Clinics and dental practices
SEO and websites for dental practices, aesthetics clinics and private clinics
SEO for a clinic is ordinary SEO with a regulator reading over your shoulder. The pages that win new-patient searches answer the patient's question plainly, and they also show what the rules require: the GDC number and qualification of every dentist on a practice site, the CQC rating on a rated clinic's site, and no promotion of a prescription-only medicine on an aesthetics page. We build and rank those pages for practices in Southampton, Hampshire and across the UK.
Before the SEO
Which regulator reads your website, and what it looks for
Each kind of practice answers to someone different, and each of them has published what a website must or must not say. This is the map we start every clinic audit from. It is a summary, not legal advice; the regulator's own page, linked below, is the one to rely on.
| Practice | Who reads the website | What it must show, or must not say |
|---|---|---|
| Dental practice | General Dental Council (GDC). The CQC registers practices in England but does not rate them. | Each dentist's qualification, the country it is from and their GDC number; the practice's address and contact details; the complaints procedure, naming the NHS body for NHS care and the Dental Complaints Service for private care; a link to the GDC; and the date the site was last updated. 'Specialist' only for dentists on a GDC specialist list. |
| Aesthetics clinic | Advertising Standards Authority (CAP Code), backed by the Human Medicines Regulations 2012; the prescriber's own regulator (NMC, GMC, GDC or GPhC). | No advertising of prescription-only medicines to the public, which covers botulinum toxin under any brand name (CAP rule 12.12, regulation 284). Advertise the consultation instead. Ads for cosmetic interventions must not be aimed at under-18s. |
| Private GP or medical clinic | Care Quality Commission (CQC), and the GMC for the doctors. | Where the CQC has rated the service, the latest rating, its date and where to read the report, legibly and conspicuously on every website where the service is described, within 21 calendar days of the report being published. |
| Physiotherapy | Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). | 'Physiotherapist' and 'physical therapist' are protected titles: anyone using them on the site must be on the HCPC register. |
| Solicitors (conveyancing, probate and others) | Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). | Prices and service details for the listed services, including residential conveyancing and uncontested probate, in a prominent place; the SRA number and the SRA's digital badge. |
Sources
- General Dental Council: Guidance on advertising (effective 30 September 2013)
- Care Quality Commission: Regulation 20A, display of performance assessments
- Care Quality Commission: How providers must display ratings
- CAP: Botox, frequently asked questions (23 January 2020)
- The Human Medicines Regulations 2012, regulation 284 (legislation.gov.uk)
- CAP: Cosmetic interventions and the CAP Code (11 August 2022)
- Health and Care Professions Council: Professions and protected titles
- Solicitors Regulation Authority: Transparency Rules
Why it matters for ranking
Compliance and SEO pull in the same direction
Google's guidance on helpful content asks whether a page shows who is behind it and why they can be trusted, and it holds health pages to the highest standard of that test. The things a regulator demands are mostly the same things: named clinicians with their qualifications, a registration number anyone can check, a real address, a complaints route, a date. A practice site that meets the GDC guidance has already done much of what makes a health page credible to Google and to the assistants that summarise it.
The reverse is also true. The quickest way to lose a treatment page is to write it the way a sales page is written: a drug name in the headline, a price promotion, a guarantee. The ASA can have it taken down, and it was never the page a careful patient would trust in the first place.
Three searches a new patient makes
- "Dentist taking new patients near me"
- Decided mostly by the map, which means the practice's own Google profile: the right primary category, the new-patient service listed, honest hours, and recent reviews that mention the treatment. We set that profile up and keep it current; it ranks for the practice's address, not ours.
- "Invisalign cost Southampton" or "private GP same day appointment"
- Decided by the main results. The page that wins states the price or the price range, the process and the wait, names the clinician, and meets the regulator's rules on the same page.
- "Can I get anti-wrinkle injections at 17?"
- Increasingly answered by an AI summary that quotes a page. The page it quotes gives a direct, sourced answer in its first paragraph, which is why every guide in this section opens with one.
The monthly work
What we do for a practice each month
A practice on a monthly plan gets the same routine as any client, with the regulated parts done properly rather than left to chance.
The plans and prices are on the pricing page; most single-site practices start on Growth.
- The Google profile for the practice's own address: categories, every treatment as a service, new-patient and booking links, hours that include evening and Saturday clinics
- A register check each quarter: the names, numbers and addresses on the GDC, CQC, HCPC or SRA register matched to the site and the profile, so a patient who checks finds the same details
- A page a month for a treatment or a question patients ask, written to the advertising rules, with the price or range where the practice publishes one
- Clinician profiles kept current when people join or leave, which is also a GDC requirement for dental sites
- Reviews asked for after treatment, from every patient rather than the happy ones, and answered without disclosing anything about their care
- A report from Search Console and the profile's figures, with next month's list at the end
In this section
Clinic websites, dental websites and the rules behind them
Medical and clinic website design
Fixed-price builds for private clinics: the CQC rating where the clinic has one, practitioner registration on every profile, booking, and enquiry forms that treat health data as health data.
Dental practice website design
Every item the GDC's advertising guidance asks of a practice website, built into the templates so it cannot be forgotten when a dentist joins or leaves.
SEO for dental practices
The practice's own Google profile, a new-patients page and a page per treatment, written to the GDC guidance, reported monthly.
GDC website requirements: the checklist
The guidance line by line, what passes, what fails, and the specialist-title trap.
Your CQC rating on your website
What Regulation 20A requires, the 21-day deadline, who is exempt, and what to do when a review is pending.
Can you advertise Botox in the UK?
CAP rule 12.12 and the law behind it, the wording the ASA accepts, and what that means for a clinic's website and Instagram.
Who you are dealing with
One developer, working remotely, who reads the guidance first
Daniel Stoychev builds the sites and does the SEO, trading as Webso Digital from Wrexham. There is no account manager between you and the work, and no office in Southampton: everything happens by phone, video and email. The rules quoted on these pages were read on the regulators' own sites, and each page links to them so you can check every line. We are not lawyers and do not give legal advice; if a question goes beyond what the regulator has published, we say so and suggest you ask your indemnity provider or professional body.
More about how the work is done is on the about page.
Other services
- Local SEO and the Google profileThe map listing, set up for the practice's own address.
- AI searchWhen a patient asks ChatGPT or Google's AI Mode instead of searching.
- Web designThe build for any business, with fixed prices.
Questions practices ask
Is SEO for a clinic different from SEO for any other business?
The method is the same: find the searches patients make, publish the page that answers each one best, and make the practice's Google profile complete and current. What is different is that a regulator reads the website too. A dental page that omits the GDC numbers, a rated clinic that hides its CQC rating, or an aesthetics page that promotes a prescription-only medicine is a compliance problem first and an SEO problem second, so the pages are written to the rules before they are written for Google.
You are in Wrexham. Can you do SEO for a practice in Southampton?
Yes, and we are open about it: the studio is in Wrexham and the work is remote, by phone, video and email. The practice's own Google profile is built for the practice's own address, so the map results it competes in are its own, wherever we sit. The pages, the regulator checks and the monthly reporting do not need us in the room.
Do you work with practices outside Hampshire?
Yes. The specialist pages and the website builds are offered UK-wide. The regulator rules on this page apply to every practice in England, and most of them across the UK; where a rule differs in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland we say so in the audit.
Can we show before-and-after photographs and reviews?
Usually, within limits that depend on what was done. For aesthetics, the ASA says before-and-after images of a prescription-only treatment such as botulinum toxin are likely to be read as an ad for it; images of a non-prescription treatment such as filler can be shown if they are labelled as such and are genuine, with signed and dated proof kept. For any regulated practice, reviews must be real: fake reviews are now banned outright under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.
One practice per specialism?
One per specialism per area, because two practices chasing the same patients is a conflict we would have to hide from one of them. A dental practice in Shirley and one in Leeds can both be clients; two in the same town offering the same treatments cannot.
How long before a practice sees new-patient enquiries?
The practice's own map listing can move within weeks once the profile is complete and reviews arrive with the treatment and the area named. Treatment searches in the main results take months, because chains and directories hold the top of the page. We report both monthly from Search Console and the profile's own figures, and at month three we tell you plainly whether it is working.
See what a new patient finds when they search for your treatments
Send your practice name and website. You get the searches patients make for your treatments, who wins them now, a check of your site against your regulator's website rules, and a fixed price. No meeting needed.