Case Study Law Firm Pivots Focus, Sees 870% Increase in Website Inquiries

Trial Guides Digital Marketing was born from decades of success as a trusted legal publishing company and eCommerce brand serving attorneys. After 20 years of growing our legal brand, we identified a critical need in the market: law firms required specialized website development and SEO services from professionals who genuinely understand the challenges of the legal field.

Our team’s members include not just SEO experts and digital marketing specialists, but writers with experience in everything from law and economics to medicine and tech. From online advertising in a saturated market to content that captures the voice of their brand, our team has the tools to help any attorney client, practicing in any area of law.

Since launching in 2021, we’ve helped law firms generate higher-quality leads, find ideal clients, and outperform competitors in Google search rankings. We’re proud of our continued growth and success, and we’re excited to share another outstanding client success story that reflects the impact of our work.

A Professional Pivot in a Saturated Market

With decades of civil rights work and a fair amount of national media coverage on a few prominent cases, a Minnesota-based civil rights law firm was feeling stuck. While they regularly got civil rights cases through reputation and word of mouth, they wanted to pivot into mostly birth injury cases and “failure to diagnose” cases. 

Concerningly, their web inquiries had dropped from several a week to zero in months. While they continued to get referrals and co-counsel opportunities on civil rights cases, they had grown worried that something was seriously wrong with their website lead funnel.

The client hesitated to sign with yet another digital marketing firm, as they had worked with several over the years, and had not seen great results. The managing partner was reluctant to engage yet another legal marketing agency when so many others had failed to live up to their promises. After months of communication about their long-term goals and the problems they were seeing in digital advertising, the client signed with TGDM in July of 2024, and our team set to work.

Project Challenges

PPC Restrictions

PPC, or “pay-per-click” advertising, is perhaps the quickest way to rank competitively for a keyword or topic. In most cases, this requires a targeted campaign on popular search terms and regular review of topic trends and client inquiries. However, many keywords involving birth injury are challenging to rank for through paid clicks because of Google’s health and personalized advertising policies. (In essence, Google has restrictive limits on advertising on certain terms; this is to prevent exposure to highly graphic material, or exploitation in the wake of personal hardships.)

A New Practice Area in a Saturated Market

In terms of digital marketing, pivoting to a new practice area is akin to starting over in a new industry. While the client had ample material related to civil rights and social justice work, their web presence for keywords related to personal injury was negligible. Moreover, personal injury attorneys were already strongly represented in his local area; their presence in local searches would be an uphill battle. 

A Highly Specific Keyword Target

Finally, the “double niche” within the personal injury realm, birth injury cases, specifically “failure to diagnose” cases, meant that their potential ideal client was relatively rare.

Step 1: An Exhaustive Administrative Audit

The first stage of our work for this client involved a detailed administrative audit. This included everything from disavowing toxic backlinks (which were hurting their web ranking) to checking for orphaned links that were not bringing value to the site. We also checked to make sure that their contact forms were capturing their leads properly, and in fact, due to their forms not being set up correctly, the client was not getting any web leads at all. With this simple administrative fix, the client began seeing web inquiries appearing in their inbox once again.

Step 2: A Focused Overhaul on Conversion Rate Optimization

The second stage involved a more detailed overhaul of his CRO, or conversion rate optimization strategy. We combed through his code to make sure his home page had every SEO advantage, including an improved H1 tag (which tells Google what the website is about). We also moved his calls to action (CTAs) up higher on his home page and put his lead form in the proper spot, where website visitors could access it more easily.

Step 3: Building Website Authority Around A New Keyword Cluster

Finally, we knew that we couldn’t jump headlong into writing on “failure to diagnose” birth injury cases. Instead, we set the scene with broader keywords aimed toward improving his presence for personal injury searches that would generate interest and keyword value in broader search terms.

After integrating personal injury value onto his home page, we began writing canonical content that would lead users to his niche area of practice: first Personal Injury, then Medical Malpractice, and Wrongful Death. Only then did we begin writing birth injury content, which included “failure to diagnose” keywords as well as related birth injury content. This tiered schema set the baseline for big-picture medical malpractice searches, while establishing a solid foundation of content to support his ultimate keyword target.

Within days of engaging TGDM for their digital marketing assistance (as indicated by the red arrow), the client noticed an immediate uptick in activity. 

Their pivot from civil rights cases to birth injury was also successful. Within twelve months of our work together, their organic search traffic is up 37%, with more than 4,000 sessions in the last year. Lead generation through their online contact form increased a staggering 870%, from 47 (before the administrative error dropping this number to zero) to 460.

Next Steps

Our client is thrilled with the results and looks forward to future success through his partnership with Trial Guides Digital Marketing; he will also refer Trial Guides Digital Marketing to other attorneys looking to improve the digital arm of their marketing plan. We will continue to write two blog pages for them every month, perform regular audits and keyword research to stay on course, and stand ready to help them reach their business goals through 2025 and beyond.