Someone who's never heard of your practice can search a treatment, a worry or 'dentist near me', look over the map, read your reviews and check who'd treat them before they ever ring. Dental SEO (search engine optimisation, or getting found on Google without paying for each click) is the work of turning up well at each of those steps, so more of the right private patients enquire. This is written for UK principal dentists and practice owners. It's general information as of November 2026, not legal or regulatory advice, so check the current guidance or ask your indemnity provider before you publish.
Decide which patients you want first
Before anyone writes a page, decide what you want more of: implants, aligners, hygiene plans, new family patients. A practice with a full NHS list and a quiet implant diary needs different pages from a new private practice that wants every enquiry it can get. Then say plainly what you are. The GDC's guidance on advertising says your publicity must make clear whether the practice is NHS, mixed or wholly private. If you're mixed, keep the two apart on your site. The NHS website already lists what its treatment bands cost, so patients may arrive with those figures in mind.
A page for each treatment
One 'Treatments' page can't rank for implants, aligners and whitening at once. Give each treatment you want to grow its own page: what it involves, who it may not suit, what happens at the first appointment, who does it and what it costs. The GDC's Standards (standard 2.4) say clear prices belong on your website, so patients don't have to ask. If you use 'from' prices, CAP rule 3.22 says they mustn't mislead. Sojig drafts new pages for searches you have no page for and marks where your own facts go. They're saved as drafts, or given to you as copy to paste on platforms it can't save to.
What those pages can claim
A patient reading your page is making a health decision, and Google says content on topics like this must be highly accurate and in line with expert consensus. The GDC's guidance asks you to back up claims with facts and avoid anything likely to create an unjustified expectation of results. The CAP Code, which the ASA applies, requires documentary evidence for objective claims before you publish, and its health section says that evidence may need to include trials on people. So 'the best dentist in Leeds' is out unless you can prove it, and we'd drop it even then. Promoting treatment on Instagram or Groupon? The GDC also expects you to say it may not suit everyone and depends on a satisfactory assessment. And the ASA reminds dentists that Botox is prescription-only and can't be advertised to the public. Sojig's drafts mark points for clinician review, but a clinician should read the whole draft, not only the marked parts.
Local search is its own job
The short list of practices beside a map, often called the map pack, works differently from the normal results. Google says local results mainly come down to relevance, distance and prominence, and that you can't request or pay for a better local ranking. Distance isn't yours to change. The rest partly is: a verified, complete Google Business Profile with the right category and hours, other websites linking to you, and genuine reviews. Your position also changes across town, so Sojig tracks it on Google, the map pack and Google Maps from each city you serve. On your own site, use the most specific business type in your structured data (code that tells search engines what a page is about), which for you is Dentist. If you have more than one site, write each location page about that location. Google's spam policies treat city pages that funnel people to one page as doorway abuse.
Ask every patient for a review
Google's rules ban offering anything in return for a review, whether that's a discount or free whitening. They also ban asking only the patients you expect to be happy, and reviews from staff or family count as a conflict of interest. So ask everyone, at the same point, with the same Google link or QR code, and accept that some reviews will be mixed.
Replying without breaking confidentiality
This is where dental reviews differ from a plumber's. Under standard 4.2 of the GDC's Standards, confidentiality covers everything you've learnt in your role, including what treatment someone is having and what it costs. The GDC's social media guidance says not to publish anything that could identify a patient without explicit consent, and the ICO treats health details as special category data. MDDUS's 2022 advice, from a dental defence organisation, is to keep any reply short and not even confirm the person attends, and that saying nothing can be wise. Here's an example we made up: 'We can't discuss anyone's care in a public reply, but we'd like to look into this. Please call our practice manager on [number].' Run your wording past your indemnity provider. Sojig drafts replies for you to approve, and you copy them in by hand for now, because the Google Business Profile connection isn't open yet.
Clinician pages and titles
Patients want to know who'll treat them, and Google's guidance asks whether it's clear who created your content. A short page per clinician answers both. The GDC expects anyone shown as providing care on your site to have their professional qualification, the country it came from and their GDC number displayed. Titles need the most care. Only dentists on a GDC specialist list can use 'specialist', and the guidance rules out 'Orthodontist' or 'specialising in' for anyone else, while allowing 'special interest in', 'experienced in' and 'practice limited to'. Don't compare one clinician's skills with another's, and don't list memberships, fellowships or honorary degrees in abbreviated form. On 'Dr', CAP says the safest course without a general medical qualification is to avoid it. If you do use it, say clearly that it's a courtesy title and that no such qualification is held.
What every practice website must show
If you're responsible for the site, the GDC's list is short: the practice's name and address, its email and phone number, the GDC's contact details or a link to its website, your complaints procedure, who patients can go to if they aren't satisfied (the relevant NHS body for NHS treatment, the Dental Complaints Service for private), and the date the site was last updated. Check yours today, and keep the team page current as people come and go.
Before-and-after photos and patient quotes
The ASA treats before-and-after photos like testimonials. You should hold signed and dated proof that they're genuine and haven't been manipulated, and dental photos must be representative too. For patient quotes, you need evidence they're genuine, contact details for the person and their permission, with limited exceptions for published sources. A glowing quote doesn't prove a clinical claim either. Only show marks you're entitled to: the same guidance on testimonials cites a 2024 ruling against a referral service that used the CQC's mark without being CQC registered.
Measuring dental SEO
Count enquiries and consultations by treatment, then how many become patients. Rankings only matter if those numbers follow. Sojig shows you what shipped, your positions and your clicks from Google Search Console each week, but it doesn't connect to practice software, so what reception records about how new patients found you is the number to watch.
These rules may change
The GDC's advertising guidance shows an effective date of 30 September 2013 and was still on its site in November 2026. The GDC has consulted on replacing the Standards with a new Framework for Professionalism, and that consultation closed on 31 August 2026. We couldn't find an outcome, so check the GDC's site before you rely on the standard numbers above.