Dental SEO is one of the most valuable investments a practice can make, because patients searching for a dentist or a specific treatment are ready to book. But prices vary a lot from agency to agency. Here's what drives the cost and what you should get for it.

1. What drives the price

• Competition: a practice in a crowded suburb needs more work than one in a small town.
• Treatments: ranking for implants, Invisalign and cosmetic work takes more pages and content than general dentistry.
• Your website: a slow or thin site needs fixing before SEO can work well.
• Locations: each office needs its own profile and pages.
• Where you're starting: reviews, listings and existing rankings all affect how much work it takes.

2. What a good dental SEO package includes

• Google Business Profile setup and ongoing management.
• Pages for your key treatments. See dental SEO service pages.
• Review requests and replies done safely. See dental reviews.
• Technical fixes, speed and listings cleanup.
• Tracking for calls and appointment requests, set up with patient privacy in mind.
• Monthly reporting on calls, bookings and rankings.

3. Getting a quote

Pricing for dental practices is built around your market, the treatments you want to grow and how many locations you have, so we quote each practice after a short call. Ask any agency for a written list of what they'll do each month and how they'll report on new patient calls and bookings.

4. Is dental SEO worth it?

Look at it by patient value. One new patient can be worth a lot over the years, and one implant or cosmetic case can cover months of SEO. Track new patient calls and booked appointments from Google, then compare them to what you spend. Caliber Dental improved its average map ranking for cosmetic dentistry after we rebuilt its website and Google profile. See the case study.

5. Red flags