Dental practices
Dental SEO, from someone who will tell you what a dentist's search problem actually is
Most dental SEO is sold as content marketing. In practice, a practice's search problem is nearly always the map pack, the new-patient phone call, and a website that buries the one thing a nervous person is looking for.
Before you read the rest
I have not run search for a dental practice. What I have run, repeatedly, is search for appointment-driven local businesses where the enquiry arrives by phone and the map pack decides who gets called. The mechanics are the same, and I would rather tell you that here than let you find out in month two.
What decides where a practice ranks
For a query like dentist near me, Google shows three map results above everything else. Those three are chosen on relevance, distance and prominence. A practice with the wrong primary category, or one that lists general dentistry when half its revenue is implants, is fighting its own profile.
Distance is brutal in dentistry because practices cluster. In a city block with four practices, you will not out-rank the one across the street for a searcher standing beside it. The winnable ground is the ring further out, where fewer practices compete and the profile quality decides it.
Prominence is reviews and mentions. Dentistry has a specific difficulty here: the natural moment to ask a patient for a review is the moment they are numb and holding a bill. Asking by text a day later is both easier on the patient and, in every other appointment business I have worked in, more effective.
The website problem nobody fixes
A person looking for a dentist is usually anxious, in pain, or embarrassed. They want three things fast: are you accepting new patients, what will it cost, and will it hurt. Most practice websites answer none of the three above the fold and lead with a stock photo of a smiling family.
Fee transparency is the one that gets argued about. You do not need a price list. You need a range and an explanation, because the alternative is that the patient assumes the worst and calls somebody else.
New patient forms that only work on a desktop, phone numbers rendered as images, and booking links that open a broken portal are all more common than they should be, and each one is a lost call that no amount of ranking fixes.
What this search page looks like right now
I measured "dental seo expert" in Canada on 2026-09-21, running it 3 times rather than once. It produced no AI answer on any of those runs, although an earlier single check that morning did, which is the whole reason I now run these more than once. The full measurement across eleven searches is here.
| # | Domain | Page title |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | thedentalseoexpert.com | The Dental SEO Expert: Dental SEO for USA & Canada Dentists |
| 2 | ca.linkedin.com | Dental SEO Services |
| 3 | dentalmarketer.ca | SEO For Dentists |
| 4 | dentalrx.ca | Dental SEO that Works: You're Seeing it Yourself |
| 5 | www.arcpromedia.com | Dental SEO Services | Affordable Local SEO for Dentists in ... |
| 6 | www.icreativez.com | Top 10 Dental SEO Experts | SEO services for dentists ... |
| 7 | dentistseo.ca | Contact Dentist SEO Canada |
| 8 | thedentalseoexperts.com | The Dental SEO Experts: #1 Digital Marketing for Dentists |
Asked alongside it
- What is SEO in dental?
- Who is a successful SEO expert in Canada?
- What does a SEO expert do?
- How much does SEO cost in Canada?
Other industries
- WordPress sites - WordPress is not bad for SEO.
- Ecommerce - Ecommerce SEO splits into two jobs that need different people.
- Shopify stores - Shopify makes a good store easy and a good URL structure impossible.
- Software and SaaS - I build and market software as well as consult on it.
- Law firms - Legal search is expensive, crowded and regulated.
Questions from dental practices
- Do you work with dental marketing agencies?
- Yes, as a second opinion. If you already pay an agency and want an independent read on whether the plan is sensible, that is advisory work and it is cheaper than switching.
- Can you help with a multi-location practice?
- Yes, and that is where most of the money is lost. Multi-location practices routinely have profiles competing with each other, duplicated content across location pages, and one phone number for five addresses. Untangling that is ordinary, measurable work.
- What does it cost?
- $499 for an audit, retainers from $750 a month, $2,500 for a full programme with paid search. Details here. The price does not change by industry.
Start with a 15 minute call
No deck and no discovery phase. Tell me the site and the problem, and I will tell you whether I can help and what it would cost. If I am the wrong person, I will say so on the call.