Why isn’t my dental practice showing up on Google?
September 27, 2026Why am I getting website visitors but not appointment requests?
September 27, 2026The Quick Answer
There is no universal number of Google reviews every dental practice should have. For a Raleigh, NC dental practice, the better benchmark is the review count, rating, and review activity of the dentists competing for the same patients. In this competitive market, established practices can have hundreds—and some more than 1,000—Google reviews.
Your Local Authority Takeaway
Don’t aim for an arbitrary number of reviews. Aim to be competitive in your local market.
If nearby dental practices showing prominently on Google have 300–500 reviews and your practice has 45, getting to 50 reviews probably isn’t the finish line.
Look at the dentists competing with you for searches such as “dentist Raleigh NC,” “dentist near me,” “cosmetic dentist Raleigh,” and the specific dental services you provide. Your goal should be a strong rating combined with a steady flow of recent, authentic patient reviews.
Main Answer
Google reviews are both a visibility and trust signal
Google confirms that review count and positive ratings can help a business’s local ranking. Reviews contribute to what Google calls prominence, one of the three primary factors—along with relevance and distance—used to determine local search results.
But rankings are only part of the equation. Reviews also help prospective patients decide which dentist they trust enough to call. Google displays a business’s overall review score and total number of reviews directly in Search and Maps, making them highly visible during the decision process.
Raleigh is a competitive dental market
A dental practice in Raleigh shouldn’t necessarily compare itself with a dentist in a small town with far fewer competitors. Current Raleigh examples illustrate how competitive the market can be. Barker, Rohner and Hunt promotes more than 250 five-star Google reviews, while other Raleigh-area practices have accumulated several hundred reviews. Some established practices in the broader market have review counts exceeding 1,000. That doesn’t mean every Raleigh dentist needs 1,000 reviews.
It means your target should be based on the practices competing for your patients, services, and geographic area.
For example, a general dentist in North Raleigh should examine practices appearing prominently for relevant North Raleigh searches. An implant-focused practice may need to compare itself against dentists competing for searches such as “dental implants Raleigh NC” rather than every general dentist in Wake County.
What should your dental practice measure?
Instead of tracking review count alone, evaluate:
- Total Google reviews compared with your closest competitors
- Average star rating
- Review recency — are patients still leaving reviews?
- Review consistency — are new reviews arriving regularly?
- Review content — do patients mention your dentists, team, services, and experience?
- Owner responses — is your practice responding professionally to patient feedback?
Google specifically recommends responding to reviews and says positive reviews and helpful responses can help a business stand out.
Don’t make 100 reviews the goal
A common mistake is choosing a round number—50, 100, or 500—and treating it as the finish line. Instead, create an ongoing process for asking satisfied patients for honest feedback. Once you reach 100 reviews, keep going. If your Raleigh competitors have 400 reviews today, they’re probably not going to stop collecting them while you catch up.
The better question isn’t “How many Google reviews should we have?”
It’s:
“How does our review profile compare with the dental practices our prospective patients are seeing on Google?”
That’s the benchmark that matters.