"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
Heavy competition and a geographic challenge
In just four years, Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law had 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 was no easy feat for owner and attorney Stewart Guss.
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.
“In terms of competition levels, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere,” says the 20-year legal veteran.
“The shorthand term for that is ‘rainmaking,’” Stewart says. “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.”
The problem was, the local personal injury marketplace was crowded with fierce competition, many of whom were willing to do anything to rank in SEO.
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 wasn’t enough to top the search results.
As one of Houston, Texas’s largest personal injury law firms, Stewart J. Guss has made a name by treating its clients like family while maximizing their recovery.
“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 ‘Stewart Guss’ was the solution they thought of when they needed a personal injury lawyer,” Stewart says.
With his office’s suburban location, and Google’s preference for the downtown area, Stewart continued to have trouble getting his site to rank—and a low ranking meant little rain.
Concerned with the lack of growth and eager to find a more effective solution, Guss’s 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.
“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,” he says.
The hard part was achieving enough visibility so that ‘Stewart Guss’ was the first solution people thought of when they needed a personal injury lawyer.
Stewart J. Guss
Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law
Solution
Ethical SEO tailored to attorney websites
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 multifaceted 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.
“Chris was respectful of my integrity. Because of the ethical approach he has, we were a natural fit,” Stewart says. “It’s just great to see my visibility go up and up, month after month.”
“Chris immediately saw the challenge I was facing and was able to spot different opportunities to grab traction in the marketplace,” Stewart says. “It started making a difference for my website’s ranking and client traffic right away.”
Using what they’d learned, Rankings.io re-optimized the content and structure of the site to improve crawlability and relevance while better meeting readers’ needs.
Next, Rankings.io developed a research-driven content marketing strategy, along with a plan to promote the assets on the firm’s social accounts.
Then, 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 even with all that work, to finally outrank competitors located closer to major metropolitan areas (a Google local ranking factor), AttorneyGus.com needed serious site authority.
To achieve 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.
The goal was to drive highly trusted “.edu” links from post-secondary institutions and high-authority websites. Only personal relationships would open the door to those links.
“Rankings.io combines a strong sense of ethics with very creative and ingenious ideas for SEO. I’ve been their client for years and our partnership has resulted in a steady uphill climb in visibility and client volume,” Stewart says.
Throughout the process, Stewart was given timely and transparent reports that explained what was being done, why, and what the results were—all in plain English.
Chris was respectful of my integrity. Because of the ethical approach he has, 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
Results
3x more high-quality cases
Soon after Rankings.io began their first campaign, Stewart watched his lead volume explode. That growth continued to snowball over the next four years.
Today, he estimates his firm opens roughly three times 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.
“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, high-quality cases.”
“Within a couple of months, my phone started ringing more,” Stewart says. “It worked!”
“Chris put a lot of time and effort into my campaign. At the end of the day, the reason I’m competitive in my digital presence is because he helped me drive more targeted content and high-quality backlinks,” he adds.
This substantial increase has made Stewart’s decision to renew his investment in SEO an easy one.
Updated Results: 2022
Since this story was published in 2018, Rankings has continued to support Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law’s growth. Their team has expanded another 180%, and their ROI continues to compound.
From 2021 to 2022, our work together translated into:
- 188% increase in impressions in search, which indicates considerably expanded visibility
- 259% increase in clicks from search engine listings, demonstrating clear alignment with what searchers are looking for
- 126% increase in new users visiting the website
- 2,346 links earned (2019 vs. 2022), bolstering search rankings for highly competitive phrases
- $446,000 increase in Traffic Value (per Ahrefs), a measure of how much it would cost the firm to achieve the same traffic levels through paid ads.
This work continues to drive a steady and growing volume of web inquiries, phone calls, and cases.
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, high-quality cases.
Stewart J. Guss
Stewart J. Guss, Attorney at Law
