How Chris Dreyer Grew Rankings.io to Multiple 7 Figures in the Personal Injury Niche

Chris Dreyer runs Rankings.io, the top SEO Firm specializing in the personal injury attorney niche. They have 45 clients and are at about $650,000 MRR, on track to hit eight figures this year. They could expand the market cap beyond personal injury (PI) law firms or go deeper with PI. In this agency success interview, he shares how he was able to build his agency to multiple seven-figures.

He also shares:

• How he chose the personal injury niche
• What he did to grow his agency quickly
• What his service offering/packages include
• How he gets results for his clients in the most competitive niche
• His strategy to land and retain clients

Listen to the whole conversation to learn why he and his agency are widely recognized as the G.O.A.T in a highly competitive niche.

Outline of This Episode

• [1:00] Learn more about Chris Dreyer and Rankings.io
• [4:33] Building a niche within a niche
• [10:34] The services they offer their clients
• [18:00] How Chris lands his ideal customers
• [25:03] Podcasting positions you as the go-to expert
• [36:42] Genius SEO strategies to implement now
• [42:25] Scaling a team to provide world-class service
• [45:58] Chris’s retention strategy: warmth and competence
• [48:57] Embrace a profit-first mentality
• [52:33] How to take your business to the next level
• [54:08] How to connect with Chris Dreyer and Rankings.io

Building a niche within a niche

When Chris got into the legal industry, he chose it because it had been around for a long time, attorneys needed leads, and most of all—they had revenue. Once he got into the space, an overwhelming amount of personal injury (PI) lawyers contacted him. 70% of his revenue was coming from PIs. It was an easier decision to niche than many generalist agencies may deal with.

Chris points out that every agency wants referrals. But to get referrals your clients need to trust you, your service, and your company. How do you get referrals? By niching down. Send people business and they will reciprocate. What does that mean?

When Chris gets approached by criminal legal or divorce attorneys he refers them to an SEO agency that specializes in their area. They, in turn, send him leads that they disqualify. If you’re just getting started, go to larger agencies and ask them to send you all of the clients you don’t want. It will fill your pipeline.

Success comes down to choosing a niche and understanding your audience. If you do well and generate leads for a solo practitioner, maybe a mid-size firm will take a chance on you. If you do well for them, perhaps a larger agency will work with you. It’s building relationship equity and it allows you to move up the ladder incrementally.

When you get to know people in the niche, they introduce you to other people. Then you know what conferences to go to. You learn where your niche congregates, so your marketing is better. You learn their language, which makes your copy better.

The services they offer their clients

Rankings.io offers a comprehensive “SEO discovery.” Just like a lawyer has to do discovery before they go to trial, you need to do a comprehensive analysis to know what needs to be fixed and the best strategy to bring your clients leads. Rankings.io has a content department, an on-site technical department, a local department, and a link-building department. This allows them to go deeper on strategy and produce a high-end product.

Chris points out that most SEO agencies are charging too low for their services. Their base package starts at $10,000 a month. Why so high? They know their industry and they understand their market. If someone is going to hire an SEO specialist, there aren’t a lot of people in the industry who are good at content writing, technical SEO, link-building, etc. If they are, they often don’t have the bandwidth to do all of those things. Secondly, that person is going to cost $80,000 to $100,000 salary. A normal business can’t replicate that.

Podcasting positions you as the go-to expert

Chris hosts a podcast, “Personal Injury Mastermind,” where he interviews his clients and thought leaders in the industry. Not only does it elevate his authority in the niche but the content can be used across various platforms, including their newsletter. They also launched a second podcast, “LawHer” to reach an underrepresented demographic in the legal space. They cover topics like marketing and bus dev. They also cover “How I built this” topics and storytelling. They cover anything that will help a PI grow that is interesting.

Chris notes that subscribers and downloads impact the ability to advertise. They get about 10,000 downloads a month. The key to wealth is other people’s money (OPM) which is done through sponsorships. Sponsors help you grow your show. Chris has over 100 episodes and has never missed a week. If you want to go deeper in your industry, ask great questions and apply it to your business.

How do you get a big name on your podcast? You have to build an audience and a platform. Start with your clients and your sphere of influence. It helps guests get referrals from their peers and compliments their social strategy.

Chris also markets his podcast by using a separate social feed on all social channels. He also works with collaborators on Instagram so his content will be put on influencer’s feeds and piggyback off of their audience. The biggest thing they’ve done is advertising on Spotify and Castbox. Advertise where your clients are listening. 

Genius SEO strategies to implement now

Chris shares that proximity has a major impact when it comes to local SEO. Chris believes additional brick-and-mortar locations will be conducive to a local SEO strategy. If a client wants to expand, push your clients into multiple offices in the same city versus multiple cities. It will positively impact Google screen (based on region, response, and reviews) and Google maps (based on relevance, distance, and prominence).

Secondly, he says that you should focus on content acquisition. People try to rank an article by doing keyword research, writing the content, building links into it, etc. but 8 months later their baby still hasn’t ranked. What should you do instead? See what’s already ranking, email the owner of the content and see if you can buy the content from them. Post it on your website and permanently 301 redirect their content to the post on your site. It’s also a link-building strategy. Choose the right post by looking at content quality, the number of visitors to the page, and the number of links. This is a genius and likely untapped content strategy.

How has Chris scaled his team to provide world-class service? What is his retention strategy? Learn more from Chris in this amazing agency success interview.

Resources & People Mentioned

• The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes
• Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
• Lower Street Media

Connect with GChris Dreyer

• Email Chris at Chris(at)Rankings.io with Seven Figure Agency as a headline
• Connect with Chris on LinkedIn
• Rankings.io
• The LawHer podcast
• The Personal Injury Mastermind Podcast

Connect With Josh Nelson

• Josh’s Coaching Page on Facebook
• The Agency Success Facebook Group
• www.SevenFigureAgency.com
• Seven Figure Agency on YouTube
• Josh on Twitter: @joshnelsonimc
• Josh on LinkedIn

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