Pages a dental practice's website should have

A common weakness in dental websites is not design but missing pages.

Patients search for a specific thing: a hygienist near them, whitening prices, an emergency slot today. If your site has no page that answers that, it can't show up for it, and Google has nothing to match. That's the plain logic behind seo for dentists. You aren't tricking anything. You're making sure a page exists for each thing you actually do.

So here's the list. Each page gets a purpose, what it should say, and what to avoid. Dentist SEO sounds technical, but it is mostly this: the right pages, written honestly, kept current.

Purpose: tell a first-time visitor in a few seconds who you are, where you are and what to do next.

What it should say: the practice name, the town or area, whether you're NHS, mixed or wholly private, and a clear route to booking or registering. Point to your main treatments and link out to each one. Show your GDC registration details where the site mentions clinicians, and keep a "last updated" date visible.

What to avoid: vague taglines, a slider of stock smiles and a wall of text about "caring for your family." Also avoid ambiguous wording about your funding. GDC guidance says publicity must make clear whether the practice is NHS (or equivalent), mixed or wholly private. Say it plainly, near the top.

This is where most of the search value sits. Check-ups, hygiene, fillings, whitening, orthodontics, implants, emergency appointments. Build a page for each one, but only the ones you provide. If you don't place implants, don't have an implants page. A page for a service you don't offer wastes a patient's time and risks inaccurate publicity, which GDC guidance says to avoid.

Purpose: answer the question a patient types into Google about that treatment, then help them book.

What it should say: what the treatment is, who it suits, what happens at the appointment, roughly how it fits into care, and whether it's available on the NHS, privately or both at your practice. Link to your fees page if you've set a fee. Use the words patients use. "Teeth whitening" beats a clinical label they've never heard.

What to avoid: promises about results. GDC guidance says to avoid claims likely to create an unjustified expectation, so skip "guaranteed," "perfect smile" and before-and-after claims you can't back up with facts. Don't copy generic text from another site either. And don't produce twenty near-identical pages by swapping the treatment name; Google's spam policies treat scaled content abuse as a problem.

One firm rule: every treatment page should be written or reviewed by a clinician at your practice. It's better for patients, and Google's helpful content guidance asks about expertise, for example content written or reviewed by someone who demonstrably knows the topic. A dentist who can say "reviewed by" and be named, with qualification and GDC number, is doing more for your site than any amount of keyword tinkering.

Purpose: patients want to know who will treat them. This page builds trust and is one people genuinely read.

What it should say: name each dental professional you mention as providing care, with their professional qualification, the country it came from and their GDC registration number. The GDC guidance requires it. Add a short line on their role and, if you like, an interest or two. Reception and nursing staff can appear too.

What to avoid: comparing the skills or qualifications of your clinicians. GDC guidance says not to. "Our most experienced implant dentist" invites trouble. Also avoid leaving departed staff on the page. GDC guidance says the site must be updated to reflect personnel and services, and a dentist who left last year but still smiles from your team page is a quiet accuracy problem.

Purpose: remove the friction between "I'd like to join" and "I've registered."

What it should say: how to register and what you need from them, what the first appointment involves, and whether you're taking on NHS patients, private patients or both. Be straight about it. If your NHS list is closed, say so, and say what the alternative is. Include a registration form or a clear phone and email route.

What to avoid: hiding the NHS or private position three clicks deep. Patients will find it anyway, and they'll be annoyed. Don't imply you accept everyone if you don't.

Purpose: answer the question patients most want answered and most sites dodge.

What it should say: the fees your practice has actually set, and only those. If you run a payment plan, explain how it works in plain terms. If you offer NHS care, say so plainly and do not restate figures you haven't set yourself. Say what a fee covers, and what it doesn't.

What to avoid: inventing "from" prices to look competitive, rounding for effect or listing a fee you don't charge. If you haven't set a price for something, say that a fee will be confirmed at consultation. Out-of-date prices are worse than none. Put a review date on the page and stick to it.

Purpose: be findable and reachable. Simple, and often botched.

What it should say: the practice name and the geographic address where the service is provided, a telephone number and an email address, opening hours, how to get there, parking and step-free access. Add a map. Include the GDC's address and contact details or a link to the GDC website, and the date the website was last updated.

What to avoid: a contact form with no address beside it, or a number buried in an image. Keep your name, address and phone number identical everywhere online, including your Google Business Profile. Small mismatches confuse people and search engines alike.

Purpose: show patients you take problems seriously, and meet a requirement while you're at it.

What it should say: your complaints procedure, who handles complaints at the practice and how to reach them. Then say who a patient can contact if they're not satisfied: the relevant NHS body for NHS treatment, and the Dental Complaints Service for private treatment.

What to avoid: hiding it in a footer PDF nobody opens, or writing it defensively. A clear, calm procedure reads as confidence. A grudging one reads as the opposite.

Purpose: catch the questions people ask before they ever think of booking. "Does a filling hurt?" "How often should I see a hygienist?" "What counts as a dental emergency?"

What it should say: honest, practical answers in your practice's voice, reviewed by a clinician. Group them by topic and link each answer to the relevant treatment page. This is a good home for topics you haven't covered elsewhere.

What to avoid: a thin list of six questions copied from a template, or answers that drift into medical advice you can't stand behind. If the answer depends on the patient, say so and invite them to book.

Purpose: let real patients speak. Social proof works, but only if it's real.

What it should say: genuine reviews, attributed the way the platform attributes them, with a link to the original source where you can. Show the good and don't tinker with the wording.

What to avoid: writing your own, editing someone else's, or cherry-picking so hard the page looks curated. And don't show a review that makes a claim about results you'd never make yourself. If a patient says "my teeth are now flawless," that's their view, but it still sits on your site.

Run through this before anything goes live, and again every few months.

1. The practice name and the geographic address of the service are displayed.
2. Telephone number and email address are shown.
3. The site says whether you're NHS, mixed or wholly private.
4. Every clinician named as providing care shows their qualification, its country of origin and their GDC number.
5. A link to the GDC website, or the GDC's address and contact details, is included.
6. The complaints procedure is there, with the NHS body for NHS treatment and the Dental Complaints Service for private treatment.
7. The date the site was last updated is visible and true.
8. Claims are backed by facts, with no ambiguous statements and nothing likely to create an unjustified expectation.
9. No comparison of the skills or qualifications of dental professionals.
10. If you have a CQC rating, it's displayed with the required information.

On that last point: CQC Regulation 20A requires a provider with a rating to show it on its website, if it has one, and CQC can prosecute for a breach. CQC provides website widgets, so you don't have to build anything. Check the CQC page for the exact wording, because that's the bit people get wrong. And CQC regulates England only. If you practise in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, check your own regulator's requirements.

Starting from scratch, or fixing a thin site? Do these first, in this order.

1. Contact and location. It's quick, it's required and patients need it.
2. Home. Once the basics exist, make the front door say who you are and whether you're NHS, mixed or private.
3. Your most-booked treatment page. Probably check-ups or hygiene. Get a clinician to write or review it.
4. New patients. Turn interest into registrations.
5. Complaints. Required, simple and often forgotten.

Team, fees, FAQs and reviews follow. And so do the rest of your treatments, one at a time, each properly done rather than all rushed.

If you'd like a quick read on where you stand, Seracu offers a free snapshot: a free look at which topics your site is missing versus its competitors. It's a sensible way to decide which page to write after the first five.