What your website can't say if you practice a regulated profession in Florida

We have spent two days publishing about getting AI to recommend you. Monday, how to measure it. Yesterday, how to read a review.

And while writing both, we ran into the same wall three times, so today it gets its own piece: if you practice a regulated profession in Florida, a good chunk of standard marketing advice can land you in trouble.

Nobody tells you because almost no agency works regulated verticals. We do.

1. The visibility playbook and your licensing board disagree

The playbook for getting an AI to cite you comes down to five instructions, and we have handed them out ourselves:

1. Be specific about what you do
2. Show results
3. Get testimonials
4. Publish prices or ranges
5. Differentiate, explain why you are the better choice

2. Which one applies to you

Not every profession carries the same rule, and that confusion is what makes advice that is correct for a dental practice wrong for a law firm. Here is the map.

Find yourself on the table before you keep reading. Section 3 is for dentists and health care, section 4 is for lawyers, and section 5 applies to everyone.

3. Dentists: the five things the statute won't let you write

This is not a board guideline. It is a Florida state statute: Fla. Stat. §466.019.

A dental ad cannot contain any false, fraudulent, misleading or deceptive statement, and the statute spells out what counts:

And one hardly anybody has in place: if you offer treatment involving impressions, prosthetics, appliance placement, or correction of teeth or jaw via telehealth, the ad carries a notice in clearly legible font that an in-person examination with a licensed dentist is recommended before starting.

Search your site for three words: best, guaranteed, leading. Every hit is a sentence to rewrite, and section 6 shows you how.

4. Lawyers: the testimonial carries six conditions

The Florida Bar's advertising rules run longer than the dental statute, and the most-broken part is testimonials. The rule is 4-7.13(b)(9), and it imposes six conditions at once:

And three more rules that reach almost any law firm page:

• 4-7.13(b)(2): information about past results must be factually verifiable and cannot omit facts that would make it misleading.
• 4-7.13(b)(3): you cannot characterize or compare skills, experience, reputation or record unless it is objectively verifiable.
• 4-7.12(d): disclaimers go clear and conspicuous - not in fine print, not buried in a footnote.

Source: The Florida Bar's Handbook on Lawyer Advertising and Solicitation.

Count the testimonials on your site and check each against the six conditions. If your agency drafted any of them, it comes down today.

5. The one that reaches everyone: reviews and incentives

These two do not depend on your profession. They apply to any business in the United States, and to any health care practice in the country.

The FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, in effect since October 21, 2024, prohibits fake reviews, buying or selling them, conditioning any payment or incentive on the review being positive, and requires anyone on your payroll who reviews you to disclose it.

That "conditioning the incentive" is the one nobody sees coming. A raffle among people who leave five stars breaks it. A raffle among people who leave a review, any review, does not.

We worked through it yesterday, with the filter for reading reviews, in how to spot AI-written reviews.

Replying is one thing. Publishing the testimonial or the before-and-after is another, and it takes authorization.

Before using a patient's information for marketing, the HIPAA Privacy Rule requires, with limited exceptions, their written authorization (45 CFR 164.508(a)(3)). Three things get missed constantly: the treatment consent form does not cover it, it is a separate document; the patient posting it themselves does not authorize you to republish it on your homepage; and a photo with the face cropped out is often still identifiable.

Whether a specific case of yours falls under that is for your compliance officer, not your agency. But here is something we can say without hedging: authorization solves privacy, not advertising. A signed testimonial saying "best dentist in Fort Lauderdale, perfect smile" is still prohibited under §466.019, because that statute looks at the content of the ad, not at who said it. Two doors, and you have to clear both.

Go back through your public replies from the last few months. And check whether you have signed authorization for every testimonial and every before-and-after currently on your site.

6. The turn: the compliant version is the one that gets cited

This is where it stops being a list of prohibitions and starts being useful.

Professional advertising rules and AI engines reward the same thing, and nobody is saying it:

Every sentence you rewrite for compliance comes out more citable, not less. Look at the difference:

Nobody can verify the first one: not the Bar, not the Department of Health, not Gemini. Everybody can verify the second, and it is the one an engine pulls when somebody asks about a dentist in Fort Lauderdale.

Compliance is not the brake on your visibility. It is the filter that makes it real. Same logic we worked through in AI doesn't guess, it skips you: what cannot be checked does not get cited.

Take the most "salesy" sentence on your site and rewrite it with a fact, a year and a named service. That single rewrite takes risk off the table and adds citability at the same time.

7. The order to fix it in

The order matters because the first item is what exposes you today and the last is what brings you patients tomorrow. Almost everyone starts with the last one.

And if your problem is domain and email rather than copy, we covered that in domain compliance, four silent problems.

The one thing to do: the three-column audit

Twenty minutes, today. Open a sheet with three columns: the sentence as it stands on your site, which rule it touches, and the version that complies and gets cited.

We have the sheet already filled in: every prohibited phrase on the left and the version that complies, and gets cited, on the right, split by profession. Plus a 12-question scorecard that puts a number on your site's exposure today.

Frequently asked questions

For twenty years professional marketing taught you to sound like the best. Your licensing board says you cannot, and now it turns out AI was not going to cite it either.

Both point at the same place: write what can be checked.

It is easier than it sounds, because you already have the facts. The year you opened, the services you provide, the languages you work in, how long a first visit takes. None of that has to be invented. It just has to be written instead of the adjective.

Thanks for reading this far. We know how expensive an hour is when you are seeing patients or clients all day, so if you made it to the end, we hope the twenty-minute audit earns its keep.

Keep reading

• How to spot AI-written reviews - the filter, and the two lines for health care and law
• The August 17 to 23 recap - how to measure whether AI recommends you
• Domain compliance, four silent problems
• AI doesn't guess, it skips you - why what cannot be checked does not get cited
• The 5-star review system - how to ask for reviews without a conditioned incentive
• The five disciplines map - the whole framework

Sources

All verified August 25, 2026, read in the official text.

• Fla. Stat. §466.019, 2025 edition, dental advertising: https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/0466.019
• Fla. Stat. §456.062, 2025 edition, advertisement by a health care practitioner of free, discounted-fee or reduced-fee services: https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/0456.062
• Fla. Stat. §473.323, grounds for discipline for certified public accountants: https://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0400-0499/0473/Sections/0473.323.html
• The Florida Bar, Handbook on Lawyer Advertising and Solicitation, rules 4-7.12(d), 4-7.13(b)(2), 4-7.13(b)(3), 4-7.13(b)(9) and 4-7.14(a)(7): https://www-media.floridabar.org/uploads/2025/12/Handbook-2025-Approved-by-SCA-12-10-25.pdf
• Federal Trade Commission, Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, effective October 21, 2024: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/consumer-reviews-testimonials-rule-questions-answers
• HHS, HIPAA and marketing, written authorization, 45 CFR 164.508(a)(3): https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/guidance/marketing/index.html
• HHS Office for Civil Rights, settlement with Elite Dental Associates: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/compliance-enforcement/agreements/elite/index.html
• HHS Office for Civil Rights, settlement with New Vision Dental: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/compliance-enforcement/agreements/new-vision/index.html