LOCAL SEO / DENTISTS
Dental marketing in Australia runs into a rule many agencies have never read: the National Law bans using patient testimonials in your advertising, with penalties running to $60,000. The practices winning local search build rankings from the assets that are allowed, and that is a different playbook from the one generic agencies run.
Patients can say what they like on Google, and those reviews help you rank. What a practice cannot do is reuse clinical praise in its own advertising. We build review volume where it is allowed and keep your site and replies inside the AHPRA guidelines.
Emergency, open-today and bulk-billing searches convert on the spot from the map pack. Cosmetic searches are researched for weeks before anyone calls. Different pages for different jobs, each built on proven volume.
About one in eight Australian practices is corporate-owned and the share is climbing, with head-office marketing behind each one. The map pack is where an independent out-positions a chain, because proximity, profile and reviews decide it, and none of those can be bought.
Categories, services, photos, hours and posts maintained properly. Profile signals are the strongest factor group in local rankings, and most practices set theirs once at opening and never again.
Family dentistry in one suburb, whitening in another. Pages built where demand is proven in the search data, not a template stamped across the map.
FOR DENTISTS
The National Law bans using testimonials in advertising a regulated health service, and since the penalties were raised they run to $60,000 for an individual and $120,000 for a company. The line matters: a testimonial is a positive statement about the clinical side of care. Comments about parking, friendliness or a calm front desk are not testimonials, and patients can post whatever they like on platforms you do not control.
In practice that settles the strategy. Reviews stay where they were written, which is where Google reads them anyway. Your own site and social pages carry no clinical praise, replies to reviews never discuss treatment, and any reviews function on a channel you control stays switched off. Cosmetic work has its own tighter guidelines since September 2025, so anything in that lane gets a compliance check before it gets published.
FOR DENTISTS
The search data splits three ways. Emergency and open-today searches convert straight from the map pack, often within the hour. Family and bulk-billing searches are decided on convenience and cost signals. Cosmetic searches are researched for weeks, across several practices, before anyone books a consult. One page cannot serve all three, which is why a single homepage never ranks for the spread.
Meanwhile about one in eight Australian practices is corporate-owned and the share keeps climbing, with head-office marketing behind every new site. The map pack is the equaliser: it is decided by proximity, profile quality and review momentum, none of which can be bought. University of Sydney research found most patients still trust a recommendation from someone they know over any advertisement, and the person given your name looks you up before calling. Local search is where the recommendation and the ranking meet.
THE FIRST 90 DAYS
Start with an audit of how the practice actually appears: the profile, the reviews, the rankings for emergency, family and cosmetic terms in your suburbs, and anything on the site the guidelines would frown at. The plan runs 90 days and is measured in enquiries rather than screenshots.
Book the callA compliance pass over the site and socials, then the Google Business Profile rebuilt properly: categories, services, photos, hours, and a reply pattern that never touches clinical content.
A compliant review ask goes into the front-desk routine, and the first suburb and service pages go live for the searches with proven volume.
Emergency and open-today pages tuned for the map pack, cosmetic pages built for the research phase, and call tracking so every ranking is judged by the bookings it produced.
The review base compounds, pages extend to the next suburbs, and anything the data says is not earning its place gets fixed or removed.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ENQUIRE
Pick a time and bring one workflow. Nothing is charged, and there is no form maze or sales script to sit through.
We look at your real figures, work out what the issue is costing you and pick the first thing worth fixing. If it does not stack up, we say so.
One workflow examined and one honest recommendation, whether or not you hire SevenLens. No obligation and no follow-up pressure.
CLIENT REFERENCE
Every project has solved a real business problem and saved a huge amount of manual work. We own everything we paid for, and we stay because we like working with Stuart, not because we are locked in.
WHO YOU WORK WITH
SevenLens is founder-led. Stuart Asta designs, builds and stands behind every engagement, with no account managers and no handovers.
You own everything: the code, the accounts, the data and the documentation. Another provider could take over tomorrow. Clients stay because the work earns its place, not because they are locked in.
About SevenLensHOW PRICING WORKS
SevenLens does not sell packages off a shelf. Every engagement starts with a dollar figure on the problem it solves, so you see the return before you commit. If the maths does not stack up, we tell you before you spend, not after.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Reviews sitting on Google are fine, and that is where they help your ranking. Reusing reviews that praise clinical care in your own advertising, including on your website, is what the National Law prohibits, with penalties to $60,000 for an individual. The compliant play is to grow the reviews where they live, reply carefully, and quote only non-clinical comments if you quote at all.
It takes longer where established practices already rank, and anyone promising the map pack in a month is guessing. The honest sequence: profile and reviews first, suburb pages next. The immediate-intent searches, emergency and open-today, tend to move well before the big cosmetic terms do.
Yes. The guidelines govern what your advertising says, not whether you rank. A practice can compete for searches as hard as it likes; it just cannot use clinical testimonials, misleading claims or inducements while doing it. Good local SEO for a practice is built inside those lines from the first page.
Treat them as regulated content. The cosmetic procedure guidelines that took effect in September 2025 tighten what practitioners can show and to whom, so anything in that lane should be checked against the current guidance before publishing. Nothing on the ranking side depends on it.
Google Business Profile changes can show within weeks. Organic rankings for competitive local terms usually build over two to four months, which is why we track calls and enquiries from the start rather than waiting on rankings alone.
Yes, all of it. The code, accounts, data and documentation are yours from day one. There is no lock-in, and another provider could take over if you ever wanted.
Stuart Asta, the founder. The person on your first call designs the work and stands behind it, with no account managers, no handovers and no offshore team you never meet.
We will tell you on the first call. A clear no is more useful than the wrong project, and it costs you nothing to find out where you stand.
WHERE TO START
Bring the searches you want to win. On a short call we will check how you rank for them now, what is holding the position back and whether local SEO is the fastest way to more patients, or whether something else pays back sooner.
Book a call