SEO For Dentists And Dental Practices

Dental search is local and often urgent. 'Emergency dentist near me', 'NHS dentist accepting patients' and 'dental implants' plus a town are different searches from different patients, and the map pack answers most of them before a website is clicked. Dental SEO means a strong Business Profile, treatment pages that answer cost and suitability questions, and a site that stays inside the advertising rules dentists work under.

What dental patients search for

Three kinds of search matter. Urgent ones (pain, a broken tooth, out-of-hours) are decided almost entirely in the map pack, on proximity, opening hours and reviews. Access searches, such as whether a practice takes new NHS patients, need a clear and current answer on the site and the profile. Treatment searches (implants, aligners, whitening, veneers) are researched over weeks, and the practice with the clearest page on cost, process and suitability tends to win the consultation.

The rules a dental website has to follow

The GDC's guidance on advertising says dental professionals named on a website as providing care must show their qualification, the country it was obtained in and their GDC registration number, and that practice publicity must make clear whether the practice is NHS, mixed or private. In England, a practice with a CQC rating must display it on its website along with a link to the latest report, under Regulation 20A.

Anti-wrinkle injections are prescription-only medicines, and the ASA's guidance is that they cannot be promoted to the public, including on a practice website or social media; practices promote a consultation instead. Treatment pages that break these rules are a regulatory risk, so we write within them from the start.