Dental website design: what to include and the rules to follow

What should a dental practice website include?

Everything a new patient checks before booking, reachable from a phone in one or two taps. Most visitors arrive with a specific need, so build the site around treatments and booking, not the practice's history.

• A first screen that says who you treat and where, with “Book online” and a tap-to-call number, plus your Google rating.
• A page for each main treatment: check-ups and hygiene, emergency appointments, implants, orthodontics or clear aligners, whitening, children's dentistry. Specialist orthodontic practices need a few more pages, and must follow the title rules; see local SEO for orthodontists.
• Fees or fee ranges, and which payment plans, insurance or NHS options you take.
• The team page: every dentist and clinician by name, with their qualifications.
• Opening hours, emergency arrangements, parking and accessibility details, and a map.
• Real reviews from your Google profile, with a link to read them all (in Australia, see the testimonial rule below).

Getting found is covered in our local SEO plan for dentists.

Which details must a dental website show in the US, UK and Australia?

The UK has the most specific list; Australia controls how you describe yourself and your offers; in the US, the rules come from your state dental board. This is a summary, not legal advice:

Can a dental website show patient reviews and before-and-after photos?

Reviews, yes, if you show them honestly; in Australia, not reviews that praise clinical care. Before-and-after photos, yes, with care and the patient's written consent.

• US: the FTC's rule bans fake reviews, and FTC staff say using non-representative reviews in marketing could be deceptive, so don't show only the five-star ones.
• UK: the CMA's fake reviews guidance says a trader may break the law if it suppresses genuine negative or positive reviews.
• Australia: Ahpra treats patient praise of clinical aspects in your advertising as a banned testimonial, and its guidelines name reviews republished on a practice's own website as an example. Comments about customer service or communication style that don't mention symptoms, treatment, outcomes or the dentist's skill aren't testimonials. Ahpra also says you aren't responsible for removing reviews on platforms you don't control, such as Google. The ACCC adds that businesses mustn't suppress, edit or remove genuine negative reviews.

Ahpra says before-and-after photos can be misleading, and should be as similar as possible in content, camera angle, background, framing and exposure, with the treatment the only visible change and any alteration explained. That's a good standard in the UK and US too.

Asking for the reviews in the first place is covered in our dentist review examples, and sharing them on social media in dental social media marketing.

Are tracking pixels and booking forms safe on a dental website?

They can be, but a US practice must treat them as a HIPAA question and a UK practice as a cookie consent question. The risk is that a pixel from an ad platform sends what a patient typed, or which page they booked from, to a third party.

• US: HHS's guidance says tracking technologies on pages a patient logs in to, such as a portal, generally have access to protected health information, and the vendors are generally business associates, so you'd need a business associate agreement. Booking pages without a login may have access to it too in some cases, for example when they capture an email address or the reason for the visit.
• US, the court ruling: in June 2024 a federal court in Texas vacated the part of that guidance that said HIPAA applies when an IP address is connected with a visit to an unauthenticated public page. HHS says it is evaluating next steps, and the rest still stands.
• UK: the ICO says PECR now has an exception for analytics cookies used only to improve your site, so you can set them without consent as long as you explain them clearly and offer a free, simple way to object. Advertising and cross-site tracking cookies still need consent.
• Australia: the OAIC says health information is sensitive information under the Privacy Act, with stricter rules for handling it, so treat booking details and the reason for a visit the same way.

Does a dental website need to be accessible?

Yes, in all three countries, though only the US sets a firm technical standard for some practices. The UK's Equality Act 2010 requires service providers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled customers, and websites can be part of the service. Australia's Human Rights Commission says its 2025 guidelines help organisations meet their Disability Discrimination Act obligations for digital services, and advises meeting the latest version of WCAG.

In the US, the Justice Department's guidance says the ADA covers businesses open to the public, which includes dental practices, but lets businesses choose how they make their sites accessible, pointing to WCAG as helpful guidance.

If your practice receives federal financial assistance from HHS, its Section 504 rule sets a firm standard: WCAG 2.1 Level AA. In May 2026 HHS pushed the deadlines back a year, to 11 May 2027 for organisations with 15 or more employees and 10 May 2028 for smaller ones. Ask your adviser whether the programmes you bill count as federal financial assistance. Either way, readable text, strong contrast, large buttons and alt text on photos help every patient.

How fast should a dental website load?

Fast enough to pass Google's Core Web Vitals on phones. Google's web.dev says a good page shows its main content (Largest Contentful Paint) within 2.5 seconds, responds to a tap (Interaction to Next Paint) within 200 milliseconds and keeps its layout stable (Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less), measured at the 75th percentile of visits.

• Compress photos, skip autoplay video and load the booking widget only when someone taps “Book”.
• Build a page for each location you really have, not one per nearby town. Google's spam policies list pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page as doorway abuse.

On your Google Business Profile, add your booking page as the appointment link, so people can book from Search and Maps without hunting for it.

Should a practice use a dental website template or a custom build?

A template is fine if it lets you add a page per treatment, a proper team page and the footer details your regulator wants. Choose on what's included and who owns it, not on looks alone.

Before you sign, ask who keeps the GDC or Ahpra details current, and how bookings are tracked without sending patient data to ad platforms. Nobody can honestly promise a ranking: Google says there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

Flexi Local builds fast local websites for $990 one-time, or free on the Local Growth and Growth + Ads plans (from $497 a month per location) when you pay yearly, or on monthly plans when you stay at least 6 months (if you leave sooner, $165 is due for each month short of 6). Those plans include hosting and care, and also run your Google profile and review replies. Start with a free audit, or see how our websites for local businesses work.