The Marketing Lawcast
Driving Success for Lawyers in Estate Planning, Elder Law and Special Needs
A growth acceleration podcast for attorneys to scale their firms to seven figures and more ... with host James Campbell, Chief Growth Officer at Integrity Marketing Solutions. Featuring interviews with leading legal professionals, financial and growth mindset experts, and providing marketing tips and hacks to grow your law firm, drive leads and close more business at premium fees.
The Marketing Lawcast
SEO Mastery for Estate Planning & Elder Law: Unlock More High-Value Clients Part 2
SEO isn't just a marketing tactic – it's a fundamental strategy that can transform law firm growth when implemented properly, as demonstrated by IMS client Phil Ruce of Stone Arch Law Office who achieved a 45% revenue increase and dominated local search results in Minneapolis.
• Comprehensive case study of Stone Arch Law's marketing transformation
• SEO delivers 1000% more traffic than organic social media with higher intent
• Google Business Profile optimization represents 30% of local ranking factors
• Keys to ranking include website SEO, reviews, backlinks, and GBP optimization
• Phil achieved 20% website traffic growth and 500% increase in GBP impressions
• Top three Google Maps listings receive 44% of all clicks in local search
• Proper SEO creates a sustainable flow of high-quality leads without ongoing ad spend
• Multi-location firms need unique content for each service area to maximize visibility
Book a discovery meeting at imsrocks.com/apply to learn how IMS can implement these SEO strategies for your firm, whether through our complete Essentials program or by optimizing your existing website.
Video version on YouTube
Book your free Discovery Call with my team.
You're about to tap into the digital marketing strategies that separate thriving law firms from the ones struggling to keep up. Join James Campbell as we break down the roadblocks holding your practice back and reveal the insider tactics attorneys are using to scale past seven figures. From cutting-edge digital marketing tips to exclusive interviews with industry leaders, we're giving you the playbook to attract higher quality clients, dominate your market and build a firm that runs like a growth machine. Your next breakthrough starts now. This is the Marketing Lawcast.
Speaker 2:Welcome to part two of this two-part series on building online authority. In today's episode of the Marketing Lawcast, we'll hear from real-life attorneys as they discuss the impact of increasing online authority and what it's done for their practice and their revenue. Let's talk about what we did for Phil Roos. When Phil Roos he's at Stone Arch Law, when he first came to us, his firm was facing significant challenges, I would say, in terms of his marketing. There was lack of accountability from his existing marketing agency. Campaigns were running, but he had no clear data on where leads were coming from or what his conversion rates were or how much his budget should be day by day or week by week or month by month. He had a high cost per conversion. He didn't know a lot different, but he was spending five or six times what he should be spending on his ads. His Google ads were expensive. The website wasn't bringing in enough organic leads to balance out the cost of paying for ads and his SEO was underperforming. His website wasn't ranking for the competitive, like we would call the high-int intent search strings for estate planning and probate. This kind of left his firm vulnerable to other competitors and invisible to certain potential clients, and he had two offices, four associate attorneys, a large staff to keep busy. Phil needed a marketing partner that could take ownership of his SEO and his advertising strategy and one that would deliver real, measurable growth data that we could actually look at. Let's talk about some of the goals that Phil had.
Speaker 2:Phil's goals were ambitious. He needed a marketing strategy that could match his firm's growth mindset. He's instilled this mindset within the firm of always improving, so he wanted to increase revenue significantly. With two locations and a growing team, phil wanted more high-quality leads to support his firm's expansion. He wanted to keep all four associate attorneys fully booked. He needed a steady stream of estate planning and probate clients to maximize the efficiency of his team. He wanted to dominate Google search results. Starnarch Law had to outrank competitors in a highly competitive market, which is in Minneapolis and Woodbury for estate planning and IMS, and our team developed a custom SEO and digital marketing strategy guys just designed for these very specific goals, recognizing who the best clients were and what are they searching for and how do we position the firm front and center for those folks. Let's talk about the outcomes. What are some of the results that we were able to attain for Phil in about a year, within about a year of working together. Maybe less than that, actually. Let's talk about it.
Speaker 2:After implementing the strategy for high performance SEO, working hard on his backlinks and his content strategy and reviews, phil had an amazing 2024. He was up 45% in revenue growth over 2023. And a direct result of increased lead flow came from his online visibility. 20% increase in website users and sessions over the year before is a major jump in organic traffic. This kind of proves the power of SEO. When you can increase your traffic by 20%, your users by 20%. He ranks number one in the local pack for estate planning and for probate. He holds the top spot for the top ranking firm for the most competitive keywords. And, guys, this drives over 700 high intent searches every month.
Speaker 2:Okay, his Google business profile, his impressions, increased by over 500% from the year before. Guys, this is where the real revenue resides. Okay, when we can start getting you, getting our clients, in front of those buyers in pain, okay. So, guys, more visibility means more leads. His homepage clicks increased by almost 50%. So just strong engagement from the people that are coming from Google. They're engaging, they're not just landing there and bouncing, they're coming there and they're engaging deeper within Phil's marketing and his brand overall. So Phil's the leader in Minneapolis for all things estate planning and for probate and he has momentum to make 2025 even bigger. And this is what happens when you have the right SEO strategy and the right marketing team behind you. I have a short video from here, here from Phil. This is what he has to say in his own words about what effect SEO has had on his practice.
Speaker 3:Some leeway to invest you, to invest in some of this stuff. And we were using this firm before IMS and they did fine. They did fine, not particularly responsive. It was a little frustrating if we needed a change on the website and we largely broke our contract with them in favor of IMS. And if you remember, james, when we moved to you and I got to say, first off, ims is and we can touch on this more later in the podcast but the customer service at IMS even if the results were exactly the same, the responsiveness and the ease of working with you guys and how proactive you are, and the monthly meetings where we touch base and learn, kind of where the leads are coming from and where the calls are coming from, and then the promptness with which you make the changes that we talk about in the meeting. Is it's just so easy to get a hold of you changes that we talk about in the meeting is it's just so easy to get a hold of you? And, like that by itself has been such a load off my shoulders to be able to have someone who's easy to work with.
Speaker 3:But on top of that and part of this is our work but I can't minimize the fact that we switched to IMS in like December and we've had a noticeable increase in traffic. We were already doing pretty well, but you guys have taken pretty well and really pushed us up there. Our SEO results are higher than they've been and we were doing okay, but you guys really brought it to that next level. Um, it's been fantastic. It's been fantastic working with you guys. I've been so excited uh, I'm actually excited about the vendor calls. Talking to amber with my monthly call, that type of check-in used to be a frustrating experience for me with last one because we just weren't seeing what we needed to see, and now talking, talking to her once a month is a highlight of my week. I really like the calls with you guys. You're doing a great job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that from Phil. If you're still wondering if SEO is worth the investment, let's look at some data. Okay, 68% of all online experiences begin with a search engine. 50% 53% of all website traffic comes from organic search. Seo drives a thousand percent more traffic than organic social media. Why? Because people search with intent. They're actively looking for a solution to their problem. Almost 70% of searches contain four words or more meaning. People are searching for highly specific legal services, like Minneapolis estate planning attorney, or best attorney in Minneapolis or best estate attorney near me, because they're buyers in pain or they're buyers in power, guys, they're not the tire kickers.
Speaker 2:Lower client acquisition costs Organic traffic is free, unlike paid ads. Seo doesn't stop working when you stop spending money. Okay, it also helps you boost your ad performance. So if you have a strong SEO presence that builds trust, it makes your paid ads convert even better as well, lowering your cost per click and cost per lead on your paid ads. This helps attract just higher quality leads, guys, reducing the need to spend heavily on paid ads. So you know, we were able to reduce Phil's marketing budget, or advertising budget, because we were able to increase the effectiveness of his SEO. So we were able to bring in more high quality leads through SEO than he needed to spend on his ads. So why SEO delivers better leads?
Speaker 2:Seo doesn't just bring in traffic. It brings in the right traffic, keyword research for buying intent. We target high intent searches that lead directly to client conversions. And it builds your authority and your trustworthiness. It helps people see you as the man or the woman. Okay, google rewards expertise, authority and trust. They're E-E-A-T sort of algorithm there the same factors your best clients look for guys. Your best clients are looking for experience, expertise, authority and trust. Okay, this brings in those high quality prospects to your website Instead of getting random visitors. Okay, seo attracts clients actively looking, searching for estate planning or elder law services. So your brand can work for you. Your website positions you as the go-to expert. Before you even speak to the client, you can set the frame for the initial consult. When clients come through SEO, they already trust you, they already believe you're the best person, making the sales conversations much easier and much more effective. And the best part, the leads come consistently, month after month, without pay-per-click.
Speaker 2:Let's take a look at these ranking factors just to give you a breakdown of what affects your SEO and your ranking out there? How does Google measure you up According to the latest ranking factors? These are 2025 numbers. The biggest influences on your Google Map Pack rankings are your Google Business Profile, which is 30%, the single biggest factor in your local rankings.
Speaker 2:If your GBP is not optimized and you're not posting to it consistently and actively working on your Google business profile, guys, you are missing out on great clients. Okay, then you have your on-page SEO. What happens on your website? Is your website ranking or optimized for those high intent searches? Okay, you must be optimized for both search engines and for users. So when people engage with your website, google is keeping track of how long they're spending on the site. Are they going deep, are they watching content, are they clicking on things or are they not doing much? Right? So the user experience plays into this. Then you have your reviews More five-star reviews. That builds your trust and authority. If you're not actively, intentionally, working on building your reviews, guys, you're missing out. You're missing out on those buyers in pain.
Speaker 2:Your links, so high-quality backlinks signal your authority and credibility. Behavioral signals, how again, how users interact with your website or your Google business profile it affects your rankings. Then you have these little smaller categories, like your citations. That's where your business is listed on the web. Are those accurate across the web? Then you have personalization, so some breakdowns there.
Speaker 2:If you want to dominate local search, focusing on these key areas is absolutely essential. You've better dial in your website SEO. You better be working on your reviews, your backlinks and, by golly, you better have that Google business profile set up. And now, remember, google business profile requires that you have a physical location that's verified by Google. So if you're operating like a virtual practice you're meeting with people over Zoom you're going to have to work extra hard on your website SEO, your reviews, your content marketing and your backlink authority. You got a lot of ground to make up by not having the GBP on your side working for you. Just keep that in mind. There are strategies. If you do run a virtual office, there are SEO strategies, but it requires some extra work on those other pieces of the pie.
Speaker 2:Guys, many attorneys think it's just about tweaking their website. It's not just about optimizing the website. Okay, that's just one piece of the puzzle. To truly rank on the Google maps and organic search, guys, you've got to claim and optimize your Google business profile, ensure your listing is fully optimized with accurate business information, categories, q&a, photos, that sort of a thing. Again, our team does all this sort of done for you, for clients, claim and update your business citations. This is something that you can do, or you can put a staff person on to start working on updating your business listings. Like on Yelp, avvo, justia, lawyerscom, there's literally hundreds of directories across the web. We should be updating those consistently.
Speaker 2:Get more reviews. If you're not using automation and leveraging AI just to ask for reviews and generate those for you, then you're missing out. Guys, the more five-star reviews you have, the higher your credibility and your ranking. You've got to work on building your backlinks and backlinks just for clarification, guys, your backlinks are going to be those links that are on the web from authoritative sources that link to your website. Okay, so it's not just you link in other places that's important too but authoritative sources on the web that link to your website. Guys, we do this for our clients in the form of content production and then syndicating through media outlets to get those like Associated Press, to get those picked up by different media outlets, by different media outlets. When done properly and you get your information across the web, guys, this can be an extraordinarily successful tactic. It's a comprehensive strategy, okay, of putting all these pieces together to build your authority, your visibility and trust in your community.
Speaker 2:So, are you rocking the Google Maps Are? Are we kicking butt there? Remember, 44 of all clicks go to these top three businesses on the google map pack. So let's ask is your firm ranking in the google maps? If you're not in the top three listings, your competitors are getting leads that you should be getting. So ask yourself is your gbp fully optimized? Are you consistently getting? Do you have location-based content on your website?
Speaker 2:So, if you're in Springfield, missouri, and you serve Ozark and Branson as well, do you have content on your website for Springfield, ozark and Branson? Is it all unique? Is it all optimized? Is it linked to your Google business profile? If you're not doing those things, guys, you're missing out. Okay, are you building those authoritative backlinks? Are you getting content published on other authoritative sites that link back to your site? If you answered no to any of these things, again, you're missing out, not just on revenue, but on high quality leads, like the buyers in pain that really do want and need your help. They want the best attorney and that's what you are, okay, ranking on Google's map pack doesn't happen by accident, though. Okay. It follows a proven formula. I'm going to kind of go through some of this.
Speaker 2:Okay, first, optimize your Google business profile. Complete every section, add high quality images and update your information regularly, like at least once a month. At the bare minimum, once a week would be better. Consistently publish optimized content to your blog, your FAQs, your location pages and use those local keywords. Know what the keyword research is in your market and use those in your content. Encourage client reviews. Ask every satisfied client for a five-star review and then respond to those reviews on your profile with the appropriate keywords. Again, this is a done for you service that we do for our clients, but you can make your mark by doing these things on your own as well. Guys, reviews matter, okay. Responses matter, so you have to respond to those reviews. Google analyzes your responses. So if you can use keywords, if you know what the keywords are for your market, you want to use those keywords in your replies. This is going to help boost your rankings.
Speaker 2:Okay, then optimize your website and just kind of go through some of the things here. This is going to be keyword rich content, human content, preferably Unique location pages. So if you serve multiple locations or you have offices in multiple locations, we've got to identify those locations and cater to them from an SEO perspective within the website and your content. And then, obviously, just properly optimizing the site title tags, meta descriptions, alternate text for images, header structure and having fast loading pages. All of these things factor into optimizing the website, especially in competitive markets. You got to be doing all of these things. If you implement these strategies, you'll start seeing your firm rise in the rankings and soon you'll dominate your local market. And that's the goal, goal number one dominate and own your local market. You should own your own backyard, okay.
Speaker 2:So we want to achieve consistent, high quality seo results. We've got to follow this proven formula understand that the most, understand what the most important keywords are. So we got to focus on your service areas and those high intent keywords okay, with strong search volumes. We have to know what the search volume is as well. Create a great, great website. The website's got to be awesome. We have to have unique pages targeting the right keywords. Speaking to the audience in that form of problem solving Okay.
Speaker 2:Positioning you as the authority okay, and not just as a document peddler but as a problem solver. Optimize the website for SEO. This means your website has strong internal linking, clear navigation. Make stuff very easy to find. Proper SEO structure. Build your authority, like from backlinks from other local media stations, industry websites, legal directories. Those authoritative backlinks help build your SEO and then track your results. You've got to be able to use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to measure your performance, otherwise you're out there flying blind, okay, putting in work and not knowing if it's bringing you any results. When all these elements work together, your firm doesn't just rank, it dominates, and it becomes very difficult for other firms to get ahead of you, especially when you stay consistent. So SEO is not a set it and forget it strategy. It's a long-term asset that continues delivering qualified leads and new clients month after month. Seo is vital to the success of a healthy law firm.
Speaker 2:Okay, guys, here we can help. So you can either make the switch to ims to our essentials program, where we manage the website, the blog and your seo and your, your email automations, um, all of that stuff. So the essentials program. If you wanted to move your site and all of your marketing assets, internet assets, to IMS and our essentials program, we can do that and we implement these SEO strategies into that program. If you love your website and it's working for you, but you're just not ranking, you're not optimized, you're not pulling in those buyers in pain consistently, we can help you. Still, you can keep that same website. We will optimize it for you and implement our SEO strategy on your behalf using the site that you have. So you can book a discovery meeting right there. Either go to scan that little QR code with your phone if you'd like to, or you can go to imsrockscom, slash, apply and book a meeting with my team.
Speaker 1:That's a wrap on this edition of the Marketing Lawcast. Thanks for joining us Head over to imsrockscom. If you're ready to skyrocket your firm's marketing, don't hesitate to book a free strategy call with our team right on our website. Here's to your success.
