Search engine optimization for dentists is sold by agencies as a result, more new patients, and delivered as a set of tasks, and a practice that knows the tasks can read a proposal in minutes. This page describes the service itself, the profile work that decides the local pack, the treatment pages that catch a patient with a need, the review process and the privacy rule it runs under, the technical checks a dental site usually fails, and the monthly report that shows whether any of it produced a patient. It is written for the office manager or dentist reading a retainer, not for the agency. The organic search engine optimization services guide on this site covers the wider service; the dental office marketing page covers the marketing around it.
The profile work: the part that produces most new patients
For a dental practice the local pack is where most new patients come from, and the pack is decided by the Google Business Profile: the right primary category, the services listed, hours that are true, photos of the real office, posts, and the questions answered, kept up every month under the guidelines linked below. The optimisation work here is unglamorous and it is most of the result, and a retainer that spends its hours on it is spending them well. Each location has its own profile; a practice with two offices has two sets of this work.
The treatment pages: one per need a patient searches
Patients search by need, emergency dentist, implants, aligners, whitening, children's dentist, and the site needs a page for each that says what the treatment is, whether the practice takes new patients, which insurance it accepts and how to book, written in the practice's own words and reviewed by the dentist for what the state dental board's advertising rules allow. That is the writing half of the service, and the agency's proposal should say who writes the pages and who reviews them. Google's guidance on creating helpful content, linked below, is the standard those pages are judged against.
Reviews under the privacy rule, and the technical checks
A review process asks every patient at the right moment and replies to every review without confirming the person was a patient or describing their care, which is what the HIPAA privacy rule's marketing provisions require; an agency that has not read them should not be replying to a practice's reviews. The technical checks are the ones a dental site usually fails: speed on a phone, a booking link that works, a site the practice can edit, correct name and address everywhere, and no duplicate pages for the same treatment. An agency's first month is largely these, and its report should say what it found.
The report, and what the retainer should not contain
New patients booked by source, matched in the practice management system; the profile's calls and direction requests; the review count and average. Rankings are the agency's activity. What the retainer should not contain: link purchases, review incentives, content copied across a hundred dental clients, or a guarantee of position. A practice comparing two proposals turns each into this task list and compares the hours; the organic search engine optimization services guide on this site is the wider comparison, and the agencies indexed here are listed on what they publish about dental work.
Questions people ask about search engine optimization dentists
What does search engine optimization for a dentist include?
Keeping the Google Business Profile complete and active for each location, a treatment page per need a patient searches, a review process run under the HIPAA privacy rule, the technical checks a dental site usually fails, and a monthly report of new patients by source.
Which part of dental SEO matters most?
The profile work, because most new patients come from the local pack. A retainer that spends its hours there is spending them well; one that spends them on rankings reports is not.
Can the agency reply to patient reviews?
Only without confirming the reviewer was a patient or describing their care, as the HIPAA privacy rule's marketing provisions require. Ask the agency how it handles this before it touches the profile.