Chris Dreyer:
Welcome to a special episode of Personal Injury Marketing Mastermind. 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 into dominating SEO for law firms. At Rankings.io, I’ve worked with hundreds of law firms helping them climb to the top of Google, and they get the best cases. The insights I’m about to share are battle-tested strategies that have produced real results for our clients.
How PI law firms are implementing PIMCON strategies to win bigger cases and boost marketing ROI
Chris Dreyer:
Now, if you’re a regular listener, you know I’m a strong advocate for omnichannel marketing, so why focus an entire talk on SEO? Google is the final destination of your marketing efforts. It all comes down to the numbers, and these numbers are staggering. Google processes over 3 trillion searches each year. 42% of local searches result in a click in the 3-Pack, and 86% of people who go to Google Maps are looking for local businesses with hiring intent, and 84% of users turn to Google at least three times a day. You could pour money into TV ads, but if you’re not showing up in the 3-Pack or protecting your brand with Google Ads, you’re leaving money on the table. In the next half hour, I’ll reveal some of the most impactful tactics and tools that the most successful law firms are using to dominate their markets. We’ll dive into three key factors Google uses to determine local rankings: relevance, distance, and prominence. We got a lot to cover. Let’s go.
How to turn PI law firm marketing into a revenue-generating asset instead of a cost center
Chris Dreyer:
Google. There’s 3 trillion searches each year. 42% of local searches result in a click in the 3-Pack. 86% of people that go to Google Maps are looking for a local business. That means they have hiring intent. And then 84% of the audience use Google three times a day. The big thing about Google is, it is the final destination for many of your other efforts. You could advertise on TV, but if you’re not in the 3-Pack or you’re not doing Google Ads to protect your brand, it’s not going to be as effective. So how does Google determine local rankings?
And by the way, guys, when I think of Google, I’m just going to be real here, we can replace Google with a big dumb robot. So a lot of things that I’m going to read here is going to be simplified and it’s going to be logical. It’s going to make sense. I think sometimes we try to over complicate it. I think a lot of SEO specialists talk about the 200 ranking factors and try to pull the shades over your eyelids, when really there’s some that just make a massive impact on their own. But really, this is straight from the horse’s mouth, this is straight from Google. How Google determines local rankings. Relevance: how closely the query matches to what someone’s searching for; distance: everyone here doing some work, checking some emails on their phone; and then prominence: it’s how well-known you are. Prominence. That’s content, that’s links, that’s reviews, that’s prominence.
The issue with rankings a lot of times is you have to do all three correct. If any of these fail, then you’re going to be in trouble. So it’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 most important 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 is searching for. Remember what I said, the big dumb robot? I’m going to give you a perfect example. There’s a lot of great firms in Michigan. Which firm below is most relevant to the query “Michigan auto accident lawyer”? Michigan Auto Law – Auto Accident Attorneys. Jay Trucks and Associates. When it comes to Google, though, and your Google business profile, follow DBA. You can do business as another phrase related to your main brand name.
In this example, Steve Gerstin, you know he’s got 575 reviews. Jay Trucks got over 600. If it didn’t come down to relevancy, Jay Trucks should rank. It’s got more reviews, same review rating, but Michigan Auto Law, because it matches the query so much more closely, not only do they rank one time in the map pack for Michigan auto accident lawyers, they rank twice. 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 wrong way to do it. If you just stuff keywords in your name, that is against Google’s guidelines. Strictly prohibited. However, you go file with the Secretary of State, file a DBA, have your paperwork, get some signage, maybe do a video for re-verifying that profile, you’re good to go. So that would be my number one tip. That’s simple. Go file, make the update. Boom.
In the past it was all about keywords. Stuff a keyword on the page. Now it’s about entities, relationships. Google’s trying to counter AI content that’s generic. How many of your competitors have a St. Louis car accident 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 every single page. So you need to make it super simple for Google. Go back into your content and start to build these entities. That’s why, and you’re going to hear it from me as an SEO specialist, you should all have an in-house writer, all of you. We can supplement, we can do the research, but you have unique knowledge of your neighborhoods and locations that will enhance your ability to rank.
Now, I’m going to give you a cheat sheet. When it comes to entities and records, we had this leak from Google a while back, and I think Wikipedia 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. If you’re trying to rank in Indianapolis, what’s listed in Indianapolis? What’s an entity 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 checked Wikipedia, 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 case that’s mentioned in Wikipedia? Awards? Have you written a book? If Google is using 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 reviews in some capacity before making a hiring decision. They’re looking at the good and the bad. We all do the sort. When we go to Amazon, we look at those one-star reviews to have a laugh and to see what the real problems are. But when it comes to relevancy, it’s the words and phrases in the content. If you get a review and they say, “amazing,” aside from maybe lifting your overall rating, that’s not going to do you any good. It is table stakes to have a 4.9 or higher. Table stakes. The game has changed. It’s too competitive.
When it comes to relevancy, it’s the words and phrases people are saying in their content. So unfortunately, it is necessary to get a 4.9 or higher, and the reason is the best cases come from the best searches. If a consumer types in “best car accident lawyer” and you have a 4.4, a 4.2, you’re not in the map pack. I understand there’s different jurisdictions and 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 truck accident lawyer.” You got a 4.1, good luck. And I can tell you, just like when you’re shopping on Amazon and you want to buy something new and you see a low rated item, and another one at the same cost, and by the way, it’s all the same cost because your contingency, at least on the front end, you’re going to choose the one that’s the highest rated.
The next one, I don’t think it’s talked about enough, it’s distance. The mobile device changed everything. If you Google “best restaurants near me,” right here in Scottsdale, are you going to see restaurants 40 miles away? Are you going to see J&G? Mowry and Cotton? I understand there are barriers to entry. Capital, right? We want to keep our facility costs low because that’s not revenue-generating. We want to get those suites, those Regus offices. But here’s the thing: many of you are entering a race that’s already started. Take Atlanta. Am I going to open an office next to Nugent 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 got to think about where people are located. Who’s your target demo? Where do they live? And make that decision because it has an impact. You have less competition and ability to rank.
So one of the tools that we use is Local Falcon. What it will do is it will drop a grid over your location to determine where your rankings 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 your competitors maybe really dominate a certain area, but then they get weaker at a different location, and you can strategically see, in many cases, it may not be the best decision to open an office in a whole new city. You may want to open an 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 has more reviews, you’re filtered. You’re not going to rank. So it’s like that old school movie Highlander. There can only be one.
Scaling a personal injury law firm with systems that maintain culture, client care, and results
Chris Dreyer:
I think that a lot of us, we may have good processes to acquire reviews, but I think we really need to be cognizant of processes when things don’t go right; an escalation process, a fixer. So I got to give a shout-out to Dan Newlin. Dan Newlin spent 22 million in just Orlando, and here he 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 thinking about reviews at every point. But the reason why I gave Dan Newlin as an example, very prominent attorney, very successful attorney, but he himself is the individual that meets with the clients when they leave a one-star review. The first quarter of this year, I heard he did it already 70 times and fix that rating.
When we’re talking about more cases, the final destination is your Google profile. It’s your website. Radio, put a call to action in, they go 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 a consumer is in St. Louis and they leave a negative review on your St. Louis profile, but then they’re really ticked off. They’re amped up, they’re ready to just kill you, and then they go to KC. They leave you a negative review. Here’s the thing: thanks. Thanks, consumer, because they didn’t have a client experience at 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 that says it was replied. I think when you reply, you should be thinking about the other consumers that read those reviews, but if they change their review and there’s some curse words in there, some slander, you can get those taken down.
Quantity. I think this is a challenging one for a few business models: the referral firms, the litigators that really have high case selection criteria, you just don’t have as many reps at the plate. I understand, but here’s the reality. Right from the horse’s mouth, right from Google. It says review quantity. When I look at locations, a lot of times all the review ratings are the same, similar profiles. The person with the most reviews wins. So I want to give you some rocket fire tips here. Anytime a client says “thank you” is an opportunity to ask for a review. Every single employee at the company, every single one, not intake, just intake, not just when you’re closing out the checks, every single one, you should incentivize the behavior. You need to utilize tech. Some people, they’re not responding to an email. Send them a text. Call them up. Create a firm-wide competition. So you can incentivize the individual, but you can incentivize the entire company.
Here’s the deal: when you do that and you’re constantly putting that information in front of your staff about how important and how much it impacts them, especially if you’re a trial attorney that maybe gets some profit sharing, they’re more inclined to take that serious. There’s a firm I worked with out of Nevada. One of the best things they did was every single week they sent an employee newsletter to their entire staff of how many reviews they obtained and who are the people that obtained those. Every single week. If an individual, if you ask them to leave a review and they say they will, in my opinion, they just gave you permission to follow up until they do one. To buy or die.
Tracking ROI for non-traditional PI marketing strategies
Chris Dreyer:
Another tactic that falls in line with tech is, if you’re on the phone with someone that says they will leave a review, send them a text message while they’re on the phone. We just talked about the keywords and phrases that matter in a review. Coach them up. Now, I’m not saying jam in their keywords and just spam the hell out of it, but coach them up. They’re like, “Oh, I don’t know what to write.” You can encourage them to write certain things. Well, tell me about your experience. There are some things that you can do as attorneys to help your agency. Number one: monitor your brand mentions. Somebody picks up and talks about you in the news, drop the author an email and say, “Hey, can you incorporate a link to my website?” 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 next time they need a source, you may be it.
The next one: relationship-based guest posting. Many of you 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 to contribute content to their website. Maybe you can do a joint charity or fundraiser. I think many in the audience right here, we all want to rank. If you’re in Florida’s jurisdiction and you’re not planning to go to Texas, talk to a Texas attorney. Maybe it’s a different practice area. Now, how do you do that? 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 to do it.
How to create genuine community connections that drive law firm revenue
Chris Dreyer:
Podcasts. I think this one is the easiest and one of the best 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 put it all on the website, and most of the time they will put a link back to the guest 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 them will slap the logo up there and they’ll just put the image. Have them link that image to your website. Still passes authority. I know many of you, you do such amazing 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. Are they not going to link back to your website? They absolutely will.
HARO. HARO’s help a reporter out. This is a site you can sign up for. Journalists are constantly looking for quotes from experts. Monitor what you see. Here’s the deal, though. You can’t give something generic and think the journalist is going to pick it up. You got to put that same amount of effort that you do in your practice into these quotes. Business profiles. All your social media profiles, all the legal directories, all the forums 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 build trust. And here’s the deal: Google, we don’t know what’s going to happen to Google. Right now. They got the lion’s share. Number two’s Bing at 3%. They look at dofollow links. However, Bing looks at all links, nofollow links included, social links.
Press releases. You got a new employee joining the team. It’s not necessarily something you should pay for distribution, a press release. 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 few that will give you a link. Law Firm Newswire. Newswire.com. Those are great links. Law firm Newswire in particular, I know it’s owned by one of my competitors, but here’s the deal: it’s a legal niche link. What’s the best link in terms of relevancy for your practice to describe, to tell Google what you are? You’re a law firm. I got a link from Law Firm Newswire.
Forum and community engagement. So we see Reddit just dominating right now, and I know that a lot of consumers… You got to be careful with this, it’s got to be natural. You can’t just jam in some fake comments and try to solicit business, but if you’re involved in forums, you can a lot of times drop some links in. And then testimonials. They’re looking for client testimonials. Maybe you can have them link back to your website. Say your agency asked for a case study and you’re thrilled. Get a link from it. I want to talk about this, the leaky bucket of links. Let me explain this. You should absolutely link out to other websites, but here’s the deal: when all this link juice and all these links, guest posts and everything you’re acquiring 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 my opinion, most situations for outbound links should be nofollow.
You want to consume that. That’s why when you go to FindLaw, to AVO, all these memberships that you pay for and to get your directory 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 this space is the “individuals killed on interstate so-and-so.” You have thousands 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 crawl budget. It’s very expensive to crawl the web. So just like you’re hosting or they want to cache your website, and if you haven’t made any changes, it loads more quickly.
It’s the same thing that Google does. Why should Google crawl your page again if you haven’t refreshed the content? If Google only has a certain amount of crawl budget and you’ve got 10,000 pages, it’s going to be confused. What’s your most important pages? You want to expend that crawl budget to your most important pages. So here’s a few other examples. So the accident 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 this through SimRush. If your page isn’t an evergreen topic, that’s actually helpful to the consumer, it doesn’t fit in one of those categories, maybe you had a turkey drive and it’s still on the website, if it doesn’t receive traffic, does not have a link, just delete it. Don’t even worry about the 301. If it has link equity, if it has traffic, but it doesn’t serve a purpose, then you can consider deleting it and applying a 301 redirect.
I would talk to an SEO specialist about that. So my one piece of advice is please, please don’t just start nuking content. You want to make sure that you preserve that equity from all your investments, all your time and resources that you’ve spent. Here’s a big one, and this one pains me a little bit. This is one of these that, as an SEO agency, I don’t love doing speeches in front of my competitors and people that we aren’t working with, but it is what it is. I’m here to give value. It’s not the brand itself that impacts rankings, it’s the click. So you see these brand studies and all these different things, and everyone’s talking about, it’s a brand. It’s not just the brand. It is the click being known, and the main methods outside of the brand are 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 little different. That’s also why, when you create content, and all the top three results, they’re structured the same way. Maybe you go look at your competitor and 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 their thoughts into it. Maybe there’s some different images or videos. All these things 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 into Wikipedia. Suggest review language. Try to incorporate natural keywords and entities into your reviews. Choose your location wisely. 4.9 or higher is table stakes. Don’t even hire an agency if you’re below that. Fix that first. You’re wasting your time. It’s not the SEO agency’s fault if you’re not ranking, it’s the review rating’s fault. That also impacts your click-through rate. Your review rating’s low, they’re not going to click through it. Get more reviews on your competition. Get everybody involved in that. Be cognizant about link-building opportunities. Plug that leaky bucket. So if you’ve been linking out a lot, there’s a nofollow code you can attribute to that, prune your outdated 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 the speakers. I think the speakers have been awesome, and I just wanted to say that. 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 coming weeks, we will reveal even more insights from PIMCON. Follow or subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode of Personal Injury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io. All right everybody, thanks for hanging out. See you next time. I’m out.
