In rooting around on the web while doing some research, I came across a case study document from O’Reilly about a Philadelphia dentist by the name of Dr. Ken Circa.

Upon discovering the case study pdf (you can download it by clicking on the link), I decided to see how Dr. Circa’s site was doing.  When I did a search for “Philadelphia dentist,” here’s what I found:

Philadelphia Dentist: One Expensive Keyword!

Being the inquisitive sort that I am, I decided to dig a little deeper to see how many searches there are each month for “Philadelphia dentist.” Here’s what I found when using Google’s Keyword Tool:

As you can see by the graphic above, this is one expensive keyword ($10.49/click)!

That got me to thinking “this guy’s search ranking is saving him a boat-load on PPC advertising and probably traditional advertising, too.” Upon thinking that, I got out my trusty calculator in conjunction with my traffic estimator spreadsheet to calculate how valuable Dr. Cirka’s search rankings (two front page listings on top of a spot on Google Maps).

Traffic Estimates for “Philadelphia Dentist”

Here’s a screen shot from my traffic estimator spreadsheet tool based on 14,800 searches/month for the term “Philadelphia dentist:”

Since Dr. Cirka owns positions 1&2 on Google for “Philadelphia dentist”, adding the likely traffic from those top 2 positions gives you 4,359 likely visitors each month to Dr. Cirka’s web world.

Search Traffic = New Dental Patients

If a paltry 0.5% (that’s 1/2 of 1%) ultimately become patients, he’s looking at 22 new patients/month.

Search Traffic = New Revenue Streams

On one of his sites, he offers a free exam that is valued at $170 so let’s use that as the typical visit revenue for a patient.

Multiplying $170 x 22 new patients each month, Dr. Cirka is likely generating somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,705.15/month in new revenue from his websites. I have no idea of the inner workings of his business but suffice it to say, search engines are paving the way to exponential growth for Dr. Cirka by even the most conservative estimates.

SEO = Huge Cost Savings

To generate the same amount of traffic (4,359 visitors/month), Dr. Cirka would have to spend $45,725.91 in PPC ads EACH MONTH. In other words, he’d be upside down by a good amount if PPC ads were the primary growth driver for his business.

I’d imagine he’s saving money on other paid advertising as well since greater than 80% of people search on the Internet before making a buying decision, and organic listings convert higher than paid.

The Bottom Line on SEO

Just comparing the likely traffic generated by his organic listings to what he’d have to pay to get the same amount of traffic through PPC, I’d say the case is overwhelmingly in favor of organic SEO, wouldn’t you?

Disclaimer

Dr. Cirka is neither a client nor student of Roger Bauer or the Search Engine Ninja.  This post is for educational purposes only, and the numbers presented here have not been validated or confirmed by Dr. Cirka in any way, shape, or fashion.