Law firm SEO for the list of three.
By the time somebody calls you they have usually called two other firms, and the one that answered first is already ahead. Law firm marketing, for us, is being in that first three and making the intake short enough to finish: law firm SEO, the listing, the site and the reviews, run for firms in Rockford and the Chicago suburbs.
Ask us where to start Get a free SEO auditProof, from the search box.
What people in Rockford typed into Google each month for the last year, from Google's own numbers. One runs at the same level every month and the other arrives in a rush in spring, and every one of them is somebody who will call three firms this week. Pick either one up.
One caller, three firms
The first firm that picks up gets the case.
Somebody with a real problem and a list of three firms, at ten past nine on a Tuesday. Pick how your phone is answered today and watch where the case goes. What we see; our drawing.
- 9:10The first firm on the listVoicemail. They hang up without leaving one.
- 9:12Your firmA person answers, asks three questions, books the consult for Thursday. The case is yours.A message is taken. The call back comes at 2:40, after the consult with the third firm is already booked.Voicemail, after the fourth ring. They hang up without leaving one.No number that answers. They find the form, start it, and dial the next firm instead.
- 9:14The third firm on the listA person answers and books the consult. The case is theirs.
Being the firm that answers is most of law firm marketing, and the rest is being the firm they find first. Law firm SEO, for the list of threeThree firms, four minutes, and the search did its job: it put you on the list. The intake is what lost it. Intake, fixed: the short form and the call that comes back
Which one of these is you?
Six lines we hear from firms on first calls, and one of them is usually yours. Pick it and we will tell you what is actually going on underneath.
The most expensive thing in a law firm is a call that arrived on Friday and got returned on Tuesday. Before spending on more of them we look at what happens to the ones you already get, because a firm with a leaking intake is buying leads for whoever answers faster.
Start with a planInjury is the most expensive auction in local search and no amount of cleverness bids you out of that. Rankings you have earned cost nothing per call, which is why for most firms paid should be the smaller half rather than the whole plan.
The work that stays yoursFamily, criminal, injury, estate, business and immigration are searched by six people with nothing in common. One page saying you practice law ranks for none of them. Each area that gets an honest page of its own is a door that was shut.
The pages that do the rankingThe rules are real and they are not nothing. What is allowed is asking a client whose matter has closed, never discussing the matter, and answering every review in a way that says nothing about anybody. Done carefully it is the largest single lever on the map.
How reviews move the mapA big firm wins the broad terms because it can pay for them. What it usually does not hold is the specific question asked in a specific town, which is where most of the actual searching happens and where a smaller firm can still be first.
How local search worksMost firms have call tracking, a form, an ad account and a spreadsheet, and none of them speak to each other. Knowing which channel produced the signed matter rather than the lead is what turns a budget into an argument instead of a guess.
How we report itAll of it, for a law firm.
Law firm SEO is where most firms start with us, and search is one of six things we run. Here is the whole shop, in your situation.
The first ninety days, for a law firm.
In the order the caller feels it. The phone first, because the phone is where the case is won or lost.
How the phone is answered, fixed first: a person or a service that books the consult on the call, a short form that reaches a person, not an inbox. The listing rebuilt, every review answered, call tracking on from day one.
How we run the listingFast on a phone, a page for every practice area and every town in the words people type, the attorneys with faces and names, and the intake form on every page. If the site is sound we fix it; if it is not, we say so.
What we buildAds on the practice areas that pay, reviews asked for at the close of every matter, and the first monthly report: calls, consults, and where each one came from.
Ads, for the cases worth the auctionTell us where the firm is.
Three lines and we come back to you, usually within a working day, with what we would look at first. No pitch deck, no quote until there is a plan.
Or the free look first: a free SEO audit of your site and your listing, sent over with nothing to sit through. Or call (815) 880-8676.
Questions firms ask before they call us.
The ones that come up on nearly every first call, answered here so you do not have to spend a call getting to them.
Fixing the Google Business Profile can move the map inside a few weeks. Ranking for a practice area in a given town takes a few months to move and then keeps building, and injury is slower than that because the competition is heavier. If you need the phone ringing this month, that is paid, and we will tell you so rather than sell you search and hope.
For some practice areas, yes, and for others it is a way to spend a lot of money quickly. Injury clicks run into three figures in some markets, so the account has to be narrow and the intake has to be ready before a dollar moves. We would rather tell you the arithmetic does not work than run it anyway.
Yes, and it is the most common thing we fix. Family, criminal, injury and estate are different searches made by different people, and one page trying to answer all of them ranks for none. Each area that gets an honest page of its own is a door that was shut.
Generally yes for a closed matter, and the constraints are real: nothing that discusses the matter, nothing that could be read as a promise about an outcome, and replies that say nothing about anybody. We will write the asking and the replies to that standard, and anything you are unsure about goes past you before it is published.
Not for search or ads, in the same practice area and service area. Two firms chasing the same rankings would be paying us to compete with each other. If we are already doing that work for a firm doing what you do where you are, we will tell you on the first call rather than after you have signed.
It applies to some practice areas and not others, and where it applies it sits above everything else on the page. It needs the license and background checks done properly, which takes weeks rather than days, so it is worth starting early even if the rest of the plan is search.
What we won't promise you.
Legal marketing has more noise in it than any other category on this list, and some of it is regulated for good reason. Here is the honest version.
No claim about outcomes, no language that could be read as a guarantee, no invented client stories. That is a rule about your license rather than our taste, and it is not negotiable even where a competitor is doing it.
Anyone selling a guaranteed first place is either guessing or selling. What can be promised is the work, reporting that shows what it did, and a straight answer about whether the competition in your area is worth taking on.
We can make the phone ring more. We cannot make it get answered, and in this business an unanswered call is not a lost lead, it is a lost matter. If calls go to voicemail after five, more marketing buys more voicemail.
Nobody buys a plan they haven't seen.
The free audit is a look at what you already have and what it is costing you, sent over with nothing to sit through. The plan is a conversation about where the business is and where you want it to get to, and it ends with a path written down rather than a quote. Or you call, and somebody who works on accounts picks up.