Local Businesses/Professions   My name is John Burch. I am a dentist, practicing in Mountain View, California. About two years ago, I decided to look into various ways to market my practice. The first thing I noticed was the high cost of traditional marketing. And, I was not able to get much of a response with the various methods I tried (coupons, new homeowners, yellow pages, newspaper ads and an expensive newsletter). Then, someone recommended that I build a Web site, and use the Internet to market my practice. I did some research, and found SiteBuildIt. I downloaded the Action Guide, and began learning how to "do it myself." I chose drburch.com as my domain, and "Mountain View Dentist" as my primary search term. The first month my site was actually up was May of 2003. My average daily unique visitors that month was just 1, and I converted none of the 26 visitors who came to my site into a dental patient. Still, I was encouraged - we all start somewhere. The site was young, and I was just getting started. I followed the SBI! Action Guide to build more content, to improve my natural search results, and followed the advice and strategies in their Traffic, Resources, and Tips 'n Techniques HQs to purchase keywords on Google and Overture. I read everything I could get my hands on from Ken Evoy at SiteSell. My daily visitor count began to rise. First to an average of 5, then 11, and finally all the way up to 47 average daily unique visitors by the end of 2003. (Remember, this is for a dentist in Mountain View - those numbers are WAY better than any offline advertising I could do). I continued to build up my site's content, and groomed my pages to convert better. One key factor in this for me was the enhancement of SBI that allowed me to upload HTML. When this was added, I bought and learned FrontPage. By January of 2004, we were getting an average of 63 daily uniques, and converting better than one in one-hundred visitors into a new patient. I analyzed my Return on Investment. I was getting about 1800 monthly unique visitors, and seeing 22 new patients each month. So my conversion was really better than 1/100. In the dental field, the average new patient needs about $1000 worth in treatment. And of course, the lifetime value of a new patient is several times that amount. So, in addition to the free "natural" search engines, I can also afford to advertise at Google and Overture. The net result, when all is factored in, is an extremely high Return On Investment. And I can fine-tune this, dropping the unprofitable keywords, keeping the profitable ones, and experimenting with new ones. I can now input the actual numbers and predict exactly what my maximum Pay-Per-Click expenses should be. For a health care professional such as myself, this has been very helpful. We enjoy a high income per new patient ($1000), which allows us to bid fairly high for traffic. Ken's note: Overture and Google are both heavily investing in local search technology. So expect to be able to bid for local customers soon, increasing the ROI even more. Best of all, of course - I was seeing that about half of the patients who contacted our office actually would come in and begin treatment. I tracked the actual income we were receiving from our online marketing, and, sure enough, we had generated just over $10,000 additional income per month since October from the Internet! Now there are variable expenses that must be figured against that income. But the sheer fact that I was able to use SBI to stimulate my practice was what I was excited about. As Ken says, the only thing I had to do was bring my brain and motivation to work - there is no such thing as "get rich quick" - the great thing about SBI is that all the barriers are gone. I just focus on business. And here's the really interesting, surprising part. Naturally, our geographic reach is quite small - I'm a dentist in a California town. At first, I thought this would make the Internet not work for my purposes. After all, the Internet is for the world, I thought, and my dental office relies on very local traffic. Ken's note: Dr. Burch "gets it." Most local businesses have not yet seen past "their local noses." Dr. Burch explains that mentality well. The major Search Engines are pouring tens of millions of dollars into local search. It may take a year or three, but the paper-bound Yellow Pages are doomed. Those local businesses that "get it" now will thrive and jump way ahead of their competition. But I'll let Dr. Burch tell you the rest in his own words from here on in... What I found was just the opposite. The Web is a bonanza for local businesses. I modified all of our search terms geographically to give us the edge over my local competition (yes, also explained in SBI - in one of the online HQs). And Pay-Per-Click advertising yielded better than offline ads. And here's a very interesting and unexpected benefit: The distance patients would travel, when they found us online, was MUCH GREATER than normal. I got patients from distances of 30, 40 and even 50 miles away! This happened, I believe, because I am able to present so many benefits on my Web site, and add to it so easily using SiteBuildIt. (The SiteSell folks call this PREselling - the site builds my credibility to such a degree that patients will travel to see me.) The second big unexpected benefit was that my online patients often needed and accepted larger amounts of treatment than normal. I am not sure why this is, but maybe it is because - again - we can display more content that is specific to their needs. As well, my site's content builds trust and credibility before my patients even see or talk to me in person. In summary, my experience with SBI has been a true love affair. The program has worked flawlessly for me. Ken Evoy has led the way, and I don't see anyone even close to his precision, passion, and honesty. I have also learned a lot from Sharon Fling, and her wonderful e-book, "How to Promote Your Local Business on the Internet." Having two children in college, and not finding much success in traditional marketing, SiteSell and SBI have made a tremendous difference in my life. And from what I see here in Silicon Valley, local search is just starting to take off. The best is yet to come!! Sincerely, John L. Burch DDS www.drburch.com Dr. John's Updates October/2004 December/2004 February/2005 May/2005 October/2005 February/2006 September/2009     Close Window