How can I tell if a dental SEO agency is legitimate?

Run three simple tests: (1) Ask if you own your domain and can take your site with you if you cancel. (2) Ask to see another client's site and check if it looks identical to what they're proposing for you. (3) Look up their client's domain on WHOIS to see if the agency or the dentist owns it. Legitimate agencies pass all three.

Should I sign a long-term contract with a dental marketing agency?

Generally, no. Month-to-month agreements protect you and force the agency to earn your business every month. Long contracts (12-24 months) primarily benefit the agency by guaranteeing revenue even if results are poor. Some setup fees are reasonable, but ongoing work should be month-to-month.

What is a proprietary CMS and why is it a red flag?

A proprietary CMS is a website builder that only the agency controls. If you cancel, your site disappears because it's built on their platform, not standard technology. You can't export it, hire another developer to work on it, or take it with you. It creates dependency by design.

How do I check if my dental website has duplicate content?

Take a unique sentence from your website's service page (like your 'About Our Dental Implants' section) and search it in quotes on Google. If the exact same text appears on other dental websites, your agency is using template content across multiple clients. This hurts your SEO because Google devalues duplicate content.

What should a dental SEO agency report include?

Meaningful reports should include actual keyword ranking changes (for specific terms, not just your practice name), organic traffic trends from Google Analytics, Google Business Profile performance (calls, direction requests, views), new backlinks acquired, and content published. If the report is just a PDF with green arrows and no actionable data, it's a vanity report.

How much should dental SEO cost per month?

Legitimate ongoing dental SEO ranges from $500-3,000/month depending on the scope. Below $500/month, there's not enough budget to do meaningful work. Above $3,000/month, you should be getting aggressive content creation, backlink outreach, and measurable growth. Always ask exactly what deliverables you're getting for the price.

Can I do dental SEO myself instead of hiring an agency?

You can handle some aspects yourself — especially Google Business Profile optimization and review generation. But technical SEO, content strategy, and backlink building require expertise and time most dentists don't have. The key is owning your foundation (domain, hosting, website files) so you're never dependent on any single provider.

What questions should I ask a dental SEO agency before hiring them?

The five critical questions are: (1) If I cancel, does my website stay online? (2) Can I export my website files? (3) Do I own my domain registration? (4) Show me another client's site (check for identical templates). (5) What specific deliverables will I receive each month? The answers to these questions will tell you more than any sales pitch.

agency comparison

How to Evaluate a Dental SEO Agency — A Practical Framework (From Someone Who Competes With Them)

By Garrett Gunther · March 28, 2026

Let me get the bias disclosure out of the way immediately: I run Groundwork Dental. We compete with the agencies I’m about to help you evaluate. I have a financial incentive for you to choose us over them.

That said, the framework I’m about to give you is genuinely useful regardless of whether you ever become our client. These are the same tests and questions I’d tell a friend to use, and they work whether you’re evaluating us, a large dental marketing agency, or a local freelancer.

Use this framework on us, too. We pass every test I’m about to describe — but don’t take my word for it. Verify.

The Red Flags

Let’s start with what should make you walk away.

1. Proprietary CMS or Platform

If the agency builds your website on their own proprietary platform, you are renting your online presence, not owning it. When you cancel, your site disappears because it was never really yours — it lived on their servers, built with their tools, inaccessible to anyone else.

This is the single biggest red flag in dental marketing, and it’s disturbingly common. The agency frames it as a feature (“our custom platform is optimized for dental!”) when it’s actually a lock-in mechanism.

A real website is built on standard technology — WordPress, Astro, Next.js, static HTML — something that any developer can work with. You should be able to export your files, move your hosting, and hire someone else without starting over.

We’ve written extensively about why agencies lock you in and how to avoid it.

2. Agency-Owned Domain

This one shocks people when they discover it. Some agencies register your domain name under their account, not yours. If you cancel, they own your web address. You’d need to negotiate — or pay — to get your own practice name back.

How to check: Go to whois.com and look up your domain. The registrant should be you or your practice, not your marketing agency.

If your agency owns your domain, this is an immediate problem you need to resolve.

3. Long-Term Contracts

12-month, 24-month, even 36-month contracts. The agency will tell you “SEO takes time, so we need a long commitment.” And they’re right that SEO takes time — but that’s not why they want the contract.

They want the contract because it guarantees revenue whether or not they deliver results. A confident agency that does good work doesn’t need to lock you in for two years. They earn your business month after month.

Some setup fees with a short initial commitment (3 months) are reasonable — there’s real work in building a site or doing an initial SEO overhaul. But ongoing work should be month-to-month.

4. “Custom Pricing” With No Published Rates

If an agency won’t tell you what things cost until they get you on a sales call, there’s a reason. They’re pricing based on how much they think you’ll pay, not what the work actually costs.

Legitimate businesses publish their prices. You know what a Toyota costs before you walk into the dealership. We publish our pricing because we think you should know what you’re buying before you talk to anyone.

5. Template Sites Reused Across Clients

Ask the agency to show you 5 client websites. Then actually look at them. Do they all look the same? Same layout, same structure, same stock photos, just different logos and colors?

Template sites aren’t inherently terrible — a good template is better than a bad custom site. But if you’re paying $5,000-15,000 for what the agency calls a “custom website” and it looks identical to their other clients’ sites, you’re overpaying for a template.

6. Generic, Duplicated Content

This is the test most people skip but shouldn’t. Go to one of your website’s service pages. Find a distinctive sentence — something from the middle of the page, not the heading. Copy it and search it in Google with quotes around it.

If that exact sentence appears on three other dental websites, your “custom content” is template copy that the agency pastes into every client’s site. Google knows this too, and duplicate content hurts your rankings.

The Green Flags

Now, what should make you feel good about an agency:

You own your domain. Registered to you, paid by you, accessible by you.

You own your hosting. Or at minimum, your website files are exportable and portable.

Month-to-month after any initial setup period. They’re confident enough in their work to let you leave.

Transparent pricing. Published rates or a clear rate card. No mystery until the sales call.

Unique content. Your website’s text doesn’t appear on any other website when you search for it.

Measurable deliverables. They can tell you exactly what they’ll deliver each month — content pieces, links built, pages optimized — not vague “SEO management.”

They’ll talk to you about what’s not working. Good agencies proactively tell you when something needs to change. Bad agencies send you green-arrow reports and hope you don’t ask questions.

Five Questions That Reveal Everything

You can evaluate almost any dental marketing agency by asking these five questions. The answers — and how they respond to being asked — tell you everything.

1. “If I cancel, does my website stay online?”

The right answer is an unqualified yes. Your site stays up, you keep your files, nothing changes except they stop doing ongoing work.

If there’s any hesitation, conditions, or “well, our platform…” — that’s your answer.

2. “Can I export my website files?”

You should be able to get a complete copy of your website — all files, all images, all content — that a different developer could deploy somewhere else. If the answer is no, you don’t own your website. You’re renting it.

3. “Do I own my domain registration?”

Check this yourself on WHOIS, but also ask them directly. Watch their reaction. A good agency will say “of course” without blinking. A bad one will explain why it’s “easier” for them to manage it for you.

4. “Show me another client’s site.”

Then actually look at it. Compare it to what they’re proposing for you. Is it the same template? Same layout? Open both sites side by side. Check the content — is the wording suspiciously similar?

5. “What specific deliverables will I receive each month?”

“SEO management” is not a deliverable. “Social media management” is not specific. You want to hear things like: “4 blog posts per month, 2 GBP posts per week, monthly technical audit, quarterly backlink outreach campaign.” Concrete, countable things you can verify actually happened.

Three Tests You Can Run Right Now

If you already have a dental marketing agency, here are three tests you can run in the next 10 minutes.

The WHOIS Test

Go to whois.com. Enter your practice’s domain name. Look at the registrant information. If the agency’s name appears instead of yours, you have a problem.

The PageSpeed Test

Go to pagespeed.insights.dev (or Google “PageSpeed Insights”) and enter your website URL. Look at the mobile score. If it’s below 50, your agency is not maintaining your site’s technical health. Below 30 means the site has serious performance issues that are actively hurting your rankings.

For context, a well-built dental website should score 80+ on mobile. The sites we build at Groundwork typically score 90+.

The Duplicate Content Test

Pick a service page on your site — dental implants, for example. Find a sentence from the middle of the page. Search it in quotes on Google.

If you see that exact sentence on other dental websites, your agency is copy-pasting content across clients. This means you’re not just getting a template design — you’re getting template words. Google recognizes duplicate content and devalues it. Your “custom” page is competing against identical copies of itself.

What Good Dental Marketing Actually Looks Like

A good agency or provider (including us, but not only us):

Builds your site on technology you can take with you
Registers your domain in your name
Doesn’t require long-term contracts for ongoing work
Publishes pricing or gives you a clear rate card upfront
Creates unique content for your practice — not template copy
Reports on metrics that actually matter (rankings for real keywords, organic traffic, calls from search)
Tells you when something isn’t working and adjusts strategy
Wants you to stay because the work is good, not because a contract forces you to

This isn’t a high bar. It’s basic business ethics applied to an industry that’s gotten away with ignoring them for years.

The Bias Revisited

I told you at the top that I compete with these agencies. That’s true. And our model — flat-rate pricing, you own everything, no contracts, AI-powered efficiency — is designed specifically to address the problems I’ve described here.

But this framework works regardless of whether you hire us. Use it on every agency you talk to. Use it on your current agency. Use it on us.

The practices that thrive are the ones that own their foundation, work with providers who earn their business, and understand enough about how this industry works to avoid the traps.

Now you have the framework. Use it.