Orthotown June 2018 - 28

Q: What's the typical fee structure, and how is
it calculated: hourly? by the page? by the post?
A: Moz, an SEO software company, ran a survey comparing typical SEO fee
structures and found the following:
* Hourly SEO costs vary across countries, with a range of $76-$200/hour.
* By-the-project pricing is popular, and represented by four price ranges: $1,000-$1,500;
$1,501-$2,500; $2,501-$5,000; and $5,001-$7,500.
* Monthly pricing varies, and the two most common are $251-$500/month and
$2,501-$5,000/month.
Project-based pricing is most popular, but monthly pricing and hourly rates are a close
second and third.
Software companies and web design agencies in the dental/orthodontic space
package SEO with other services such as web or social media to fulfill your digital
marketing needs.

Q: If someone has rudimentary web skills-let's say he can work the
back end of a WordPress site-is SEO optimization a task that he would
be able to do on his own?
A: WordPress is a great platform that makes it easy for all types of users to
create a website, and it has the ability to easily install plugins to help extend
the functionality of sites. However, any type of optimization or website
structure changes require the knowledge of why these changes are required,
and how to best implement them. It's great for offices to understand how to
make basic web updates like text and picture changes in WordPress or other
website editors, and it's something that can be learned via website tutorials.
It's important to keep in mind that technology changes
quickly. WordPress and other platforms update often, so
continual education and tutorials are necessary to
stay up to date.
I'd recommend hiring an SEO expert to help
with web edits like website structure changes and SEO
optimization strategies, because they require advanced
technical knowledge and skills. For example, Schema.org
is microdata that is used to help search engines determine
and understand a website's information more effectively. If
Schema.org is implemented incorrectly on your website,
then it won't be effective or useful. (Schema.org was
updated more than 200 times in 2017, so it requires
consistent web updates.)
An incorrect optimization strategy or website
edit could easily result in an error on your website,
which could hurt your website and online presence.

28

JUNE 2018 // orthotown.com

Q: How long does it usually
take between instituting SEO
recommendations and being able to
see results online, and why is that?
A: It varies, but generally you'll see
SEO recommendations instituted online
within a couple of months. Google's crawl
process is algorithmic; computer programs
determine which sites to crawl, how often,
and how many pages to fetch from each
site. This means that some changes to your
website may not be indexed for several
weeks at a time.
It also depends on off-site factors
like citations, reviews and social signals.
You should ensure that your SEO service
includes citation management-updating
and claiming listings, suppressing
duplicate listings, etc.-and a
review strategy to help you obtain
new reviews and manage current
reviews.
Also, there should be a complementary social media strategy that focuses
on Google, Facebook and Instagram
engagement. Together, these off-site factors
will help inf luence your on-site SEO
recommendations to feature a complete
strategy.
If you don't see your results within a
couple of months, don't fret! Remember,
SEO takes time. It's something that you
should implement for the lifetime of your
practice. ■
http://www.Schema.org http://www.Schema.org http://www.Schema.org http://www.orthotown.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Orthotown June 2018
