Mike Blumenthal on Dental Hacks - MASSIVE CONFUSION

[DMG]

I had a couple clients contact me, saying that Mike Blumenthall suggested that link building is dead in this podcast:

with Mike Blumenthal (DHP172)

I listened to the podcast and I hear nothing of the sort. I heard Mike saying what we all know to be true...that you can't just "build links" or "get reviews." You have to become worthy of such links and reviews.

Mike, can you please clarify for those dentists who are feeling confused about whether or not an editorially granted backlink is a good or bad thing?

Thank you!

 

[JoyHawkins]

I'll send this over to Mike and ask him to comment.

 

[mblumenthal]

What exactly did I say that they didn't understand?

 

[DMG]

Hi Mike,

At around 30:20 mark, you say that SEO is about where dentistry was in the 1800's.

I can't find the exact point, but it's late in the interview, where you say that it's not just about building backlinks and earning reviews.

It's not what you said that is controversial. It's the interpretation by dentists who are hearing "it's not about backlinks."

I'm hoping you could take this opportunity to clarify that gaining backlinks as a direct result of being link-worthy is an SEO factor, just as gaining reviews is about being review-worthy.

I know with your vast knowledge you fully understand that sometimes a single phrase can be misunderstood (especially by those with a sophomoric understanding of local SEO).

I'm glad I was able to find the time approach you with this clarification. Your words are highly respected and given a lot of weight by so many readers/listeners.

 

[mblumenthal]

The segment occurred at 35 minutes in.

What I said was that a dentist shouldn?t care whether an seo was linking building or not, the dentist should care about whether they are getting new customers from the efforts of the seo.

Nothing in that about not doing link building but about what should the dentist want as the deliverables that campaign should deliver. I.E the measure of success of a campaign should not be x number of new links but x number of new customers.

I see earning links from having a great website content as one tactic that produces results in local. Hopefully the link earned will put you in front of local customers and in front of Google.

But I see it as a tactic not a strategy.

And like I said the metrics should be able to show results around leads or customers generated and the value of that compared to the cost of the campaign.

 

[DMG]

Thanks Mike! That makes perfect sense and it's exactly how I interpreted your comments on dental hacks.