Recent content by Len

Google released some official playbooks for business owners, specifically for restaurants, hotels, service based businesses, etc. They also released a General Business Playbook. It's basically a 2026 “best practices” guide from Google showing how to optimize and manage your Google Business...

California SB 37 tightens rules on attorney advertising in California, especially for personal injury lawyers, effective January 1, 2026. It broadly defines “advertisement” to cover nearly any written, recorded, or electronic communication encouraging people to hire a lawyer, including websites...

Yes. This is common in the world of plumbers. Even if you hide your address on your public Google Business Profile, Google still requires a real, physical address for verification and background checks. Virtual offices or P.O. boxes are generally not eligible. As of 2026, you'll need the SAB...

Back to the Google Ads campaign in Fresno. We increased the budget to $25,000/mo and ran the campaign for 2 months going after highly competitive key phrases. It converted very well, with nearly 50% of the clicks turning into a phone call. We ended up going after the top spots 4 days each...

Did you know that in January 2005, Google introduced NoFollow along with Yahoo & MSN? Since then, all major forum software uses NoFollow on their links. In other words, linking to yourself in forums hasn't helped for about 18 years... #FYI

Throughout 2022 I have seen a ton of law firms not suddenly stop receiving leads via Google's Local Services Ads (LSA) platform. The problem is their algorithm. Of course, there are several valid reasons this could occur: Not answering phone (this decreases "ad rank") Increased competition...

There is a tremendous amount of spam in Local Services Ads (LSA), especially in California. In some cities, I am seeing 100% spam in the "Google Screened" results section. I have brought this to Google's attention and they claim they're working on a "scalable solution". The only problem with...

If you've been using AHREFS or Semrush to analyze a competitor's backlinks, you've likely come across AVVO. This isn't by mistake, you can get backlinks from AVVO in your AVVO profile. It's as simple as logging in and editing your profile. We do this for the attorneys that we work with all the...

In early 2022, Google cranked up the dial on it's spam detection algorithm. This algorithm is far from perfect. Indeed, spam reviews blast through all the time. Look at large firms in Florida to see the enormous number of fake reviews some firms are purchasing.. Unfortunately, the algorithm...

One of our attorneys received a very bizarre and ridiculous email today (surprise, surprise). The spammer was pitching "reserve with Google" for lawyers as a hot new marketing tool. It's not. "Reserve with Google" is for restaurants Hotels used to use it, but Google is slowly getting rid of...

I have recently been running a Google Ads campaign in Fresno, California. I'll try to follow up to this thread more in the future with some additional data. Currently, we're about 2 weeks into it with a $20,000/mo budget and this is what we've seen: The average cost/click to be competitive is...

On June 16, 2022, the U.S. Senate passed the Camp Lejeune Justice Act (CLJA) by an 84-13 margin that gives former residents of Camp Lejeune who lived on the North Carolina’s Marine Corps Base for at least 30 days between August 1, 1953 and December 31, 1987 the right to seek damages. Ref...

Welcome aboard!

Beginning in late 2018, Google My Business has been flooded with lead-gen spam for fake personal injury law firms. These are usually called something like: Dallas Car Accident Lawyer Pros The Super Injury Lawyer Guys Alpha Eagle Law Firm The Gregarious Car Accident Lawyers...

I wrote about this here: Why attorneys are losing Yelp reviews and was also interviewed by Bloomberg here about this. Rest assured, Yelp is not extorting you, this is just how their algorithm works. If you had less 5 star reviews you'd keep more of them. It's a long story, but it's the...