Maria Monroy

I think there’s a time and a place for the directories, because you also want to look at the first page of Google, like real estate. You don’t go and you get one billboard, right?

Chris Dreyer

There’s a phrase that fits well with legal SEO. “Think global, act local.”

Maria Monroy

In an ideal world, you are doing LSA, Google ads. You’re in the local pack. You have multiple locations where you’re in the local back, especially in larger markets, you rank organically and you’re in every directory that ranks on the first page because that creates repetition. And we know how powerful repetition in spreading.

Chris Dreyer

You’re listening to the Personal Injury Marketing Mastermind, the show where elite personal injury attorneys and leading edge marketers give you exclusive access the growth strategies for your firm. Maria Monroy has a ton of knowledge on SEO, so much that she co-founded LawRank a legal marketing agency, much like Rankings.io. She now serves as a director of client relations where she leads law firms through the labyrinth of local SEO. We sat down to compare notes on ex ex. What gets firms to rank in their city and location, location, location. I’m your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io. We help elite personal injury attorneys dominate first page rankings with search engine optimization. Being at the forefront of marketing is all about understanding people. So let’s get to know our guest. Here’s Maria Monroy, co-founder and director of client relations at LawRank.

Maria Monroy

Seven, eight years ago, my husband was attending law school and his brother who had been a DA forever, um, was leaving and wanted a website. So he asked my husband who was pretty techie. Hey, can you put up a website for me? And my husband decided that for fun. He, he was very intense. Very curious. He, he wondered how Google decided. Who would show up when somebody searched for a criminal defense lawyer. So he just decided after he put the website up for him, that he was going to try to figure it out and he did, he ranked them. And then we started getting phone calls and I mean, next thing you know, we were a full-blown agency while he was still in law school. So that’s how we got started.

Chris Dreyer

Yeah. And, and Maria, and I know your husband well, and every time I speak to him, he gets so excited talking about SEO. And it’s like a mile a minute, just, just loves it. Definitely a true practitioner and others. There’s other agencies that have, you know, that were started in a sales capacity, but he he’s an SEO expert. And really, I guess, practiced on a criminal defense law firm.

Maria Monroy

Yeah, we actually did no sales for the first five years. We just focused on processes and becoming experts in the industry. But yes, he’s very passionate sometimes. I’m just like, can you please stop?

Chris Dreyer

I bet. I bet. So tell me, uh, you know, what does LawRank do?

Maria Monroy

So, well, we kind of do what you do. Um, we marketing for law firms, SEO. We do PPC and web design.

Chris Dreyer

Yeah, absolutely. And I’m sure many people listening are probably, yeah. Why does Chris have a competitor on? And I’ll tell you, this is the reason, first of all, it’s an abundance mindset and also your rep, your reputation’s everything. And there are situations where we can’t work with a firm. Maybe we have an exclusivity agreement, and we’ll talk more about that later, but in my eyes, you want to refer. A prospect that you can’t work with to someone who’s great and lawyering does an exceptional job. And the reason I think that’s so important is because if a referral, it, it reflects on the person that referred it. And I think there’s an integrity aspect of that.

Maria Monroy

Absolutely. And we feel the same way about rankings. I am. So

Chris Dreyer

that’s, that’s super nice. And so let’s, let’s jump right into the SEO chat. We’re going to talk a lot about local SEO and. It’s impacted by relevance, distance and prominence and, and let’s start with relevance. So what do you believe are the key factors Google is looking at to determine relevance,

Maria Monroy

So they should be really intuitive. So somebody searching for a personal injury lawyer, you’re going to need to have content and the keywords on the site to show Google that you are what they’re looking for. Right?

Chris Dreyer

Yeah. And I think. I mean, that’s a, you wouldn’t expect, you know, a laundry mat to show, show up. If you were searching for car accident, lawyer, even though some of the, those lead gen companies are gaming the system and putting laundry mats out there. But, uh, you know, do you think that’s why a lot of law firms are just jamming in keywords into their business entity name? Do you think they’re trying to game the system?

Maria Monroy

Absolutely because you’re automatically going to be more relevant if the name of your firm is, you know, last name, personal injury lawyers, or some permutation of that. So, yeah, absolutely.

Chris Dreyer

Yeah. And we see that a lot too. And do you think that there. I’m kind of in the gray area maybe. And I’ll just be really candid for those listing, because I feel that there’s really a right and wrong way to approach this. And do you think that law firms should consider, you know, a DBA change in their business, entity name, their legal name to incorporate a keyword? Do you think it’s that.

Maria Monroy

I do we do when we definitely, um, encourage our clients to do that. I’m going to be honest as well. So, but there is a right and a wrong way of doing it. And obviously it really depends on the firm. So there are firms that do other practice areas besides PI. And I mean, we could talk about a whole bunch of issues that that cost is digitally, but we don’t have to do that today. So, but yes, absolutely getting the DBA, getting the signage, even having some business cards, I think that’s crucial to doing it the right way because otherwise you risk Google suspending the listing.

Chris Dreyer

Yeah. And I couldn’t agree more. And you know, we, we did a study recently and I was really surprised that it had such an impact. Now if it wasn’t a, if it didn’t have much of a benefit, I wouldn’t recommend it because it’s a lot of work and it’s a big investment for these firms that do it the right way. Uh, on the flip side, do you think it’s necessary now for an SEO agency to proactively fight spam when you know, these businesses may not have the correct legal filing?

Maria Monroy

Yes, definitely. I mean, if we are doing things by the book, And other firms are not, we need to fight that.

Chris Dreyer

Yeah. In the past, I always thought, Hey, I’ll just be reactive. You know, I’ll, I’ll play, you know, do the white hat and just avoid, I’ll just ignore those people’s family. But then when some of them started to out, right. Our clients is like, okay, I need to be proactive. And it’s kind of a necessary evil, particularly in the personal injury industry. And I know you also work with criminal defense and other areas of the law. Do you see the spam as heavily in those other areas of the law or is that mostly in PI now we’re seeing an everywhere.

Maria Monroy

And what’s funny is for instance, for employment in San Diego, we’re also seeing the city. So it’s not just employment lawyers, it’s San Diego employment lawyers. So it’s definitely interesting. And I do think at some point it’s not even going to be like a benefit. It’s going to be a non-negotiable. So unless Google changes something in their algorithm, it’s, there’s not gonna be a benefit anymore. It’s just going to be a non-negotiable you want to be in the local back. You’re going to need those keywords.

Chris Dreyer

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I think of that, you know, the table stakes, the non-negotiables for like reviews. It’s like, well, you have to get reviews.

Maria Monroy

Absolutely. So everyone listening, please get reviews. It’s I don’t even know what to say about it. It’s just, it’s very, very important. And it, it seems to sometimes be almost like a, a battle with clients that Kate really need these reviews.

Chris Dreyer

Right. Yeah. It’s, uh, you know, you definitely have to be intentional put thought process there. Uh, and I know, and I know that has to do a lot with prominence. So before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s, let’s jump over to the next big bucket. Let’s go to distance. So the three ranking factors, relevance, distance, and prominence. And let’s talk about the big taboo thing and the SEO agency, SEO agency, world, every law firm wants complete geographic exclusivity. They, they compare it to these TV and radio DMS. You know, why do you think that’s the wrong mindset? Why, why do you think, um, it should be different for SEO agents?

Maria Monroy

Well, we, we let’s back up a little bit. So can we use the giveaway exclusivity, right. And I understand why exclusivity became a thing, right. So what started happening is agencies started saying, oh, we’re different. We’ll work with you exclusively. And I, I know you’ve probably run into this problem. I know we have, but it limits our client’s growth. So when you have a client in a market and the ranking and they’re signing up cases and they want to grow, but they’re already dominating their market. The natural progression specialty MBI is to go into another market. And if you are already exclusive in another market, They can’t do that with you. So you put them in a really tough position and you’re in a tough position as an agency because you want to do right by both of these clients. But now all of the sudden you can’t, and you know, this might sound like I’m talking bad about other competitors by in my opinion, if you’re good at what you do, you’re not going to offer exclusivity because you’re going to run into the same problem that you and I have right now.

Chris Dreyer

Well, I just, I really wanted to highlight that. So let’s expound on that because when I see these agencies that are just freely giving away exclusivity, they’re like, oh yeah, we’ll give you exclusivity for a Los Angeles. We’ll give it away. No problem. Like there should be all kinds of red flags, you know, why, why do you think there should be all these red flags when, when they’re just freely given the way exclusivity?

Maria Monroy

I mean, I just, again, I think if you. If you’re willing to give away exclusivity, you’re probably not very good because you’re not going to run into the problem of another client wanting to an existing client wanting to go into that market. Right. So, I mean, that’s the way that I look at it because I we’ve had this issue. Nonstop. Right. And I know you’ve had this issue. So in my opinion, it’s a situation where, and let’s face it there’s so much that falls under the ICO umbrella. Right. So we could, I mean, my eight year old could build a link. Right. And he could call it a CEO and charge you X amount of money and there you go. He did SEO. Right? So the problem is you lock somebody into a 12 month contract. Right at the 12 month mark, they don’t rank, but they can show you that they uploaded a walk post here and there and build a couple of links. Right. And then what do you, do? You fire them and you move on to the next agency. Right? Right. So if an, if an agency is offering exclusivity, they, again, they’re probably not very good because if they were, they would be running into the problem because the natural progression of most PI from specialty. After what Morgan Morgan is doing is let me expand. Once I dominate my market, I want to expand. I want to grow. And that’s our ideal client, right? We want our clients to grow, but going forward. And this has been like the case for the past few months, we refuse to limit our client’s growth. So we are no longer offering it specifically. You can work with another agency. That’ll be exclusive with you. Do you want rank on the first page? Most likely, right. I mean, sure. There might be exceptions and I don’t want to say that every single agency. Yeah. Offers exclusivity. Isn’t good. There might be an exception, but typically they would run into this problem.

Chris Dreyer

Yeah. I’ll, I’ll be a little bit more blunt. Uh, I’ll be, you know, the reason that FindLawn Scorpion and just the air offer and, you know, uh, or they, they, they just, they don’t generate results. Right. They, they they’re turn and burn. Um, and a lot of these agencies. They lock you into a long-term contract because you need a long-term contract to actually have an exclusive agreement. So that’s actually negative on the law firm owner, because then that means that that SEO agency can get away with not earning their keep and actually doing a heavy amount of production every month. And we hear it so many times. Yeah. I signed up this SEO agency. They worked hard the first couple months and they went into coast mode. Well, did I would say for those listening, ask yourself. Did they offer you exclusivity and did they offer you a long-term care? I’m willing to bet that they did. So I would take a hard look at that. One of the buzz words, when you talk about local SEO is proximity. How far the person searching Google is from the physical location. In fact, LawRank conducted a study to figure out how proximity affects your search rankings. I asked Maria about the results of that study and how that affects their approach.

Maria Monroy

So after a one mile radius, which is 6.2, eight miles, the rankings drop off significantly. And there is not much that we can do about that. There are some exceptions in certain markets and this applies to PI more than any other industry, because it’s so competitive. And there are so many PI firms. Um, but after a one mile radius, it’s really hard to be in the local pack. Right. And this just has to do with the algorithms. So oftentimes we’ve had firms that are like, well, but my office is so far from the center of the city. It’s not the best location. That’s not where I want my clients to come out. It. But there’s not much we can do after that one mile radius. So if any of you are listening and you’re starting a new law firm, your lease is up, you’re adding a location really think about where you want your clients to come out of. Right word. Where does your ideal client live? Because we’re really looking at a one mile radius from your office to be able to. Rank in the local pack. I’m not saying that just by going and getting an office there, you’re going to rank. But if you have an agency that knows what they’re doing and they can get you into the local pack, that’s extremely lucrative.

Chris Dreyer

Yeah, and I, I couldn’t agree more. And I, I think one of the reasons why a lot of PI attorneys probably think of geographic exclusivity because they’ve been hit over the head with it by the TV and radio companies, uh, you know, selling the media soft spots and they’ll sell a full DMA, a designated marketing area. But the problem with that comparison. To SEO is they already own the entire market. They’re just sale selling off that visibility and that market share. Whereas SEO you’re limited, like you said, after a mile, your ranking starts to decline. And I know many of those listening and some, maybe think they know a, you know, maybe they’ve talked to an SEO specialist that says this isn’t true, but I would ask yourself when you go on vacation and you Google best restaurants near me, do you think that you’re going to see restaurants 10 miles away? Probably not, you’re probably going to see them within a mile or two. So I, I completely agree with what Maria is saying here. And, you know, on that note, and you talked about choosing the right location, where their consumer hangs out, you know, when attorneys are considering expansion, should they look at additional locations within the same city they’re located.

Maria Monroy

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because then you get the shot at other local packs. Right. And the thing is, is that ever since the introduction, the introduction of local service ads or LSA, even though that took one spot from the Google ads, it introduced three law firms. So by the time they get to organic. You could be the ninth, 10th, 11th, 12th firm that they’re looking at. And yes, some people skip, skip the LSAs or the Google ads, but I feel like ever since, and I don’t know if you have found the same thing, but like ever since they introduced LSA, the local pack seems to. Work even better. There’s the ROI that comes out of pack is absurd. In our opinion. I think it’s even more important than organic. Now, of course you want an agency that can do both, right. And we both know that you can do something for local, the Hertz organic or, or vice versa. So having an agency that knows what to do for both without sacrificing one for the other, that’s the ideal. Right. But yeah, absolutely.

Chris Dreyer

I couldn’t agree more. And it’s now the whole above. The fold is all pay to play. You know, you’ve got your Google ads, you get your LSA. And now some of the ads are floating into the three pack and it’s like, they just keep taking, it used to be in the sidebar. Now it’s not in the sidebar. So I think that the real estate’s going to decrease, but I will say this and many individuals listening. Not every query will trigger Google ads. And that’s why I’m a big fan of organic and local SEO as well.

Maria Monroy

Yeah, absolutely. So what we’ve done and I think this is for where you’re going with is in some of our packages. We offer a one mile radius exclusivity. Right. Cause I understand that. And I, in my opinion, I think a lot of it has to do with, again, again, a reaction to the FindLaws, the Scorpions, right? Hey, you’re working with 15 of my competitors. I don’t want that. Right. But how do we not limit our client’s growth, but still give them some sense of. You know, exclusivity. Right. And I’ve already had a situation where a firm called, wanting to work with us and they were within a mile radius of, um, one of our clients and I had to turn them away. Right. So it does, it does provide that, I guess, security, you could call it or level of exclusivity because there aren’t three spots. Right. So. That’s what we’ve done and I know you’re doing the same thing.

Chris Dreyer

Yeah. Yeah. We’re, we’re definitely doing the same thing and I, it just, you just can’t give away the entire city, because if they’re, if someone’s located in say, you know, North tech, north Houston and someone else has a downtown office and the north Houston client doesn’t have a downtown, then they can’t rank downtown anyways. So you’re actually hurting yourself and your ability to expand and grow. Uh, and again, you know, just any exclusivity has to be very intentional. I say the one thing that we do. That’s a little different too, is we only provide it for the headquarters. So I know a lot of firms will just shell out the satellite offices. The Reguses, the WeWorks, gaming the system and throwing out offices everywhere. The reality is, and you, and I both know this. They’re not going to rank with a satellite office, unless they’re really intentional about building a business there and acquiring clients.

Maria Monroy

Yeah, absolutely. So we do the headquarters and any staff locations that we’re doing SEO for. So it does have to be a unique address where there’s someone there during business hours. But, and I was having this conversation today with somebody. They started working with an agency and they were doing SEO for three virtual locations. And I was like, I would never, like, I find that unethical, like I wouldn’t, we don’t take on clients if they don’t have a actual physical staff, unique location, we don’t do it because there goes 50 to 80% in our opinion of their ROI, if we can’t get them into the local pack. Right. So we just don’t, we don’t.

Chris Dreyer

Yeah, I agree. I think that’s the right approach. Absolutely. And yes, we’ve really we’ve really hit the proximity game. So it’s really important where you open your office and in relation to the local maps, let’s, let’s talk about prominence that third piece, you know, what does Google mean by prominence? What, what does, what impacts prominence?

Maria Monroy

Well, that’s where we come in. I would argue relevance and prominence is well. We come in, right? I mean, a lot of what we do, and I’m sure it’s the same for you when it comes to Google. My business and organic as well is proprietary. But obviously when we talk about being prominent, you know, links, media mentioned. All that good stuff. Right. Um, so yeah,

Chris Dreyer

yeah, yeah. Directories and, you know, links get, you know, basically when I think of the word prominence, I mean, I think of it just being everywhere. So you want to be everywhere. So Google can understand that you’re a real business and you’re not fake. And that you actually date where Google can determine where your location is. And let’s talk about reviews here. I think this is a really interesting thing. Most attorneys probably don’t think about, but do you think the type of law firm, uh, and there’s, there’s two main types of law firms. We see pretty commonly. I mean, there are some hybrids, uh, where there’s a settlement type of law firm, or they don’t really try a ton of cases and they do more volume. And then you have like more of a litigating law firm. Do you think that can be an advantage or disadvantage? The type of law firm you have when it comes to local SEO strategy?

Maria Monroy

Yeah, definitely. If you’re settling into ton cases, that’s a ton of reviews you can get. If you’re litigating a few cases a year, these big cases, you’re going to have bigger results, but less opportunities to get reviews. And again, reviews are really, really crucial to what we do, right. Clients always ask, well, what can we do to. Get reviews. That’s like your only job, get reviews. Give me the UVA, get the signage fixed and a stack of business cards, please. They’re like, that’s what you can do. Right. But yeah, I feel like it’s, it’s hard. It’s hard to get them on board with all of these. Right. But if they do it and they have an agency that knows what they’re doing and has the intent of getting them on the first page, very, very lucrative.

Chris Dreyer

Absolutely. And I, I love that. That’s, that’s what we always lean to, to, Hey, get reviews, get reviews. And I think of it as, Hey, not just on Google. Give reviews on Facebook on better business bureau on your, on your legal profiles and just get them everywhere. Uh, let’s talk about directories. Let’s talk about a few directories and, uh, You know, so directories is listed under prominence. Google actually gives that as an example, and I know FindLaw gets a lot of hate. I actually threw a little hate, uh, earlier in this interview, but, uh, their directory actually can rank really well. You know. Do you think it’s important to be listed in there directly?

Maria Monroy

I do. I at a bare minimum premium. Listing or premium profile, but I want to go back to something don’t you have a blog post that says, should I hire FindLaw? And then it just says, no.

Chris Dreyer

Yeah. I don’t know if that still exists, but we did have that for, at one point we did a big joke.

Maria Monroy

I loved it. I laughed for like Warren when I just literally just giggled for like ever, like, this is amazing. Why didn’t we think of it?

Chris Dreyer

Uh, despite the drawbacks, both Maria and I agree that PR firms should probably have a premium profile at the minimum on FindLaw, but is it worth paying for that featured top position on the directory?

Maria Monroy

Yeah. So we get this question all the time. And like my main thing is what is the search term and where do they rank for that search term? Right. So, perfect example, you know, San Diego, personal injury lawyer versus San Diego county, personal injury lawyer, no one is searching for San Diego county personal injury lawyer. Right? So that is one of my annoyances with finalists. To be honest, there are certain key terms that aren’t going to generate anything for you, right. Or what’s also interesting is like the whole should I, you know, get on, although it doesn’t really rank anymore. Right. So you really want to do some homework. Um, and I know that that’s tough for some. Law firms. Right. But really, it’s just very simple what ranks on the first page because every now and then I’ll even get a firm. That’s like, Hey, I can’t afford to do SEO right now because in order the way that I explain it, and I mean, it’s, it’s very long, but basically like, okay, if I don’t have this type of budget, I’m not going to rank. Right. And if I’m not going to rank, what should I do? And I’m like, well, look at what directories are ranking on the first page. Right? So it’s not that FindLaw. Like all bad, right? They’re not. And again, my annoyance with FindLaw is they have the knowledge, they rank themselves, but they don’t have the intent to rank their clients. Right. And I talk about this a lot because I think it’s very important that you, as an attorney find an agency that has both of those things, has the knowledge and the intent, because you could have the intent, but if you don’t have the knowledge, you’re never going to break it. Right. And you could be someone like final or maybe even Scorpion. They have the knowledge. Are they going to execute it with you? Probably not.

Chris Dreyer

I love that so much. That reminds me of like the Dunning-Kruger definition where, you know, you’ve got your, maybe your younger kid and he plays poker and he wins one time and he thinks he’s a great poker player, but that’s because they, you know, they overestimate their abilities. And, but maybe they’re not a great poker player. Maybe they just don’t understand what actually good SEO looks like.

Maria Monroy

Right. Right. I mean, and, and it happens at night and I feel for law firms, I do, because I get that. Our industry doesn’t have the best reputation, right? Like, I, I get that. And I know that sometimes we’re the eighth, ninth. Agency, like I’ve been told you’re a last shot. Like if this doesn’t work, nothing’s going to work like we’re done. Right. So, so I get it. But going back to, to FindLaw, I think there’s a time and a place for the directories because you also want to look at the first page of Google, like real estate. You don’t go in and get one billboard, right? In an ideal world, you are doing LSA. Google ads. You’re in the local pack. You have multiple locations where you’re in the local back, specially in larger markets, you rank organically. And you’re in every directory that ranks on the first page because that creates repetition. And we know how powerful repetition is, right? I mean, look at AT&T, look at Coca Cola. We all know who they are. Right. We all know they are. But there they are. Right. So what you want to create is that feeling where the client says, and we’ve had clients say this to our clients, you were all over the internet. I have to call you right now. If you have an offline presence, that’s a whole other, you know, that’s a whole other subject, but that also helps. Right. So do it all. That’s like in an ideal world, that’s what our clients are doing. Would it be.

Chris Dreyer

Absolutely. I, I love it when there’s a multi-channel approach and they have that brand recognition. If I pop on SEMrush or a residency that the brands get in searches, you just know that it’s going to really help the SEO strategy.

Maria Monroy

It is because they’re also a brand in Google’s eyes. So if somebody’s searching for your brand, then you have a brand. And if you have a brand, you have something to protect. And if you have something to protect, you’re more likely to create a better user experience. Right. And that’s all Google really cares about. Right. I mean, you and I could do a whole podcast on just user experience and how important that is to Google, right. From the point that they searched to the very end of any transaction. Right. That’s where reviews come in. Right. So.

Chris Dreyer

Yeah. Yeah, no, I love that. And so, so this has been fantastic. So relevance, distance and prominence really impacts the local SEO strategy. Any other final thoughts on local SEO?

Maria Monroy

No, I think we covered it. I think we covered it all. I guess the only thing I would say, because I know we talked about that. The whole one mile radius. Right? So one thing I would do for everyone listening is ask her, driving through the city search for personal injury lawyer from your phone. And an example I give is if you’ve ever been out running errands and you need to ship something, so you type in ups, your filling, you get three different, you know, ups locations in the Google map. And then you forget to go and you keep running errands. And then you’re like, oh my God, I got to go to ups. So you type it in again and now you get different results. Right. That’s how it works because it’s trying to give you the closest. Um, and again, I mean, I know it’s a little bit different because ups is a brand versus somebody searching for a personal injury lawyer, but that should give you an idea of how the words and the concept of proximity and why after X amount of miles and search PI again, a one mile radius. It’s really hard to rank because that part of the algorithm kicks in and it says, now you’re too far. Right. Which is why we definitely recommend multiple locations. Um, and ideally you’re in, if you’re only going to have one office you’re in the center of the city downtown or in a area where you want your clients to come out of, and somewhere that is densely packed.

Chris Dreyer

It’s so great to have a conversation like this, where I can nerd out with someone in the industry who just gets it. On paper, Rankings.io and LawRank are competitors. But one of the reasons I work with them is that Maria and her team are always willing to share their knowledge and opinions, like what she said about client and reviews there. So important. If you’re a law firm looking for help with SEO, start getting those reviews. I’d like to thank Maria Monroy from LawRank for sharing her story with us. I hope you gained some valuable insights from the conversation you’ve been listening to the Personal Injury Marketing Mastermind. I’m Chris Dreyer. If you like this episode, leave us a review. We love to hear from our listeners. I’ll catch you on next. Week’s PIMM with another incredible guest and all the strategies you need to master personal injury marketing.