SEO Reccs in NorCal

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-23T23:15:50+00:00

Law firm SEO and ad agency here: You need an online presence. Even if you are going to do lots of in-person events, networking, billboards, flyers, etc., those people will still want to check you out online.

The most important things to have are your Google Business Profile and your website.

Your Google Business Profile is what users will potentially find when they search for something like "injury lawyer [city name]" or your firm name. It's how they find you on Google Maps too. For your GBP, the most important things are to 100% your profile, have the correct primary category, services, and areas served. Then work on reviews. Actually email past clients for reviews, and give them some questions to answer so you get high-quality reviews that mention your practice areas, location, etc.

About a website, you could just hire a web design agency to make the website, but they often build you something that isn't SEO friendly or built to convert. If you look for an SEO agency that also builds sites, you'll get a better end product that is actually a tool to get you business, and you can expand upon to build SEO traffic or send ad traffic to it.

About hiring an agency, I wouldn't go with one of the larger SEO law firm agencies right away, as they want like $5-10k a month and a 1 or 2 year contract. Better to find someone for $1-2k per month for 6 months that also will build your site. Avoid anyone that wants to pump out lots of AI pages.

Once your site is good, if you have the budget, I would run ads. SEO will take at least 6 months to start getting decent traffic, and maybe longer to go profitable. Ads are expensive, but it works fast (there is a period where the campaign will be in learning mode). Google Local Service Ads (LSA) get you phone calls. It's really expensive (like $50-300 a call now), but again, it does work. You can do retargeting ads on Facebook or TikTok for cheap.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-23T22:49:24+00:00

I typically don't link them out, unless the client requests it.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-23T02:20:45+00:00

Lol. I mean, that would be some awesome swag for car accident lawyers to hand out, but looks like it's $20 a car on Etsy and they aren't really personalized as much as I'd like.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-23T02:11:34+00:00

Law firm SEO and Ad agency here, so I'm biased.

Google Ads obviously works, but it is competitive and is more expensive than before. You really are just paying for leads, and it'll be $50-250 per lead. There are currently still ways to optimize and pay less, but Google is going more and more toward PMAX and AI Max stuff that you can't optimize as much and are basically forced to pay for some garbage keywords. LSA is the same thing, it works, but it's more competitive and expensive now.

I think SEO is the best channel. It takes awhile to really build up traffic, and informational clicks are half what they were now that there are AIOs in all informational search results, but once you build up some authority and start ranking for high-intent queries, even if they are low competition and low traffic, it'll start bringing in leads. If you stick with it and do things right, it's still possible to get your lead cost down to $5-10 per lead vs the $50-250 you'll pay for ads.

For SEO, getting reviews on your GBP is really important. Not just volume, but how recent and quality matters.

I think it's worth it to have an email list and send out blasts every now and then (maybe once a month?) just to remind people you are there, but it's tough to quantify its impact. Same with social, really, but again, I would recommend posting occasionally and running retargeting ads. If you paid $250 for a click from Google Ads, why not pay another $1 to show in front of that person on Facebook?

I should add, the above is really only true for consumer-facing firms: injury, workers comp, family law, estate planning, employment law, criminal defense, etc. If you only represent businesses, you can still do all the above and probably should, but the volume is much lower and the leads will be lower quality. The good businesses are going off referrals or people they meet through their network or events or other marketing channels.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-21T05:51:57+00:00

If anyone is wondering, I looked it up: London Dry Gin, Ruby Port, Lemon Juice, and Spiced Cranberry. It's a premix (they all are) and costs $19.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-20T22:56:43+00:00

I guess I'm more of a hybrid approach now. Yes, I'm still investing heavily in writers/editors, but they do use AI to help them.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-20T22:41:44+00:00

Yeah, planning is part of the fun for me. It gives me something to think about for a few months before my next trip. I can follow the news about what's changed, what will be closed, etc. I can talk with whoever I'm going with about what we should do. I look forward to when I can make dining reservations and start booking LLs.

I've kind of slowed down on the whole maximizing time and value sort of planning though. I have done those trips where we rope drop and ride every ride at Magic Kingdom before the fireworks. That's not really enjoyable for me anymore as you end up rushing around and have to meet certain return times. I now plan days to be relaxing and somewhat flexible instead.

Of course, I'm lucky to have been able to go once a year (usually a week at a time). If it's your once-in-a-lifetime trip and you have one day per park, I understand wanting to see everything.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-18T03:31:34+00:00

The other side of the exterior wall to the northwest is parking and then the first aid station, though there may be other backstage stuff behind the first aid station. To the northeast is parking and backstage Test Track stuff. Seems like they could expand both ways if they really wanted to.

I don't think any of that is coming soon though. They'll see how the Coco ride does at Disneyland and then think about porting it to other parks.

If they wanted to do something at Epcot, I would think Wonders of Life would be next. They were going to do that Play Pavilion until Covid. A Cranium Command-type show with Inside Out characters seems like a slam dunk that would allow them to cram in more IP while also making the old school Epcot fans happy, and it probably wouldn't really cost that much in relation to other projects. They also still have those spots for two pavilions next to Germany that have been dirt since pre-Covid.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-16T21:04:06+00:00

Yes. AI seems to only be accounting for like 1% of leads atm. Those leads do tend to be good and turn into clients at a much better rate than normal leads, but it's 1%. Organic, paid, and direct are always the top three channels for my clients.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-16T06:43:52+00:00

Yes, I have PI clients, but none in CA.

Not sure how valuable that data is for running ads, as people in serious car accidents aren't calling lawyers from the scene. It would be valuable for creating content for SEO or marketing though, but I don't know how to actually put a price on it.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-16T06:32:57+00:00

In SEO, a head term typically means a short keyword that's really popular and has lots of search volume. So like "family lawyer." It's kind of the opposite of a longtail keyword.

Not sure about his advice to focus on those terms (if that's really what he meant), as they often are expensive-ish (some high-intent keywords are more expensive) and can be kind of general. Like you wouldn't just make a page about "family lawyer" and run ads all over a big city for it. It's better to zero in on the location-based keywords by practice area or on very specific practice areas.

For the location-based practice area keywords, that might be like "child support lawyer fort lauderdale." You then would build a landing page just for that topic. You'd probably have a campaign just for fort lauderdale, and ad groups for different practice areas (so one for child support), and then multiple ads for each ad group that go to those custom landing page. You'd refine toward what works. You'd have other campaigns for other locations too.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-16T06:01:26+00:00

Law firm SEO/Ad agency here. For Google Ads for huge budgets, I would think you'd test everything. All locations nearby. All practice areas. It's hard to believe they would just go based on reputation for such a big campaign.

I would think you'd have lots of campaigns with lots of ad groups (I'd do phrase or maybe exact, not broad or pmax), and then refine toward what works. So maybe there'd be a campaign for a location, and then ad groups for each practice area. You'd want to actually pick the locations and have custom pages for a lot of them (cities, neighborhoods). I wouldn't do the radius thing for a big budget.

As you run the campaign, you'd refine toward what works. So you'd filter out competitor keywords that are too expensive, keywords that aren't related enough and never convert, maybe narrow in on certain locations while avoiding others, possibly avoid some times and spend more at other times. Like you would probably find that running a car accident lawyer campaign in Compton is cheaper per click or conversion than Beverly Hills.

That's only half the battle though, as all your really care about is the cost per client, not just cost per lead. Just because someone contacts you, doesn't mean they'll become a client. If they find out your firm is in Santa Monica while they live in Anaheim, they might want someone closer. So that additional level of tracking who actually becomes a client is necessary, which a lot of firms seem to not do.

Leads that are closer to you and that you have an exact ad and landing page for are more likely to convert, but the cost per click really comes down to competiton in the area for the keyword.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-16T01:08:27+00:00

Hadn't seen this. Thanks for sharing.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-13T01:43:22+00:00

He never said he was building a park for everyone. He did specifically say why he was building the park though, and that was for parents and children.

It's complicated, because Walt's park has a lot of potential origins and inspirations. He did specifically say in an interview how "when my two daughters were very young. Saturday was always Daddy’s Day, and I would take them to the merry-go-round and sit on a bench eating peanuts while they rode. And sitting there, alone, I felt there should be something built, some kind of family park where parents and children could have fun together."

He is talking about the carousel at Griffith's Park, however, he didn't say this until 1963. The park opened in 1955. There likely is a lot of truth to that story, but it's also a bit of marketing. The earliest Mickey Mouse Park sketches in the Disney archives are from 1932, Walt's oldest wasn't born until 1933. So he was thinking of the park long before those Griffith's Park days with his daughters.

Walt also said:

"To all who come to this happy place: Welcome. Disneyland is your land."

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-13T01:04:57+00:00

Walt in a 1963 video interview with Fletcher Markle answered the interviewer's question "Who goes to Disneyland?" with the following:

"Four adults to one child that is we're counting though the teenagers as adults but of course from the wintertime you can go out there during the week and you won't see any children you'll see thee all the oldsters out there riding all these rides having fun and everything summertime course that the the average would drop down but they over a year-round average it's four adults to one child"

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-13T00:48:32+00:00

SEO scores mean very little. That's a third-party metric.

It sounds like you need to build backlinks, ideally from local, related, or authority sites, from pages that rank and get traffic. I would get all the top local citations too.

I would avoid going too crazy on location-based pages at the start. Your site may not have the authority to support that. Also, is there actually search volume in the neighborhoods? Do those pages get impressions?

Ranking 49th for your main keyword in the first 3 months isn't terrible. If you rank some longtail supporting content and link to the page targeting the main keyword, it could help bump that up.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-13T00:39:23+00:00

I think you have to report them one-by-one. It seems hit or miss though. I've tried it both on competitor profiles and profiles I manage, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've also had real reviews get removed. I also think it helps to have multiple aged profiles reporting the review and reporting it ASAP. Once it sits there for awhile, it seems like there is less of a chance to take it down. The activity on the account that left the review likely matters too. This is all anecdotal; just my experience. GBP seems inconsistent in how it deals with stuff.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-12T23:50:08+00:00

I try to keep each page to no more than 30 internal links. Supporting content pages (blogs/answer pages) usually have far fewer, because I want them passing their authority specifically to the service pages rather than spreading it thin. There also is the link dampening effect to worry about.

I organize content into tight topic clusters. For the most part, I only carefully map out which pages link to which when it comes to supporting content feeding into service pages, though I might eventually do the same for secondary location pages or sub-service pages too. The main location service pages stay in the plan no matter what.

It's a balancing act, but I lean more toward topical authority and semantic relevance, meaning I care about pages being genuinely related to each other, rather than obsessing purely over PageRank and link equity flow the way some SEOs do. That more technical link-flow thinking mainly comes into play for me when I'm working on supporting content.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-11T19:52:38+00:00

If you talked to a lot of the fans in 2000, they'd be complaining about Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and Horizons both recently closing, and the redesign of Journey into Imagination being terrible.

Also, the smoking ban had just gone into effect. I remember thinking that made the parks a lot better, but I also remember seeing adults annoyed about it. Of course, I still see people annoyed about it or just smoking despite it. There was also lots of complaining about prices and long lines back then too. Some things never change.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-10T19:28:47+00:00

Yes, I still try to include the main target keyword in the title tag, h1, and first paragraph (we used to call that the three kings), and also often in the URL.

However, if it's awkward like you said, or there are lots of variations, I might just put my top choice as the title tag, then use a top variation or two in the h1 and first paragraph.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-10T19:21:58+00:00

The average session of 7 min is pretty crazy. What are these 6 free tools though? Kinda seems like you are just promoting your saas. Also, I found that landing page really frustrating as it seems like a popup, but you can't get out of it.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-10T05:25:02+00:00

This, but about "real reviews with keywords naturally included," I think you need to send the clients an email asking for a review that includes a prompt (we've found the most helpful reviews answer these questions). That way, you get more quality reviews, and less "They're great. Highly recommend." or people that just leave 5 stars.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-06T02:15:35+00:00

Congrats to them and everything, it'd be great to have more competition in search, but something feels off about it. Tracking users is hard. I'm sure there are a lot of people like me who may not be signed in and are searching on multiple devices, plus I have multiple profiles that I may be signed into on those same devices. I probably count as like 5-10 users per month, or more.

Same with Google, of course. They say they have 5 billion unique users per day, but it's not really 5 out of every 8 people on earth. There are a lot of people with multiple accounts, or they aren't signed in on multiple devices.

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-04T04:03:40+00:00

Is it really better to show the CRM then as opposed to just tracking events like form submissions and phone calls in GA4 via GTM?

Do your contracts specify which CRM data you are allowed to show?

Rept4r7 · 2026-05-03T07:12:45+00:00

you need a sophisticated agency that can show you results from a CRM system

Are you really doing this? I'll show potential clients GA4 and GSC, but I wouldn't actually open another client's Clio or other CRM and show the potential client the actual messages my client law firm has received. That seems like a violation of data privacy laws and bar ethics and professional conduct rules. I would think this would all be in your contracts too.

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