How to grow a dental business? | Dentist Lead Generation

James Dooley and Kasra Dash break down the most effective ways to grow a dental practice. They explain how SEO, unique media content, social media consistency, PPC strategy, influencer marketing and community outreach all drive patient acquisition because visibility and trust directly influence appointment volume. They also highlight how misallocated budgets and untracked traditional ads limit growth because dentists are rarely taught marketing. Kasra Dash outlines how fractional CMO support improves ROI because expert oversight prevents wasted spend and redirects investment into channels that actually convert.

Creators and Guests

Host

James Dooley

James Dooley is a UK entrepreneur.

What is James Dooley Podcast?

James Dooley is a Manchester-based entrepreneur, investor, and SEO strategist. James Dooley founded FatRank and PromoSEO, two UK performance marketing agencies that deliver no-win-no-fee lead generation and digital growth systems for ambitious businesses. James Dooley positions himself as an Investorpreneur who invests in UK companies with high growth potential because he believes lead generation is the root of all business success.

The James Dooley Podcast explores the mindset, methods, and mechanics of modern entrepreneurship. James Dooley interviews leading marketers, founders, and innovators to reveal the strategies driving online dominance and business scalability. Each episode unpacks the reality of building a business without mentorship, showing how systems, data, and lead flow replace luck and guesswork.

James Dooley shares hard-earned lessons from scaling digital assets and managing SEO teams across more than 650 industries. James Dooley teaches how to convert leads into long-term revenue through brand positioning, technical SEO, and automation. James Dooley built his career on rank and rent, digital real estate, and performance-based marketing because these models align incentive with outcome.

After turning down dozens of podcast invitations, James Dooley now embraces the platform to share his insights on investorpreneurship, lead generation, AI-driven marketing, and reputation management. James Dooley frequently collaborates with elite entrepreneurs to discuss frameworks for scaling businesses, building authority, and mastering search.

James Dooley is also an expert in online reputation management (ORM), having built and rehabilitated corporate brands across the UK. His approach combines SEO precision, brand engineering, and social proof loops to influence both Google’s Knowledge Graph and public perception.

To feature James Dooley on your podcast or event, connect via social media. James Dooley regularly joins business panels and networking sessions to discuss entrepreneurship, brand growth, and the evolving future of SEO.

**James Dooley:**
So I'm joined with Kasra Dash and today we're going to be talking about how to grow a dental practice. I think we should probably start off with potentially new dental practices and we can then deep dive into more established businesses. Let's say you're starting off. Potentially you've franchised. You've got a dental practice in South Florida and now you want to open a new one in Orlando. How would you go about doing that?

**Kasra Dash:**
So if you're looking at how to grow a dentist company then the first thing I would look to start setting up is making sure I've got a website. So having the website and then doing SEO to the website. With regards to search engine optimisation I would want to be ranking in Google, Bing and also if I can, if I've got any videos, ranking certain videos in YouTube as well. So videos could be either of the actual dental practice itself showing the facility, showing the cleanliness and stuff like that. It could be certain testimonials from clients saying what an amazing job they did. Teeth implants and stuff like that. I'd try to get all that. Teeth whitening before and after photos if they do teeth whitening. Videos before and after of teeth whitening and stuff. All the different products and services they do within their dental practice I want to promote everywhere I possibly can online.
So SEO I would start with as being the number one thing that I'd be looking to try to do. Not just for generating leads but for brand building. Making certain you've got those testimonials. If I'm looking to have a new set of teeth I'm going to be doing my research and I want to see previous job case studies and testimonials. Even with Invisalign. Invisalign probably in the UK costs about three or three and a half thousand pounds. In the US it's probably about four and a half or five thousand dollars depending on the state. We're talking averages here but even Invisalign is quite a big decision in somebody's life. If you don't have the trust factors, if you've not got that social media presence, if you've not got the before and afters, if you don't have any video testimonials and case studies then they're probably going to go with one of your competitors that does have all of that.

**James Dooley:**
Yeah. I think the next thing as well is if you are spending a lot of money on photography or videography within the business for brand building you want to also be leveraging the money you've spent on the images and videos for social media. Posting all the time. Posting whether it's LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Pinning anything you've done on Pinterest. Being present everywhere. Again if someone is just looking at your social media account they go yeah I can trust this company. This is a company that I want to have my Invisalign braces done with. Or teeth whitening kits done with. I want to be everywhere and again I'm coming back to branding and just making certain that every so often you're throwing in testimonials of what people are saying.

**Kasra Dash:**
But on social media as well one thing to add to what you've said. Try to get your own images. I don't know what dentist you use but a lot of dentists that I look at their social media they're just using stock images. As somebody that's being trained up especially in the digital marketing world I look at them and I don't trust that company. I don't know if that's just my thinking.

**James Dooley:**
No I completely agree. A lot of times you can tell it is a stock image. Sometimes the less professional images, as long as it's got to look good. If you're doing a before and after shot you want to make certain ideally they’ve got yellow teeth at the start and at the end they've got white teeth. You want to try and make certain that it's set up that way. But having unique images is key. It's key for ranking in Google Images as well. This is a very visual thing. If you're getting new teeth or doing some sort of cosmetic dentistry you want to be making certain you're ranking in Google Images and being seen on places like Flickr and Pinterest. Because they want to go oh I want that. Mine is maybe a bit more yellow than that maybe I should have this done. You might have coffee stains or whatever it is but getting that out there is key.

**James Dooley:**
But then the next part I'd say for growing a dental practice. If you've got a product or service in an area. So you said South Florida or let's say you were opening up the new office in Orlando. If I'm brilliant at Invisalign braces in Orlando at that point I might be able to run PPC. Now I wouldn't just go and run PPC for cosmetic dentistry in Orlando because it's very expensive. But if you have a specific product or service that you've got a great hook with and great conversion and it makes you good profit at that point you could run PPC. Massive caveat. There is a lot of click fraud and it's very expensive unless you're using a professional agency to get that set up right. What are your thoughts on PPC?

**Kasra Dash:**
I agree. What we've typically found is with PPC. Let's take Invisalign for example. A lot of people shop around. Even though Google is charging you fifty or a hundred dollars for the click that click might not convert with you. It might convert with one of your competitors. Again that's the other benefit of SEO. Once you've started ranking you're getting the click. It doesn't matter if they're shopping around you're there. With PPC you're going to need a lot of trust factors in place. You're going to need a good back end. It needs to be profitable for your dental practice. Also if you've got potential upsells. Let's say yes they came in for Invisalign. If you can upsell teeth whitening. If you can upsell them as a yearly check-up client. Then that lifetime value might have gone from say two and a half or four thousand dollars to maybe six thousand. So you can ultimately just spend more on your marketing because you're getting more profit in the back end. But what else would you recommend?

**James Dooley:**
So there's other things people talk about in dentistry. Traditional marketing. Billboards, TV ads, radio ads, magazines. If I'm being honest I hate doing this and the reason is there's no tracking of conversion rate. There's no tracking on was it that billboard that got me this inquiry which led to this profit. It's so difficult for someone to turn around and put an ROI value on traditional marketing. I'm not saying it doesn't work. It does work well at times. However I feel there's much better ways now of spending that money. Run Facebook ads and target certain demographics. You can go into Orlando and say within 50 miles of Orlando. You can target specific groups. You might start realising some of the work you do caters more towards females. A billboard caters to everyone. Facebook ads allow filtering. A lot of different filters you can do via social media advertising which can work well. Also via your SEO strategies you can target towns or Orlando as the major city for the specific products you want to sell. For me I'm not a big fan of traditional marketing. Over in the US I think every business owner feels they have to have a billboard with their picture. And I'm like are you tracking ROI? As a business mentor or fractional CMO at times I would take that money and spend it more wisely elsewhere.

**Kasra Dash:**
Definitely. A few other things you can do. A lot of dental practices want families. In the US you can sponsor kids’ baseball games or soccer games. That's a good way of getting in front of the parents. I spoke about this recently. In high school there was a practice that came in telling us how to brush our teeth and what sweets to avoid. You could do that. I personally don't think it works as well because you're in front of the kids not the decision makers. But it's testable. Another strategy that works well is influencer marketing. You can get some B-list celebrities in Orlando or wherever you're located. Get them in. Give them free teeth whitening. In return they repost your work to their followers. Because they're located in the area it might present you to four or five thousand people in Orlando or Miami and they will inquire. That's another strategy.

**James Dooley:**
It's a good strategy. Another one is lead generation companies. Over at FatRank.com you can apply for cosmetic dentistry. They only deal with high end services like implants and more expensive cosmetic work. Not check-ups. But if someone qualifies they get a no risk supply of inquiries. Also talk a bit because you've been working a lot in the dental industry. You’re Mr Dental Practice Growth. Obviously you kind of mark yourself as a fractional CMO but you do a lot with dentists and dental practices. Why don't you talk a little bit about yourself as a consultant or fractional CMO where you can go in and help. Dentists are very good at fixing teeth. That doesn't mean they're good at advertising. Every dentist should have some sort of freelance CMO or consultant helping them know where to spend the money. The amount of people that waste money on buying the wrong leads or using the wrong SEO agency and burning money. You may as well get money and set it on fire. Explain more about you in the dental practice space.

**Kasra Dash:**
Basically we've both been doing SEO for many years growing businesses and investing into them. One thing I found is dental practice owners are really good at their job. But in university and college they've not been trained to advertise. They know cosmetic dentistry. They know Invisalign check-ups. They're good at their job. But advertising isn't their forte. That’s just come from me speaking to practices over the years. So I've positioned myself as the dental growth expert. As much as I don't like calling myself an expert that's what people call me. I can look at what they're advertising on and say hey you're overspending on PPC. Or your PPC hasn’t generated any inquiries. Why don't we switch that off and reallocate that budget to something that is working. Whether that is social media posts or Facebook ads or SEO. You’d be surprised how many people are spending on billboards or radio ads or flyers and it's not generating ROI. I've come in and evaluated businesses and moved budgets around. It works well. A lot of owners don't realise how much they’re wasting. Potentially they've outsourced SEO to what we call SEO cowboys. There's a lot out there. It's disheartening because SEO can work but if you're not correctly vetting or tracking KPIs you can be taken for a ride.
I can come in and say you're spending six grand a month on advertising. Why don't we reallocate that six grand to doing these two things instead of six things? You're going to get a lot more bang for your buck.

**James Dooley:**
And it's kind of a win-win. So if any dental business owners are watching this thinking I like this video and I’m looking to grow. How can they contact you to book a strategy session and get you to look at their business? They can listen or not listen but you're coming in as a fractional CMO. You can give your honest opinion if they're overspending here or not spending enough there. Business owners should be setting KPIs even on you. If they say they're spending ten thousand a month and getting this amount of clients. You can turn around and say allocate some budget here and you need to show they're getting more than previous months. How can a dental practice get a hold of you?

**Kasra Dash:**
Just go over to my website kasradash.com or check the link in the description.

**James Dooley:**
So if anyone is looking to grow their dental practice I'd strongly recommend booking a call with Kasra Dash. Kasra can go through everything we've spoken about in this video on how to grow more dentistry leads. It's not just about volume. It's trying to improve transactional value and lifetime value. You've got an amazing CRM system as well which can do text message follow ups, email follow ups, WhatsApp follow ups. These people are brilliant at fixing teeth but they're not marketers. This is where you come in. So head over to kasradash.com or check the link in the description.