Guide
Orthodontic SEO, AEO and GEO: what each one is and what to do about it
Three acronyms, one job: being found by families who are looking for an orthodontist right now. SEO is the one you know. AEO and GEO are what happens when the search box becomes an answer box, and then a conversation. Here is what each means for a practice, and what actually moves the numbers.
SEO: ranking in Google for local searches
Search engine optimisation is making your pages rank when someone nearby searches “orthodontist near me”, “braces cost”, “Invisalign for teens” or your suburb plus “orthodontist”. For a practice it rests on three things.
One clear topic per page
Google ranks pages, not websites. That single fact explains most of what goes wrong on orthodontic sites. A site with one treatments page that mentions braces, aligners, early treatment and adults cannot compete with a general dentist whose site has a dedicated aligner page of 800 words. It is why GP dentists win aligner searches from specialists. The fix is structural: a full page for every treatment and every location, each written for its topic and its area.
Technical foundations
Fast loading, mobile layout, clean structure, an XML sitemap, proper titles and descriptions, image alt text, no broken links, one H1 per page, and structured data (schema) that tells Google what each page is. None of this is glamorous. All of it is table stakes, and it is where template sites quietly fall down.
Local signals
Your Google Business Profile complete and active for each clinic, reviews arriving steadily, your practice name, address and phone consistent everywhere they appear, and location pages that mention the places families actually live.
AEO: being the answer, not just a result
Answer engine optimisation is writing pages so Google's answer boxes and AI Overviews can use them directly. Increasingly, a parent searching “when should my child see an orthodontist” gets an answer above the results, and the practices cited in that answer get the click.
To be that practice, a page has to answer the question in its first sentence, then explain, then answer the next question. Headings should be the questions people ask. FAQ structured data should sit behind the page so the answer is machine-readable. A page that mentions cost somewhere in paragraph six is not the answer to “how much do braces cost”; a page that opens with a range and a reason is.
GEO: being cited by AI assistants
Generative engine optimisation is making sure ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity can find, understand and cite your practice when someone asks them for an orthodontist nearby. It is a small share of new patients today and growing every month. It costs little to be ready.
- Let the AI crawlers in. Many sites block them by default in robots.txt without knowing.
- Keep facts consistent everywhere: practice name, clinicians, clinics, treatments, hours, prices if you publish them.
- Publish a short summary of who you are and what you do in a form machines can read easily, alongside the human pages.
- Earn mentions on pages the assistants trust: your professional association listing, your Google Business Profile, local directories, referring dentists' sites.
- Write for a reader who asks questions, because that is exactly how these systems retrieve.
The checklist that moves the numbers
- A dedicated page for every treatment: braces, clear aligners, early treatment, adult orthodontics, retainers, and any you want to be known for.
- A dedicated page for every clinic location, written for the suburbs it serves.
- Real content depth on each page, typically several hundred words, answering the questions parents ask.
- Titles and descriptions written for the search, not for the brand.
- Speed and mobile layout fixed, images compressed, structured data in place.
- Google Business Profile complete for each clinic, with a review program sending requests from the clinic's own name.
- One-to-one redirects from every old URL when you rebuild, so nothing earned is lost.
- Blog and social content published regularly on local questions, not press releases.
- AI crawlers allowed and a machine-readable summary published.
- Someone looking at Search Console every month and acting on it.
What it looks like when it works
Milk Orthodontics in Auckland, Hey32's featured client, rebuilt on this approach: a page per treatment and location, real content depth, technical foundations fixed, review program running, AI crawlers welcome. Google Search Console went from about 180 search clicks in 28 days before the rebuild to 400 by July 2026 and 500 by the end of August 2026, nearly three times, with the site now the main source of new-patient enquiries.
None of it required tricks. It required structure, depth, and someone paying attention every month. That is what Hey32 builds into every site, and what the growth engine keeps running after launch.