Dentistry is a local business with an unusual economic shape: most of the revenue comes from a small number of high-value treatments, most of the searches are for low-value ones, and the practical constraint on growth is chair time rather than demand. That combination means marketing a practice well is mostly a question of aim. A campaign that fills the diary with cleanings has spent money to consume the capacity that implants, orthodontics and cosmetic work would have paid far more for. The other half of the job is trust: people choose a dentist on proximity, reviews and the feeling that the practice is competent and kind, in roughly that order, which puts the business profile and the review flow ahead of almost anything clever. This page sets out what the work covers, what it costs, and how to check an agency before you sign a twelve-month term.
Aim at the treatments that fund the practice
Start from the schedule, not the search volume. Work out which procedures produce the margin and which fill the hours, then decide what you actually want more of. For most practices the answer is implants, clear aligners, cosmetic work, and new families who will stay for years, rather than one-off emergency appointments at insurance rates. Each of those wants its own page with its own substance: what the treatment involves, how long it takes, what recovery looks like, what it costs in a range, who is not a candidate, and photographs of your own cases where consent allows. Generic treatment pages bought as a package from a dental marketing vendor are the most common waste in this category, because every practice using that vendor has the same words and none of them says anything a patient could not find anywhere else. Google's guidance on people-first content is a fair standard to hold the pages to: if a patient would not find the page useful without a search engine sending them there, it is not doing the job.
The local half, which is most of it
For a single-location practice, the Google Business Profile and the review base usually decide more of the outcome than the website does. Proximity is a live factor in local ranking, categories and hours have to be exact, and photographs of the actual practice interior matter because patients are checking whether the place looks like somewhere they want to sit. Reviews carry disproportionate weight in healthcare because the purchase is personal and anxious, and the durable approach is a simple habit: ask every satisfied patient at checkout, reply to each review including the unhappy ones, and never gate or incentivise. Beyond being against platform rules, incentivised reviews are exactly the kind of endorsement the FTC's advertising guidance treats as a disclosure problem, and dental practices are visible enough locally that it gets noticed. Google's guidelines for representing your business on Google are the standard the profile is judged by, and a suspension costs more than any campaign gains.
What moves the price
Location count first, because each practice needs its own profile, its own local page and its own review flow. Treatment breadth second, since each high-value procedure you want to grow needs a real page and, often, its own paid campaign. Competitive density third: an urban practice with fifteen competitors inside two miles needs more of everything than a suburban one with three. Media spend sits on top of fees, and in cosmetic and implant terms it is not cheap, because a single case is worth thousands and the bidding reflects that. Expect a single-location practice to see retainers in the same bracket as any other local service business, and expect the honest quotes to scale with locations and treatment pages rather than staying flat. The way most practices buy this is the same way any home services marketing agency engagement is bought: a monthly retainer for content, technical work and local presence, with paid media quoted separately.
How to vet a dental marketing agency
Ask for two current practices you can look up, then read a treatment page from each. Is it specific and clearly written for a nervous patient, or is it the same text you will find on the other client's site? Check the profiles and the review histories from your own phone. Ask who writes the content and whether a clinician reviews it, because dental copy that misstates a procedure is a problem beyond marketing. Ask for Search Console and Google Ads access in your own accounts rather than a proprietary dashboard, and ask specifically for new patient counts by treatment type rather than lead totals. Finally, ask about the exit: who owns the website, the profile, the phone numbers and the content when the term ends. In dentistry, vendors that own the site and rent it back to the practice are common enough that the question is never rude.
Questions people ask about web marketing for dentist
What does dental web marketing usually cost?
A single-location practice typically pays a monthly retainer in the low thousands for content, technical work and local presence, with paid media budget separate and often comparable in size. Multi-location groups pay proportionally more because each site needs its own profile, pages and review flow. Treat any flat quote that ignores location count with suspicion.
Do I need paid ads or is the Google profile enough?
For general dentistry in a normal suburban market, a strong profile and a steady review flow often fill the diary without ads. For high-value cosmetic and implant work, where patients travel further and compare more, paid search usually earns its place. Decide by treatment, not by practice, and measure each separately.
How should I handle patient reviews?
Ask everyone, gate nobody, reply to all of them and never offer anything in exchange. Incentivised or filtered reviews breach platform rules and raise disclosure issues under advertising guidance. A steady flow of ordinary reviews with thoughtful replies, including to the critical ones, builds more trust than a burst of perfect ones ever will.
Can I use patient photos and testimonials?
Only with clear written consent, and with attention to health privacy obligations covering identifiable patient information. Before and after photography is powerful and worth doing properly: obtain consent in writing, specify where the images may appear, and keep the record. An agency that asks for photos without asking about consent is one to watch closely.