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Episode: Your Orthodontist SEO Plan Isn’t Good Enough (here’s why)

Show: GrowOrtho

Hosts: Luke Infinger (HIP Creative) and James Kuck, SEO lead at HIP Creative

Published: [2026-06-09] · Last updated: [2026-06-09]

Summary: Ranking number one for “orthodontist in [your city]” starts on-page, with a full audit of your live website and Google Business Profile and a competitive analysis that finds the gaps against whoever currently ranks first. From there, authority is built through link building, which Luke and James call the real secret sauce: local citations on directories like Apple Maps, Yelp, Yellow Book and Brown Book with consistent name, address and phone number, then press release campaigns, then industry-relevant links from sites like Dentaltown. Which page you rank depends on your footprint. A practice with several offices in one metro should rank its homepage as the hub with neighborhood location pages feeding it, while a single-location practice or one with far-apart offices should power up individual location pages. A one-location practice that wants to reach a dozen nearby towns builds neighborhood supporting pages linked from an “areas we serve” section, and checks whether its town belongs to a larger market worth targeting. On the Google Business Profile, the move is to use a tool like GMB Everywhere to mirror the categories and services of the top-ranked competitor, then post on a weekly cadence.

Topics covered: on-page optimization, site and competitive audits, link building, local citations, NAP consistency, press releases, industry backlinks, single vs. multi-location ranking strategy, neighborhood supporting pages, Google Business Profile optimization, GBP posting strategy, local media kits, “Best of” award contests.

Key entities: Luke Infinger, James, HIP Creative, Google Business Profile, GMB Everywhere, Apple Maps, Yelp, Yellow Book, Brown Book, Dentaltown, Invisalign, Gannett, USA Today, chamber of commerce.

About the author

Luke Infinger is the founder of HIP Creative and co-creator of PracticeBeacon, where he has helped more than 500 dental and orthodontic practices nationwide grow, and is the bestselling author of The Scalable Practice, Front Desk Secrets, and The Ultimate Treatment Coordinator, Master Your Mindset. Connect with Luke on [https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-infinger-b36a001b/].

Every orthodontist who talks to us eventually asks the same thing: how do I rank number one for “orthodontist in my city,” and how do I stay there? Local SEO for orthodontists is not a single trick. It is on-page work on your website and Google Business Profile, then authority built through link building, applied in the right order for the footprint your practice actually has.

This post breaks down how Luke Infinger and James, the SEO lead at HIP Creative, approach that problem on the GrowOrtho podcast. It covers where to start, why link building does the heavy lifting, which page you should be trying to rank, and how to handle the awkward cases: one location serving a dozen towns, or several offices spread across a region.

The short version is that ranking is earned by closing the gap between your site and the practice currently sitting in the top spot, then out-building them on authority. Here is how that plays out step by step.

Key takeaways

  • Ranking starts on-page. Run a comprehensive audit of your live website and Google Business Profile, then a competitive analysis that identifies exactly what the number-one practice has that you are missing, and close that gap first.
  • Link building is what builds authority and is the hardest part to implement correctly. The order is citations first, then press, then industry-relevant links.
  • Start citations with business directories: Apple Maps, Yelp, and lesser-known local options like Yellow Book and Brown Book. Your name, address and phone number must match your Google Business Profile exactly.
  • Which page ranks depends on locations. Multiple offices in one metro means optimizing the homepage as the hub with neighborhood location pages under it. A single office or offices far apart means powering up individual location pages instead.
  • One location that wants to rank for many nearby communities should build neighborhood supporting pages linked from an “areas we serve” section, and research whether the town belongs to a larger market worth chasing.
  • Optimize the Google Business Profile completely, then use GMB Everywhere to copy the categories, services and descriptions of the top-ranked competitor and run a weekly posting strategy (Invisalign for teens one week, braces for kids the next).
  • To start backlinks locally, Google “local media kits,” buy placements that produce a real article and brand mention with a link, and enter “Best of” contests run by Gannett and USA Today for social proof plus a backlink.

Where does ranking number one for orthodontists actually start?

It starts on-page, before any link building. On-page means two things: the website itself and the Google Business Profile, which is the listing that powers the local map pack.

The step most practices skip is doing it in the right order. According to James, the correct first move is a comprehensive audit of your live site to find the gaps, paired with a competitive analysis of whoever currently ranks number one. The question that audit answers is specific: what does the top-ranked practice have on its website and its Google Business Profile that you do not? Once you know that, you fill the gap. That gap-closing is the on-page foundation everything else sits on.

How aggressive you have to be from there depends on your market. In a large, competitive city, on-page alone will not get you to the top. That is where authority comes in, built first through on-page topical authority and then through off-page link building.

Why does link building matter more than most practices realize?

Link building is the lever that actually moves authority over to your site, and it is the piece most practices hear about but do not know how to implement. Luke and James treat it as the real secret sauce behind a durable number-one ranking.

The sequence matters. Start with citations, which are your listings on business directories. Everyone knows the big ones like Apple Maps and Yelp, but there are usually local and secondary directories worth claiming too, including Yellow Book and Brown Book. Each one sends a signal and a link back to your site. The non-negotiable detail is consistency: your name, address and phone number (your NAP) has to line up exactly with your Google Business Profile across every listing.

The next tier up is press release campaigns, whether local PR in your own market or placements on a news outlet with strong authoritative metrics. The top tier is getting links from highly relevant, industry-specific sites. James names Dentaltown as the example: an industry-relevant site where strategic content can be placed with a link back to your website. That kind of link builds authority faster than a generic directory because the relevance signal is so strong.

Luke adds the community angle. Local chambers of commerce are a reliable source. Many will do a ribbon-cutting for a new or startup practice, and there are joint ventures and pay-to-play arrangements where you can earn a backlink plus a featured article. Done right, that reads as a real advertorial that benefits the community rather than an obvious paid link, which makes it more valuable.

How do you start a local backlink strategy from scratch?

The simplest entry point is a Google search. Search for terms like “local media kits” or “media kit” plus your town, and you will surface local sites that sell sponsored placements, often something like a localtown.com that offers a media kit, a blog feature, or a spot in a print magazine.

For SEO, the placement you actually want is an article written about your practice. James frames this around where AI search is heading: a brand mention on a high-authority platform, with the brand recognized and a link back to your site, is worth more than a bare link. Brand mentions feed the entity recognition that AI answer engines lean on.

The bigger editorials are harder to break into and usually require an organized outreach campaign, which is the kind of access an agency relationship buys you. But at the bare minimum, a quick Google search for local media kits is a legitimate place to start on your own.

Are “Best of” contests worth it for an orthodontic practice?

They can be, for two reasons that have nothing to do with whether the award means much on its own. Luke is candid that he is not a fan of these contests and sees many of them as money grabs, but the value is real.

Gannett owns most of the news sites and papers across the US and runs “Best of” contests, often through USA Today, alongside the local alt-weekly versions (“Best of the Coast,” “Best of the Bay,” and similar). Winning one gives you social proof you can use in your own marketing. It also earns you a backlink from the contest site to yours, which is a useful authority signal. So even if you are skeptical of the award itself, the link and the proof can justify entering.

Should your homepage or your location pages rank for your city?

This is the question multi-location practices get wrong, and the answer depends entirely on how many locations you have and how close together they are.

If you have multiple offices inside one city, optimize the homepage as the top hub for that city. The individual offices become neighborhood location pages that live under the homepage, with strong internal links pointing from those location pages back up to the homepage. That concentrates authority on the homepage, and the homepage is what you push to rank for the city term.

If you are a single location, or your offices are not close to each other, the hub strategy does not fit. There is no point trying to rank one homepage for a city when not everything lives in that city. In that case you still build overall domain authority, but you focus on powering up the individual location pages. An office in the city gets its own page built up, and an office an hour away gets a separate page built up for its own market.

How do you rank for multiple communities when you only have one location?

This is the classic small-town case: one office in a town like Eagan, Minnesota, with a dozen surrounding communities full of potential patients, but only the one location to work with.

The approach is to build up the single location page first, optimized for the home town, then spider out from it. You create neighborhood supporting pages for each of the surrounding communities, and from the main location page you add an “areas we serve” section that links out to all of them. That generates internal link volume flowing through the cluster, and every one of those neighborhood pages supports the main location.

James adds a second move worth checking: research whether the town is part of something bigger you are missing. If a small town sits inside a larger metro or named region with a much bigger population, there may be a larger market (he calls it the bigger whale) worth going after to pull in eyeballs from beyond the immediate town.

How should an orthodontic practice optimize its Google Business Profile?

Filling out the profile completely is table stakes. The strategy is in how you decide what to fill it with, and the move is to copy what is already winning.

Use a tool like GMB Everywhere to analyze the practices ranking number one and see exactly what they have set up. Look at their categories and make sure yours line up. Look at the services and treatments they list and confirm you offer and list the same ones. Check whether they have written descriptions on every service, and add descriptions to yours if so. You are matching the configuration of the top-ranked profile, not guessing.

Once the profile is built out with your hours, services and products, run a posting strategy. Google Business Profile lets you publish posts, and a regular cadence around specific topics keeps the listing active and optimized. James gives a concrete example: post about Invisalign for teens one week, then braces for kids the next. The activity itself is a signal, and each post is a chance to optimize around a specific treatment.

Frequently asked questions

Should my homepage or a location page rank for my city? It depends on your locations. If you have multiple offices inside one city, optimize the homepage as the hub and let location pages live under it with internal links pointing up to the homepage. If you have a single office, or offices that are far apart, focus on powering up individual location pages instead of forcing the homepage to rank for a city it does not fully cover.

I have one location but want to rank for several nearby towns. Is that possible? Yes. Build up your main location page first, then create neighborhood supporting pages for each surrounding community and link to them from an “areas we serve” section on the main page. Those internal links pass support through the cluster. Also check whether your town belongs to a larger metro or region worth targeting for the bigger population.

What is the fastest way to start building backlinks locally? Google “local media kits” for your area to find sites that sell article placements and features. Aim for a placement that produces a real article and brand mention with a link back to your site, not just a bare link. Bigger editorials usually require an organized outreach campaign to break into.

What tool helps optimize a Google Business Profile against competitors? GMB Everywhere. It lets you see the categories, services and descriptions of the practices ranking number one so you can match your profile to what is already winning, rather than guessing at the setup.

Are local “Best of” awards worth entering? They can be, mainly for the social proof and the backlink. These contests are often run by Gannett and USA Today. Winning gives you proof to use in marketing and a link from the contest site back to yours, which is a useful authority signal even if the award itself is more of a marketing play.

Glossary

  • NAP: Name, address and phone number. These three details must match exactly across your website, Google Business Profile and every directory listing, because inconsistency weakens your local ranking signal.
  • Citations: Listings of your practice on business directories (Apple Maps, Yelp, Yellow Book, Brown Book and others). Each provides a signal and usually a link back to your site.
  • Topical authority: Authority built by covering a subject thoroughly on your own pages (on-page) so search engines and AI systems see you as a credible source on it.
  • Link building: The off-page work of earning links from other sites back to yours, which transfers authority and is the primary driver of competitive local rankings.
  • Google Business Profile (GBP): The free Google listing that powers your appearance in the local map pack and Google Maps.
  • Media kit: A package a local publication offers advertisers, often including blog features, articles or magazine placements you can buy.
  • Advertorial: A paid placement written as an article rather than an obvious ad, so it reads as editorial content and provides more value than a bare link.

Full episode transcript

[00:00:00]

Luke: Hey, it’s Luke and James at HIP Creative, and today we’re going to talk orthodontics, or orthodontist in your city, and how to rank number one. So James, I’ll kick it over to you. Everybody wants to know this, we get asked it all the time: how do I rank number one? How do you do it in a way that not only gets you there today, but lets you stay in that place?

James: That is probably one of the most popular questions, how do I rank number one for this term in my city. The truth is it starts with on-page, the website and the Google Business Profile itself. What gets missed is how to actually implement that the correct way. The correct way starts with a comprehensive audit of your live site now, where we find the gaps, plus a competitive analysis finding who is number one and what they have on their site and Google Business that we’re missing. We want to fill that gap. That’s the first step for on-page optimization. The next step, also through the competitive analysis and depending on how competitive your city is, is the authority of the site. We build that with on-page topical authority and then off-page link building. That’s really the secret sauce, link building. People hear about it, but most don’t know how to implement it correctly, and that is exactly where the power gets built over to your site.

For example, if you’re an orthodontist in Omaha and you want to be the number-one orthodontist in Omaha, the first place to start is building your citations, your business listing directories. Everyone knows the top ones like Apple Maps and Yelp, but beyond that there are other local directories you can get on, maybe Yellow Book or Brown Book. You get a good signal and a link from those citation platforms over to your site, and you make sure your name, address and phone number line up with your Google Business. Taking it to the next level would be press release campaigns, whether local in Omaha or a news outlet where we know the site has good authoritative metrics, and we get optimizations and links back. The next tier would be links from very specific, industry-relevant sites like Dentaltown, where we get strategic content placed with a link back to the website. That builds up authority.

[00:02:54]

Luke: Definitely. For local, we’ve seen chamber of commerce a lot. They’ll do a ribbon-cutting ceremony if you’re a startup, and there are different kinds of JVs or even pay-to-play where you can get a backlink and a featured article. So it’s more of an advertorial than just getting a link. It feels real, and it’s actually beneficial for the community. So let’s go through each one. On-page: what page do I want to rank? Do I want my homepage to rank for Omaha, or a location page?

James: Great question. It depends on how many locations you have. If you have multiple locations within Omaha, the strategy is to optimize the homepage for Omaha as the top hub, and let the locations be neighborhood pages that live under it. We get strong internal links from those locations to the homepage and build a lot of authority to the homepage, and the goal is to rank that homepage. But if you’re a single location, or you have locations that aren’t close to Omaha, it wouldn’t make sense to push the homepage for Omaha as a hub when not everything lives inside Omaha. So we separate it out. We still build overall domain authority, but we focus on those location pages and power them up. We’d build up an Omaha one, and a location an hour away would be a different page we power up as well.

[00:05:03]

Luke: So there’s a different strategy for multiple locations, and a different one again if the locations are far apart versus spread across a metro. Then people come to us and it’s like Eagan, Minnesota, with all these places around it you can attract patients from. But Eagan’s pretty small. I want to rank for 12 different communities, but I only have one location. How do I do that?

James: We’d build up that Eagan location and optimize for Eagan, and then, like a spider web, we’d spider out and build neighborhood supporting pages. From that Eagan location it’s going to say “areas we serve,” and we link out to all those small neighborhoods so we get good internal link volume going out. All those neighborhoods still support Eagan, and that’s how we build out the community. We’d also research whether Eagan is part of something bigger that we’re missing. Maybe there’s a bigger whale, a bigger population that Eagan is part of, and we can pull in eyeballs from there too.

Luke: That makes a lot of sense. So going over to Google Business Profile, all of this sounds like a lot of work, but what do you have to check the box on?

James: Completely fill out your Google Business Profile. Everyone hears that, but the strategy is using a tool like GMB Everywhere to analyze the competitors ranking number one. What are their categories? Make sure ours line up. What services do they list? Do you offer the same treatments? Do they have descriptions on all the services? Make sure we have descriptions. Once the profile is optimized with your hours, services and products, also make sure there’s a posting strategy, because Google Business lets you make posts. For example, if you do Invisalign, put out a post about Invisalign for teens, then maybe braces for kids the next week. You’re capturing optimization by leveraging the posts and keeping some activity going.

[00:07:24]

Luke: If somebody’s going to get started with a backlink strategy, how do they go about it? You mentioned Dentaltown, and you could go to their website, find a PR email and reach out. But how do you start doing this through the community locally?

James: What I’d do is Google it. There are a lot of opportunities in your local community. If you put in something like “local media kits” for local businesses, sites are going to pop up, maybe a localtown.com, that offer a media kit where you get featured on their blog, or in a magazine if they have one. What we’re really focused on is getting an article written about us, a brand mention, especially where AI search is going. We want brand mentions and the brand recognized on a high-authority platform, with a link back to the site. A quick Google search is the way to do that. Some of the big editorials are tougher to get into and need an outreach campaign like the one we run where admins allow us in, so those are harder. But at the bare minimum, a quick Google search for local media kits is a place to start.

Luke: It’s Gannett who owns most of the news sites and papers across the US. They run the “Best of” contests, like “Best of the Coast” or “Best of the Bay.” There’s an alt-weekly version and one through USA Today. Look into those, because just winning them is good social proof. I could go on about these contests because I really don’t like them, I think they’re money grabs, but you can still win them for good social proof and a link back from their site to yours. That’s a good signal. Well, there you have it: how to rank number one in your area for orthodontist.

Book a HIP growth strategy call

If you want this built out for your practice instead of doing it yourself, [book a call with HIP Creative] and we’ll map the on-page, citation and link-building plan for your specific market.