01 / 06 · Our Story

Our Story

Felt firsthand.
Proven in ours.

How an orthodontist and a technologist turned frustration into a platform.

Chapter I

The Illusion of Growth

The Art of Braces — our family practice — opened its doors in Las Vegas in 2018. For years, like most practices, we trusted our website and SEO were "handled." Reports came in every month. Numbers, charts, rankings… all of it looked official. And for a while, it was fine. The practice grew. Patients came through the door. We had no reason to question it.

But somewhere along the way — between auto-renewed contracts and recycled reports — things quietly stopped working. The effort faded. The strategy didn't evolve. And we didn't notice until the results did. But none of it really meant anything.

We weren't showing up where it mattered. Not on page one. Not in Google's local 3-pack. Not in front of the patients we were meant to serve. Still, the answer we kept getting was always the same: "Spend more on ads."

So we did. Google. Facebook. Instagram. Over and over again. We had no real strategy, no clear measurement, and the people we hired to represent us online — the digital marketers, the SEO providers, the social managers, the website builders — never took the time to understand who we actually were. Just… spend more.

And what came through our doors reflected that: patients looking for discounts, corporate pricing, and the lowest monthly payments. The Art of Braces is a boutique, family-owned practice built on experience, care, and intention. That was never who we were. But none of that translated online.

Chapter II

The Sudden Silence

In October 2025, we made the decision to move on from our vendor. We were told we would receive our website assets within two weeks after final payment. We paid. And then… nothing. Weeks passed with no assets, no code, and no support. By mid-December, we were facing a very real possibility: our website going dark on December 31st.

And it got worse. We discovered that changes made behind the scenes had made our site uncrawlable by Google — a technical block that told Google our site didn't exist, so it stopped showing us entirely. We weren't just underperforming. We were invisible. Our organic traffic dropped to nearly zero.

Chapter III

The Reconstruction

Faced with a complete blackout, I stepped in. With a background in software engineering, I started reverse engineering the entire site from scratch — not just to keep it alive, but to understand what had actually been built. What I found? A mess. Overcomplicated, bloated, and fragile.

We set three workstreams in motion immediately: first, rebuild the existing site to stay online; second, fix the technical blockages killing our organic visibility; and third, begin designing something entirely new — something worthy of the standard Dr. Saoly Benson holds herself to.

01

Keep the practice online

02

Repair technical search equity

03

Design a patient experience worthy of the practice

Within weeks, the numbers began to reflect the change. We moved up to Page 1 for our primary local terms, secured our position in Google's local 3-pack, and saw organic traffic begin to climb back from the dead.

Search Ranking

Page 1

Primary local terms

Local 3-Pack

Las Vegas

"Best orthodontist"

Organic Traffic

9%

Up from ~0% in 60 days

Chapter IV

The Gift

On Valentine's Day, we launched the new site — a gift to my wife. The impact on our boutique practice was immediate and unmistakable. The new experience didn't do everything, but it changed everything.

5–6×

Weekly consult inquiries

Zero

Paid ad dollars spent

Aligned

Patients seeking quality care

Chapter V

The Realization

That's when OrthoAscend was born. Not as a hypothetical business idea, but as a realization.

As we shared our experience with other orthodontists — friends, practice owners, peers we respect — we quickly realized that what we went through wasn't unique. We heard the same story over and over: the same frustration with agency black boxes, the same wasted marketing spend, and the same complete disconnect between the premium physical standard of their practices and how they were presented online.

Chapter VI

The Standard

Dr. Saoly Benson

Dr. Saoly Benson

Orthodontist & Co-Founder

Benjamin Benson

Benjamin Benson

Practice Director & Co-Founder

Matthew Jorgensen

Matthew Jorgensen

Co-Founder & UX Designer

So we decided to do something about it. OrthoAscend is a family business, built by a doctor and an engineer inside a real, working practice. We don't work with everyone, by design, because this isn't about volume. It's about doing this the right way, for the right practices.

Over the years, I've had the chance to be around orthodontists through Dr. Benson's work — especially within the Pitts community. One thing stood out immediately: this is a group of people who genuinely care, who give, and who take immense pride in what they do. That's rare, and it's worth protecting.

OrthoAscend exists to reflect that standard in how practices show up, how they're discovered, and how they grow. Not through shortcuts, not through noise, but through clarity, intention, and systems that actually work.

We felt the pain first.
Now we help others avoid it.

Our Principles

Over time, the way we built started shaping what we valued.

The standards behind how we think, build, communicate, and operate.

Explore Our Values →

Get Started

We’re not trying to work with everyone.

We’re building for practices that care deeply about craftsmanship, patient experience, and doing things thoughtfully. If that sounds like you, let’s talk.

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