Short answer: a Google Business Profile brings a dental practice new patients when it’s complete and accurate, shows real recent photos of your office and team, earns a steady trickle of genuine reviews from every patient (not just the happy ones), and gets thoughtful replies that never mention a patient’s treatment. Posts help people who land on your profile, but Google doesn’t list them as a ranking factor. And the old built-in Google chat is gone: since July 31, 2024, “messages” on your profile means a text or WhatsApp option you have to set up, and someone has to answer it fast.

This guide is for women-led dental practices (and the office managers who run them) who want their profile to do more than sit there. It’s what we look at first when a practice asks us why the phone isn’t ringing.

Why your Google Business Profile matters more than your ads at first

When someone searches “dentist near me” or “emergency dentist” on their phone, the map results and your profile are often the first thing they see, before your website and before most ads. If the profile looks thin, out of date or has a handful of old reviews, a lot of people simply tap the next practice.

Google is open about what drives those local results. Its own help page says local ranking is “mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity,” and that “more reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking” (Google Business Profile Help: Tips to improve your local ranking). The same page is clear there’s no way to pay for a better local ranking.

You can’t change distance. You can change relevance (how complete and accurate your profile is) and prominence (reviews, ratings and how well known you are around the web). That’s where the work goes.

It also matters for paid ads. If you run Google Ads, a strong profile backs up what the ad promises. We cover how Google and Meta ads fit together for practices in Google Ads vs Meta ads for dental practices.

Step 1: Get the basics complete and accurate

This sounds boring, but it’s the part most practices get wrong. Google says businesses “with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results.” Check each of these:

• Verification. Make sure the profile is verified and owned by the practice, not a former employee or an old agency. Your photos and posts don’t even show until the profile is verified.
• Primary category. Pick the category that matches what you most want to be found for (for example a general dentist vs a cosmetic dentist or orthodontist), then add secondary categories that are genuinely true.
• Hours, including special hours. Holiday hours and early or late days matter. Nothing loses a patient faster than driving to a closed office.
• Phone number that gets answered. Calls from your profile still come through, even though Google removed call history from the profile in 2024 (Google: changes to Business Profile chat and call history). If you want to know how many calls your profile drives, use call tracking in your CRM.
• Website and booking link. Point the link to a page that makes booking easy, not your homepage’s slideshow. Our guide to what a medical or dental practice website needs to turn clicks into booked appointments covers that page in detail.
• Services and attributes. List the services you actually want more of (implants, Invisalign, whitening, emergency visits, pediatric) and fill in attributes like accessibility and parking.
• Description. A plain-English paragraph about who you serve and what makes the practice different. No keyword stuffing.

Step 2: Photos that make people book

Photos won’t trick Google into ranking you higher, but they do a lot of the persuading once someone lands on your profile. A nervous patient wants to see what it’s like to walk in.

Google’s guidelines ask for JPG or PNG files between 10 KB and 5 MB, recommended at 720 by 720 pixels, and photos that are “in focus and well lit” with “no significant alterations or excessive use of filters. In other words, the image should represent reality” (Google: manage your Business Profile photos and videos). Videos can be up to 30 seconds.

What we’d shoot for a dental practice:

• The outside and the entrance, so people recognize the building and know where to park.
• The front desk and waiting area, ideally with your team in shot, looking like themselves.
• A treatment room, clean and calm, so it feels less scary.
• The dentist(s) and hygienists, with their permission.
• A short walk-through video from the door to the chair.

Two cautions. First, don’t post photos of patients, smiles or before-and-afters without proper written authorization; that’s a privacy question, not just a marketing one. Second, skip stock photos. They don’t represent reality, and patients can tell.

Add a few new photos every month or two so the profile looks alive. A phone and good window light is plenty.

Step 3: Ask for reviews the right way (every patient, no gating)

Reviews are the part that moves the needle most, and also the part where practices most often break Google’s rules without realizing it.

Google’s Maps content policy says merchants may not “offer incentives – such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services – in exchange for posting any review,” and may not “discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers.” It also says you shouldn’t pressure people to review while they’re on the premises or ask staff to collect a set number of reviews or reviews that name a staff member (Google Maps User Generated Content Policy: prohibited and restricted content).

That rules out a few common tactics:

• Review gating. Sending a “How did we do?” survey and only sending the 5-star people to Google. That’s selectively soliciting positive reviews.
• Raffles or discounts for reviews. “Leave us a review and get entered to win an electric toothbrush” is an incentive.
• Staff review quotas or “please mention Jessica by name.”

Google says profiles caught with fake or incentivized reviews can be restricted, from not being able to receive new reviews to having existing reviews unpublished for a period, with a public warning on the profile (Google Maps Content Trust & Safety Report).

What does work

Ask every patient, the same way, at the right moment. In practice that looks like:

1. A text a few hours after the appointment with a direct link to your review form. One short line, warm, no pressure: “Thanks for coming in today. If you have a minute, we’d love your honest feedback on Google.”
2. One gentle reminder a few days later if they haven’t left one. Then stop.
3. The same message to everyone, automated in your CRM so nobody is picking and choosing.

Make sure patients have agreed to receive texts from you, and keep review requests separate from anything that mentions their treatment. The FCC’s consumer guide on unwanted calls and texts is a good plain-English starting point on consent.

This is the same automation thinking we use for lead follow-up. If you haven’t set that up yet, our guide to patient lead follow-up for medical practices walks through speed-to-lead and missed-call text-back.

Step 4: Reply to reviews without disclosing patient information

Google says replying to reviews “shows that you value their feedback” (Google). For a dental practice, though, how you reply matters as much as whether you reply.

In 2022, HHS’s Office for Civil Rights settled with a California dental practice that had responded to online reviews with patient names, treatment details and insurance information. The practice paid $23,000 and agreed to a corrective action plan. OCR’s director put it bluntly: “Providers cannot disclose protected health information of their patients when responding to negative online reviews. This is a clear NO.” (HHS: settlement with dental practice over disclosures in online reviews).

Even confirming that a reviewer is your patient can be a problem. A safe pattern:

• Positive review: “Thank you so much for the kind words. We really appreciate you taking the time.” Don’t add “Glad your crown is feeling better!”
• Negative review: “We’re sorry to hear this. We take all feedback seriously and would welcome the chance to talk. Please call our office manager at [practice number].” No details, no defending the treatment, no arguing in public.

Write a short reply policy, train whoever answers reviews, and keep the replies generic and kind. This is general information, not legal advice; check your approach with your compliance advisor. For the bigger picture on privacy and online marketing, see our guide to HIPAA and online ads for medical, dental and wellness practices.

Step 5: Should you turn on messaging?

A lot of older advice still talks about Google’s built-in chat. That feature is gone. Google says that “as of July 31, 2024, the chat and call history features are no longer available in your Business Profile” (Google).

What’s left: a verified profile can add a text message or WhatsApp contact option, in select regions, under Edit profile, then Contact, then Chat (Google: chat with customers from your Business Profile). The conversation then happens in normal texting, not inside Google.

Our view for most practices: turn on the text option only if that number goes into a system your team watches all day (a shared CRM inbox, not one person’s mobile), with an instant auto-reply and a clear handoff to booking. A text option nobody answers is worse than none at all. And train the team not to discuss clinical details by text unless your setup and policies support it.

Step 6: Use posts for people, not for rankings

Google Business Profile posts come in three types: updates, offers and events. Updates can include a photo and a button that links to a page where people can book. Posts older than six months are archived unless they have a date range, and Google reviews every post before it goes live (Google: create and manage posts on your Business Profile).

Google doesn’t list posts in its local ranking factors, so treat them as a way to help the person already looking at your profile decide. Some ideas for a dental practice:

• New patient appointments available this month, with a “Book” button.
• Meet a new hygienist (with their permission).
• Holiday hours or same-day emergency availability.
• A short answer to a common question, like what happens at a first visit.

Two things to watch: posts with a phone number in the text can be rejected if Google can’t verify it belongs to the business, and Google’s posts guidance asks regulated industries, including health and medical devices, not to include content about those products. Keep posts about your practice, team and availability.

How often? There’s no official number. Once or twice a month is realistic for most busy offices, and better than a burst followed by silence.

A simple monthly routine

Here’s a rhythm a front-desk lead or office manager can run in about an hour a month, once the automation is in place:

• Weekly: reply to every new review using your approved templates.
• Monthly: add 3–5 new photos, publish one or two posts, check hours and holiday hours.
• Monthly: check the profile’s performance (calls, website clicks, direction requests) and compare against booked new patients in your CRM.
• Quarterly: review categories, services and the description, and check that no one has suggested edits that changed your details.

If you also want to strengthen the website side of local search, our post on the biggest things you need to know about SEO is a good companion read.

Where She Reigns Creative fits

We help women-led practices turn local visibility into booked appointments: a profile that’s complete and honest, review requests that run automatically for every patient, follow-up that catches every call and text, and paid ads on Google and Meta that build on all of it rather than covering up the gaps.

If you’d like us to look at your profile and tell you what we’d fix first, book a call with us here.

FAQ

How often should a dental practice post on Google Business Profile?

Google doesn’t set a frequency, and posts aren’t listed as a ranking factor. Once or twice a month is a sustainable pace for most offices. Posts without a date range are archived after six months, so keep at least one recent one live.

Can we offer a discount or raffle entry for Google reviews?

No. Google’s Maps content policy doesn’t allow incentives such as payment, discounts or free goods or services in exchange for reviews, and profiles found doing it can be restricted.

Is it OK to only ask happy patients for a review?

No. Google prohibits selectively soliciting positive reviews, which includes “review gating” surveys that send only satisfied patients to Google. Ask every patient the same way.

Can we reply to a negative review and explain what happened?

Not with any patient details. HHS has settled with a dental practice that disclosed patient information in review replies. Keep replies generic, apologetic and move the conversation offline. This is general information, not legal advice.

Does Google Business Profile still have messaging?

The built-in Google chat ended on July 31, 2024. In select regions, verified profiles can add a text message or WhatsApp option instead. Only turn it on if your team can answer quickly from a shared inbox.