Chris Dreyer:
Welcome to a special episode of Personal Injury MarketingMastermind. I'm Chris Dreyer, CEO of Rankings.io and your host. Two weeks ago,we wrapped up the first ever PIMCON, the Personal Injury Marketing Conference.Today we're bringing to the highlights from my comprehensive deep dive intodominating SEO for law firms. At Rankings.io, I've worked with hundreds of lawfirms helping them climb to the top of Google, and they get the best cases. Theinsights I'm about to share are battle-tested strategies that have producedreal results for our clients.
Now, if you're a regular listener, you know I'm a strongadvocate for omnichannel marketing, so why focus an entire talk on SEO? Googleis the final destination of your marketing efforts. It all comes down to thenumbers, and these numbers are staggering. Google processes over 3 trillionsearches each year. 42% of local searches result in a click in the 3-Pack, and86% of people who go to Google Maps are looking for local businesses withhiring intent, and 84% of users turn to Google at least three times a day. Youcould pour money into TV ads, but if you're not showing up in the 3-Pack orprotecting your brand with Google Ads, you're leaving money on the table. Inthe next half hour, I'll reveal some of the most impactful tactics and toolsthat the most successful law firms are using to dominate their markets. We'lldive into three key factors Google uses to determine local rankings: relevance,distance, and prominence. We got a lot to cover. Let's go.
Google. There's 3 trillion searches each year. 42% oflocal searches result in a click in the 3-Pack. 86% of people that go to GoogleMaps are looking for a local business. That means they have hiring intent. Andthen 84% of the audience use Google three times a day. The big thing aboutGoogle is, it is the final destination for many of your other efforts. Youcould advertise on TV, but if you're not in the 3-Pack or you're not doingGoogle Ads to protect your brand, it's not going to be as effective. So howdoes Google determine local rankings?
And by the way, guys, when I think of Google, I'm justgoing to be real here, we can replace Google with a big dumb robot. So a lot ofthings that I'm going to read here is going to be simplified and it's going tobe logical. It's going to make sense. I think sometimes we try to overcomplicate it. I think a lot of SEO specialists talk about the 200 rankingfactors and try to pull the shades over your eyelids, when really there's somethat just make a massive impact on their own. But really, this is straight fromthe horse's mouth, this is straight from Google. How Google determines localrankings. Relevance: how closely the query matches to what someone's searchingfor; distance: everyone here doing some work, checking some emails on theirphone; and then prominence: it's how well-known you are. Prominence. That'scontent, that's links, that's reviews, that's prominence.
The issue with rankings a lot of times is you have to doall three correct. If any of these fail, then you're going to be in trouble. Soit's the intersection of that Venn diagram, the sweet spot of relevance,prominence, and distance. I want to start with the one that I think is the mostimportant out of the gate: relevance. And I'm going to read this here.Relevance refers to how well a local business profile matches what someone issearching for. Remember what I said, the big dumb robot? I'm going to give youa perfect example. There's a lot of great firms in Michigan. Which firm belowis most relevant to the query "Michigan auto accident lawyer"?Michigan Auto Law - Auto Accident Attorneys. Jay Trucks and Associates. When itcomes to Google, though, and your Google business profile, follow DBA. You cando business as another phrase related to your main brand name.
In this example, Steve Gerstin, you know he's got 575reviews. Jay Trucks got over 600. If it didn't come down to relevancy, JayTrucks should rank. It's got more reviews, same review rating, but MichiganAuto Law, because it matches the query so much more closely, not only do theyrank one time in the map pack for Michigan auto accident lawyers, they ranktwice. So this is a huge problem when your firm is using multiple names,because it's constrained to a character limit. Now, there's a right and a wrongway to do it. If you just stuff keywords in your name, that is against Google'sguidelines. Strictly prohibited. However, you go file with the Secretary ofState, file a DBA, have your paperwork, get some signage, maybe do a video for re-verifyingthat profile, you're good to go. So that would be my number one tip. That'ssimple. Go file, make the update. Boom.
In the past it was all about keywords. Stuff a keyword onthe page. Now it's about entities, relationships. Google's trying to counter AIcontent that's generic. How many of your competitors have a St. Louis caraccident lawyer page, if you're in St. Louis? Google has a big challenge;there's too much content. It doesn't even have the resources to crawl everysingle page. So you need to make it super simple for Google. Go back into yourcontent and start to build these entities. That's why, and you're going to hearit from me as an SEO specialist, you should all have an in-house writer, all ofyou. We can supplement, we can do the research, but you have unique knowledgeof your neighborhoods and locations that will enhance your ability to rank.
Now, I'm going to give you a cheat sheet. When it comes toentities and records, we had this leak from Google a while back, and I thinkWikipedia was mentioned over 200 times. So if Google is referencing Wikipedia,we should be cognizant of it too. The cheat sheet: you go to Wikipedia. Ifyou're trying to rank in Indianapolis, what's listed in Indianapolis? What's anentity that you can incorporate into your content? I'll take it a step further.You should become an entity. You should be a known quantity. I checkedWikipedia, Alexander Shunnarah, John Morgan, couple more, Ben Crump. That's it.What are the steps that you need to take? Do you have a high-profile casethat's mentioned in Wikipedia? Awards? Have you written a book? If Google isusing Wikipedia as a trusted source, it'd be pretty important to be in there.
You've heard time in, time out, how important reviews are.I can't remember the exact study. It was like 90% of consumers look at reviewsin some capacity before making a hiring decision. They're looking at the goodand the bad. We all do the sort. When we go to Amazon, we look at thoseone-star reviews to have a laugh and to see what the real problems are. Butwhen it comes to relevancy, it's the words and phrases in the content. If youget a review and they say, "amazing," aside from maybe lifting youroverall rating, that's not going to do you any good. It is table stakes to havea 4.9 or higher. Table stakes. The game has changed. It's too competitive.
When it comes to relevancy, it's the words and phrasespeople are saying in their content. So unfortunately, it is necessary to get a4.9 or higher, and the reason is the best cases come from the best searches. Ifa consumer types in "best car accident lawyer" and you have a 4.4, a4.2, you're not in the map pack. I understand there's different jurisdictionsand things you can and can't say about specialization and top-rated and the best,but the consumer doesn't know that. They're going to type in "top truckaccident lawyer." You got a 4.1, good luck. And I can tell you, just likewhen you're shopping on Amazon and you want to buy something new and you see alow rated item, and another one at the same cost, and by the way, it's all thesame cost because your contingency, at least on the front end, you're going tochoose the one that's the highest rated.
The next one, I don't think it's talked about enough, it'sdistance. The mobile device changed everything. If you Google "bestrestaurants near me," right here in Scottsdale, are you going to seerestaurants 40 miles away? Are you going to see J&G? Mowry and Cotton? Iunderstand there are barriers to entry. Capital, right? We want to keep ourfacility costs low because that's not revenue-generating. We want to get thosesuites, those Regus offices. But here's the thing: many of you are entering arace that's already started. Take Atlanta. Am I going to open an office next toNugent and Morgan & Morgan, that's got thousands of reviews? I understand.Maybe it's a sweet spot. You got a good building. Maybe it's a class A. You gotto think about where people are located. Who's your target demo? Where do theylive? And make that decision because it has an impact. You have lesscompetition and ability to rank.
So one of the tools that we use is Local Falcon. What itwill do is it will drop a grid over your location to determine where yourrankings deplete, but it will also help you in selecting a location to open.You can do the same thing for your competitors, and you can see yourcompetitors maybe really dominate a certain area, but then they get weaker at adifferent location, and you can strategically see, in many cases, it may not bethe best decision to open an office in a whole new city. You may want to openan additional office in the same city, just because of how Google operates.Here's the thing: if there's another individual at that same location that hasmore reviews, you're filtered. You're not going to rank. So it's like that oldschool movie Highlander. There can only be one.
I think that a lot of us, we may have good processes toacquire reviews, but I think we really need to be cognizant of processes whenthings don't go right; an escalation process, a fixer. So I got to give ashout-out to Dan Newlin. Dan Newlin spent 22 million in just Orlando, and herehe is, 13,000 reviews and a 4.9 rating. It's inexcusable to have a low rating.I think one of the most important hires is someone that that's their day in,day out job. It's the client experience component, and it's always thinkingabout reviews at every point. But the reason why I gave Dan Newlin as anexample, very prominent attorney, very successful attorney, but he himself is theindividual that meets with the clients when they leave a one-star review. Thefirst quarter of this year, I heard he did it already 70 times and fix thatrating.
When we're talking about more cases, the final destinationis your Google profile. It's your website. Radio, put a call to action in, theygo to the website. We had the phone numbers. Many of them are hard to remember.They're going to do that Google search, even if it's for your brand. If aconsumer is in St. Louis and they leave a negative review on your St. Louisprofile, but then they're really ticked off. They're amped up, they're ready tojust kill you, and then they go to KC. They leave you a negative review. Here'sthe thing: thanks. Thanks, consumer, because they didn't have a client experienceat both locations, and you can get that review taken down. If they curse...Here's the deal. When you reply to a Google review, they get a message thatsays it was replied. I think when you reply, you should be thinking about theother consumers that read those reviews, but if they change their review andthere's some curse words in there, some slander, you can get those taken down.
Quantity. I think this is a challenging one for a fewbusiness models: the referral firms, the litigators that really have high caseselection criteria, you just don't have as many reps at the plate. Iunderstand, but here's the reality. Right from the horse's mouth, right fromGoogle. It says review quantity. When I look at locations, a lot of times allthe review ratings are the same, similar profiles. The person with the mostreviews wins. So I want to give you some rocket fire tips here. Anytime aclient says "thank you" is an opportunity to ask for a review. Everysingle employee at the company, every single one, not intake, just intake, notjust when you're closing out the checks, every single one, you shouldincentivize the behavior. You need to utilize tech. Some people, they're notresponding to an email. Send them a text. Call them up. Create a firm-widecompetition. So you can incentivize the individual, but you can incentivize theentire company.
Here's the deal: when you do that and you're constantlyputting that information in front of your staff about how important and howmuch it impacts them, especially if you're a trial attorney that maybe getssome profit sharing, they're more inclined to take that serious. There's a firmI worked with out of Nevada. One of the best things they did was every singleweek they sent an employee newsletter to their entire staff of how many reviewsthey obtained and who are the people that obtained those. Every single week. Ifan individual, if you ask them to leave a review and they say they will, in myopinion, they just gave you permission to follow up until they do one. To buy ordie.
Another tactic that falls in line with tech is, if you'reon the phone with someone that says they will leave a review, send them a textmessage while they're on the phone. We just talked about the keywords andphrases that matter in a review. Coach them up. Now, I'm not saying jam intheir keywords and just spam the hell out of it, but coach them up. They'relike, "Oh, I don't know what to write." You can encourage them towrite certain things. Well, tell me about your experience. There are some thingsthat you can do as attorneys to help your agency. Number one: monitor yourbrand mentions. Somebody picks up and talks about you in the news, drop theauthor an email and say, "Hey, can you incorporate a link to mywebsite?" It's not going to convert at all times, but it will sometimes.Better yet, you're going to build a relationship with that individual. The nexttime they need a source, you may be it.
The next one: relationship-based guest posting. Many ofyou live in your local area and you go to a restaurant, they all need reviews.Did you have a great experience? Do they know you? Maybe they'll allow you tocontribute content to their website. Maybe you can do a joint charity orfundraiser. I think many in the audience right here, we all want to rank. Ifyou're in Florida's jurisdiction and you're not planning to go to Texas, talkto a Texas attorney. Maybe it's a different practice area. Now, how do you dothat? How do you make it natural. There's a lot of sports that go on,out-of-state sports. Have you been hurt after so-and-so game? A lot of ways todo it.
Podcasts. I think this one is the easiest and one of thebest tactics you as an attorney can take. Here's why: when you go on a podcast,most of the time, the host will transcribe the podcast and the content and putit all on the website, and most of the time they will put a link back to theguest on the site. So not only do you get the distribution from the podcast,the social content, but many times you'll get a link. Sponsorships. A lot of themwill slap the logo up there and they'll just put the image. Have them link thatimage to your website. Still passes authority. I know many of you, you do suchamazing charitable work, sponsoring sports, high school sports. It's simple.They're asking for a hundred bucks, 500 bucks. It means the world to them. Arethey not going to link back to your website? They absolutely will.
HARO. HARO's help a reporter out. This is a site you cansign up for. Journalists are constantly looking for quotes from experts.Monitor what you see. Here's the deal, though. You can't give something genericand think the journalist is going to pick it up. You got to put that sameamount of effort that you do in your practice into these quotes. Businessprofiles. All your social media profiles, all the legal directories, all theforums you're a part of, they all have an authorship. Drop your link in there.Awards. Not all awards pass equity, but they do build relevancy. They buildtrust. And here's the deal: Google, we don't know what's going to happen toGoogle. Right now. They got the lion's share. Number two's Bing at 3%. Theylook at dofollow links. However, Bing looks at all links, nofollow linksincluded, social links.
Press releases. You got a new employee joining the team.It's not necessarily something you should pay for distribution, a pressrelease. However, you're doing a fundraiser, you're doing something exciting,you want to spread the word, a press release can help attract links to you.Most press release distribution sites are nofollow. However, there are a fewthat will give you a link. Law Firm Newswire. Newswire.com. Those are greatlinks. Law firm Newswire in particular, I know it's owned by one of mycompetitors, but here's the deal: it's a legal niche link. What's the best linkin terms of relevancy for your practice to describe, to tell Google what youare? You're a law firm. I got a link from Law Firm Newswire.
Forum and community engagement. So we see Reddit justdominating right now, and I know that a lot of consumers... You got to becareful with this, it's got to be natural. You can't just jam in some fakecomments and try to solicit business, but if you're involved in forums, you cana lot of times drop some links in. And then testimonials. They're looking forclient testimonials. Maybe you can have them link back to your website. Sayyour agency asked for a case study and you're thrilled. Get a link from it. Iwant to talk about this, the leaky bucket of links. Let me explain this. Youshould absolutely link out to other websites, but here's the deal: when allthis link juice and all these links, guest posts and everything you'reacquiring is linking back to you, and then you have a thousand external links,all that equity is not contained to your website, it's flowing to them. In myopinion, most situations for outbound links should be nofollow.
You want to consume that. That's why when you go toFindLaw, to AVO, all these memberships that you pay for and to get yourdirectory spot, and there's still no follow, it's because they want to rank.They want to keep their equity. They don't want to leak it to something else.The next one is content pruning. One of the biggest examples that I see in thisspace is the "individuals killed on interstate so-and-so." You havethousands of these non-evergreen topics. They may be relevant at some point,maybe a week or two, maybe a little longer, but when we're talking years,they're not getting searched, and you have to understand, Google has a crawlbudget. It's very expensive to crawl the web. So just like you're hosting orthey want to cache your website, and if you haven't made any changes, it loadsmore quickly.
It's the same thing that Google does. Why should Googlecrawl your page again if you haven't refreshed the content? If Google only hasa certain amount of crawl budget and you've got 10,000 pages, it's going to beconfused. What's your most important pages? You want to expend that crawlbudget to your most important pages. So here's a few other examples. So theaccident news we talked about, seasonal holiday posts, old practice area pages,old location pages, thin, outdated content. When you're looking at your pages,the easiest thing to do, you can go to Google Analytics, you can also do thisthrough SEMRush. If your page isn't an evergreen topic, that's actually helpfulto the consumer, it doesn't fit in one of those categories, maybe you had aturkey drive and it's still on the website, if it doesn't receive traffic, doesnot have a link, just delete it. Don't even worry about the 301. If it has linkequity, if it has traffic, but it doesn't serve a purpose, then you canconsider deleting it and applying a 301 redirect.
I would talk to an SEO specialist about that. So my onepiece of advice is please, please don't just start nuking content. You want tomake sure that you preserve that equity from all your investments, all yourtime and resources that you've spent. Here's a big one, and this one pains me alittle bit. This is one of these that, as an SEO agency, I don't love doingspeeches in front of my competitors and people that we aren't working with, butit is what it is. I'm here to give value. It's not the brand itself thatimpacts rankings, it's the click. So you see these brand studies and all thesedifferent things, and everyone's talking about, it's a brand. It's not just thebrand. It is the click being known, and the main methods outside of the brandare title tags, the title of your page, and your meta descriptions.
You take these topics, steps to take after a car accident.I don't know. That seems pretty boring. You juice it up, you make it a littledifferent. That's also why, when you create content, and all the top threeresults, they're structured the same way. Maybe you go look at your competitorand you add another 200 words, but you take a different approach. Your content,maybe it's third person instead of first person. Maybe it's multiple authors.Maybe you have a physician, a different jurisdiction that incorporates theirthoughts into it. Maybe there's some different images or videos. All thesethings can make a huge impact. If you rank number one, you capture more clicks,and it is easier to maintain that number one position than if you do not.
Follow DBA. Incorporate those keywords in your name,legally, by the book. Utilize entity SEO. Go look at Wikipedia, try to get intoWikipedia. Suggest review language. Try to incorporate natural keywords andentities into your reviews. Choose your location wisely. 4.9 or higher is tablestakes. Don't even hire an agency if you're below that. Fix that first. You'rewasting your time. It's not the SEO agency's fault if you're not ranking, it'sthe review rating's fault. That also impacts your click-through rate. Yourreview rating's low, they're not going to click through it. Get more reviews onyour competition. Get everybody involved in that. Be cognizant aboutlink-building opportunities. Plug that leaky bucket. So if you've been linkingout a lot, there's a nofollow code you can attribute to that, prune youroutdated content. And then last but not least, make your firm click-worthy.
I want to thank everyone. Hope you got value out of this.I really, truly appreciate everyone's involvement, engagement with thespeakers. I think the speakers have been awesome, and I just wanted to saythat. And if anybody has any questions about my presentation or want the deck,just drop me an email. Chris@rankings.io. Thank you.
That wraps up this special episode of PIM. Over the comingweeks, we will reveal even more insights from PIMCON. Follow or subscribe soyou don't miss the next episode of Personal Injury Mastermind with me, ChrisDreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io. All right everybody, thanks for hangingout. See you next time. I'm out.
