CASE STUDY · LOCAL SEO · RANKING RECOVERY

How a Dental Practice Recovered Lost Rankings and Reached 16 Top-3 Keywords

This practice had slipped off page one and its previous agency couldn't say why, let alone fix it. Within a month its most important keywords were back. Within five months every page-one ranking was restored, and it kept going from there.

A dental practiceRecovering from a ranking dropLocal SEO · Technical audit · CitationsPrevious agency couldn't diagnose it

Keywords now in Google's top 3

1 month

To get the first key terms back on page one

5 months

To restore every page-one ranking it had lost

Zero

Explanation the previous agency could give

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The key improvements

From an unexplained collapse to more visibility than before

Most important keywords

Off page one→Back in a month

Three core terms recovered inside 30 days

Page-one rankings

Lost→Fully restored

Within five months

Keywords in Google's top 3

Dropped out→16

More visibility than before the drop

Diagnosis of the drop

None offered→Root cause found

Full technical, listings and citation audit

✓ Back on page one within a month for three of the practice's most important keywords

✓ Every page-one ranking restored within five months, then extended beyond the original set

✓ 16 keywords now sitting in Google's top 3

✓ Incoming inquiries higher than they had ever been, according to the practice

The challenge

A ranking collapse nobody could explain

This practice came to us worried. It had been sitting on page one, inside the top 7 of the local results, and then it wasn't. The drop was steep enough to be felt in the schedule.

It was already paying a large dental marketing company at the time. That agency couldn't explain what had happened, and couldn't get the rankings back either. That's the part worth sitting with: the practice was spending money every month with nobody able to tell it what had gone wrong.

A ranking drop always has a cause. Finding it is a matter of looking properly, in the right places, and being willing to check the unglamorous things first.

The strategy

How we found the cause and rebuilt the position

An audit that looked everywhere

Website code, on-page optimization, the competitive field, local listings and the Google Business Profile, all examined in depth rather than guessed at. You can't fix a drop you haven't diagnosed.

Fixed the technical SEO problems

The issues the audit surfaced on the website itself were corrected first, because no amount of off-site work compensates for a site search engines are struggling to read.

Closed the citation and listings gap

The audit found a handful of highly authoritative citations the competition had and this practice didn't. We pushed listings out through the local data aggregators, then claimed, corrected and optimized every local listing until the practice's footprint beat the competition's.

Earned authoritative, relevant links

Industry-relevant backlinks from authoritative sources, obtained through relationships rather than bought. That's the slower route and the one that holds up when the algorithm changes.

The results

Back on page one in a month, past the old ceiling in five

Within the first month the practice was back on page one, inside the top 7, for three of its most important keywords. Within five months every page-one ranking it had lost was restored.

It didn't stop there. The practice has since added rankings it never held before the drop, and now sits with 16 keywords in Google's top 3. Its incoming inquiries are higher than they have ever been.

Milestone	Outcome
Month 1	Three of the most important keywords back on page one, in the top 7
Month 5	Every lost page-one ranking restored
Today	16 keywords in Google's top 3

One honest footnote: this engagement predates AI and GEO optimization being a factor in local search. The same work today would include it.

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How we measured the results

Ranking positions are from rank tracking across the practice's target keyword set, compared against its position before the drop. The month-one and month-five milestones are measured from the start of the engagement. "Top 7" refers to the local pack as Google displayed it at the time, when seven local results were shown rather than three.

This engagement predates AI and GEO optimization being a ranking factor in local search, so no AI-visibility figures are reported for it. Inquiry volume is as reported by the practice rather than from call tracking, which was not in place on this account. There are no guarantees in SEO, ranking today doesn't guarantee the same position tomorrow, and client details are anonymized at the practice's discretion.