Case study · 90-day engagement
A Denver dental practice had two empty operatories every day for the last six months. They had no paid traffic running, ranked #5 on the local map, and had been quietly losing new patients to two corporate dental chains that had moved into the neighborhood. The owner had been told by two previous agencies that "dental SEO takes a year."
The challenge
Dental practices live and die by chair utilization. An empty chair is not zero revenue: it is negative revenue because you are paying the assistant, the hygienist, and the rent regardless. Two empty chairs a day at this practice was costing roughly $1,400 in lost daily margin.
The audit:
Two previous agencies had told the owner that organic dental SEO takes 12-18 months and pitched expensive content production retainers. That is true if you are not running paid in parallel. We were running paid by week 2.
The plan
Filed the application Tuesday, license + insurance verification cleared by Friday, profile live the following Tuesday. We bid aggressively on emergency dentistry and crowns initially because those have the highest LTV. Cost per lead settled at $22 within two weeks.
Built a single-purpose new-patient page covering: what your first visit looks like, the new-patient special ($89 cleaning + exam + xrays), accepted insurance plans listed by name, parking and accessibility info, a calendar embed for self-booking. Page replaced the About page as the primary paid traffic destination.
Added Q&A pairs for the 14 most common new-patient questions. Started weekly posting of patient before/afters with consent. Set up a review-request SMS to fire the day after each appointment. Reviews started coming in 2-3 a week.
Built dedicated pages for each zip the practice serves: Wash Park, Cherry Creek, Hilltop, Cap Hill, RiNo, LoHi, Berkeley, Sloan's Lake, Park Hill. Each covered local context and the practice's relevant patient base in that neighborhood.
FAQ schema on the new-patient page (insurance, pricing, first visit, sedation options). Dentist schema with the practice's real credentials. Service schema for general dentistry, cosmetic, emergency, sedation, and Invisalign.
AI tools we used
We do not pretend the work happens by hand. Three of our internal tools are the reason this engagement moved as fast as it did. Each of them replaces what used to be days of human time.
Pre-fills the LSA application from the existing GBP and license records. Cuts the application time from 4 hours to 25 minutes.
Pulls the most-common questions from the practice's actual call log and inquiry forms, then writes FAQ schema-ready entries. Caught the "do you take Delta Dental" question that the website had never answered.
Fires a personalized review request SMS the day after each appointment. About 38% of patients leave a review within 48 hours.
The execution
| Week | What we shipped | What moved |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | LSA application submitted + license/insurance verification | Profile approved by day 9 |
| Week 2 | New-patient landing page live + LSA traffic begins | First booked new patient by day 12 |
| Week 2-4 | GBP cleanup, Q&A pairs, posting cadence, review SMS bot | Review velocity 2-3/week |
| Week 4-10 | 9 zip-code service-area pages shipped | Local long-tail traffic +52% MoM |
| Week 8 | Schema rollout: FAQ, Dentist, Service | Rich results begin appearing |
| Day 64 | Calendar fully booked, waitlist starts | Two open chairs problem solved |
| Week 12 | Retainer continues, second hygienist hired | New patient rate stable at +71/mo |
The numbers
The +71 new patients per month came from:
The previous agency timeline of "12-18 months for SEO" was technically correct for organic-only. The LSA channel produced revenue starting week 2 and bought the time for the SEO work to compound. Both channels continue to feed the practice. The owner hired a second hygienist in month four.
Two agencies told me to wait a year. The first booked new patient came the second week. The chairs are full. I do not really understand what changed but I understand the calendar.
Keep reading
Thirty minutes. We pull up your account on screen. We tell you what we would do, what we would not do, and whether we are the right fit for your business.