Flipping the SEO Funnel, Lead Magnets, and the Power of Podcasting with Steven Schneider

Welcome to studying law around the world I'm Claudio Claus in each episode, I talk with lawyers, law students, and professors from different parts of the world to talk about legal education, careers, and what the profession looks like in real life we talk about the hard parts, the surprises, and the decisions that shaped their paths whether you're planning. To study abroad. Thinking about working in another legal system or just curious about how law works around the world? This podcast is for you. Hey listeners, the largest gathering of internationally trained lawyers in Canada is happening at the ITIL conference in Toronto on April 24th and 20. 5th. Secure your spot at the conference and gala today by registering on www.itlconference.ca. See you at the Marriott Downtown. Today I'm interviewing Steven Schneider, he is the CEO of Trio SCO and I'm so excited to be interviewing him and learning a little more about the SEO and the the world of marketing and all that can be done with it. Thank you so much for making the time to be in the podcast today, Steven. Of course I'm excited to hear. Awesome. And she started us off. I'd love for you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you. Do yeah. So we are kind of a unique space. We actually as a SEO agency that's kind of how we drive traffic. But our core competency is actually building lead magnet funnels, which is kind of unique to other agencies, especially in the law space. But we design and develop custom tools such as calculators and quizzes that are predetermined by keyword research and are intended to attract your ideal customer to your site via ISEO or organic SEO. And then give them a really low friction way to engage with your company and brand and be sent some sort of report or kind of, you know, outputted kind of like reactional form. And then in that process, it actually pre qualifies them based on the inputs. And then on the back end, you collect all that information and kind of have that that you're ready to engage with them and kind of continuing conversation. I've, I've read a little bit of about the work you do and, and what you post about on LinkedIn and all of that. And I saw something about, you know, SEO not being only about traffic, it being about systems that, and how lead generating happens through that. So I think you explained a little bit of like how that comes about, but I want you here a little more, you know, how does that work? What does that really mean? And I'm sure that in every field, even though, you know, we, we always prefer to hire a professional, you kind of want to know what's going on behind the scenes. So can you tell us a little more on that? Yeah, of course. So before I started the agency, I used to Co own a portfolio of about 40 different brands and scale that up to about 7 figures and had a crazy run with publishing content and doing SEO. There's a lot of fun. Back in the day, traffic was kind of the gold standard and kind of if you build it, they will come sort of mentality. But nowadays it's completely flipped around, especially with AI and how people are starting to engage with brands and how they want to learn more about your company or testimonials or reviews before they even start the conversation on a sales process. And so the entire system I would say nowadays has to be flipped upside down where getting traffic to your site is the easy kind of almost baseline must have to compete. But then the next question I always ask clients or prospects is what, what's the next step once they land? How are you pulling them into your site? And nine times out of 10, that's what we have this contact form and they fill out this form and that's it. But there's nothing, one, more awful than a contact form. And two, it's a pretty big ask for somebody who is very, very fresh to your brand, maybe there in the discovery phase. It's essentially cold traffic. And so by creating these lead magnet tools, you're able to warm up that traffic faster and have it feel not so salesy. But at the same time you get information, they get information and then you can kind of go from there. So that's the system. That play fantastic. No, I really appreciate you explaining it a little more in detail and and bringing it specifically in should the legal space. What do you think that you know, how does that work? You know, in the in the law firm an area. So why do you think that many law firms invest in websites and content, but there is a struggle in in generating qualified inquiries. Yeah, so. This is where it gets really interesting is that I actually had a call with an attorney the other day and I was showing her the keyword landscape in her space. And she was like, people are actually searching for this. Yeah, funny enough, I mean, I'm looking at the sheet right now. Depending on whether you're in family law or personal injury or criminal defence or medical malpractice, the list goes on and on. But you know, for example, like personal injury settlement calculator has about 1000 searches per month. So if you have that calculator on your site, obviously that's going to be a very, very high intent tool for anybody who finds it to go and engage with. And then when they get a report, quote UN quote, that information gets sent to them, the information gets sent to you, so on and so forth. And then depending on which state you're in, there's a whole kind of sub genre of state by state calculators. So you know, if you're looking at California, for example, you could have a California child support calculator which has 3400 searches per month. And so people are actually looking for these tools, they're looking to engage with these tools. And if you have that on your site, that's just three-way to kind of pull those people into your ecosystem, nurture those conversations and pull them into your brand. Amazing. So if you were advising a small or mid-size law firm today, what would you tell them to focus on specifically? I feel that a lot of the law firms that I interact with have a lot of focus on having like the informational part, having some kind of blog where, you know, all the lawyers have the opportunity to to share a little bit of what they know. But what does actually matter when he comes to, you know, actually generating work? Out of that, yeah, the, the blogs are great. I would say that they're a foundational part of every site, that those tools work well because then they are able to be promoted within each blog. So if you have, you know, how to choose an attorney or what I must know is there going through this process sort of informational piece, then there's a very natural next step to promote that tool. As a baseline though, to your question, I would say that they should have blogs, they should have a strong authoritative website. So backlinks, a local presence for sure, a Google business profile. Those are kind of all of the, you know, bare essentials. And then kind of once you get that ball rolling, you can kind of start to layer on these advanced strategies, such as the calculators they're running, this quizzes, so on and so forth. Amazing. And and that's like a very interesting thing when it comes to, you know, websites and, and generating leads and all of that. But I can see how, you know, lawyers and law firms could have other goals as well overall. So I'm curious. You should hear if you know, for example, when it comes to, you know, building authority, building a brand, when you're talking more like on a personal sense, and maybe even know when you want to make a brand, either to have more options in the future. You're sure, you know, working at all firm, but you want options in the future or even shoot, you know, scale your your opportunities in in the many different areas that brand can bring. What is different, you know, between building a presence of a firm institution versus a person and their personal brand? Yeah, the personal brand is such an important piece of the puzzle because it really reinforces the entire SEO strategy in your website strategy. And So what Google really looks at is your expertise, your authoritativeness, the trustworthiness that you display. And so if you have an active residence on LinkedIn and Facebook, et cetera, and all of that links back to your website, well then you kind of have this ongoing brand that will flywheel and then ask people find you or find your brand. It kind of reinforces the trust. If you see me on LinkedIn and then you go to my website and you see my face and testimonials, those are all going to compound on top of each other. So you really want to be active on all places, like everywhere at once. And then as you pull people in, you can kind of start to figure out what their pain points are and how you can really help them solve those cases on a kind of natural fit for if it's a good fit for both. Cases so I see very, very interesting and you just mentioned that blogs are usually a good idea overall. So I'm curious to hear, you know, I, I really understand that lawyers are trained to write, you know, for courts, they're trained to write in a very specific space. So is it is also my understanding that writing for good SEO, writing for conversion can look a little different. So I'm, I'm really curious of, of how that process works. You know, is it you as a professional come in and you and you help to shape those written blogs? Is it something that happens more in the back end? So there's no changes to the actual text, but there's like information maybe that's not seeing on the page. How how does that actually work? What's the the engine like? Yeah, so we have a great writer who can kind of help facilitate a lot of that. Now, the writing in the legal space is very touchy and sensitive in some cases. It's really important to remember that people on the receiving end aren't lawyers. They're general people just trying to find information. And so it really should be presented in a clear cut, easy to understand. We always recommend a 5th to 8th grade reading level so that a complex topic can be simplified. And there's not a lot of jargon or kind of legal terms that are going to confuse them because if they're confused, they're just going to leave and go somewhere else. So the entire goal is to present information in such a way that keeps them on the page, keeps them learning more and reading. And then at a natural point, there's a transition to work with the team, play with the calculator, take the quiz. It's a very natural next step from that process overall. Very interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I also wanted to know, you know, many lawyers will also be in the profession for for a long time. So you think about the long term UX, you know, short term when it comes to market. But I wanted to hear from your experience what actually compounds if you're looking over, you know, 5-10 years if a professional really wants to build their authority and that consistent inbound. Work. The most overlooked strategy is podcasting. Without a doubt. I would say that if there is a way for attorneys to go on and do two to three to four podcasts on a weekly basis and have some sort of assistant find those and kind of keep that content coin, that's incredibly valuable to not only your personal brand, it's incredibly valuable to your website, to your SEO in that process. It's very likely that as the show goes live, they'll link in the show notes from that website back to your website, which counts as a authoritative backlink for your SEO. And so it really kind of opens the door to this multi win approach where your networking, your meeting people, you're getting content for your website and brands, they're getting website content for their own podcast. It kind of just is this really, really overlooked strategy that I don't think a lot of people are acting on. But you play it for 5-10 years, you look back and you're very happy with the results. Amazing. No, that's, that's so interesting. I really appreciate you sharing that. You know, a lot of my audience here, Steven, are young lawyers or early career professionals who are looking into different things, right? So we talked a little bit about, you know, how to make your brand stand out and all of that. But I'm curious to hear, you know, if there is any kind of advice that you give for a lawyer who is starting out, who's trying to figure this out, be it, you know, in the firm setting or starting their own thing or really just trying to compound on their brands. What are some of the main things that you would say in and you'd recommend from, you know, a marketing SEO standpoint that they should be doing a consistently? Yeah, I would say work with a local SEO who has experience doing law and attorney SEO. It's not like it's a unique practice, but the familiarity around the terms and the keywords and that sort of stuff will definitely give you an upper hand. A local SEO is definitely a unique part of the SEO industry. And so knowing that you can trust somebody is very, very wise. Next thing I would say is growing your personal brand and your overall website authority and just kind of the Internet ecosystem of who you are, what you do and how you represented. All of that's going to compound for years down the road. And I think the really like added layer to that is just networking, meaning as many individuals and lateral divisions or partners or content creators, anybody that can kind of help scratch your back while you scratch theirs is going to be somebody you want on your team long. Term leasing a really appreciate you taking the time to coming to podcast, share some of your insights and share a little bit about, you know, what you do day-to-day. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Thank you for having me on.