Case Studies

Be Consistent

The graph above shows website traffic growth for one of our creditor's rights clients. It could be you. They started like most small creditors' rights attorneys, with zero business from the web. In fact, their site had been compromised and was blacklisted by Google. For them, our Rainmaker strategy was a staged effort.

• Overcome the blacklist!
• Slow steady growth for momentum
• An onslaught of digital activity to force hypergrowth
• Settle in to a sustainable steady growth pattern.

This client's success story is a testament to the power of consistency and adherence to Google's best practices. Over the past decade, they've achieved remarkable results without resorting to extreme measures or chasing quick fixes. Their journey began with a solid foundation, focusing on the fundamentals of digital marketing and search engine optimization.

By diligently following our Rainmaker strategy and staying true to Google's guidelines, this firm has organically expanded its reach to every major city in Florida. They've consistently outperformed their competition, all while maintaining a steady, sustainable approach to growth.

The key to their success lies in:

• Building a strong, search-friendly website architecture
• Regularly producing high-quality, relevant content
• Optimizing for local search in multiple markets
• Consistently engaging with their audience through various digital channels
• Adapting to algorithm updates and industry changes

This approach has allowed them to avoid the pitfalls of short-term tactics and instead focus on long-term, sustainable growth. By getting the basics right and maintaining a consistent effort, they've created a digital presence that continues to drive new clients to their firm year after year.

Their story proves that in the world of legal digital marketing, slow and steady truly wins the race. With patience, persistence, and a commitment to best practices, any law firm can achieve similar results and establish a dominant online presence in their market.

Strong And Steady

This law office client was in a totally different place. They are a young, full-service but small practice (six attorneys) with two main focus areas – Family Law and Criminal Law. They had a website that they LOVED the look of, but it was broken in some areas, unfinished in others, and simply not performing at all in search with almost no traffic. During discovery, we agreed that the look was right and no new website was needed, at least visually. Behind the scenes however, the site was a  train-wreck.

The firm was evolving operationally and adding new staff members consistently. Explosive growth couldn't have been supported at that time. Long-term, steady growth, however, was imperative to help fund the business transitions that were underway internally. Their Digital Strategy had to be strong, consistent, and conservative to meet the business needs of the firm.

Our approach was tailored to their unique situation and implemented in strategic phases:

1. Rewrite the site to look the same as the original but with search ranking architected into the design AND all mistakes fixed.
   • We preserved the visual appeal they loved while completely overhauling the backend for optimal performance.
   • This involved restructuring the site architecture, improving page load speeds, and implementing proper on-page SEO elements.
   • We ensured mobile responsiveness and cross-browser compatibility to enhance user experience.
2. Begin a steady social media campaign to consistently grow site traffic (and firm revenues) in the most profitable of the two focus areas – family law.
   • We developed a content strategy that positioned them as thought leaders in family law.
   • Regular, engaging posts across multiple platforms helped increase their visibility and attract potential clients.
   • We implemented targeted advertising campaigns to reach individuals seeking family law services in their area.
3. Once family law was entrenched in search, expand the social media campaign to include both family and criminal law.
   • This phased approach allowed us to establish a strong foundation in one practice area before broadening our focus.
   • We carefully monitored analytics to ensure the expansion didn't dilute their family law success.
   • The criminal law campaign was tailored to differentiate from family law while maintaining a cohesive brand voice.

Throughout this process, we maintained open communication with the firm, aligning our digital strategies with their internal growth and operational changes. This collaborative approach ensured that as their online presence grew, they were ready to handle the increased client inquiries and caseload.

The result was a digital transformation that supported their business goals:

• Steady, manageable growth in client acquisition for both practice areas
• Improved online visibility and search rankings for family and criminal law
• A robust, error-free website that accurately reflected their professional image
• Increased revenue that supported their internal expansion and transitions
• A strong foundation for future growth and potential expansion into new practice areas

This case study demonstrates the power of a tailored, patient approach to digital marketing for law firms. By focusing on strong fundamentals and steady growth, we helped this practice build a sustainable online presence that continues to drive their success while accommodating their evolving business needs.

When Just Enough, Is Enough

This was a remarkable client. Through longevity and business connections, they were already fairly dominant within their state in their creditors’ rights practice. They also have excellent in-house marketing team producing fun, informative, high quality content. The firm was predominantly, but not entirely creditors’ rights. They also practiced business law, especially in Oil and Gas. They were already doing a great job, but thought that they could be doing better. During discovery, we were very impressed with their internal talent. The video series they were running and publishing was excellent. They were well represented in the the creditors’ rights associations and had “good” site traffic. Their website, however, was not built in any way to attract search. In addition, back in their history, someone had used black hat search methods (backlink spamming), and Google had punished the site for it. At another time, a different firm had recommended a gray hat strategy that generated a lot of duplicate content – not Google Search best practices. The digital strategy for this client was maintenance and cleanup.

• Cull the thousands of spam junk backlinks that were black hat SEO and in violation of Google Search best practices.
• Groom the entire site (over a thousand pages) and update everywhere for proper search with no front-end site revisions – purely doing what should have been done originally.
• Delete a large swath of the site that was duplicate content – again, a part of an earlier gray hat SEO campaign that backfired.
• Speed up this huge site so that it was an appropriate speed for Google to give search love to.
• Keep the site maintained and technically pristine.

In the end, the site lurched up in traffic and settled in being dominant in their market for their search terms. It requires very little maintenance to keep it going, once the black hat, and gray hat SEO from their past had been removed, the site had basic search elements added to it’s backend, and the site technically improved for speed. we continue to monitor competitive pressures to ensure against slippage.

The Full Montyy

This case study speaks to what happens when a client fails to stay the course, and loses faith in the process. The client is in a competitive cut throat market. Their existing site was “pleasant”. If it were ice cream, it would have been vanilla, a reasonable quality vanilla, but still vanilla. The client was tired of not seeing themselves in search, and had been quoted rates, well over 10 times our rates for SEO services, and just didn’t see the value in it. We can’t blame them. If you’ve never seen the traffic from the internet, it’s’ hard to believe what the internet can really do. It is easy to become fatalistic, and feel that a website is simply a necessary part of establishing your legitimacy as an operating business, but tales of waves of new customers, were just that, tales, and not credible to them. Our Rainmaker Digital Strategy came in phases, with rest between, and didn’t end well.

• Create a web presence that appropriately represented their high quality reputation and brand, architected appropriate for search.
• Then, the client balked at moving ahead with SEO. The site saw incremental growth, because it was better architected, but growth was lackluster. Because expectations were lackluster, expectations were met, and the rest of the Digital Marketing Strategy was “mothballed”.
• Nearly a year later, after speaking socially with other clients of ours that had been the benefactors of tremendous growth, and increased revenues, they mustered up the courage and funds, to kick off the second phase or the Rainmaker Digital Strategy. Because the campaign was built on a well architected site, there was immediate and explosive growth.

The client, not believing the traffic was due to the Rainmaker Digital Strategy, and listening to outside advice stopped the campaign abruptly, before they had adequate momentum, and traffic faltered as dramatically as it rose. Only firms that want to dominate their area of search and have the fortitude to go “all in” are appropriate clients for Legal Brand Builders. We wish them well, they continue as professional friends. The data, however, speaks for itself.