When Dr. Efren Buff De La Rosa founded the Foot Institute, he did what most good doctors do: he poured his energy into patients. The practice grew into a multi-office podiatry group across the El Paso, Texas region — soon to open its fifth location in Horizon City — on the strength of clinical care and word of mouth. But the website that was supposed to represent all of that work wasn't pulling its weight.
Dr. De La Rosa admits he hesitated before signing on with Foster Consulting™ in 2024. What tipped the decision wasn't a sales pitch — it was a real conversation about strategy. After talking through the approach with the Foster team, the difference clicked. "A lot of it was above what I could initially understand, but it made sense when they explained it,” he said. “ I decided to finally pull the trigger. And I'm glad I did."
Part of what made the choice easier was Foster Consulting™'s track record. The company has been helping law firms and health care practices grow since 1995, and it brought that experience — along with its proprietary DSS™ marketing automation software — to the Foot Institute from day one.
For the first time, Dr. De La Rosa could see exactly what his marketing was doing. "You can go there and actually look at it and see what's going on," he says of the DSS™ dashboards. "With our other website, you didn't have access to stuff like that."
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A Genuinely Collaborative Relationship
If there's one thing everyone at the Foot Institute agrees on, it's that the relationship works because it's a true partnership — not a hand-off.
Much of that is thanks to the practice's dedicated Foster Consulting™ Digital Marketing Strategist, Amos Orr, who leads a standing monthly meeting and stays in near-constant contact by email in between.
Business Development Associate Melissa Medina, who joined the Foot Institute to bring focus to its marketing, remembers being overwhelmed by the data at first. "I told Amos in our very first meeting, 'I don't understand a word you just said — but give me time,'" she says, laughing. "Now, fast forward six months, and the math is mathing. And that's thanks to Amos being so patient and thorough in explaining his vision for the company — for both Foster and the Foot Institute."
Built to Win in the Age of AI Search
The timing of the Foot Institute's investment turned out to be fortunate. As Dr. De La Rosa and his team leaned into their website, the ground under search itself was shifting. That shift — often described as the move from traditional SEO to answer engine optimization — is exactly where a generic website becomes a liability. AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude don't return 10 blue links; they synthesize an answer and cite the sources they trust most. Practices with thin, cookie-cutter pages simply don't get mentioned.
Because the Foot Institute committed to deep, genuinely useful content — educational pages that answer the everyday questions patients actually ask, on topics like tingling and numb feet, chronic heel pain, nighttime foot pain, and foot neuropathy — it built the kind of authority those systems reward.
The practice pairs that content with tools designed to turn curiosity into contact, including an interactive foot health assessment that leverages AI to provide customized guidance on common foot and ankle concerns. "The assessment visitors see when they first come to our site is unique and not something I see for other podiatry competitors," Melissa said. "It's a very valuable tool to have."
The Results, in Plain Terms
Over the past two years, the Foot Institute's digital footprint didn't just grow — it transformed.
- Nearly 50x more organic search traffic. Estimated monthly visits from unpaid search climbed from a small base to tens of thousands, making Google search the site's primary source of visitors.
- 7,181 top-10 keyword rankings, up from roughly 230 at the start — about 31 times more ways to be found.
- 546,000-plus visits from unpaid search, out of more than 636,000 total website visits.
- 70-plus new pages published and about 100 improved, expanding a content library that keeps working long after each page goes live.
- 4,831 website contact actions — 2,886 phone-link clicks and 1,945 form submissions — plus more than 15,000 call clicks from the local Google Business Profile.
Those signals show up where it counts. The Castellano office alone reported about 150 new patients in each of two recent months, and average weekly patient volume across the practice held strong even as provider availability changed. As Dr. De La Rosa puts it, "The amount of new patients we're seeing more than covers what we're paying out for this website."
What the Foot Institute's Growth Means for Other Practices
The Foot Institute’s path from a generic brochure site to an AI-visible authority reflects principles any practice can apply.
1. A Growing Content Library Compounds Over Time
A strong page keeps working month after month. The Foot Institute's most-visited educational article has drawn more than 150,000 active users on its own. Every new page and every improvement adds another door a prospective patient can walk through — which is why a website becomes more valuable the longer you invest in it.
2. AI Rewards Genuine Authority — Not Shortcuts
Answer engines are built to surface the most credible, specific source for a question. The Foot Institute earned its visibility by publishing real, patient-focused content — structured so answer engines can read, trust, and quote it — not by gaming a system. That authority is what makes a practice discoverable when someone asks an AI assistant where to turn for foot and ankle care.
3. Collaboration and Communication Drive Results
The Foot Institute's biggest change wasn't a single tactic — it was engagement. Monthly strategy meetings, action plans that actually get implemented, content the practice reviews before it publishes, and a strategist who explains the data until it makes sense. Marketing works best when it's a genuine partnership, and the practice's growth accelerated once someone was focused on making that partnership hum.
4. Experience and Transparency Are Worth Paying For
Dr. De La Rosa’s advice to other podiatrists is refreshingly direct: look at costs and outcomes together, and insist on a partner who is honest and transparent about results. An established track record — and a platform that lets you see exactly how your marketing is performing — is what separates a real investment from a monthly expense you can't measure.
Your Next Chapter Starts Now
The Foot Institute didn't wait for AI search to feel urgent. By committing to a collaborative relationship with a marketing services provider that has been growing practices since 1995, it was already positioned to lead when the search landscape shifted beneath everyone's feet.
Your practice can be, too. A Foster Consulting™ Answer Engine Audit shows you exactly how AI-driven search engines interpret your website — and what it would take to become the practice they recommend.