Dental SEO that keeps within the rules

Belgium banned dentists from advertising of any kind from 1958 until 2018. That ended with one case. A Belgian dentist, Luc Vanderborght, was prosecuted for a sign outside his practice, a website that explained his treatments and a few ads in local papers. On 4 May 2017 the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that a general and absolute ban on all advertising for oral and dental care breaks EU law: the e-commerce directive rules out a ban on every online communication by a dentist, including the practice's own website, and the freedom to provide services rules out a total ban on advertising.

The Court did not open the door to everything. It accepted that protecting public health and the dignity of the profession can justify rules on the form and content of what dentists publish, because intensive or aggressive advertising, or messages that could mislead patients, can push people towards care they do not need. So every EU country now allows dentists to inform the public, and every country draws its own lines.

Belgium is a clear example of how those lines look. Since July 2022 a practice may publish practice information as long as it is truthful, objective, relevant, verifiable and scientifically grounded, does not lead to unnecessary treatment and does not aim to recruit patients, and it must name the dentist's specialist title. On top of that, Belgian law bans advertising to the public for implantable medical devices and for placing them.

Each page gets the question as its title, the answer in the first sentence and the steps after it. Google, and AI assistants that summarise search results, take over an answer that is short and clear. Read a page the way Google does with the SEO checker, and run through a whole site with the SEO checklist. Health is a field where Google looks hard at who writes a page; name the dentist, the title and the training, as E-E-A-T explains.

Reviews weigh on your place in the map, and patients read them before they book. Two rules hold in every country. Google bans rewards for reviews, including a discount or a free check-up, and bans selective asking: sending the review link only to the patients you expect to be happy. Reviews that break those rules disappear, sometimes in bulk; see can I buy Google reviews and why are Google reviews disappearing.

The second rule is confidentiality. A reply that mentions a date, a treatment or even confirms that the reviewer is a patient discloses health data in public. Keep every public reply short, friendly and general, and invite the person to call the practice. When a review can be removed and when it cannot is in can I remove Google reviews; a short link for your appointment confirmation comes from the Google review link generator.

In cities with many international residents, a large share of new patients search in English, and many look for a practice that explains fees, insurance and the first visit in their language before they call. A practice with real pages in English, not a translated summary, often stands almost alone in those searches. Each language needs its own pages and terms, tied together with hreflang; see multilingual website development.

Search ads can fill the months before your pages rank, as long as they stay information about the practice. A click on a dental term costs around 8 dollars on average in the United States; in Belgium medical terms mostly cost 1 to 4 euros a click.

Your forms are the last step. Health data is a special category under the GDPR, so a booking form asks for a name, a phone number and the kind of appointment, nothing more. What your privacy policy needs is in do I need a privacy policy.