When we look at dental practices' online presence, we see the same issues pop up again and again. Your Google listing, your phone number across the internet, your reviews, your photos, and whether patients can actually reach you. These five things work together. Get them right, and patients find you easily. Get them wrong, and they drift to a competitor. Let's walk through what we consistently find.
Where Your Information Is Wrong and What It Costs
Most practices are listed on dozens of websites they've never claimed or even seen. Healthgrades, ZocDoc, insurance company directories, review sites—they're all out there with your name on them. And here's what almost always happens: your information doesn't match across all of them.
Your hours are correct on Google but outdated on Yelp. Your phone number changed two years ago but three directories still have the old one. Your address is right on your website but incomplete somewhere else. Your website says you offer root canals, but another listing doesn't mention it. These inconsistencies seem small until you consider what happens on the patient side.
About 85% of people have run into wrong or incomplete information on business listings. For a dental practice, that's a patient who found you, ready to book or call, and hit a dead number. They don't assume there's a typo. They assume you're disorganized. They assume you might have closed. They call the next practice instead.
The math is stark: when a patient finds your number and it doesn't work, you lose that appointment. You don't get a second chance to correct it. They're already moving down the search results.
Practices that keep their information the same everywhere are 40% more likely to show up in the top local search results. That's not a marketing trick. That's just what consistency does.
Here's what the fix looks like: you need to know which directories you show up on, and you need to audit them quarterly. Most practices find they're listed on 15 to 25 sites they've never claimed. Once you claim them, you control what shows. You're not waiting for Healthgrades or ZocDoc to display the right information—you're entering it directly.
A practice in North Carolina discovered they had the wrong phone number on five different directories. No wonder their answering service got calls about "who's this?" One afternoon of cleanup fixed it. The next month, they saw a measurable jump in actual bookings.
The Review and Photo Gap
This is where the gap between average practices and the ones dominating locally becomes obvious.
The Review Problem
The top-ranked dental practices in any city average around 78 reviews. The ones in positions 4-10? About 31 reviews. The gap matters.
Most practices we see are stuck at 8 to 20 reviews. Some haven't gotten a new review in six months. And practices with fewer than 20 reviews lose a big chunk of potential patients—people see low review counts and assume the practice isn't that good, so they look elsewhere. It becomes a cycle: fewer reviews means fewer patients means fewer reviews.
The fix sounds obvious but practices rarely do it: have a system for asking patients for reviews. Not sometimes. Regularly.
One practice we know sends a text message after their biggest procedures—new patient visits, crown work, root canals. The message is simple: "Had a great visit? We'd love your feedback." They get three to five new reviews every week. Consistent. Automatic.
Most practices we see? Less than one per month. And when we ask why, it's usually the same answer: they forget, it feels awkward, or they don't have a process.
Getting to 50 reviews puts you in the competitive range for your local market. At 100, you look established. At 200, you're probably dominating your area. But almost no practice gets there because asking for reviews isn't built into their workflow.
The practices that win locally treat review requests the way they treat sterilization—as a non-negotiable part of how they operate. Their front desk has a printed checklist. They send the text from the appointment software automatically. There's no decision involved each time. It just happens.
The Photo Problem
Dental practices typically have 5 to 15 photos on Google. The top practices have 250 or more.
This isn't about being fancy. It's about completeness. Top practices photograph their treatment rooms, waiting area, front desk, staff, parking, exterior, specific equipment, before-and-afters—everything. When someone lands on your listing, they get a real sense of what it's like to walk into your practice. They see the colors on the walls. They see whether it's busy or calm. They see whether it feels modern or outdated.
With eight photos, they can't get that sense. They wonder if that's really all you have.
Practices with full photo galleries see 347% more search traffic than practices with thin ones. That's not 35%. It's 347%. It's one of the highest-impact changes you can make.
Most practices haven't updated their photos in two or three years. You don't need expensive equipment or a photographer. An iPhone and an afternoon spent photographing your space gets you most of the way there. Photo of the waiting room from different angles. Photo of a treatment chair. Photo of staff at the front desk. Photo of the parking lot. Photo of the exterior. A few before-and-afters of actual patient work (with permission, of course).
One practice we know did this last year. They went from 11 photos to 87 in a single Saturday afternoon. Within three weeks, they saw a noticeable increase in new patient calls. Patients were booking because they'd already seen the space and felt more comfortable.
What the Top Practices Do Differently
The ones crushing it locally do a few things consistently.
They treat their Google profile like a living thing, not a set-it-and-forget-it page. They add photos regularly. They respond to reviews fast—positive or negative, within 48 hours. They audit their information across every directory they appear on, quarterly, to catch any drift.
They ask for reviews after big appointments—new patient visits, major procedures. It's automatic. Their front desk follows a simple process. That's it. No complicated system.
They also test their own listing. Quarterly, they search for themselves like a patient would. Does the phone number work? Does the website booking button actually reach their team? Is the email the current one? Are the hours correct? They don't assume—they check.
They understand that one wrong phone number across one directory costs real patients. One broken booking link costs inquiries they never see. One "closed" note on an old listing confuses potential patients.
The One Thing You Can Do This Week
Audit your Google profile. Check three things: Does your phone number work? Do your hours match what's actually on your calendar? Are your photos more than two years old?
If you've got more than five years of history but fewer than 50 reviews, add review requests to your workflow this month.
If your photo count is in single digits, plan two hours this week to photograph your space.
Small changes in consistency and completeness add up to real patient growth.