The free Google Business Profile Audit, applied to a dental practice. You work through twelve questions about the listing itself, and the page hands back a score out of 100 with the gaps ordered by what each one costs. It grades the listing, not the dentistry: the pin, the posted hours, the review block, and the photos somebody scrolls at ten at night with a molar throbbing.
Run the free tool ↓Put the practice listing on a screen next to this one and answer for what is actually published, not for what the office manager believes is published. Twelve questions. It takes about as long as a hygiene check-in, there is no signup, no email wall, and the score prints underneath as soon as the last answer lands.
Prefer a full page? Open the Google Business Profile Audit tool here.
Four items carry more of the score than everything else on the list combined, and for a dental practice they are the four worth arguing about.
The rest are cheap, and the services question is the one worth ten minutes: it wants procedure names, crowns through clear aligners, not a line reading general dentistry.
A new patient in dentistry is rarely one appointment. It is a recall cycle and often a household, which is why items this dull are worth an afternoon.
The questions you had to think about matter more than the total. If verification made you hesitate, put down not sure. That answer costs points, and it should, because nothing below it is worth doing until you know whose account the listing sits in. A high score here is unglamorous: verified, a primary category narrow enough to mean something, no blank fields, new photos in most months, reviews that keep landing and keep getting answered. A low one usually belongs to a profile that is accurate and abandoned, correct on the day it went up and untouched for four years, so the fixed items hold up while everything that needs a cadence sits near zero.
Two cautions. The order comes from points lost, so it says nothing about how hard a fix is or how quickly one books a chair. And it knows nothing about what surrounds the listing: the practice two blocks closer to the searcher, what your reviews actually say, or which of you a new patient's plan already lists. Every point value is listed on the main audit page. No dental benchmark is printed here, because there is none to print.
Both practices below are invented. They show what a result looks like, not what yours will say.
Take a two-dentist general practice. It is verified, the primary category is the broad Dentist entry, there is one secondary, and no field is blank. Dozens of reviews, the newest from earlier this year, replies whenever the office manager gets to them. About a dozen photos, none newer than the build-out. Posts now and then, a short services list, nothing in Q and A. The score comes back in the sixties, decent with gaps, and the ranked list opens with the primary category, then posts, then the empty Q and A. None of it is a rebuild: the category is a decision, and Q and A is writing the front desk already does out loud all day.
Now a practice that changed hands last year. The buyer cannot say whether the profile is verified in her name, because it still lives in the selling dentist's personal account, and a duplicate under the old practice name is where most of the reviews landed. Verification prints at the top, and nothing beneath it is trustworthy yet. Treat that as one job rather than six: find out which account holds the listing and get the duplicate sorted out, the same way you would chase down whose name is on the practice domain. Weekly posts do nothing while the reviews patients read sit on a listing you have no rights to.
Patients run a filter before they run a preference: who takes my plan. No profile is a good place for a full carrier list, so the work splits. The profile establishes that you exist, that you are open, and that people go there and say so. The description says whether you are taking new patients, and the page it links to answers coverage in plain text, dated, noting that plans change and get verified.
Then the name search: people look up the doctor rather than the practice, hunting reviews for that provider. Reviews land on the practice profile, so a review naming a single hygienist is what the next patient reads about the whole office. Last is logistics, starting with what happens to a call that lands after the office is dark. Q and A is the place to answer that, and an answering service is worth saying out loud. Grading the site those patients land on next is the website report card's job, and whether an assistant names your practice belongs to the AI visibility checker.
Most of the twelve are decisions, not purchases. Picking the primary category, writing out the procedure list, seeding Q and A and turning messaging on take one afternoon between patients. Verification is the item you start and then wait on, so file it before anything else. What breaks down is the recurring half: a photo and a post are a few minutes that have to happen again next month, and next month the front desk is holding a line and a chart at the same time.
The other route is to hand it off. Ongoing local SEO that carries the profile work runs $1,500 to $3,500/month for most practices, and $3,500 to $7,500/month in competitive metros or multi-location groups, month to month, with the profile and the accounts in your name. The practice version sits on the dental and medical page, the numbers on the cost answer for practices, and what should you pay takes the budget question on its own. When reviews are the block that scored worst, the ask has to fit inside a chairside handoff. That is the thinking behind a one-tap review-request tool we built for a New Jersey glass and mirror shop, and a practice already phoning patients for recall has a moment ready to attach it to.
No. It never touches Google, never asks for a login, and never reads your listing. You answer twelve questions about a profile you can see in another tab and the page grades your answers. Nothing about a patient is asked, so nothing about a patient goes in. A guess moves the number.
Score the one patients actually reach, the profile carrying your reviews and your phone number. If there are two and you are not certain which that is, the uncertainty is the finding and it outranks everything else on the list. Duplicates usually trace back to a practice sale, a suite move, or a vendor who set one up years ago.
They can sit on the profile, but they are clinical images before they are marketing ones, so get written permission for each one and check what your state board's advertising rules ask for before any of them go up. Do not retouch them either, because retouching turns a photograph into a claim about the work. For the photo question the room and the team do more anyway, since the patient still deciding is picturing the chair, not the crown.
No, and nothing here says it will. The twelve questions cover the part of the profile you control. Distance from the person searching, which practices are already established around them, and the rest of what your business has built are not in the score. It tells you what to fix, not where you will land.
Yes, once per profile, and expect the scores to differ more than you would guess. The second location usually shares a website and a phone system with the first while getting a fraction of the photos, the posts and the reviews. Keep them as two profiles, one pin per address with its own hours, photos and reviews, or neither office holds a position of its own.
Google Business Profile Audit: full tool page and methodology · Marketing for dentists and dental practices · SEO cost for dentists and dental practices · AI Visibility Checker for Dentists · Website Report Card for Dentists · What Should You Pay? for Dentists · Review Response Writer for Dentists · All free tools
The profile is not a project that finishes, it is a small standing job, and it runs month to month with the listing and the accounts staying in your name. Kelly WM is Orlando-based, working with local service businesses nationwide since 2008. Ask for the free concept mockup of the page your listing points patients at, and it is yours to keep either way.
Book a free consultation → Or call/text directly: (407) 694-2055Tell us a little about the business and we will come back with an honest read: what we would fix first, what it costs, and whether you need us at all. Prefer to see work before you talk numbers? Get a free homepage mockup, built for your business, yours to keep either way.
Brandon reads every one of these himself. You will hear back shortly with an honest read on what we would do first, what it costs, and whether it is worth it for you.