Patients search in questions: whether a procedure hurts, how long a visit takes, whether you see children, what happens if they don’t have insurance. A practice website that answers those questions clearly, in its own words, is more useful to patients and gives Google far more to match than a site of brochure pages.
Collect the real questions
You don’t need a keyword tool to start. For a few weeks, ask the front desk to jot down every question new patients ask on the phone, and ask the dentists and treatment coordinators which questions come up in consultations. Add the questions you see in reviews, emails and the questions section of your Business Profile. You’ll quickly find a short list that comes up again and again. Those are your pages.
One good answer per question
- Big questions get their own page, such as what to expect at a first implant consultation, or how emergency visits work at your office.
- Short questions go on an FAQ page or at the bottom of the relevant service page.
- Answer first, then explain. Put the direct answer in the first sentence or two.
- Be specific to your practice: your hours for emergencies, how you handle insurance, what your first visit includes. Generic answers can come from anywhere; specific ones only from you.
Written or reviewed by the dentist
Health information is held to a higher standard. Google’s guidance for content creators asks whether a page shows real expertise and who is responsible for it. Have a dentist write each answer or review and approve it, and show the dentist’s name and credentials on the page. That protects patients and the practice, and it is the kind of signal no competitor can copy. If someone drafts the text for the dentist, including with AI tools, the dentist still needs to read every word and correct it before it goes live.
Never copied
Some website vendors supply the same library of dental articles to hundreds of practices. Pages like that add nothing that the other copies don’t, and copying text from another practice’s site can also raise copyright problems. If you already have vendor-supplied pages, rewrite the ones that matter in your own words and remove the rest.
Stay inside the advertising rules
Patient answers are still advertising in the eyes of most state dental boards. Avoid guarantees about results, be careful with claims of being the “best” or a “specialist” if you aren’t one, and if you mention fees, check how your state expects prices and discounts to be presented. When in doubt, ask your state board or a healthcare attorney; the compliance guides cover the common rules. And don’t expect FAQ markup to win you a special display in Google: Google limits FAQ rich results to a small set of sites. The value is in the answers themselves.
Keep the pages current. Re-read them once a year and whenever your hours, insurance plans or technology change. The questions patients ask on the phone are also a good guide to your Business Profile updates.