Karen
8 min read
Every Thorli engagement comes with a Bill of Rights — ten written promises that override any conflicting contract terms, every one of them written because we watched a dentist get burned by its opposite. Here is the full Bill of Rights, the patterns that made each clause necessary, and the test you can apply to any agency you are considering.
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Karen
7 min read
Full-arch implants are the highest-dollar dental sub-niche and the most contested. ClearChoice dominates Google paid and organic with a national ad budget that no independent practice can match. But on AI search, the gap collapses — and the independent practices that get the schema, cost content, and credentialing right can outrank ClearChoice on the queries that actually drive consults. Here is the playbook.
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Karen
7 min read
Orthodontics is one of the most AI-search-heavy dental sub-niches in 2026. Adult patients researching Invisalign trigger Google AI Overviews on 80–90 percent of informational queries, and ChatGPT now actively ranks orthodontists for "best Invisalign provider in [city]" searches. Here is the orthodontist-specific AEO playbook: the queries that matter, the schema to deploy, the authority signals to chase, and the content shapes that actually get cited.
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Karen
7 min read
Most dental marketing agencies still require 12 or 24-month contracts with cancellation fees. The reason is simple: it protects them from being fired in month 5, which is when most dentists realize the agency has not delivered. Month-to-month contracts protect the practice. Annual contracts protect the agency. Here is the real math, the churn-cliff data, and why we built Thorli to do the opposite.
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Karen
7 min read
AEO and SEO share a foundation — clean technical setup, schema, GBP, fresh content — but they diverge in how content is shaped, which off-page signals matter, and which engines they target. SEO is about being one of ten blue links. AEO is about being one of two or three named recommendations. Here is the technical comparison, and how dental practices should think about running both in parallel.
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Karen
7 min read
The full 50-point AEO audit framework we use on every dental practice that comes to us — seven pillars, scored individually, weighted into a single composite. AI Visibility, Schema, Content & E-E-A-T, Brand Mentions, Technical, GBP, and AI Bot Accessibility. Here is exactly what we test, how we score it, and what good and bad practices look like at each pillar.
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Karen
7 min read
When a patient asks ChatGPT "best dentist in Dallas," the model does not pick at random and it does not (mostly) read your website. It walks a specific data pipeline: Foursquare and Bing Places for the candidate set, brand-consensus signals from Healthline, Reddit, and Wikipedia for the ranking, and structured data and on-page citations to break ties. Here is the actual logic, with the pieces dental practices can influence.
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Karen
7 min read
AEO is Answer Engine Optimization: the practice of getting cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews when patients ask which dentist to see. AI engines now influence roughly one in three dental research decisions, and AI-referred patients convert four to twenty times better than organic search. Here is what AEO actually is, how it differs from SEO, and what dental practices need to do in 2026 to stay visible.
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