Someone searches for a dentist in Ottawa, finds your practice and opens the website. They like what they see. Then they tap “Request an appointment” and nothing happens.
You did the hard work of getting their attention. The website lost the inquiry.
Technical SEO helps search engines reach your information and customers act on it. Some work needs a specialist, but you can understand the purpose. A shop's beautiful display means little if the door sticks or nobody can find the counter.
Start by trying to become a customer
Open your website on your phone. Avoid starting from the homepage out of habit. A prospective patient may land directly on a page about emergency appointments, children's dentistry or new patients.
Choose one important service page and work through the journey:
- Can you tell what the practice offers?
- Can you find the location and current hours?
- Does the phone number open the correct number when tapped?
- Can you submit an appointment request?
- Does the request reach the right person?
- Does the confirmation explain what happens next?
Use clearly labelled test details and coordinate with staff so nobody mistakes the test for a real patient request. Don't enter medical information just to test a marketing form.
A successful submission message is only half the test. Confirm that someone receives it and knows who should respond. A form can look healthy while its notification emails disappear into spam.
Your website needs to work all the way to the person who handles the inquiry.
Improve site navigation and internal links
Group information in a way a patient understands. Services, new-patient information, the team, location and appointments should be easy to reach. Avoid hiding important pages behind vague labels or a chain of unrelated articles.
A page about preparing for a first appointment could link to the new-patient page. That page could link to the booking process and practical information about parking.
Use links that explain the destination. “What to expect at your first appointment” is more helpful than several identical “learn more” links.
Google recommends logical organization and useful internal links in its SEO Starter Guide. The same approach saves visitors from guessing where to go.
Check Google crawling and indexing in Search Console
A page being visible in your own browser doesn't automatically mean Google can use it in search.
Three simple terms help explain the process:
- Crawling: A search engine visits a page.
- Indexing: It evaluates and may add the page to its searchable collection.
- Serving: It chooses whether to show the page for a search.
These are different steps. A working page can still be excluded from indexing, and an indexed page isn't guaranteed a prominent result.
Google's technical requirements explain the basic conditions. For an owner, the useful next step is to set up Search Console and investigate important pages rather than guess.
Use its URL Inspection tool to look at a specific address. Ask your website provider to explain unexpected exclusions in plain language. Some exclusions are intentional, such as private account pages or duplicates. Others may be mistakes left behind after a redesign.
Check for indexing blocks after a website launch
While a new website is being built, developers may block search engines from unfinished pages. Those controls should be reviewed before launch.
Ask your provider:
“Can Google access our public service pages, and are any settings telling it not to index them?”
You don't need to memorize terms such as robots.txt, noindex or canonical tags. Your provider should know them and explain whether they are being used appropriately.
A sitemap is another useful aid. It lists the pages you want search engines to discover. However, submitting one is not a guarantee of indexing or a ranking boost.
If you change a page address, plan the move carefully. Relevant redirects and updated internal links help people reach the replacement. Don't rename every URL simply because an SEO checklist says shorter is better.
Make the phone experience comfortable
Your prospective patient may be searching while waiting for a bus or between meetings. They shouldn't need a desktop computer to understand your services.
Check whether text is readable, menus open properly and buttons are easy to tap. Watch for pop-ups covering appointment details or sticky banners hiding the phone number.
Images can also cause trouble. A huge photograph may look impressive while slowing the page. Ask your provider to size and optimize images appropriately without making them blurry.
A speed-testing tool can identify problems, but a score isn't the business goal. Google's page experience guidance explains that good experience does not guarantee a top ranking.
Fix the delays and obstacles that customers actually encounter. You are improving a working business tool, not collecting a perfect report card.
Put useful information where it can be read
A beautifully designed graphic may explain your services to someone who can see it clearly. It should not be the only place that information exists.
Keep important details available as readable page text. Use images and video to support the explanation rather than replace it. Include appropriate alternative text for meaningful images, and avoid stuffing keywords into it.
For a dental practice, service descriptions and health information should be reviewed by an appropriately qualified person. Clear technical access doesn't make inaccurate advice acceptable.
Google says the usual SEO foundations remain relevant to its AI search features, including accessible content and useful internal links. There is no special AI file or magic markup required to qualify. Google's AI-search guidance also makes clear that inclusion is not guaranteed.
Check the details outside your website
A patient may see your Google Business Profile before your website. Make sure the actual name, location, hours, phone number and website link are correct.
If you have multiple locations, verify each real location carefully. Don't create extra profiles for treatments or invent offices to appear in more neighbourhoods.
Google has specific business representation rules, including rules for individual practitioners. Have someone check which arrangement applies to your clinic.
This is part of practical Ottawa SEO: help nearby people find accurate information and reach the right practice. It doesn't mean a clinic becomes equally visible everywhere in Ottawa simply by adding neighbourhood names.
Give the fixes an order
An audit can produce hundreds of warnings. AI can help sort an export into a manageable investigation list. Use a business-approved tool, check retention and training settings, and share only necessary, approved fields such as public page addresses, issue labels and status codes. Remove private URLs, tokens and patient information.
Ask it to group repeated issues, identify affected service or booking pages, and suggest the next check for each group. “Which warnings could prevent an inquiry, which may be intentional, and what evidence would distinguish them?” is more useful than “Fix my SEO.”
For example, repeated broken links may come from one navigation template. That is a hypothesis to test on the live site, not a diagnosis from the export. Have your provider verify representative URLs, issue counts and priorities before making changes. Never let an AI recommendation automatically remove indexing controls or rewrite redirects.
First, address problems preventing access or inquiries: a down website, blocked service page, wrong number or failed form. Next, tackle confusing navigation, slow important pages and inaccurate details. Then work through smaller improvements.
Ask your provider to record what changed and test the result. If a booking form was repaired, send another labelled test. If a page was unblocked, inspect it again rather than assuming the change has been discovered immediately.
Like the crew in Apollo 13, work through the important problems methodically.
A monthly technical SEO checklist
Choose a few important pages and repeat the customer journey. Review Search Console for new problems and ask staff whether inquiries arrive correctly. Repeat these checks after a redesign, plugin update or booking-system change.
Assign responsibility and record unresolved issues. Salient AI's recurring AI coaching can help you practise interpreting real audit exports and review which AI suggestions proved useful. Better questions support decisions; they don't replace technical verification.
You can beat your chest about your experience and services, but people still need a working way to reach you. If you need help finding the obstacles, Salient AI's SEO services can help connect the technical work to the inquiries your business needs.
Written from Stephen Lau’s experience and point of view, with AI-assisted research, editorial production and illustrations.