An Interview with Chris Dreyer, Rankings.io President and Founder: ‘Our Unrelenting Conviction to be the Best Drives us to Do Everything Possible to Ensure that the Personal Injury Law Firms Working with us are Dominating the Search Results’

“I think a multi-channel approach to marketing is very powerful because a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’, but it will be different for each industry due to where their audience congregates.”

A common misconception about search engine optimization (SEO) is that it’s all about tricks and gimmicks to get Google to think you have the best content. However, the search engine knows what is happening behind the scenes of your website marketing, so gimmicks are not going to fool the algorithms.

Rather than thinking about your law firm’s SEO as a magic show, think of it as a fitness test. Not only an effective SEO campaign helps your law firm gain more clients by boosting it to the top of search engine results, but also ideally aids the firm dominate the highly competitive market.

In light of the foregoing, we’re thrilled to present Rankings.io — a unique SEO agency working exclusively with personal injury law firms.

The company was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in O'Fallon, Illinois.

Chris Dreyer, Rankings.io President and Founder, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

Q. What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful CEO?

Vision, People, and Grit

If you can create a vivid vision that your team can mentally see and row in the same direction, they’ll make decisions based upon this vision. This vision can motivate your team and allows you to identify key players and possibly individuals that aren’t rowing in the same direction, to let them free.

“Vision without execution is just hallucination.” – Henry Ford

Software, operational procedures, etc., only take you so far. At the end of the day, you need a great team that can execute your vision and that is willing to push back with different methods for achieving an objective.

“Great vision without great people is irrelevant” — James Collins

Losing a client is no fun. But what did you learn? Did you do a post-mortem retrospective? Were you willing to learn something new, try a new tactic, adopt a new behavior, etc.?

Comfort is the enemy—that’s when your competition sneaks in next to you to slit your throat. Candid conversations about what our organization can do better and how we can continuously improve are the only ways to grow.

“Comfort: The enemy of progress.” — P.T. Barnum

Q. Explain your services in brief.

Most personal injury attorneys struggle to rank at the top of the search results. That’s why we exist: We help elite personal injury law firms generate the motor vehicle and serious injury cases through Google’s organic search results.

Q. Is online presence an integral part of a marketing campaign? How can a business choose the right advertising avenue?

Absolutely! Everyone has a mobile device around at all times, so it’s critical to be seen where attention is occurring. In the past, the phone book was what everyone used to find contact. It held a lot of attention, then cable-TV. Now it’s digital and mobile marketing.

Every business is going to be a little different. I think a multi-channel approach to marketing is very powerful because a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’, but it will be different for each industry due to where their audience congregates. Start broad and then use data to scale the top-performing channels.

Q. Effective SEO means you rank high. Sites that rank high are targeted by competitors who want a slice of the SEO pie, which means you’re always on your toes. How do you manage to keep yourself ahead of the curve?

You have to create something different. If everyone is writing an article with one contributor, then create one with multiple contributors, possibly a roundup. By being different, you’ll stand out.

Being exceptional takes effort. You have to consider what the other individuals are not willing to do. In the SEO space, it’s easy to create directory listings, guest posts, and generic content. It’s more difficult to create a linkable asset that attracts links organically, be a source of information, create content using multiple forms of media, work with influencers, etc.

You have to create what I refer to as barriers to entry. Everyone uses SEO tools to analyze what competitors are doing. Therefore, your competition will take the easy route, but if the actions you take that aren’t easy to replicate, that’s what creates a gap in the market and boosts your rankings!

Q. You could update all your content and website features and still not find that your site has improved. Is it possible to promise results?

If you update your content, website, and marketing, and your site hasn’t improved, you need to work with someone else. In the SEO-space, it’s common for individuals to say, “we just need more time”, but if you’ve already given them time, give them the exit door. Excuses are the enemy of success.

Q. Business owners trying to compete in this highly competitive market usually find themselves facing a dilemma with their digital marketing campaign. How do you help them find the right tool that they can use and focus on?

That’s the wrong question. If you’re in a highly competitive market, you’re not creating something unique and valuable. Imagine your business was a lemonade stand and there was a competitor who was also selling lemonade. What could you do differently? You could sell frozen lemonade, you could deliver the lemonade right to their car door, sell lemonade and cookies, decorate your lemonade stand so that it stands out…the point is, you have to be different, otherwise you’re a commodity.

Q. Tell us about your content development. What are the factors that will contribute to the engagement level?

Think about how to answer the consumer’s intent. If you can answer intent in the easiest and most digestible manner, you’ll have a lot of success. Often individuals talk about the length of content, but in most cases, a consumer wants the answer in the least amount of time. They are looking for that nugget to help them solve a problem. Therefore, make those nuggets shine brightly and highlight them through the best possible medium, whether it’s written content, video, audio, images, etc.

Q. What other CEOs do you look up to?

Bernard Arnault comes to mind. He is the CEO of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury-goods company, and Chairman of Christian Dior. The decentralized business model he uses to run his organizations is incredible. It allows each entity (House) to maintain its vision for creativity while still pulling together a cohesive vision for long-term growth as part of LVMH.

Gary Vaynerchuk is another. In my space, unless you live in a cave, he’s one you have to admire and look up to. Gary is the master of attention arbitrage and you have to respect his foresight in this regard.

Q. If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting, what would it be?

Play bigger! When you’re striving for any objective, identify limiting beliefs and squash them.

Q. What do you think is the most memorable moment in your career?

There are so many great moments. One that comes to mind is, I remember when I first hired my now VP, Steven Willi. Steven at the time was doing very well at another organization and it was a big risk for him to join a startup. I remember the first week he joined, we signed five clients. It was that at that moment we both knew the business was going to turn into something special. It’s a moment that stands out in my mind because at the time we were working in an apartment, didn’t have a ‘team’…plus there was an unspoken fear. That fear evaporated, and we have now received Inc 5000 recognition three years in a row, with a fourth on the horizon!

Chris Dreyer: A Dynamic Leader

Chris Dreyer is the President and Founder of Rankings.io, an agency that specializes in personal injury lawyer SEO. His agency ranks personal injury firms for the most lucrative keywords in your industry with end-to-end SEO, from content creation to technical optimization.

“Most personal injury attorneys struggle to rank at the top of the search results. That’s why I am here to help elite personal injury law firms generate the motor vehicle and serious injury cases through Google’s organic search results.”