Ask Maps for dentists:will Google Maps name your practice?

What the answer needs: A time and a capability at once: exact hours for today, “Emergency appointment” listed as a service, and one sentence in the description saying when emergency slots are held. Hours without the service make you just a dentist that happens to be open.

What the answer needs: A considered purchase, so the question carries price and trust. A “Dental implants” service with two lines on what the first consultation covers and a starting price gives Gemini something specific. An implant page on your website confirms it.

What the answer needs: Most family practices are not paediatric practices, so the category will not carry this. Say in the description and services that you see children, from what age, and whether siblings can be booked together. Parents’ reviews of a calm first visit are the evidence Gemini can quote.

What the answer needs: Sedation is a service you can list; “gentle” is a claim only patients can make. Add IV or inhalation sedation if you offer it, and say if first appointments are longer or start with a conversation.

What the answer needs: Two facts in two places: the treatment in services, late opening in hours. If only Tuesdays and Thursdays run late, the hours must show exactly that. Name the brand only if you are a registered provider; otherwise “clear aligners” is the honest term.

What the answer needs: Answered almost entirely by attributes: wheelchair-accessible entrance, car park and toilet. Google offers them by category and country and asks you to set them only if you meet its criteria.

What the answer needs: Whether you take NHS patients, which plans you accept and whether your list is open change more often than anything else. Keep them in the description and current. A stale “accepting new patients” is the most damaging sentence Gemini can repeat: the patient rings and is turned away.

Pick the most specific primary category for the whole practice. For most general practices that is still “Dentist” or “Dental clinic”; a practice that only treats children belongs under “Pediatric dentist”. Then add a few categories for departments you really run: “Cosmetic dentist”, “Emergency dental service”, “Orthodontist”, “Dental implants periodontist”, “Endodontist” or “Oral surgeon”.

Category names change and differ by language, so choose from the list in your dashboard rather than from memory. Google advises a few additional categories, not one per treatment.

Rank Pilot does this: it compares your categories with the practices ranking around you and drafts the change for you to save.

One entry each: check-up, hygiene, emergency appointment, white fillings, root canal treatment, crowns, implants, clear aligners, whitening, sedation, children’s dentistry. Give each two lines of description and a starting price where you honestly can.

Rank Pilot does this: it drafts the treatments your profile is missing, with descriptions, for you to save.

Set regular hours, then special hours for every bank holiday before it arrives and for training days or closures. If emergency slots run at other times than routine appointments, add them under more hours instead of stretching the main hours.

Rank Pilot does this: hours are rebuilt with the rest of the profile and kept current after that.

Open Edit profile, then More, and go through each one that applies. Leave any you are unsure of blank rather than guessing: a wrong “wheelchair accessible” sends someone who cannot manage stairs to a door with steps.

Rank Pilot does this: it includes attributes in the profile it rebuilds, and keeps them current.

Gemini reads what patients write. “I was terrified and they talked me through every step” is exactly the evidence an anxious patient’s question needs.

General advice says to repeat the service in your reply. For a dentist that is wrong: a public reply naming a treatment confirms the reviewer was your patient. Thank them for their words, not the procedure, and never offer anything in return for a review.

Rank Pilot does this: it drafts a reply to every new review, pulled every four hours, naming no treatment and no patient. You save it, and with Autopilot on it goes out two hours later.

Upload recent photos of the entrance, reception and a treatment room. On your website, give each main treatment its own page, named as on the profile, saying who it suits and how to book.