How a Carlsbad Pediatric Practice Became the Local Choice Across Search, Maps, and AI
One of Southern California's most competitive pediatric markets. Across local SEO, the Google Business Profile, paid search and AI search, this practice now produces about 123 tracked patient leads a month and is the kids' dentist the assistants name first.
A trusted practice that was not showing up when parents searched for care
Carlsbad is a crowded, expensive pediatric market. This practice had the clinical reputation and the reviews to win it, but average local map visibility and no meaningful presence in the AI answers parents increasingly ask before they ever open Google.
There was a second problem underneath the first. Nobody knew where the practice's patients were really coming from. Without call and form tracking to source, a practice can pour its budget into a website while two thirds of its demand walks in through the Google Business Profile.
So we covered every route a parent might take, and we measured all of them.
How did a Carlsbad pediatric practice become the local choice across search, Maps, and AI?
By building out the Google Business Profile as the primary channel, writing content for parent intent, cleaning up technical SEO, optimizing for AI and GEO, running Google Ads as a supplement, and tracking every call, form and text to source.
The result was 1,481 tracked patient leads in twelve months, about 123 a month, #1 AI share of voice in Carlsbad, and Local Pack coverage up from 33.7% to 55.6%.
A patient-acquisition system built around how parents actually choose
The Google profile as the primary channel
A fully built-out Business Profile: categories, services, questions and answers, photos and call tracking, with service-radius keyword mapping to widen how much of the local map the practice covers.
Content written for parent intent
Pediatric service pages for emergencies, sedation and special-needs care, a preventive-care hub, and the trust elements parents look for: provider bios, insurance and financing, and safety protocols.
Technical SEO cleanup
Crawl and index cleanup, Core Web Vitals work, and schema validation, so both search engines and AI assistants can read the site without tripping over it.
AI and GEO optimization
Direct-answer modules and FAQs built around what parents actually ask (first-visit age, injuries, Medicaid, special-needs care) structured so the assistants can extract the answer and cite the practice for it.
Google Ads as a supplement
Three tightly themed search campaigns covering pediatric dentistry, orthodontics and Invisalign, with call and form tracking to source, run to top up demand rather than to carry the practice.
Tracking across all of it
Every call, form and text captured and attributed, so the channel mix is measured rather than assumed and the budget follows what's actually producing patients.
Most parents choose the practice directly from Google Maps
In AI answers about Carlsbad pediatric dentists the practice leads on every measure: #1 share of voice at 11.2%, 45.5% of the decision-stage funnel, the most brand mentions at 156, and the most-cited website at 145 citations, with a GEO score of 89 out of 100.
Every engagement is founder-led. You work directly with Tyson, not an account rotation.
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