Join or Die Method: How We Produce 2,445% ROI and $1.4 Million Dollars in Revenue each Month for a Multi-Location Lasik Provider

This strategy is not ideal for all businesses.

It is designed for multi-location or multi-brand companies who are looking to drastically increase their online revenue by working together to dominate Google.

Also, if you are a VC or Private Equity firm with several portfolio companies in the same niche…this strategy would work wonders for you.

This is the exact strategy we use to generate over $1,400,000 a month in revenue for a regional refractive surgery provider – with a 2,445% ROI.

If you are not a multi-location or multi-brand business, but would still like a step-by-step strategy on how to take over Google, I suggest you check out our Google Concierge Strategy – we used that strategy to increase an addiction treatment company’s organic traffic value from $39k a month to $124k a month in 1 year, just by giving Google what it wants.

A private equity firm had recently acquired several surgical ophthalmic practices and had plans to continue to do so across the Northeast. Their goal was to become the region’s #1 Lasik and refractive surgery provider.

Our job was to create an online marketing strategy that would support each practice, increase online visibility, and increase lead generation.

After conducting a “state of the union” style audit (marketing and competitive analysis) on each of the newly acquired practices, we came to a stark conclusion. We had a problem.

As you would expect, each practice was doing things a bit differently.

One brand had an internal marketing team and was doing a fairly good job with content creation (but still was not ranking in Google), etc.

While other brands didn’t even know the login to their website admin area.

In the world of online marketing, this was a rag tag group of websites in various states of “success”.

Sort of like the Bad News Bears of the ophthalmic world.

Now would probably be a good time to explain the title of this case study. Why is it called The Join or Die method?

Well for those of you who slept through high school history class – Join or Die was a famous political cartoon by Ben Franklin.

Was it the first meme in US history?

Short Version – It was originally used to unite the colonists to combat the French during the French and Indian war but was more famously used during the Revolutionary War to encourage the colonies to stick together and unite against the British.

Strength in numbers.

We decided that if we could somehow bring all brands together under one extremely optimized website, then they would all be stronger in their local areas than they were by themselves.

We knew there were three main triggers that we could tap into to produce the results we were looking for:

1. Domain/Topical Authority
2. Google My Business Entity/Trust Factor
3. Increased Traffic and Engagement

Ranking in Google is sort of like a high school popularity contest.

In high school, if you are the president of the chess club, odds are you aren’t the most popular kid in town.

BUT, if the captain of the football team thinks you are cool – guess what? You are now cool by association.

By having high authority and niche relevant websites linking back to you, your website suddenly becomes authoritative to Google.

Backlinks are a complicated and an incredibly in depth topic. Not all backlinks are created equal and some backlinks might actually hurt instead of help.

That being said, we can’t possibly go into as much depth as we should about backlinks in this case study, so…

Now what does this have to do with this case study?

Well, each brand’s website lacked a strong backlink profile.

This was due in part to the lack of a backlink strategy but also due to a lack of content that “deserved” to be linked to.

To get the captain of the football team to link to you, you need to give him a reason why.

We knew that if we brought all brands under one website that it would not only be more economical but impactful because we could invest in creating incredibly in depth and authoritative “linkable assets”…i.e., content people would want to link to.

Instead of creating content for five or more websites, we created incredible content for one website and leveraged the power of strategic internal linking to funnel all the power from the authoritative backlinks to each brand’s pages on the website.

One incredible piece of content benefits the entire group.

If getting high authority domains linking to your website is like having the captain of the high school football team thinking you are cool – then this next element is like having Tom Brady vouch for your coolness.

This strategy comes from Google itself.

If you are a local business, with a physical location, then your Google My Business listing is your single most important asset (in some regards even more important than your website).

This is because Google My Business is what we call an Entity Hub.

To realize the power of an Entity Hub you need to first understand what an Entity is…. according to Google.

What we are about to briefly discuss is some of the most cutting-edge SEO knowledge available today. Most agencies don’t even know about Entities let alone know how to leverage them for your benefit.

Entities are a way for Google to index and categorize the bajillion various elements that are online.

Think of it like the card catalogue at the library back in the day.

As the internet grows at ridiculous rates every day, Google needed to come up with a way to categorize everything in a fast and easy way.

In the basic sense, Entities are broken down into person, place, or a thing. Yes, there are nuances in each broad category but those are the three main kinds of Entities.

OK, back to Google My Business being an Entity Hub…

An Entity Hub is a place where more than one Entity comes together (extremely powerful).

The three Entities that come together in a Google My Business listing are:

1. Brand (name of company)
2. Geography (Philadelphia)
3. Niche (Lasik or Lasik surgery)

If you do this part correctly you are essentially forcing Google to think of your brand, your service, and your location as the same single Entity. The result of which is you ranking for any keyword related to your niche in a hundred square mile radius of your physical location.

The second element of leveraging Google My Business properly is trust.

You see, in order for a business to actually claim a Google My Business listing, they need to prove to Google that they are indeed real.

The most common way Google proves that you are who you say you are is by verifying the business’ address via postcard.

This eliminates a large majority of potential scam websites that Google would need to worry about. So if you are able to jump through the proper hoops to establish your credibility with Google, your brand (and therefore website) becomes trusted by Google.

So now that you understand the power of Google My Business, it’s time for a quiz.

With the Join or Die Method, we were able to exponentially increase trust with Google for all of the brands, just by leveraging their GMB listings together.

The more Google trusts you, the more it will rank you.

Just like with the first two triggers – everything is better when you work together.

Traffic and engagement are two key factors that Google looks at when they are deciding on if a website is “worthy” to rank for a certain term or niche.

Prior to this strategy, each brand’s website wasn’t receiving a lot of traffic and engagement. This was mainly due to lack of engaging content (or lack of any content for that matter) and lack of authority to Google (which meant they weren’t really ranking for anything).

With the Join or Die method – every brand’s traffic and engagement went up drastically because they were all working together as a team.

For example…

• When someone lands on an engaging blog post and interacts with it (watches an embedded video, clicks around, etc.) – ALL the brands benefit from that.
• When someone is driven to one of the brand’s location pages because they were referred by their doctor – ALL the brands benefit from that.
• If someone interacts with one of the brand’s Google My Business listings – ALL the brands benefit from that.

You get the point – Now the brands are beneficiaries of activities that may or may not have anything to do with them directly.

They are cool by association.

So, there it is, a strategy that would make Ben Franklin proud.

Now like I said, this strategy isn’t for everyone – it was a very unique situation. But the elements of this strategy are universal – every website needs authoritative backlinks, Entity optimization and traffic and engagement.

If you don’t have the time, expertise, or desire to do all of the above by yourself, we would love to become your SEO partner.

Surchability isn’t your typical agency (in fact we HATE being called an agency). We are constantly pushing the boundaries of what is possible. The Join or Die Method and The Google Concierge Strategy are just two weapons in our arsenal.

What you need to be successful:

• Already running an established business.
• Belief in the process and Surchability philosophy.
• Willing to invest in your success.
• Prepared for increase in leads with an effective sales process and qualified staff.