This is a sample. Brightside Family Dental is a fictional business, and every finding and number below is made up for illustration. Your review will cover your own website, search presence, and priorities.
- Prepared for
- Brightside Family Dental (fictional)
- Website
- brightside-dental.example
- Prepared by
- SMB Web & Marketing
- Scope
- Technical SEO, AI search visibility, and local presence, plus a short UX pass
- Method
- External review only. We crawled the public site, tested search and AI assistant results, and reviewed public business listings. We did not have access to Search Console, analytics, or the hosting account, so some findings will be confirmed once access is granted.
Summary
On the surface the site is in good shape. It looks professional, the photos are real, and it works on a phone. The problems are underneath. Search engines are getting mixed signals about which version of the site is the real one and what the practice offers, and AI assistants have almost nothing structured to work with. When someone asks ChatGPT or Google for a family dentist nearby, Brightside does not come up, while two competitors with weaker websites do.
We logged 12 items: 4 high priority, 6 medium, and 2 low. The quickest high-priority fixes (TS-01 and AI-02) take a few hours each; the new service pages (TS-02) take a few weeks. Technical SEO and AI search are our focus; the last section covers a few usability issues we noticed along the way.
| ID | Finding | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| TS-01 | Several versions of the site are live and indexed | High |
| TS-02 | Core services have no pages of their own | High |
| TS-03 | Page titles and descriptions are duplicated | Medium |
| TS-04 | Large images slow the site on phones | Medium |
| TS-05 | The sitemap lists pages that no longer exist | Low |
| AI-01 | The practice does not appear in AI assistant answers | High |
| AI-02 | No structured data for the business | High |
| AI-03 | Business details disagree across the web | Medium |
| AI-04 | Content is not written in a question-and-answer form | Medium |
| AI-05 | A security plugin is blocking AI crawlers | Medium |
| UX-01 | Booking takes too many steps on a phone | Medium |
| UX-02 | No reviews or credentials near the booking button | Low |
1. Technical SEO
TS-01Several versions of the site are live and indexed
High priorityEst. effort: 1 to 2 hours
- Issue found
- The site loads at http://, https://, www, and non-www addresses without redirecting to one version. Google has indexed both www and non-www copies of the homepage and four service pages, so ranking signals are split between duplicates.
- Resolution
- Choose https://www as the single version. Add permanent (301) redirects from every other variant, set canonical tags on all pages, and update the website link on the Google Business Profile and major directories to match.
- Additional notes
- Once we have Search Console access we can confirm the duplicates drop out of the index, usually within a few weeks.
TS-02Core services have no pages of their own
High priorityEst. effort: 2 to 3 weeks (content)
- Issue found
- All 20 treatments are listed in one paragraph on /services/. There is no dedicated page for implants, Invisalign, emergency visits, or children’s dentistry, which are the four services nearby competitors rank for.
- Resolution
- Build a page for each of the top five services. Each one should cover what the treatment involves, who it is for, typical cost range and insurance notes, recovery or follow-up, and how to book. Link to them from the homepage and the main menu.
- Additional notes
- We write the drafts. Dr. Patel or the office manager should review any clinical statements before anything is published.
TS-03Page titles and descriptions are duplicated
Medium priorityEst. effort: 2 to 3 hours
- Issue found
- 14 of 17 pages share the title “Home | Brightside” or a close variant, and 11 have no meta description, so search results show whatever text Google pulls from the page.
- Resolution
- Write a unique title for every page in the pattern “Service in [City] | Brightside Family Dental”, plus a description that states the service, the area, and the next step.
TS-04Large images slow the site on phones
Medium priorityEst. effort: Half a day
- Issue found
- The homepage hero and three gallery images are uncompressed PNG files of 1.8 to 2.4 MB each. In our mobile test the main content took 4.1 seconds to appear, above the 2.5 second mark Google treats as good.
- Resolution
- Convert photos to WebP at display size, add width and height attributes, and lazy-load anything below the first screen.
- Additional notes
- Visually the site still looks fast on Wi-Fi, which is probably why this has not been noticed.
TS-05The sitemap lists pages that no longer exist
Low priorityEst. effort: 1 hour
- Issue found
- The XML sitemap includes 9 URLs that return “page not found”, and robots.txt still points to a sitemap from a previous website platform.
- Resolution
- Regenerate the sitemap, remove the old reference from robots.txt, and submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
2. AI search visibility (GEO)
Generative engine optimization, or GEO, is about being the business that AI assistants name and cite when people ask them for a recommendation. It overlaps heavily with good technical and local SEO, but a few items are specific to how these tools read the web.
AI-01The practice does not appear in AI assistant answers
High priorityEst. effort: Ongoing
- Issue found
- We asked ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews six local questions a new patient might ask, such as “family dentist in [City] taking new patients” and “emergency dentist open Saturday near [Neighborhood]”. Brightside appeared in 0 of 18 answers. Two competitors appeared in 11.
- Resolution
- This is the result of the items below rather than a separate fix. AI assistants lean on structured data, consistent business listings, and pages that answer questions directly, and those are the gaps on this site.
- Additional notes
- AI answers vary from day to day. We track the same set of questions every month so progress is measured the same way each time.
AI-02No structured data for the business
High priorityEst. effort: 2 to 3 hours
- Issue found
- The site has no schema markup. Search engines and AI tools have no machine-readable record of the practice name, address, phone, hours, services, or accepted insurance.
- Resolution
- Add Dentist (LocalBusiness) structured data site-wide with name, address, phone, hours, geo coordinates, services, and links to the main profiles. Add FAQ markup to the new service pages.
- Additional notes
- Validate with Google’s Rich Results Test after launch. Hours in the markup must be kept in sync with the Google profile.
AI-03Business details disagree across the web
Medium priorityEst. effort: 1 to 2 weeks
- Issue found
- Yelp, Healthgrades, and Bing Places still list the old suite number and the previous name, “Brightside Dental Care”. The Google Business Profile has a single category (“Dentist”), no services listed, and its newest photo is 14 months old.
- Resolution
- Correct the 15 most important listings so the name, address, and phone match exactly. Claim and update Bing Places, and verify the site in Bing Webmaster Tools. On Google, add the Cosmetic Dentist and Emergency Dental Service categories, list services, and post new photos monthly.
- Additional notes
- Bing matters more than most practices assume: ChatGPT’s search results rely in part on Bing’s index.
AI-04Content is not written in a question-and-answer form
Medium priorityEst. effort: Included with TS-02
- Issue found
- Patients ask assistants things like “does a crown hurt” or “how much is a cleaning without insurance”. The site has no FAQ content and no plain-language answers to cost, insurance, or what to expect.
- Resolution
- Add a short, direct Q&A section to each new service page, written the way patients phrase the questions, with a clear answer in the first sentence.
- Additional notes
- We would not spend money on an llms.txt file yet. None of the major assistants has confirmed they use it.
AI-05A security plugin is blocking AI crawlers
Medium priorityEst. effort: 30 minutes
- Issue found
- robots.txt contains rules added by the site’s security plugin that block GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, and ClaudeBot.
- Resolution
- Allow the search-focused crawlers (OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot) so the practice can be found and cited. Whether to also allow crawlers used for AI training is a business decision; we can set it either way.
- Additional notes
- This one is a quick change with an outsized effect. Until it is fixed, the assistants that respect robots.txt cannot read the site at all.
3. Additional observations: UX and conversion
These are outside our core scope, but they affect how many visitors turn into booked appointments, so we are flagging them.
UX-01Booking takes too many steps on a phone
Medium priorityEst. effort: Half a day
- Issue found
- “Request an Appointment” opens a 14-field form, and the phone number in the header is plain text rather than a tap-to-call link.
- Resolution
- Cut the form to name, phone or email, preferred time, and reason for the visit. Make the phone number tappable everywhere it appears.
UX-02No reviews or credentials near the booking button
Low priorityEst. effort: 1 to 2 hours
- Issue found
- The practice has 38 Google reviews averaging 4.8, but none appear on the site. The booking section shows no credentials, memberships, or insurance logos.
- Resolution
- Show three or four recent reviews (with permission) and the accepted-insurance list beside the booking button.
Recommended sequence
- Month 1: TS-01, AI-05, AI-02, and TS-03. These are mostly technical fixes that clear the way for everything else.
- Month 2: TS-02 and AI-04, the new service pages with Q&A content.
- Month 3: AI-03 and TS-04, then re-run the AI assistant questions and compare against this baseline.
On our Marketing plan ($750/month, month-to-month), we would handle all of the above and send a written report each month showing what was done, what changed, and what comes next. No calls or meetings. If you would rather have your own team handle it, this report is yours to use.
Questions about any item? Reply to this email and reference the item ID.
SMB Web & Marketing