,500 to $2,300 a month per location. The final price point depends on several factors, however, which include:
- Citations: Your dental practice should be listed accurately in top online directories. This also goes for every additional location, which makes up an important part of creating any effective dental local SEO strategy. Additional locations can cost between $50 and $150 per location for monitoring and managing citations on a monthly basis.
- Local links: Relevant and authoritative links directing back to your dental practice website is another important element for improving the ranking of your practice’s website. Researching and building links the right way takes time and can cost between $500 and $1,500 a month to manage.
- Locations: You might think budgeting for each of your locations is as simple as multiplying by the number of locations you have, however, there are some recurring costs that vary by location. It’s safe to budget approximately $750 to $1,500 a month per location.
How dental local SEO gets done.
In addition to many of the same benefits as organic SEO, building a local SEO strategy can ensure you are targeting those consumers who are located in the same city or even neighborhood as your practice. This will help increase the chances prospective customers will visit your site before your competitors’ sites.
So what goes into an effective dental local SEO campaign? Here are some best practices we like to follow to yield the best results for our dental clients:
Citations and links
Ensuring your dental practice’s website is ranked highly by Google isn’t a small task that happens overnight. It requires regular, ongoing work. Google and other search engines scan the web for citations to your practice, picking up signals such as how your practice’s name, address, and phone number appear on the web.
Search engines also examine the links that direct back to your site and determine their level of authority and relevance. The higher-quality the links, the more your site will benefit from them. Therefore, it’s important to consider allocating a significant portion of your budget towards link building.
Your dental practice locations
Each physical location should be treated as its own independent entity. Each location should have its own consistent citations, personalized content, and web page within your site. Managing each location independently will result in positive performance of your dental local SEO campaign.
Your dental practice services
In addition to locations, the number of services your dental practice provides also requires specific attention to ensure an effective dental marketing strategy. For example, if your dental practice performs extractions, cleanings, and denture work, then we research the most important keywords to include and avoid. We add these keywords throughout your content and in the technical SEO on your site.
Your competition
You can’t only focus on your own campaigns if you want to see positive results from your dental local SEO strategy. Unfortunately, the more local competitors that are utilizing dental local SEO, the more you’re going to have to spend to keep up with them. Therefore, updating your content consistently each month and continuing to add authoritative links back to your website is important.
The current state of your dental local SEO
Our dental clients come to us at varying stages of dental marketing. Here’s how that can affect how much you’ll pay for dental local SEO:
- If you have a well-established business but your website lacks quality SEO tactics, a significant amount of time may be necessary for building positive rankings.
- If you’ve had a website for your dental practice for some time but haven’t yet invested in SEO, then you may need to commit to several months to build up local rankings that will bring new customers in the door.
- If you are just starting out with a brand-new dental practice, then it will take time to build a solid local online presence to match your local competition.
The costs of pay-per-click advertising for your dental practice.
There are many variables that can determine the cost of dental PPC. Here are some of the factors to consider:
- How much other local dental practices are paying for their ads
- What keywords your competitors are bidding for, and how much
- Your bidding strategy and dental marketing goals
- The degree of relevancy your ads have on your target audience
- How much you’re willing to spend per day on your ad campaigns
If you’d like to know more about the costs associated with dental PPC as well as our management fees, get in touch with us today for a free consultation.
So, what should you spend on SEO and PPC?
The good news about dental marketing is you don’t need to break the bank each month to see positive results. On the other hand, underspending may deliver short-term returns, but won’t significantly elevate your dental practice’s business. A well-planned and executed strategy that is properly budgeted is the best way to take your dental practice to the next level.
