Let's TalkLet's TalkSeveral dentists at one address is a visibility opportunity written into Google's own rules, and almost nobody uses it.
Give us your practice name and postcode. We come back with where you rank across a grid of your catchment, how your profile compares with the practices beating you, whether your practitioner profiles are set up at all, and the three changes worth making first. Recorded walkthrough, no call required.
Four failures we see repeatedly in this vertical, and what each one actually costs.
Google's guidelines treat dentists as individual practitioners: a public-facing dentist contactable at the verified location during stated hours may hold their own profile, and where several share a location the practice should have a profile for the location separate from each of theirs. A three-dentist practice running one profile is leaving legitimate visibility unclaimed while a single-dentist competitor down the road has the same footprint it does.
Dental emergency searches happen in evenings and at weekends and the map results weigh whether a practice is open. Profiles carrying inaccurate hours, no holiday hours and no emergency indication are invisible exactly when the highest-intent demand in dentistry occurs - and the practices that do answer out of hours often have not told the profile so.
Both cases on record involve dental practices. One settled with OCR for $10,000 after a reply disclosed a patient's last name, treatment plan, insurance and cost details; another settled for $23,000 for replies containing names, treatment and visit detail. Neither was malicious - both were practices trying to answer publicly and helpfully, which is exactly how this happens.
Provider directories for the plans a practice accepts send patients directly and act as citations at the same time, and they are routinely years out of date - wrong address, a dentist who left, a plan no longer accepted. It is unglamorous maintenance with two separate returns, and because it belongs to nobody in particular it never gets done.
Business outcomes rather than dashboard metrics. None of these is a guaranteed number - where we do guarantee something, it is written into the offer above.
The real deliverables, not a list written to make a proposal look thicker.
Not the general agency pitch. The reasons that only apply to this kind of business.
Most agencies leave them alone because the guidelines are fiddly and errors cause problems. For a practice with several dentists they are legitimate visibility that a solo competitor cannot match, and the rule everyone breaks is simple - the practitioner's profile title carries only their name, never the practice's. We do them properly and keep the location profile separate.
A $10,000 settlement and a $23,000 settlement, both from dental practices replying to reviews with patient detail, neither of them acting badly. Confirming that someone was treated is the line. It is ordinary marketing work with a genuine consequence attached, and in most practices it is done by whoever has a spare minute.
From your own address the rankings look fine, which is why most practices think their map visibility is better than it is. A grid shows where you appear and where you disappear two streets away. The first report looks worse and it is the first accurate picture the practice has had.
Rankings across a grid rather than a single check, so the real footprint replaces the flattering one.
One per public-facing dentist, to the guidelines, with the location profile kept separate.
Standard, holiday and emergency signals, because out-of-hours demand is the highest-intent in dentistry.
A reply framework that is warm and confirms nothing about anyone's treatment.
Insurance provider and healthcare listings, which are citations and referral sources at once.
Grid movement and profile-sourced contacts monthly, per location and per practitioner.
The parts of this that come from having run it in this industry before rather than from running it well in general.
Several public-facing dentists at one location means several legitimate profiles under Google's guidelines, alongside the practice's own, each accumulating its own reviews and visibility. It is the one structural advantage a group practice holds over a solo competitor in the map results, and it is usually entirely unclaimed.
Dental emergencies arrive at night and at weekends, they convert better than anything else in the funnel, and the map results account for whether a practice is open. A profile with stale hours and no emergency signal is absent at precisely the moment it would have been most valuable.
A provider directory for an accepted plan sends patients directly and functions as a citation for local search at the same time. They go stale constantly because updating them is nobody's job, which means the maintenance is both cheap and unusually well rewarded.
Both recorded cases are dental practices doing ordinary public relations badly. A framework - thank, do not confirm, move it private - costs nothing, removes the exposure and reads better to the people considering the practice than the specific reply would have.
This is the closest engagement we have to dentistry - a multi-location network, 31,000+ leads, show-rate up 44% - and it was paid acquisition rather than local search. None of our case studies is a local SEO engagement and we would rather say so than let a number imply it. What transfers is working across multiple locations with consistent measurement. The practitioner-profile and review material here comes from the guidelines and the settlements.
Read the full case studyWhere they are public-facing and can be contacted at the verified location during stated hours, the guidelines allow it - and for a multi-dentist practice it is the clearest structural advantage available in the map results. The practice keeps its own profile for the location, separate from each dentist's, and a practitioner's profile title carries only their name. That last rule is the one almost everyone breaks.
Start with your hours, because the map results account for whether you are open and most profiles carry stale ones, no holiday hours and nothing indicating emergency availability. If you do answer out of hours, the profile has to say so. This is the highest-intent demand in dentistry and it is frequently lost to a field nobody has updated in three years.
Thank them, offer to continue privately, and add no detail whatsoever. The two cautionary cases on record are both dental practices - $10,000 and $23,000 in settlements - and in both the practice was trying to respond helpfully. Confirming that someone was a patient is the line, so even a reply correcting an unfair review has to do it without acknowledging the treatment.
Worth real attention, because they do two jobs. Patients use them to find in-network practices, and they also function as citations for local search. They go stale constantly - old addresses, dentists who have left, plans no longer accepted - and correcting them is cheap maintenance with a double return that nobody has been assigned.
No, it is separate work with separate mechanics. Local SEO decides whether your profile appears in the map results, and turns on categories, practitioner listings, hours, reviews and proximity. Website SEO decides whether your pages rank in ordinary organic results. A practice can lead one and be absent from the other, and the fixes barely overlap.
Faster than website SEO, often weeks rather than months, because profile changes are read quickly. Categories, hours and practitioner profiles can move position in the first month. Reviews and citation consistency are the slower compounding part, and proximity always sets a ceiling - no amount of work makes a practice appear in a suburb ten miles away.
This is one part of a bigger service. Here is the whole of it, and the closest neighbours.
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