Case Study
Proving the Power of SEO and PPC for B2B Law Firm
June 10, 2022
Our client, a large B2B law firm, had been investing in Google Ads for more than ten years. Unfortunately, their agency wasn’t using proper research and conversion tracking to help guide the client’s ad purchases, which meant they were basically buying ads blind.
While they were getting reasonable pay-per-click results, they wanted more personalized attention from their agency and were hopeful for a better return on their digital marketing investment.
The Challenge
Before us…
Shortly before hiring us, our client had decided to overhaul their website.
Problem Statement
- To design a comprehensive SEO and PPC strategy
- that worked as part of their digital marketing objectives
- A new Website
- Deliver better results than predecessors to prove ourselves
Hardships
- It was like trying to win a race you had started running in the wrong direction!
COVID Pandemic - Need to Change the Approach
- Previously in-person, but now socially distant services
- Government’s new support-programs to help families cover the COVID-related funeral costs.
- Find new ways to build the business
The Solution
The Bright Side
While all businesses faced the COVID Challenges, the pandemic also created opportunities
- To expand market reach, and
- To improve client services
Our Approach
Pre-COVID:
- Build New Website with
- SEO features built into the core infrastructure (not adding as an afterthought)
- Re-index the whole site and boost the traffic
- Build new Google Ads campaigns with our 12-month plans, creating content supporting the site’s targeted practice areas which the firm wanted to rank
Post-COVID:
- Forward thinking and analyzing the aftermath of the pandemic,
- Focus on keywords related to socially distant and COVID-safe client services
- Do something to Retain the Clients of our client
- Keep the business running amidst the pandemic crisis
Results
- Our client became The first Firm in the market to rank keywords related to socially distant and COVID-safe client services
- We helped retain 200+ clients by designing –
- A highly focused campaign
- Based on optimized SEO
- Supplementing another vendor’s paid social media content efforts on Facebook and Instagram
- Helped the new clients to navigate through the process of applying for, and receiving federal funds to help pay COVID funeral expenses
Briefs are for cases, not copy
Lawyers are famously prone to long-winded speeches, but when it comes to their website copy, they inexplicably clam up!
Our Client’s Website –
WAS –
- Featured short, generic practice descriptions
- Did not differentiate them from their competitors
- Did not explain/highlight their expertise
IS –
- Improvised User Experience
- Guided user journeys to satisfy their queries and feel good
- Boosted Effectiveness & Frequency of Call-To-Action to funnel potential clients to the Contact Us and Booking pages.
This is possible with our expertise in –
- In depth research about their target audience
- Ask the right questions to our client firms
- Accordingly, build user journeys that guide the user through the website using appropriate Questions and Options to choose from
Share those digits (and email addresses)
Our redesigned version was built around clear sales funnels that pushed site visitors towards forms that were easy to find and to fill in while still capturing all necessary information. We increased the number of prominent contact buttons and made sure all the firm’s contact details were highly accessible.
Sell it Smart
Once the new, superpowered site was up and running, we were ready to tackle the problem we were hired to fix—underperforming Google Ad campaigns.
Three Ingredients That Helped Us Succeed
1. A client committed to content
Whether you write your content yourself or hire someone to write it for you, getting more traffic to your site isn’t possible unless you commit to publishing on a regular schedule.
Doing exactly that, we partnered with our client on a content calendar that contained a mix of hot button issues and evergreen topics. A large part of our client’s success is a direct result of their dedication to developing their online resource library. This new content, combined with the reindexed website and SEO strategy, drove huge gains in organic growth between Q1 2020 and Q1 2021.
Since we started working together in 2019, our client has seen:
- 116.6% growth in new users
- 60.7% increase in page views
2. It’s who you know (or who says they know you)
One of the most reliable ways to drive traffic to your site is to make sure your site appears high on a search engine results page (SERP). And one of the best ways to improve your SERP performance is to increase the number of backlinks (links to your site from sites with a high domain authority).
As one of the Northeast’s premier companies specializing in SEO for law firms, we used our extensive network of contacts to place quotes from the firm’s senior partners in authoritative articles on respected sites. These high-quality backlinks boosted both overall SERP performance and the domain authority score for our client’s new site. Additionally, we encouraged all lawyers at the firm to write blog posts, offer comments, or sponsor content on the sites of community and professional organizations they belong to.
Since signing with 9Sail, our client’s website has received 300+ new backlinks from prestigious law schools, popular area radio stations, and major industry sites. These geographically and/or professionally relevant backlinks increased referral traffic and helped our client break through an extremely crowded national legal market by improving local SEO performance.
3. Active advertising administration
We’re very proud of 9Sail’s reputation for providing hands-on, in-depth management of our clients’ SEO campaigns. Our experience has shown us that when you win, we do too, so we work hard to understand the nuances that set you apart from your competitors.
After our work on the site redesign and the initial Google Ads strategy overhaul, we were able to give our client information they hadn’t been given in over 10 years of digital marketing—which types of leads were the most likely to deliver a high ROI. Even better, the new campaigns are delivering massive growth around all the top practice areas that were our top priority.
Our client’s reputation as one of the most well-known firms in their field is now matched by the performance of their online content and advertising.
This success is due in large part to the monthly meetings we have with the firm’s senior management and our weekly check-ins with their marketing and business development director. These frequent feedback sessions allow us to tweak the campaigns to make sure we’re helping our clients meet their goals.
Start Strong.
Finish Strong.
If you spend enough money on Google Ads, you’re almost guaranteed to get at least moderate results. But if you have strong SEO fundamentals in place before you buy your ads, the same amount of ad spend can deliver results that will transform your business.
We can help you chase those outcomes. Don’t be satisfied with static performance or mediocre yield from your digital marketing. Call us today and let us show you what’s possible.
