"The retainer I pay – without any hesitation – is the best ROI of any marketing dollar I spend. It’s the most cost effective way to get good, qualified cases."
- Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law
Challenges
In the past four years, Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law has grown from a staff of just 12 into one of Houston’s largest personal injury law offices, employing more than 50 staff members.
In the region’s ruthlessly competitive personal injury legal market, achieving that kind of growth has been no easy feat for owner and attorney Stewart Guss.
After more than two decades of practice, Stewart knew that in order to grow, he needed to keep a steady stream of qualified leads coming in fast and hard, every month, without fail.
The problem was, the local personal injury marketplace was crowded with fierce competition, many of whom were willing to do anything to rank.
Heavy competition and a geographic challenge
- Suburban office location severely hampered local rankings.
- Extremely active, unethical competition.
- Wary of slick SEO firms selling unsustainable “snake oil” schemes.
- Desire to significantly increase volume of quality leads.
"In terms of competition levels, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. The shorthand term for that is ‘rainmaking. The biggest challenge we have when owning a practice is to make it rain and to get those clients in the door. We are always looking for ways to both grow the firm and serve the public."
- Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law
In the early days of the firm, Stewart focused on making his website front and center for clients seeking help. He worked with a team of digital marketers and content creators to create attractive pages full of unique content. But it just wasn’t enough.
Because of his office’s suburban location, far from the Google-favored downtown area, Stewart continued to have trouble getting his site to rank — and low ranking meant little rain.
A phenomenon in local search known as centroid bias makes it difficult for firms with physical locations outside of a major city to rank well in local results.
Concerned with the lack of growth and eager to find a more effective solution, Guss’ digital marketing vendor invited the SEO experts from Rankings.io to assess the current SEO strategy and implement small tweaks.In just a short time the gains began to roll in – and they were higher than anything the Guss team had seen before.
Recognizing the potential for even more growth, Stewart hired Chris Dreyer and the Rankings.io team to conduct a full SEO overhaul of AttorneyGuss.com.
"I knew for a fact that if I could get prospective clients to call me, I could give them a great service experience and a great outcome on their case. The hard part was achieving enough visibility so that I was the one they called when they needed a personal injury lawyer. We were doing SEO in-house and working with a website design and content vendor who was also doing some SEO work for us – but we just weren’t getting a lot of traction."
- Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law
Rankings.io was respectful of my integrity. Because of the ethical approach they have, we were a natural fit. It’s just great to see my visibility go up and up, month after month.
Stewart J. Guss
Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law
Solution
Rankings.io’s first promise to Stewart was to drive traffic using tactics that were Google-approved: nothing sketchy, sneaky, or hidden.
This integrity was refreshing for Stewart; he knew he was signing on with a partner he could trust.The campaign devised by Chris and his team was multi-faceted and completely tailored to AttorneyGuss.com.
First, Rankings.io conducted a comprehensive SEO audit to dig deep into the site’s metrics and find the issues keeping it from ranking well.
Ethical SEO tailored to attorney websites
- Comprehensive onsite/offsite SEO audit.
- Creation and promotion of targeted content assets.
- Link building with reputable institutions, high-authority sites.
- Clear, digestible and frequent results reporting.
"Rankings.io immediately saw the challenge I was facing and was able to spot different opportunities to grab traction in the marketplace. It started making a difference for my ranking and my client traffic right away. One of the things that has always impressed me about Rankings.io is that they always have new ideas. They’ll say ‘I think we should try this. I think this is a good way’. Their ideas are always ethical, and more often than not, they’re effective. They work."
- Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law
Using what they’d learned, Rankings.io re-optimized the content and structure of the site to improve crawlability and relevance while better satisfying searcher intent.
Next, Rankings.io developed a research-driven content marketing strategy, along with a plan to promote the content on the firm’s social accounts.
With the content underway, Rankings.io began cleaning up AttorneyGuss.com’s citations, ensuring that a consistent company name, address and phone number were used across the firm’s entire web footprint to boost local map rankings.
But to outrank their competition located closer to major metropolitan areas (a Google local ranking factor), AttorneyGus.com needed serious site authority.
To solve this, Rankings.io undertook a large-scale link building campaign that included one-to-one outreach to industry professionals as well as the creation of a scholarship program.
By implementing a real scholarship with real awards and winners, the firm was able to reach out to local schools and ask them to link to the page.
The goal was to drive coveted (and highly trusted) “.edu” links from post-secondary institutions and high-authority websites, and only personal relationships would open the door to a link.
Over time, a disciplined outreach campaign earned the firm numerous .edu domains.
"Chris and his team do SEO in such an above-board and ‘white hat’ way. Some companies use tricks and sleight of hand for temporary uptick … but Google spots those tricks over time and those companies’ websites will be penalized. Because of the ethical approach Rankings.io has, it’s been just great to see my visibility go up and up, month after month."
- Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law
He combines a strong sense of ethics with very creative and ingenious ideas for SEO building. I’ve been a client with him for a number of years. At the end of the day, it’s been a steady uphill climb in visibility and client volume ever since.
Stewart J. Guss
Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law
Results
When comparing January 2017 to the previous year, organic traffic has skyrocketed from just 3,076 sessions in Soon after Rankings.io began their first campaign, and then steadily throughout the next four years, Stewart watched his lead volume explode.
Today, he estimates his firm opens about triple the number of cases each month compared to when he started working with Rankings.io – thanks to a 47% increase in phone calls as well as significantly larger numbers of online contacts coming through the website.
This substantial increase has made Stewart’s decision to renew his investment in SEO an easy one.
Triple the amount of ‘good, quality cases’
- 300% increase in cases opened per month
- 47% increase in organic phone calls
- 4x increase in staff due to strong growth
- Consistently strong organic search engine rankings
"Within a couple of months my phone started ringing more, it worked! Rankings.io put a lot of time and effort into my campaign and, at the end of the day, the reason I’m competitive in my digital presence is because I have a greater quantity or quality of backlinks, and more targeted content."
- Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law
"The retainer I pay – without any hesitation – is the best ROI of any marketing dollar I spend. It is the lowest of the low-hanging fruit in terms of the most cost-effective way to get good, qualified cases."
- Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law
Within a couple of months my phone started ringing more.
Stewart J. Guss
Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law
