4 Dental Marketing Scams to Avoid

Unfortunately, many marketing providers are using their dental clients’ lack of understanding to create demand for services that are ineffective, over-priced, and flat-out unethical. If you’re looking for ways to increase your marketing efforts in the new year, keep these pitfalls in mind as you explore your options.

Your website isn’t SEO optimized

You probably get a lot of emails about SEO and your website. Most of these emails are autogenerated spam that make it sound like a company has evaluated your website and found it lacking in SEO optimization.

But when you look closer, does the email you received contain any specific information about your website? Does it contain lots of vaguely worded blanket statements, like “Your website is not compatible with all mobile devices,” or, “You have bad back links on your website”?

These types of statements are red flags that you’re being scammed. Often, the email also doesn’t contain any information about the company that supposedly evaluated your website.

Google gives our company special treatment

A company will tell you they have a special relationship with Google. They might claim they can easily get your practice a number one ranking on Google search, or they can get you special pricing on Google pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns.

You might also see companies claiming to be Google partners in this type of scam, which entitles them to charge more, etc. While there is such a thing as being a Google partner, it simply means that a company has become certified with Google in some aspect of SEO or PPC. It doesn’t give them any special privileges or other advantages, and it certainly doesn’t entitle them to charge you more.

If you buy our advertising package, we’ll get your negative reviews removed

This is totally unethical. The company will promise to remove all negative reviews of you and your practice, and they’ll also make your positive reviews show up more in Google search. There’s just one catch…you have to buy their advertising package first.

Any reputable marketing agency will not let revenue gained from advertising influence the quality of the services they offer. If a company makes you choose this type of offer, skip it.

Your domain is set to expire and must be renewed

Many of these types of email scams look official — they might even have the word “domains” in the company name. Often, there will be a form included that asks for information about your domain, requests your approval to renew it, and asks for a form of payment for services.

If you think this is a scam, you can verify the domain registrar by doing a WHOIS lookup. Most domain registrars are included in the WHOIS database. Verifying the legitimacy of the company sending you this notification can help you avoid giving your hard-earned dollars to a scammer.