AEO for UK Solicitors, Dentists and Other Regulated Professions

London is full of regulated professionals: solicitors in the City, dentists on Harley Street and in every suburb, accountants, financial advisers, clinics. Most of them treat their regulator's advertising rules as a list of things they cannot say. I think that is a missed opportunity, because those rules are largely a list of things they must say, and they are exactly what AI systems like to quote.

This is marketing guidance, not legal or regulatory advice. Your own regulator's current rules are the authority, and you should check them before publishing. But the overlap between compliance and AEO is large enough that it is worth laying out, using two regulators whose rules I have read in full.

Why are regulated professions well placed for AEO?

Because their regulators force them to publish clear, factual, specific information, and that is the content AI systems cite. A generative system has to justify a recommendation. It prefers a page that states a price, a timescale, a qualification and a complaints route over one that says 'we provide a bespoke, client-focused service'.

Most unregulated businesses have to be talked into publishing prices and credentials. Regulated ones are told to. The competitive gap is therefore not about whether to publish the information. It is about doing it well: clearly, in a form a reader and a machine can use, and kept current.

What do the SRA transparency rules require of law firms?

They require authorised bodies that publicise certain services to publish cost information on their website, in a prominent place, in a clear and accessible form. The rules came into effect on 6 December 2018. The price requirements apply where a firm publishes that it offers services such as residential conveyancing, uncontested probate, immigration work excluding asylum, business debt recovery up to £100,000 and licensing applications for business premises. The SRA's own summaries also list some employment tribunal and motoring offence work.

Look at that list as a content brief. 'How much does conveyancing cost in London, and how long does it take?' is among the commonest questions a buyer asks an AI assistant, and the rules oblige the firm to answer it on its own site. A firm that does so with a clear price table, a stage-by-stage timeline and a named solicitor has written the ideal citable page by obligation. A firm that hides the information in a PDF has not.

What do the GDC rules require of dental practices?

The General Dental Council says advertising must be accurate and not misleading, and sets out information a practice website must display. For a practice website, the GDC guidance lists the name and geographic address at which the service is provided, contact details including email and telephone, the GDC's address or a link to its website, the practice's complaints procedure, and the date the website was last updated.

• Accuracy. Advertising must be legal, decent, honest and truthful, and false or potentially misleading advertising is unprofessional and can be a criminal offence.
• Claims backed by facts, with ambiguous statements avoided.
• No unjustified expectations. The GDC says to avoid claims likely to create an unjustified expectation about the results you can achieve.
• Regular updates. The website must accurately reflect the personnel at the practice and the services offered.
• No comparisons of skills. The guidance says not to display information comparing the skills or qualifications of any dental professional with those of others.

Again, read it as a brief. A complete, dated, accurate practice page with a named address, contact details, a complaints route and an honest list of treatments is the opposite of the vague marketing copy that AI systems struggle to quote. It is also the cleanest possible match for the entity facts an assistant needs. I explain that in what entity building actually is.

What about accountants, financial advisers and clinics?

Check your own regulator's current rules, because they differ, and the principle is the same: be specific, truthful and current. Financial promotions are regulated, and if you promote financial services you should check the Financial Conduct Authority's requirements. Accountancy bodies set their own standards for members. Medical and aesthetic practices answer to their own regulators, and all advertising in the UK is subject to the Advertising Standards Authority's codes.

I am deliberately not summarising rules I have not read in this post. If you are in one of those sectors, the safest AEO move is to ask your regulator or compliance lead which pages carry regulatory obligations, and build the citable content on top of those. Where the rule says what you must publish, publish it well. Where it limits a claim, do not make the claim.

How should I write about outcomes and quality?

Describe what you do and how, with evidence, and leave out superlatives and promises. Words such as best, leading, number one, guaranteed and painless are the claims regulators and the ASA treat most sharply, and they are also the words an AI system gives no weight to, because they are unverifiable. An assistant cannot quote 'the best dentist in London'. It can quote 'a practice of four dentists, with GDC numbers listed, offering these treatments at these prices'.

How do I make the information easy to cite?

1. Give each regulated service its own page, with the price, basis of charging, inclusions and timescale near the top, as plain text.
2. Use a table for prices and stages, since tables are easy for readers and systems to extract.
3. Name the people, with qualifications and, where appropriate, registration numbers, on a team page and linked from each service.
4. Show the last-updated date on the page, as the GDC expects for dental sites and as good practice elsewhere.
5. Keep the complaints procedure and regulator details visible and linked.
6. Mirror the facts in your Business Profile and structured data, so every source agrees.

What should I do with reviews and testimonials?

Treat them under your regulator's rules and UK consumer law, and never edit, gate or buy them. Google reviews carry weight with AI assistants, which I discuss in the post on reviews and AI recommendations. But professional bodies have their own standards about testimonials and about reproducing client comments on your own site, and some health and legal contexts raise confidentiality issues.

• Reply to reviews without confirming anyone was a patient or client, because doing so can breach confidentiality.
• Do not respond with clinical or case detail in a public reply.
• Check before reproducing reviews on your site, since promotional use may be treated differently from a review sitting on a third-party platform.
• Never ask only the satisfied for a public review.

What about services outside the SRA price list?

Publish an honest range or a typical case anyway, where your own regulator and professional judgement allow it. The SRA's own guidance says firms may publish the typical cost rather than a mathematical average, and that you need not publish a binding quote for every scenario. That is a useful model for any service where a buyer's first question is how much it will cost.

A page that gives a range, says what moves the figure and says what is not included is more quotable than one that says 'contact us for a bespoke quote', and for most of these services it is also what the buyer wanted to know before ringing. Where the price truly cannot be stated, say why, and give the factors, which is still more useful than silence.

What would I do first?

Audit your regulated pages against your regulator's list, then rebuild each as the best possible answer. For a London solicitor that means a price page for each in-scope service. For a dentist it means a complete, dated practice information page and a clear list of treatments. In both cases the work serves compliance and visibility at once, which is rare in marketing.

1. List your regulated services and the information your regulator requires for each.
2. Check each page against that list and fix gaps first.
3. Replace superlatives with specifics.
4. Add last-updated dates and named people.
5. Re-run the AI prompts a customer would use, as in how to check your AI visibility, and see what is cited.

If you work in law or dentistry, I have set out the wider approach on the law firm SEO page and the dental SEO page. The compliance material here is a starting point, not a substitute for your regulator's own guidance.