Is a Dental SEO Agency Worth It?

We sell dental SEO, so treat this accordingly. What follows is the answer we give when somebody asks us directly, including the parts that lose us work.

When It Is Not Worth It

• You only do NHS work. If your list is full and you cannot take private cases, more visibility buys you more of something you cannot sell. Fix the list first.
• Your enquiries are not being answered. If calls go to voicemail at lunchtime and emails sit for two days, you do not have a marketing problem. Doubling enquiries into a leaking process doubles the leak.
• You want it to work by March. SEO takes months. If you need cases this quarter, run ads and revisit SEO when the pressure is off.
• Somebody in the practice enjoys it and has time. Most of local SEO is not difficult, it is just consistent. A practice manager with six hours a month and an interest will get a long way for nothing.

That last one is more common than agencies admit. The work is unglamorous rather than clever.

When It Pays for Itself Easily

The arithmetic is friendlier the higher your treatment values are.

If an implant case is worth £2,500 to you and an agency costs £600 a month, one extra case a quarter more than covers it. At that ratio you do not need the agency to be brilliant. You need it to be competent and consistent.

The higher your case values, the less the fee has to achieve to be worth paying.

It also pays when nobody in the practice will do it. Work that gets done in January and forgotten by March produces nothing, and half-done SEO is the commonest kind.

What to Check Before You Sign

• Whose accounts are they? Your Google Ads account, your Business Profile, your website, in your name. If an agency owns them, leaving means starting again — and some rely on that.
• What happens to the pages if you leave? Pages built on your own site stay yours. Pages hosted on the agency’s platform disappear.
• What is the minimum term? Three to twelve months is normal. It is not unreasonable for SEO, but know what you are signing.
• Is the fee a percentage of ad spend? If it is, the agency earns more when you spend more. Ask what stops that being the incentive.
• What will the reports show? Ask to see a real one. If it opens with impressions and click-through rate rather than enquiries, ask why.

The Question Worth Asking Instead

Not “is an agency worth it” but “what is this specific thing worth to me”.

You know your treatment values and roughly what share of enquiries become patients. Any agency worth hiring will do that sum with you before you commit, and will tell you if the answer is no.

If nobody will put a number next to what they are proposing, that is the answer.

Our prices are on one page, including what is not in them.