A new patient is choosing a person to put their hands in their mouth, usually after checking insurance, reading reviews and calling twice. Here is how we would market a Valley dental practice, with care for the fact that it is a healthcare business.
People rarely browse for a dentist for fun. A trigger sends them to Google, and the trigger tells you what the page needs to say.
The shortest decision in dentistry. They call the practice that looks open and can see them soon. Hours and a human answering matter more than anything else.
The Valley has constant arrivals, including seasonal residents. They check whether you take their plan before they read anything else.
Many plans reset on a yearly cycle, and people remember late in the year that they have benefits to use. Reminders and open appointment times help.
Planned, expensive and discussed with a partner. They read a lot, compare several practices and judge the dentist as much as the procedure.
General dentistry fills the schedule. The larger treatment plans depend on whether the patient trusted you before they saw the price.
A broken tooth, a family checkup and an implant consultation are three different searches with three different expectations. One page cannot serve them all.
Map pack, call buttons and accurate hours. Make the phone prominent and the appointment simple.
Service pages, insurance information and provider pages. The patient is picking a long-term practice, so reviews and the people matter.
Content written or reviewed by the dentist. It should explain options, not promise results.
A new patient reads reviews closely, especially the negative ones, and then reads how the practice answered. A tidy, calm reply to criticism does more for trust than five more stars.
It is also where a dental practice can get into trouble. A reply that confirms the reviewer is a patient, or mentions a treatment, an appointment or an outcome, can disclose private health information in public. Even when the reviewer has already shared the details, the safest reply says very little.
We write replies that thank the person, say the practice takes feedback seriously and invite them to call the office to talk. They do not confirm the person was seen and they do not discuss care. Your team, not us, should decide any policy beyond that, and you should check it with whoever advises you on privacy rules.
We set up the review requests too: a text or email after the visit with a direct link, sent by the front desk or automatically. We do not offer rewards for reviews, because the platforms do not allow incentives, and a patient review should be voluntary.
A dental office is busy in the way that makes marketing difficult. The front desk is checking patients in, answering questions, verifying insurance and running the phones at once. Calls get missed at lunch, early in the morning and during the afternoon rush.
A new patient who reaches voicemail calls the next practice. So before we increase spend, we look at call tracking and see how many calls connect, which hours they miss and which source they came from.
We then fix the plain things. Online booking that asks for the fewest details a phone needs. A text that goes out when a call is missed. A clear answer to the insurance question, on the site and on the profile. A voice agent can handle after-hours calls and basic questions, then pass anything clinical to staff. It should never give medical advice.
Once that holds, search and ads bring in patients who actually book. Without it, you pay for the call and lose the appointment.
Those are real sources. Directories send people who are looking for an in-network dentist, and patient referrals are the best lead a practice gets. We would not touch either.
The difficulty with directories is that you are one listing among many, and the patient is choosing mostly on plan and distance. You are renting a place in a list, and the patient may never learn your name. Referrals are strong but limited, and a referred patient will still check you out online before booking.
That is the gap. If your Google profile has out-of-date hours, a thin set of photos and an unanswered review from last year, a good referral loses momentum. If it shows the team, the office, the services and recent reviews, the referral closes.
So we strengthen the base first, with local SEO and a better website, then add Google Ads for the searches that bring in patients you want more of.
1. Profile and listings — hours, services, insurance information and photos.
2. Provider pages with real photos and an honest description of how each dentist works.
3. Service pages for general care, emergencies and each larger treatment.
4. Search ads for new-patient and emergency terms, sent to pages built for booking.
A dental practice cannot market like a pizza shop. Meta and Google both restrict how health topics can be targeted and what ads can imply about a person’s condition. An ad that says “Do you have bad teeth?” can be rejected. One that describes a service and invites people to book usually runs.
Before and after photos need extra care. Consent, accuracy and platform rules all apply, and results vary. We help you collect proper permission and present them without implying a guaranteed outcome.
Tracking needs thought as well. Tools that follow people around a website can create problems on pages where patients enter personal or health details. We keep tracking off those pages and suggest you confirm your setup with your privacy adviser.
None of this stops good marketing. It shapes it. We write for new patients in plain language, with the dentists as the face of the practice, and we leave the clinical claims out. See the medical and wellness page for how we approach other health practices.
20-Minute Marketing Audit
We open your accounts on a screen share, show you the spend that isn't producing work, and tell you what we'd change first. No deck, no pitch, and the findings are yours either way.
19820 N 7th St, Ste 230, Phoenix, AZ 85024
(602) 614-5169 · weslodigital@gmail.com