SEO for Dentists: What Patients Search For and What the Rules Allow

It is two in the morning and a tooth is throbbing. The person grabs a phone and does not type the name of any clinic. In Brazil, where we are based, they type “dentista 24 horas” (24-hour dentist).

That search shows up about 9,900 times a month in Brazil, by our own Semrush measurement. ¹ “Dentista perto de mim” (dentist near me) tops 18,000. The phrase this piece is named after, “seo para dentistas” (SEO for dentists), gets 20. ¹

The gap between those numbers is the subject here. The dentist asks how to show up. The patient asks something else: who can see me now, near home, on my dental plan, for this treatment.

I opened the top Google results in Brazil for “seo para dentistas” on September 14, 2026. ² Most come from agencies and teach a similar list: local SEO, a mobile-friendly site, keywords, content, reviews. One of the texts cited by the AI summary at the top claims that Brazil’s Dental Code of Ethics bans before-and-after photos. ² Of the seven I read, none cites the resolution from the Federal Council of Dentistry that covers those images. ²

Part of the subject works the same for doctors and dentists. In health, Google says it gives even more weight to content with strong E-E-A-T. The acronym stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. ³ That, and the identity of whoever sees patients as the base of everything, is covered in the piece on SEO for doctors.

From here on, this piece belongs to the dentist. First, the doors patients come through. Then the advertising rule that decides what fits on each page. At the end come before-and-after photos, prices, and testimonials, whose answers differ from the ones going around.

The patient’s four doors

Picture the front desk of a dental office at eight in the morning. One patient walks in with a toothache and wants to be seen today. Another wants to know if the office does implants. A mother asks whether anyone sees children. An older man shows his dental plan card before he even says good morning.

Each of them came in through a different door, brought by a different reason. This is called search intent. Google receives the same four intents, typed into the search box.

Urgency comes first. By our measurement, “dentista 24 horas” gets 9,900 searches a month, and “dentista 24h” gets 2,900. “Dentista emergência” (emergency dentist) gets 1,900, and “dentista aberto agora” (dentist open now) gets 880. ¹

Then comes the treatment. “Clareamento dental” (teeth whitening) gets 49,500 monthly searches, and “implante dentário” (dental implant) gets 33,100. “Odontopediatra” (pediatric dentist) gets 5,400. ¹ The price question travels alongside it: “quanto custa um implante dentário” (how much does a dental implant cost) also gets 5,400. ¹

The place gets written into the search. Besides “near me,” patients type the neighborhood: “dentista tatuapé” gets 880 searches, and “dentista copacabana” gets 590. ¹ Tatuapé is a neighborhood in São Paulo, and Copacabana is one in Rio de Janeiro. Google’s rater guidelines list [dentists] among the examples of searches by people who want to visit a place in person. ⁴

And then there is the dental plan. “Dentista hapvida” gets 720 searches a month, and “dentista odontoprev” gets 480. ¹ Hapvida and OdontoPrev are Brazilian plan operators.

These numbers cover all of Brazil. They help compare the doors with each other, and they say nothing about how many patients reach a given practice.

What each door asks of the page

Each door asks for an answer published in a place of its own. Lumping everything onto one “Services” page leaves the four questions without an owner.

The urgency door. If you handle emergencies, you need a page just for them. It shows the real hours and the phone number that answers during those hours. If you don’t handle them, you don’t create that page.

The Business Profile guidelines have two rules that hit this directly. The profile name must be the practice’s real name. The guidelines list a name ending in “Open 24 hours” among the examples that are not allowed. ⁵ Adding unnecessary information to the name can get the profile suspended. ⁵ The hours go in the hours field.

The second rule catches plenty of offices by surprise. Google writes that businesses that operate only by appointment shouldn’t provide hours. ⁵ If you only see patients by appointment, Google has already written the answer about that field.

The treatment door. Each treatment that keeps the practice going deserves a page: what it is, who it is for, how many steps it takes, and who performs it. The next section covers who performs it. In Brazil, that rule changes the top of every one of these pages.

The place door. Address, neighborhood, landmarks, and hours are written on the site the same way as on the profile. The factors that order the map are in the local SEO section. How your neighborhood comes to mention your name unprompted is in the piece on becoming the go-to name in your town.

My book SEO de Entidade, published in Portuguese, uses a made-up dental clinic. In this English version it is Bright Smile Dental, in Austin. In the chapter 4 exercise, it shows up under three names in different sources: Bright Smile Dental, Smile Dentistry, and Bright Smile Dentistry LLC. ⁶ The line of work changes words too: dentistry in one place, dentist in another, oral health in a third. ⁶ That picture has a name and a fix in the piece on entity fragmentation.

The dental plan door. The plans page lists every plan accepted, by the name patients use. Chapter 12 of the book splits a company’s connections into two columns. One holds the ones you declare. The other holds the ones that exist only when the other side confirms them, like a plan listing you as in-network. ⁷

In practice, the plan’s provider directory talks about you. And it does not depend on you. The name and address it shows need to match the ones on the site and the profile.

The markup behind the four doors. Schema.org, a public vocabulary for data markup, has a type called Dentist. It descends from organization, from local business, and from place. Person does not appear in its lineage. ⁸ In my reading, the type describes the practice, and the dentist as a person gets a record of their own.

That type has fields for hours, special hours, medical specialty, and the name of the health plan network. ⁸ Google adds two rules. The local business documentation asks for the most specific subtype possible for each location. ⁹ And it shows that a business open 24 hours is marked as opening at 00:00 and closing at 23:59. ⁹

What dental advertising rules ask of every page

First, a boundary. This piece is not legal advice. I read dental advertising rules the way someone who builds pages reads them. How they apply to your case is a question for whoever regulates your practice.

The rules on how dentists may advertise depend on where you practice. Each country and each board has its own, so check yours before you publish anything. I will use the rule from Brazil, where we are based, as the example. I read it in full, and the mechanism it reveals is what matters here.

In Brazil, the advertising rule sits in the Dental Code of Ethics. It was approved by Resolution CFO-118/2012 of the Federal Council of Dentistry, the CFO. It has been in force since January 1, 2013, and chapter XVI covers announcements, advertising, and publicity. ¹⁰ Resolution CFO-196/2019 deals with images. ¹¹ Resolution CFO-271/2025 amended articles of the code after a ruling by Cade, Brazil’s antitrust authority, on discount cards and discounts. ¹²

And that chapter is under review. In February 2025, the CFO set up a group to propose a new text for it. ¹³ In January 2026, the council itself wrote that a new version of the code should come out soon. ¹³ So far, it has not. I checked the resolutions published through August 31, 2026, and none brought the new chapter. ¹³ If you practice in Brazil, check the CFO portal for it before you change the site.

Article 43 says what is mandatory in every communication. It includes the name and registration number of whoever advertises, individual or company, and the name of the profession. ¹⁰ For a clinic, it also includes the name and registration of its technical lead, the dentist who answers for it. ¹⁰

Google’s rater guidelines reach the same point by another road. To illustrate the lowest rating, they chose a page about dry socket, a dental condition. It does not say who created the site, has no contact information, and does not name the author. ⁴ Google writes that raters have no control over how pages rank. ³ Even so, the example shows the target.

The same Article 43 lists what may appear. Specialties registered with the regional council, address, phone, email address, working hours, dental plans, and plan accreditations. ¹⁰ Hours and plans, two of the four doors, are written there as allowed.

Treatments and techniques may appear too. The condition is that they come after the title of the specialty registered with the regional council, or the qualification of general dentist. ¹⁰ For whoever builds the site in Brazil, that is an architecture rule. Every treatment page opens by saying who performs it, with the title that is on record.

The code bans calling yourself a specialist without the specialty registered with the regional council. ¹⁰ And a clinic that advertises specialties must have a registered specialist in each. It must also make the list of those professionals, with their qualifications, available to the public. ¹⁰ In Brazil, the team page is on the site because the code requires it.

The source for checking all this is public. The CFO’s professional lookup searches by regional council, category, registration number, specialty, qualification, and name. ¹⁴ On the day I checked, the page showed an update on September 13, 2026. ¹⁴ Where you practice, ask the same thing. Which body licensed each dentist, and does it keep a record anyone can check?

The list of specialties changes. In March 2026, the CFO recognized a new one, Orofacial Aesthetic Surgery. ¹⁵ That is why the title on each page comes from the registry as it stands that day.

The Brazilian dental code has a detail of its own. Among its infractions, it lists enticing patients, “especialmente a utilização da expressão ‘popular’” (especially the use of the word “popular”). ¹⁰ In Brazil, “dentista popular” means a budget dentist, and by our measurement that search gets 1,600 a month. ¹ The patient types the very word the code takes out of your ad. In my reading, that door is closed to your page.

Before-and-after photos, prices, and testimonials

This is where the confusion runs deepest, and it has a reason. The Brazilian code lists as an infraction advertising “com expressões ou imagens de antes e depois” (with before-and-after expressions or images). ¹⁰ Anyone who read only the code is right to say these photos are banned.

Resolution CFO-196/2019 changed the picture. It authorizes publishing images of the diagnosis and of the finished treatment. The image must come from the dentist who performed the procedure, with the patient’s prior authorization on a consent form. ¹¹ It bans images of the procedure in progress, outside scientific publications. ¹¹ And it requires the name and registration number on every image, while banning clinical cases by another professional. ¹¹

In 2025, the CFO itself explained the rule to dentists. Photo and video comparisons are allowed, under those conditions. ¹⁶ Then came a line that changes the site’s architecture: this type of content is prohibited for clinics, dental offices, and other legal entities. ¹⁶ In January 2026, the council repeated that the resolution prohibits legal entities from publicizing results. ¹³

A clinic’s website speaks on behalf of a legal entity. In my reading, the case gallery does not belong there. Where it can go, and under whose name, is a question for the regional council, the CRO, before anything goes up. Where you practice, ask your own regulator.

Prices take a different path. The code lists as an infraction advertising “com preços, serviços gratuitos, modalidades de pagamento” (with prices, free services, payment methods). ¹⁰ The 2025 amendment did not touch that item. ¹² The code also bans advertising or offering free or no-commitment consultations and diagnoses. ¹⁰ The “free evaluation” page, common on clinic sites in Brazil, runs into that line.

Anyone who read the piece on doctors saw the opposite. There, the Brazilian medical council’s 2023 resolution allows doctors to state the consultation fee. ¹⁷ They are different councils, with different rules. And Google, on its own terms, does not allow a profile description that focuses on special promotions, prices, and sales. ⁵

The patient still asks how much it costs. The code requires the dentist to explain the costs and alternatives of treatment to the patient, during care. ¹⁰ In my reading, the treatment page answers what it can without a number: what it is, how many steps it takes, what changes the plan. The price is for the conversation after the evaluation.

Testimonials do not appear by that name in the code. What exists is the rule on identifying the patient. Publishing the patient’s name, or anything that identifies them, requires consent. And the code adds a condition: “desde que não sejam para fins de autopromoção ou benefício do profissional” (as long as it is not for self-promotion or the professional’s benefit). ¹⁰

The 2019 resolution adds another safeguard. Expressions that suggest sensationalism, self-promotion, or a promised result are still prohibited. ¹¹ A testimonial with a name and photo identifies the patient. Whether it fits the code’s exception is for the CRO to answer.

Google has a rule of its own on this ground. Its local business documentation covers the average rating marked up in a page’s code. Google recommends it only for sites that capture reviews about other local businesses. ⁹ Your patient’s testimonial, on your own site, falls outside that description.

The afternoon of four searches

Set aside an afternoon, a phone, and a sheet of paper. You will run the searches your patients run, in the order of the doors.

1. Search “24 hour dentist” with your city, and “dentist” with the name of your neighborhood. Write down who shows up on the map and whether your practice is there.
2. Search the treatment that keeps the practice going, with your city. Check whether you have a page about it, with the specialty title at the top.
3. Open the provider directory of each dental plan you accept. Copy how the practice appears: name, address, and phone number.
4. Open the public license record for each dentist on staff. In Brazil, that is the CFO professional lookup. Copy specialties and qualifications exactly as they appear. ¹⁴
5. Put everything next to the site and the Business Profile. Circle the name that differs and the hours that don’t match. Also circle “24 hours” in the name, and anything your advertising rules restrict. In Brazil, that means a published price and a case gallery on the clinic’s site.

Name and address circles are identity work. Ethics circles go to your regulator before any change, and in Brazil that is the CRO. The rest of the site, from indexing to speed, sits in the technical SEO section. Does the site fail to show up even for its own name? Start with the diagnosis for a site that is not on Google.

What you ask for from now on

From today on, when someone offers SEO for your practice, ask to see the four doors. Which page answers urgency, treatment, neighborhood, and dental plan? And who checked the proposal against your advertising rules before showing it to you?

Nobody here promises a ranking. The sheet was made for you to fill in on your own.

Start this week with the middle-of-the-night search: “24 hour dentist,” in your city, with the sheet beside you.