A dental practice's
first 30 days.

In most businesses, marketing runs without the owner reading every word. In dentistry, whoever authorises the advertising carries it. Ahpra's guidelines say the advertiser is whoever controls the content, and practitioners stay responsible for advertising made by staff or marketing agencies.

The Dental Board's own audit found about two-thirds of dental practitioners advertising online, with almost one in five appearing to breach at least one part of the guidelines. Most of those slips are small: a 'specialist' that shouldn't be there, a special with no terms, a glowing review about a treatment result.

So this plan marks the tasks a registered dentist should read and approve. The practice manager can do the work. The dentist signs it off.

Tick as you go. Tasks marked 'Dentist signs off' build a list to hand over. Ticks are saved in this browser only.

Read every page and recent post for four things: 'specialist' or 'specialises' without specialist registration, testimonials about treatment or results, offers without terms, and payment plans without the total. There are 13 recognised dental specialties, and cosmetic dentistry isn't one of them.

Reviews need the most care. Patients can say what they like on review sites, but the practice is responsible for reviews on a website it controls, and Ahpra says comments about customer service are fine while comments about symptoms, treatment or outcomes are testimonials. 'Friendly front desk, easy parking' can stay. 'My implant feels better than my real teeth' can't.

Write down what you changed and the date, then have the dentist sign it off. Next time a page goes up, the same check takes ten minutes.

Check the Google Business Profile: the right category, hours including any early, late or Saturday times, phone and booking link. Google's guidelines allow profiles for individual practitioners with their own customer base, one each, and not for support staff, so decide whether each dentist will have one and keep them consistent with the practice's.

Then test booking as a patient would. If someone in Charlestown wants a Thursday 5:30 appointment, can they see it and take it without ringing? Put the phone number as a tap-to-call link at the top of every page, because plenty of patients, nervous ones especially, would rather call.

Write the after-hours line plainly: who to call, and when to go to hospital. Keep it general rather than telling people what can wait, as the dental AI search page explains.

Add typical fees for common items, with what changes them. Any price you show must be a single total that includes unavoidable fees, at least as prominent as any part-price. Say which funds you can claim through on the spot, without promising a rebate the patient's policy may not pay.

If you bulk bill the Child Dental Benefits Schedule, explain it in one line: eligible children can get up to $1,158 over two years for periods starting on 1 January 2026. Link to Services Australia for who's eligible, rather than promising it.

Then fix recall consent. Put two boxes on the new patient form, one for appointment reminders and one for news and offers. Marketing messages need consent you can prove, your details and an unsubscribe actioned within 5 working days. The recalls page has a checker for draft messages.

Write down last month's new patients and where each came from: Google profile, website, ads, referral, walk-in. Ask at the front desk and record the answer in the practice software. It's the only way to know what's working.

If you run Google Ads, track booked appointments rather than clicks, and send them back to Google Ads as offline conversions where you can. Keep treatment names out of anything a tracking tag can read. Google treats health conditions, treatments and procedures as a sensitive category, so for ads about them Customer Match and lookalike audiences aren't available anyway.

Then pick one treatment you want more of, check its page passes the week one wording check, and point a small search campaign at it. Judge it on booked patients after a month, not on clicks.