SEO question...

[Paul FilmMaker]

I have a customer who is a surgeon in a very specific area of complex cancer. She has operated on some very high profile people and I would describe her as one of the best in the world.

She wants to grow her private practice so is putting up a website focused on appealing to patients (not doctors) and has a website developer who is working on this.

The website developer wants to do some SEO and post to social and wants to charge £8,000 per year for this. When I look at this, I don't know how valuable this will be. To start with, the website developer can't write the posts. So my customer will write the posts or create the video and the website developer will just put them on Linkedin or maybe Insta or FB

Secondly, SEO. I don't know how valuable SEO will be and whether it will therefore be therefore worth £8,000 per year. The reason is this seems to be purely keyword optimisation and this is excessive, especially considering search terms for surgeons don't really change.

What are your thoughts? What kind of price would you expect to offer SEO for a surgeon and what is your experience of this? Note that I have very limited knowledge of SEO.

 

[Fagin2021]

Secondly, SEO. I don't know how valuable SEO will be and whether it will therefore be therefore worth £8,000 per year. The reason is this seems to be purely keyword optimisation and this is excessive, especially considering search terms for surgeons don't really change..

I'm not an SEO specialist but my immediate thought was that this would fall into what Google call the YMYL category (Your Money or Your Life). Google has stringent rules for this type of web site - especially medical services.

Given her reputation, your surgeon should be absolutely fine BUT her website developer should be completely familiar with Google guidelines for this type of site and preferably should be able to reference sites in the medical sector. It's not simply a case of keyword research and development.

I'll let others comment on the cost.

 

[fisicx]

Don't let the developer anywhere near the SEO or marketing side of things.

In fact don't let the developer anywhere near the site until your customer has sorted out her marketing plan. Once the marketing has been sorted she can then write content appropriate to the marketing plan. Then build the structure, navigation, calls to action and trust marks. Then the developer can do their things.

It may be that SEO isn't needed as the marketing plan will focus on social media marketing.

 

[AllUpHere]

£8000 per year isn't a lot of money. As @fisicx pointed out though, I wouldn't let the web dev anywhere near it until a strategist had formulated a plan. It's a nice business to marketing actually, but you can get it horribly wrong really easily.

 

[fisicx]

ISo my customer will write the posts or create the video and the website developer will just put them on Linkedin or maybe Insta or FB.

So what exactly is she paying £8000 for? You can automate all of that.

 

[Fagin2021]

It may be that SEO isn't needed as the marketing plan will focus on social media marketing.

In fact, is SEO or marketing needed at all ? If your surgeon has such a high profile and reputation won't other medical professionals refer patients to her site ? Maybe all she needs is a high-quality 'brochure' site ?

 

[presentationgenius]

Just a thought, but if your friend wants to save a bit of money, I'll do it for £7999 per year

 

[Peter Morris]

Don't let the developer anywhere near the SEO or marketing side of things.

In fact don't let the developer anywhere near the site until your customer has sorted out her marketing plan. Once the marketing has been sorted she can then write content appropriate to the marketing plan. Then build the structure, navigation, calls to action and trust marks. Then the developer can do their things.

It may be that SEO isn't needed as the marketing plan will focus on social media marketing.

I totally agree. I think it would be better for the surgeon client to hire separate professionals that will do the dev and SEO work.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Google themselves state that if you are considering a website you need to ideally have an SEO in from the start.

Last year I was approached by a company that had paid over $150,000 for their website, which was uncrawlable and as a result Google was pretty much unable to index their pages and products.

While £8k isn't over the top, what she really needs is an integrated marketing plan.

 

[SEO Lady]

Don't let the developer anywhere near the SEO or marketing side of things.

In fact don't let the developer anywhere near the site until your customer has sorted out her marketing plan. Once the marketing has been sorted she can then write content appropriate to the marketing plan. Then build the structure, navigation, calls to action and trust marks. Then the developer can do their things.

It may be that SEO isn't needed as the marketing plan will focus on social media marketing.

On this occasion listen to @fisicx avoid letting a developer try his or her hand at SEO, and £8k/year is way too low for a globally renowned surgeon.

I do feel niggled by the number of web devs saying "Hey, give me £££ and I'll have a go and read some articles for you"

 

[Paul FilmMaker]

So what exactly is she paying £8000 for? You can automate all of that.

...which is my concern. I don't understand. It looks like £8k per year for about £800 of work.

 

[fisicx]

It’s not even worth £800. Does she have a marketing plan? Without this there is no point in paying to get a site developed.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

SEO is but a cog in the machine.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

We raise a lot of money for a little girl here in Cullompton to go to America for treatment (caylas fight)
One thing I learnt is that specific cancers don't need seo because everybody involved and discovering that certain cancer will learn very quickly who is specialising in the field