The map pack pays for everything else
Where the money actually is
"Dentist near me" fills chairs, but the profitable queries are procedural: implants, Invisalign, veneers, emergency visits. Each deserves its own page that answers cost, process and recovery questions the way a patient asks them. One generic "services" page cannot rank for six procedures, and at most practices it is trying to.
Reviews are a ranking system wearing a trust costume
Review count, velocity and recency move map rankings. The fix is operational, not technical: a consistent ask at checkout, a short link, and replies to every review. We set up the profile and citations; the asking habit is yours, and it is worth more than any backlink we could build you.
The health-claims line
Dental content sits inside Google's your-money-your-life standards: real dentist bylines, no outcome promises, and Dentist plus LocalBusiness schema. This conveniently matches most dental boards' advertising rules, so doing SEO right here is also doing compliance right.
The AI answer nobody is watching
Ask ChatGPT or Gemini for a good dentist in your suburb. Somebody gets named, based on directories, reviews and coverage the engines trust. AI Citation Monitoring tracks whether that somebody is you, monthly.
The stack we would buy, in order
| Step | Task | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Local SEO Setup, profile, citations, schema | $195 |
| 2 | SEO Content, procedure pages with dentist bylines | $395/mo |
| 3 | AI Citation Monitoring, the new referral channel | $49/mo |
What the first 90 days look like
Weeks one and two are the Local SEO Setup: your profile rebuilt around the procedures you actually want to sell, every citation corrected to one exact name, address and phone, and Dentist schema live on the site. Weeks three to six produce the first two procedure pages, each answering cost, process and recovery in the language a patient uses, each with a dentist byline. Weeks seven to twelve add two more pages, bed in the review-request habit at checkout, and take the first AI citation snapshot so you know whether the engines name your practice or the one across the road.
The numbers worth watching
Four metrics tell the whole story: calls from the Business Profile, direction requests, entrances to procedure pages, and review velocity. Total site traffic is the vanity metric in dentistry; a practice site with 800 visits a month and 40 profile calls beats one with 8,000 visits and 12. Every deliverable we send reports against the four that fill chairs.
Questions dentists ask us
Does SEO work for a brand-new practice?
Yes, and the map pack is the fastest door. A complete profile with consistent citations can place a new practice in local results within weeks, while procedure pages build over months. New practices usually see profile calls move before anything else.
How long until this pays for itself?
Local fixes show movement in two to six weeks. Procedure pages typically take three to six months to rank. One implant case pays for roughly two years of the stack above, which is the honest way to judge it.
We already run Google Ads. Do we still need this?
Ads stop the day the budget stops. The map pack and procedure rankings compound, and they keep answering "implant cost" at 11pm without a cost per click. Most practices run both and shift spend as organic fills the calendar.
One honest caveat: the timelines above describe when movement typically starts, not a guarantee. Search engines do not sign contracts, and results land quicker or slower than any plan. What we guarantee is the deliverable itself: scoped work, QA gated, revised up to three times until it matches the brief.
Own your map pack first
Local SEO Setup builds the profile, fixes every citation, and ships the schema. Done once, properly.