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SEO for dentists · Sydney, delivered Australia-wide

SEO for dentists and dental practices

Get found for the treatments you want more of, in the suburbs your patients live in.
When someone searches for an emergency dentist, a check-up or implants, Google shows three practices on the map, and most patients never look past them. ScaleCurrent does dental SEO for practices in Sydney and across Australia: your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your treatment pages and your listings, all written inside AHPRA's advertising rules.
Illustration of a search visibility dashboard for a local service business

How patients choose a dentist online

Most dental searches are either urgent or considered. "Emergency dentist near me" at 9 pm is a different search from "dental implants Parramatta", and Google answers them differently.

For urgent searches, distance and opening hours decide almost everything. If your hours are wrong, or your public holiday hours are missing, you drop out of "open now" results at exactly the moment a patient is ready to book.

For considered treatments, patients compare. They read reviews, look at who the dentists are, check which health funds you're a preferred provider for, and look for prices.

Google says local rankings come down to relevance, distance and prominence. For a practice, relevance means the right categories and every treatment listed. Prominence means reviews and the sites that mention you.

Most practices get one of those right. The ones that fill the map get all three.

Signs your practice is losing patients to the map

  • You appear for your practice name but not for “dentist” in your own suburb.
  • Your profile’s only category is Dentist, with no treatments listed.
  • A newer practice down the road has three times your reviews.
  • You don’t show for “emergency dentist” after 5 pm, even on nights you’re open.
  • Implants, Invisalign and whitening all share one “Services” page.
  • Your website never says which health funds you’re a preferred provider for, or whether you see children under the Child Dental Benefits Schedule.
  • Your HealthEngine, HotDoc or Whitecoat listing shows a different phone number from your website.

What we do for dental practices

01

Map your position by suburb and treatment

We check where you appear on the map from points across your catchment, for the searches that matter to you: dentist, emergency dentist, and the treatments you want more of. Most practices have never seen it from anywhere but the front desk.
02

Rebuild your Google Business Profile

Primary and secondary categories such as Dentist, Dental clinic, Emergency dental service and Cosmetic dentist where they apply, every treatment listed and described, accurate hours including public holidays, your booking link, practitioner photos, and answers to the questions patients ask.
03

Fix your listings

HealthEngine, HotDoc, Whitecoat, your health fund provider listings, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect and the directories that matter in dental. One version of your name, address, phone number and hours everywhere.
04

Build reviews inside the rules

A review request after appointments, sent the same way to every patient, and a reply to every review that discloses nothing about the patient or their treatment. Nothing incentivised, nothing gated, and no clinical reviews republished in your advertising.
05

Write treatment pages that earn rankings

A page for each treatment you want more of, written for patients: who it suits, what happens, how long it takes, what affects the cost, and which health funds may cover it. Factual, with no promises of outcomes.
06

Earn local links

Community pages, local clubs you sponsor, school programs, allied health referral partners and dental association listings.
07

Report every month

Map position by suburb and treatment, calls, direction requests, booking clicks from your profile, and Search Console impressions and clicks, compared against the previous month.

How we measure it

A single ranking number for "dentist Sydney" tells you almost nothing. Your position changes street by street, and it differs between "dentist" and "dental implants".
We track map position on a grid across your catchment for each search that matters, alongside calls, direction requests and booking clicks from your profile. Those are the numbers that fill the appointment book.

Reviews, testimonials and AHPRA

Dental SEO has one rule many agencies get wrong. Under the National Law, advertising a dental practice must not use testimonials, which AHPRA defines as positive statements about the clinical side of care: symptoms, diagnosis, treatment or outcome.

Reviews about a friendly front desk, a short wait or a clear explanation aren't testimonials. A review saying your implants changed someone's life is. The first kind can be used in your advertising; the second can't, and AHPRA expects you to remove testimonials from advertising you control, including your practice's social media pages.

So we build review volume on Google, where patients write in their own words, and we never quote clinical reviews on your website, in your ads or in your social posts. Treatment pages stick to facts and don't promise results. The rules change, so check AHPRA's current guidance and ask your indemnity insurer or the ADA when something is unclear. This is general information, not legal advice.

Where AI search fits

Patients increasingly ask ChatGPT or Gemini to recommend a dentist, and those tools lean on the same things Google does: complete profiles, consistent listings, reviews and clear treatment pages.

The work above covers Google's own AI answers, which run on its normal ranking systems. The AI SEO add-on covers ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot: forty questions asked every month, such as "who does Invisalign near Chatswood?", and outreach to the sources those engines cite. It's $390 a month on top of Local and $590 on top of Growth.

Start with the foundations. Add AI SEO when they're right.

Pricing

Free local visibility check

We run ten searches your customers would run, from points across your service area, and send you one page showing where you appear on the map and who appears above you. No obligation.

Search Audit, $790

The same audit whichever service you start with. Your profile and listings audited, your map position mapped across your service area, a website check, a comparison against three competitors, and a 90-day plan in priority order. Yours to keep whether you continue or not, and credited against your first month if you do.

Local, $990 a month

One practice, one location, one or two treatments you want to grow. About six hours a month: profile and listing upkeep, your review system and replies, one treatment page improved, local link outreach, and the monthly report.

Growth, $1,790 a month

Most dental practices. Several treatments, several dentists or a wide catchment. About twelve hours a month: everything in Local, plus more treatment pages, wider outreach and competitor tracking.

AI SEO add-on, $390 a month on Local or $590 on Growth

Adds the forty questions asked every month across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot, outreach to the sources those engines cite, and the AI section of your report.
Both plans are month to month after the first three months. Prices exclude GST.

Who this is for

General and family practices, cosmetic and implant practices, and orthodontists, from single-chair practices to multi-dentist clinics, in Sydney and anywhere in Australia.

It's a poor fit if you need a full appointment book next week. Dental SEO compounds over months. If you need patients now, run Google Ads for your highest-value treatments while the foundations build.

Why ScaleCurrent

We work out the advertising rules before we write a word, so you aren't paying an agency to create compliance problems you then have to fix. Each plan states the hours behind it, and every report shows the map before and after.

We haven't published dental case studies yet, and we won't show you ones we don't have. The first will go on this site once a practice finishes its first 90 days.

Questions

Straight answers before you book a call.

Profile and listing fixes often show within a few weeks. Moving up the map for competitive treatments like implants and Invisalign usually takes three to six months, and longer in suburbs with several established practices. Anyone promising faster is guessing.

Generally, yes. Ask every patient the same way, offer nothing in return, and don’t filter who gets asked based on how their visit went. Google’s own policies prohibit incentives and selective requests too. What you can’t do is republish clinical reviews in your advertising.

Only reviews that don’t mention clinical aspects: symptoms, diagnosis, treatment or outcome. A review praising your reception team is fine. A review praising a filling or a smile makeover isn’t, under AHPRA’s rules on testimonials. Most review widgets pull in everything, so it’s safer not to use one.

For the treatments you want more of, yes. A single services page can’t rank for implants, Invisalign and emergency care at once. We don’t write pages for treatments you rarely do just to catch searches.

No. Near-identical suburb pages count as doorway pages under Google’s spam policies. Your Google Business Profile does most of the local work, and we add area pages only where there’s something specific to say.

The check is free, the Search Audit is $790, and plans are $990 or $1,790 a month excluding GST. Most practices fit Growth. The audit is credited against your first month if you continue.

No. Ads buy the top of the page while you pay; SEO builds the map position and the pages that keep working when the budget stops. Most practices run both.

Yes. We’re based in Sydney and work with practices across Australia. Everything is delivered remotely.

Find out where your practice appears on the map

Tell us your practice name, website, suburb and the treatment you want more of. Within two business days you'll get a one-page check showing where you appear on the map across your catchment, and which practices appear above you.
Sources: Google Business Profile Help, "How to improve your local ranking on Google"; Ahpra, "Summary of the advertising requirements".