Dental marketing agency: the website and local search for patients choosing a dentist

What does a dental marketing agency do?

A dental marketing agency helps a practice get onto a patient’s shortlist, then gives that patient a reason to call. For a practice, we would take on two parts of that work and leave two alone:

• Your website: we plan it, write it, design it and build it, with a page for every dentist and every treatment. See our Web Design service.
• Local search: Business Profiles for the practice, treatment pages built around what patients search for, and a monthly count of AI answers that mention the practice. See our SEO service.
• Paid ads: not ours. Search, social and mail campaigns stay with your staff or an ads agency.
• Patient systems: not ours either. We don’t build patient portals, records or intake, and the forms we would build ask for a name and a way to reply, never about teeth or health.

The sections below set that dental marketing work against the rules it has to meet. Other sectors we write for are on our Industries page.

Where do patients look for a dentist, and who runs each channel?

Patients meet a practice in more places than its website, and dental marketing has to cover each one. Here is what each channel does, the California rule that reaches it and who would run it.

What do California’s rules mean for dental marketing?

Section 651 of the Business and Professions Code applies to dentists as it does to every healing arts professional, and our healthcare marketing page explains what it says about results, fees, superiority and testimonials. Section 1680 adds a dentist’s own list of unprofessional conduct, and several of its items are about advertising. None of this is legal advice: it is a planning aid, and the practice or its lawyer has the final word on every page.

What a dental ad can’t promise or claim

• Promises about treatment: advertising that promises any dental service, or painless dental work, is unprofessional conduct under section 1680(l). The subdivision leaves room for what section 651 allows, so a page can still state facts the practice stands behind.
• Claims to be better: section 1680(i) bars advertising professional superiority, or services performed in a superior manner, beyond what section 651(h) permits.
• Words written for the practice: section 1680(h) reaches misleading ad statements by the dentist “or any agent of the licensee”. So we would treat every word we write as the practice’s own, and nothing goes live until the practice has read and approved it on a private preview.

Photos, offers and paid coverage

Photos follow section 651(b)(3): no altered or inaccurate images, models labelled as models, and before-and-after views that name the procedures, are shown alike and state that the same results may not occur for all patients. Our plastic surgeons page walks through those terms, and our dental website design page shows how we would build a dental gallery to them.

A new-patient special or a whitening offer is price advertising, so it has to meet section 651(c). Paid coverage has to say it was paid: a dentist may not pay or give anything of value to a representative of the press, radio, television or another medium for professional publicity unless the publicity makes that payment known (651(d)).

What a dental site may say

Section 651(h) lists what a practitioner’s ads may include, and it reads like a page plan: names, office addresses, phone numbers and hours; languages other than English spoken fluently in the office; certification by a public or private board or agency, or a practice limited to specific fields; the insurance and health care plans the practice provides services under; schools, postgraduate training and degrees; publications, teaching posts and hospital or clinic affiliations; fees, and whether the practice regularly accepts installment payments; lawful images of the dentists and the office; and public health information that encourages preventive or corrective care. Any other fact that isn’t false or misleading may go in too (651(h)(17)).

Paying for patients

Three more items in section 1680 matter when a lead or referral service comes calling: using solicitors (1680(j)), accepting commissions or rebating fees (1680(g)), and taking part in group advertising and referral services that break section 650.2 (1680(aa)). Before the practice signs with any service that sells patient leads, check it against those items with counsel.

A breach of section 651 is a misdemeanor and good cause for suspending or revoking a license (651(f) and (g)), so on a site we would build, each dentist’s credentials and each claim come from the practice. Outside California, the practice’s own state sets the rules through its laws and its dental board, and the same review runs against them.

Can a practice use a brand name, or call a dentist a specialist?

Section 1680(f) makes it unprofessional conduct to advertise under any name other than the one on the dentist’s license, unless it is the name on a valid fictitious name permit from the Dental Board of California. Section 1701.5 sets the permit’s terms:

• Who applies: a solo dentist, a group or a dental corporation, giving each dentist’s name, license number and contact details, the office address, and evidence that they own or lease the office and wholly own and control the practice.
• What the name holds: “dental group”, “dental practice”, “dental office” or “dental corporation”, as applicable, and nothing that breaks section 651 or 1680’s rules on superiority and promises.
• How long it lasts: two years, then renewal.

Google asks for the same name from its side: a Business Profile should carry the business’s real-world name, the one on its storefront, website and stationery. So on a site we would build, the permit name appears exactly as issued, in the header, the footer, the structured data and every profile.

Calling a dentist a specialist is a separate question. Section 651(h)(5)(A) lets an ad say a practitioner is certified by a private or public board or agency, or limits the practice to specific fields. The statute once set stricter limits on dentists’ specialist and accreditation claims; the Dental Board says they were deleted on January 1, 2012, through SB 540, after a federal court ruled them an unconstitutional restriction on commercial speech (Potts v. Hamilton). A board document also proposes repealing the regulations that went with the old limits, 16 CCR 1054 to 1054.2, so check their status with counsel before a page uses the word “specialist”. Whatever the wording, it can’t mislead or claim superiority, so we would print each dentist’s certification as the dentist supplies it, naming the board that granted it.

What changes when a dentist joins or leaves?

The ADA’s Health Policy Institute reports that 73% of dentists owned their practice in 2023, against 85% in 2005, with a growing share in group practices and dental support organizations, and that most dentists still become owners later in their careers. Associates join, partners leave and practices change hands, and dental marketing has to keep up with each change:

• The permit: a departing dentist reports the departure to the Dental Board within 30 days, and if the name carries their family name, the remaining dentists apply to remove only that name. A new dentist joining means the permit is canceled and a fresh application filed (1701.5(i) and (j)).
• The Business Profiles: under Google’s guidelines, a dentist should have a profile of their own if they operate in a public-facing role and can be contacted directly at the verified location during stated hours, a test a departed dentist no longer meets. Our dental SEO page covers how the profiles are set up.
• The site: the dentist’s page, the team page, the structured data and each mention of their name change together, once the practice has approved the new pages.

Do oral surgeons, pediatric dentists and cosmetic dentists need different marketing?

The rules above apply to all three; what changes is who reads the site and what they search for. The American Association of Orthodontists (AAO) draws the line between general and specialty care: being able to extract a tooth doesn’t make a dentist an oral surgeon. Specialists finish dental school, then study their specialty full-time in an accredited program for two or more years before they can use its title.

What does oral surgeon SEO cover?

It serves two readers: patients searching for a procedure, and the general dentists deciding where to send them. For a surgical practice, we would build a page for each procedure, with what happens before and after it in the surgeon’s words; a page for referring offices, with how to refer and how to reach the surgeon, that asks for no patient details; and a Business Profile for each surgeon patients see.

How do SEO services for pediatric dentists differ?

They start from the parent, who does the searching. The ADA’s Health Policy Institute reports that the number of pediatric dentists has grown 121% from its 2001 level, the largest growth of the eight specialties it singles out. A pediatric site needs pages on a child’s first visit, what to expect at each age, how the office works with nervous children and which insurance plans it takes. The AAO recommends a child’s first check-up with an orthodontist by age 7, so a pediatric practice that works with one can say who; our page on SEO for orthodontists covers that side.

What does cosmetic dentist marketing need?

The rules above, most of all: the photo terms in section 651(b)(3), the price terms in 651(c) and the bar on promising any dental service in 1680(l). The AAO notes that general dentists usually provide services such as crowns, veneers or bonding to improve the appearance and function of teeth that are badly decayed, misshapen or broken, so cosmetic treatment pages can sit on a general practice’s own site. For it, we would build a page for each treatment with what it involves and what changes its fee, a gallery that carries what section 651 asks for, and the dentist’s own description of what a patient can expect, with no promised look.

What drives the cost of dental marketing?

Five things set the size of the dental marketing work:

• Offices: each office has its own Business Profile, page and listings.
• Dentists: each dentist patients see gets a page, and often a profile.
• Treatments: each treatment patients search for gets a page.
• Gallery cases: each case is labelled with what section 651 asks for, then approved.
• Dentist review: every page waits for a dentist’s approval, which sets the pace of each round.

The market’s ranges are on our SEO cost and website cost pages, with the dental detail on our dental SEO and dental website design pages. Your practice’s own figure arrives in a written proposal after the first call; any ad spend sits outside it, since we don’t run ads. We do not guarantee search rankings, traffic, or uninterrupted uptime.

How do I choose a dental marketing agency?

Google’s advice on hiring an SEO makes a useful filter. Among its suggestions: see whether the agency takes a real interest in your business, ask whether its recommendations rest on Google’s official documentation, be wary of an agency that emails you out of the blue, and give an auditor read-only access in Search Console. On rankings it is plain: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.” Google adds that you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire. Dentistry adds five questions:

• The rules: who checks each page against sections 651 and 1680, and how claims about results, pain and specialists are handled.
• Photos: how gallery cases are labelled, and what happens to an altered image.
• The name: whether the site and every profile match the practice’s fictitious name permit.
• Forms: what each form asks, and whether any field collects health details.
• Sign-off: whether the practice sees and approves every page on a preview first.

Each of those is answered for our own work on this page.

Who will a practice talk to first?

The first step is a 15-minute call about where the practice is headed. You talk with Nicolas Perez or Noah Alvarez, our co-founders. Formed in 2023, we work from our office in Valencia, California, with businesses across the US.