Dental SEO and digital marketing for dentists
Most digital marketing for dentists comes down to three kinds of search: a patient with toothache looking for an emergency dentist tonight, someone reading up on implants for weeks before they phone, and an adult who wants clear aligners instead of braces. Our dental SEO and websites for South African practices give each one its own page, and we count the bookings from each separately.
The HPCSA's ethical rules allow advertising and forbid canvassing and touting, and we write inside them to begin with, so nobody has to cut "the best dentist in Sea Point" out of an ad the night before it runs.
6,866 dentists held active HPCSA registration in March 2024, up from 6,059 in April 2020 (HPCSA Annual Report 2023/24).
Rule 3 of the HPCSA's Ethical Rules of Conduct allows advertising and bans canvassing and touting (as amended, checked October 2026).
Three kinds of dental search
Dental searches split by urgency, and the split decides where the budget goes.
Emergencies: tonight, and close by
Someone with a cracked tooth at 9pm types "emergency dentist near me" or "dentist open Saturday" into a phone. Google answers with a map. Three practices, their hours, their star ratings, a call button. Correct after-hours details, recent reviews and a number that gets answered decide who gets that call. The website hardly comes into it.
Implants: weeks of reading first
Implant patients search "dental implants cost", "implant or bridge" and "implants" with their suburb, and they read for weeks before they book. They want a price range, who places the implant, how many visits it takes and what happens if it fails. The practice whose page answers that plainly gets the consultation. "Contact us for a quote" sends them back to Google.
Aligners and cosmetic work
"Invisalign price", "clear aligners near me" and "teeth whitening" behave more like shopping. People compare monthly costs, read reviews and follow practices on Instagram before they book a consultation, which is where Meta ads can pay off, as long as each ad stays inside the HPCSA rules.
Patients also ask AI assistants which dentist nearby does implants. Those answers draw on your Business Profile, your reviews and your own pages, so the same fixes help there.
Our work for dental practices
Google Business Profile and Maps
Correct hours, including after-hours and Saturday cover, categories that match the treatments you offer, photos of your rooms and team, and a simple way to ask patients for a review after their appointment. If more than one dentist works at the practice, we decide with you whether each needs a profile of their own.
Treatment pages
Emergency care, implants, aligners, crowns and children's dentistry each get a page: what the treatment involves, how many visits it takes, a price range if you're happy to publish one, and how medical aid claims usually work for it. A single services page listing twelve treatments rarely ranks for any of them.
Calls tracked to appointments
Tracking numbers on the website and the Business Profile, a log of forms and WhatsApps and, where your booking system allows it, a count of which enquiries became appointments. That's how the report can show how many implant consultations were booked, and from which source.
A website built for phones
Emergency patients search on a phone, often in pain. The number is tappable at the top of every page, the booking form asks only for what reception needs, and pages load fast on mobile data. When a practice needs a new site, our web design work starts from those three things.
AI search
We ask the AI assistants for a dentist in your suburb, note who they name, then fix the listings and pages behind those answers. More on AI search.
The HPCSA rules on advertising
Rule 3 of the HPCSA's Ethical Rules of Conduct (as amended, checked October 2026) applies to every registered practitioner, dentists included. Rule 3(1) reads: "A practitioner shall be allowed to advertise his or her services or permit, sanction or acquiesce to such advertisement: Provided that the advertisement is not unprofessional, untruthful, deceptive or misleading or causes consumers unwarranted anxiety that they may be suffering from any health condition."
Rule 3(2) reads: "A practitioner shall not canvass or tout or allow canvassing or touting to be done for patients on his or her behalf." The same rules define canvassing as "direct contact with prospective clients", in speech, in print or electronically, that draws attention to one's "personal qualities, superior knowledge, quality of service, professional guarantees or best practice" to secure their custom. Touting is drawing attention to "offers, guarantees or material benefits that do not fall in the categories of professional services or items" but are linked to treatment or "designed to entice the public to the professional practice".
The HPCSA's social media guidelines (Booklet 16, March 2025) give an example in paragraph 10.4: a practitioner "posting patient reviews that state he or she is 'the best health practitioner in the country'" is canvassing.
So we leave these out of your ads, pages and posts:
- "Best", "leading" or "top" claims about the practice or any dentist.
- Promised outcomes, such as "pain-free" or "perfect smile guaranteed".
- Gifts tied to treatment that aren't dental services, such as a spa voucher with every implant.
- Patient reviews reposted in ads or social posts.
- Lines that make people worry they're ill, such as "Bleeding gums? You could lose your teeth."
That list is our reading of the rules, and a cautious one. Ask the HPCSA about any specific ad that worries you before it runs.
What your monthly report shows
One page, with numbers your practice manager can check against the appointment book.
Bookings by source
Calls, forms and WhatsApps from Google Maps, organic search and social media, counted separately, and how many became appointments where your booking system shows it.
Bookings by treatment
How many emergency bookings, implant consultations and aligner consultations came in, and through which pages, so the work follows the treatment that pays.
Missed calls
Calls to tracking numbers that nobody answered, by hour and day. An emergency patient who can't get through phones the next practice on the map.
Maps position and reviews
Where you show on the map for your main searches across your area, and new reviews against last month.
Next month
One or two changes and the reason for each, such as rewriting the implant page because it brings in visitors but few consultations.
Our prices are on the site
Seven of the twelve South African agencies that rank most often on Google don't publish a pricing page. We'd rather you knew before we speak.
12 agencies checked across 19 searches, September 2026.
We're not registered for VAT, so no VAT is added to our prices. Contracts run for three months minimum, then month to month.
Where to start
You can start with one of these and add another once the first is paying its way.
Rankings on Google and Google Maps for the searches your customers type. Technical fixes, service pages that answer the question, and links from sites people in your industry read.
SEO in Cape TownFrom R7,500 a month
SEO pricingGetting your business named when someone asks AI assistants who to use, from ChatGPT and Gemini to Google's AI Overviews, Copilot, Perplexity and Claude. We track what they say about you, then fix the pages and listings they draw on.
Fast sites built to turn a visit into a call or a form. The domain, the site and the logins are in your name.
Web design in Cape TownFrom R14,500
Website pricingPosts and a small ad budget on up to two of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok, measured on the leads and sales they bring in.
Your first 90 days
Step Month 1: Your Maps profile
We count last month's calls, forms and WhatsApps so there's a baseline, put tracking numbers on the site and your Business Profile, and fix the profile itself: hours, after-hours cover, treatment categories and photos.
Step Month 2: Treatment pages
New or rewritten pages for your two or three most valuable treatments, usually emergency care and implants, each answering the questions reception hears on the phone. Every page and ad we write for a practice is checked against HPCSA rule 3 before it reaches you.
Step Month 3: Reviews and bookings by source
Review requests go out after appointments, you get the first full month of bookings by source, and we list what changes in month four. Maps rankings can move within weeks. New treatment pages usually take three to six months to rank for competitive searches.
What dentists ask us
Yes. HPCSA rule 3(1) allows practitioners to advertise, provided the advert isn't unprofessional, untruthful, deceptive or misleading and doesn't cause unwarranted anxiety about a health condition. What rule 3(2) forbids is canvassing and touting, which rules out calling yourself the best or offering gifts tied to treatment.
We think a price range helps, because those patients compare practices before they phone, and a page without a price sends them elsewhere. A range with what's included doesn't lock you into a quote. It's your decision, and the page still has to meet rule 3: accurate and not misleading.
A fixed Business Profile can bring in more emergency calls within a few weeks. For competitive searches, such as implants in a large suburb, new treatment pages usually take three to six months to rank. The audit tells you which applies to your practice.
SEO starts at R7,500 a month and social media, including Meta ads, at R6,500 a month, with ad spend separate. A new practice website starts at R14,500. We're not registered for VAT, so no VAT is added to our prices.
Yes. All the work and every meeting happen online, so we work with clients anywhere in South Africa. We're based in Cape Town.
Where your practice loses bookings
Send us your practice's website. We'll check how you show up for emergency, implant and aligner searches on Google and Maps, run a quick AI check of 5 prompts in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Gemini, and send back the five fixes we'd make first.