Leveraging SEO and Client Reviews: A Conversation with Michael Sabbeth

Viktoria Altman (00:00)
Hi, Michael. Welcome to my podcast. I’m so excited to have you here today. Thank you for joining

Michael Sabbeth (00:06)
Wonderful to be here, Victoria.

Viktoria Altman (00:07)
Thank you so much. I would like to kick things off by introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about what you do.

Michael Sabbeth (00:15)
Yes, my name is Michael Sabbeth. An attorney and founder of Sabbeth Law. We represent injured people throughout Vermont and New Hampshire. And by throughout, I mean, we cover the entirety of both states. We opened our doors in 2015, and I think we’ve very quickly become one of the leading plaintiffs firms in either state.

Viktoria Altman (00:38)
And I know you spoke about focusing on many big cases. Is that correct?

Michael Sabbeth (00:44)
Yeah, we handled very high-level cases. We’ve done eight-figure cases. We’ve done many seven-figure cases, which is somewhat unusual for Northern New England. Northern New England is not a place where people are loose with money. You see wealthy people up here. They’re not driving a lot of Mercedes or BMW. It’s a sort.

Michael Sabbeth (01:05)
Yeah, it’s a bit buttoned down, a bit economically conservative and it makes our job more interesting when presenting these, you know, what we call catastrophic loss cases to our community members and trying to show them, not tell them, but show them why.

The losses that we’re dealing with matter so much. And when we’re stuck in a system that only allows financial damages, that’s the only recourse they’re ever gonna get in their lives. And we’ve been able to do that effectively.

Viktoria Altman (01:32)
Makes sense. So why did you decide to get into the field of personal injury law?

Michael Sabbeth (01:36)
Well, two reasons. One, when I went to law school, I wanted to be a trial lawyer. I want to be in court. I want to be on my feet. I want to be moving. I pressure. I like moving quickly. I like being on my feet. But I have to care about what I’m doing. Otherwise, I struggle. And that’s been true in my whole life. So I either have to learn a way to care.

About something that I might not start there with, or I have to do something very natural to me. And before we started recording, we were talking about dog rescue, right? And I do some volunteer work, you know, personally there, and we both have dogs. And, you know, there’s something within that. There’s a real desire. Think it’s the same reason I You know, try, try to help with rescue dogs where I can, it’s just wanting to help people who can’t help themselves in certain situations. So when I see something terrible that’s happened to somebody and has changed their lives, it affects me on, you know, on a, I think a deep emotional level.

A lot of the work we do is work of, I mean, it’s work of empathy. It’s work of, and all the lawyers here do it, of understanding what they’re going through, of putting ourselves in their shoes, of going to their houses, of meeting the people who matter to them, of learning about what matters to them. And then we can begin to see what those losses look like.

The other truth is that to handle these big cases, you need a lot of money. That’s just, you know, I’d say a sad reality. But, that’s just the truth. People who do what I do represent people on a largely contingency fee basis. You know, if we’re going to put some hundred thousand dollars into a case, we might just never, if that, if we lose that case or something happens, we don’t send a bill to the client for our expenses.

We absorb that loss and we stand prepared to. So one of the great advantages that we’ve been able to, procure for ourselves over the years through doing good work and doing work, you know, is working with some of the best lawyers around the nation. And through that, we don’t just learn different ways of doing things.

But we also learned we’ve also ended up with an incredible network of experts from all over the country. So when we’re dealing with brain injury cases, you know, right now I’m just thinking of the case that we were on a call with the life care plan earlier. Our experts aren’t, you know, here we are in Vermont. That’s a Vermont case. Our experts are in Wisconsin, Provost Utah, California, and Georgia. Not one here.

The reason for that is because those are the best experts for brain injuries. A very hard case to show because it’s an invisible injury often, right? And it’s those types of networks and knowing how to build a case that makes a difference between a million-dollar case and a five-million-dollar case. But the risk follows it.

Viktoria Altman (04:19)
So it sounds like you guys put a lot of thought and a lot of care into every single case and you probably get a lot of referrals. That’s probably one of your major ways of marketing. But for our listeners who don’t have referrals yet, what other things do you do to get those big cases to try to get as many good cases as you can?

Michael Sabbeth (04:34)
Absolutely. I think today and what worked for us when we were starting and again, we started in December of 2015 with nothing, me and one, and my legal assistant and office manager, Crystal, who came with me from my old firm. Now we can’t hire enough. We just SEO, internet, internetwork. And when you’re beginning, I think it’s just so important to educate yourself. There are wonderful professionals out there who do this specifically for law firms or for any number of different types of businesses who are also great for law firms, companies like your own. And, critical, I think, to work with a company like that because, I’ll just share my experience. I have been studying SEO since the minute I opened my firm. I know more about SEO than probably any of my competitors or most of them because I put in an inordinate amount of time. In the beginning, money there was less, of course, and I had to do what I could do with what I had. And so the education process of learning.

At a minimum, the basics of all aspects of online optimization, and that’s from paid ads, which might be prohibitive in some markets, local service ads, which we find have a great return on investment, pay-per-click, and you know how it goes. But organic work is something that a lot of people don’t do. And I think that if you can just educate yourself to a baseline.

Find an agency that you’re comfortable with, that’s where you’re making the most inroads to generating cases when you don’t have any word of mouth whatsoever. I think if you can afford to pay, that can help get you over the hump. Lawyers are not known to be patient. Well, in this arena, you need to be somewhat patient, right? Not so patient that you can’t buy groceries. But search engine optimization does not happen overnight, but it does happen.

Paid can get you through, but generate reviews, do your best, and be a lawyer, we’re all busy, a lot of lawyers. I think we have more reviews than any of our competitors by a significant amount because we take them as seriously as our cases. There is a trigger on our case management system, multiple ways through about reviews and when to ask. I think when you ask is very important. We know what they write about in the review is very important. I don’t tell ever them, ever tell them what to write, but I know that if they write car accident, injury, know, keywords in that review, that’s going to be helpful. More importantly, it’s going to help other people looking for somebody who can help them. So in tandem, you know, what a lot of SEO agencies maybe won’t be as well equipped to do is the law firm.

You know, those of us who are face to face with our clients and who have a relationship by the time we’re asking whether you are with our clients is to make sure we’re the ones getting the reviews. I think between paid organic and the review aspect, you’re essentially merging word of mouth with an online presence and they both feed into each other. You have a virtuous cycle and that’s what I would be, really, drilling down into if I was starting a new firm right now. That would be number one on my list, of those things. Low-hanging fruit, linking opportunities. I mean, we could go on and on, but I think I’ll let you direct the interview.

Viktoria Altman (07:54)
Well, just to clarify for our listeners, having a lot of reviews on the GMB is a big part of the algorithm, right? Google My Business profile is now called. So the more reviews you have, the better. I always say even if you gave somebody a consultation and you didn’t end up taking the case, you can also ask them for a review.

Michael Sabbeth (08:00)
Absolutely. That’s right.

Viktoria Altman (08:13)
I would love to know at what point in the process you ask for reviews because those are such a major part. And I know some of my clients have trouble with getting reviews, so I’d love to hear your tips on that.

Michael Sabbeth (08:25)
Okay, yeah, happily. Timing and making it as easy on them as is humanly possible. The timing part. We usually don’t ask until we’ve gotten to a point where either they’ve signed a release for settlement, we’ve negotiated, we’ve gotten through it, we’ve mediated, whatever has happened, we’ve gotten to the result. We usually don’t ask before. We want to show.

What we’ve done before we asked them for anything. So by that point, we’ve shown them what we can do. We’ve shown them how we would handle their case. We’ve been with them from the beginning to the end. And we have case management software that lets the assigned legal assistant know exactly when that time happens, automated. They cannot forget. They have a task on their screen that will not go away until they’ve reached out. But making

And we do it by the way, usually before the funds are distributed because we’re all busy and, just like, might be true for us in some circumstances when the case is over there. Mean, it’s not fun being involved in one of these. think a lot of people want to close the book and, and, and move on and, and, know, and, and happily have, you know, the money and hopefully forget some of the, the, you know, unpleasantness

What happened from the minute they were injured? So I think it is really important to do it before the funds are distributed, after the result, after you’ve shown them what you’re going to do for them. Making it easy for them means getting them a link. Don’t ask them to go to your website or to go to Google and figure out how to do it. Don’t tell them how to do it. Give them, include a link that’s going to get them right to your Google and Just not going to have to do anything other than hit the star, click the link, hit the star rating, and write what they have to say. And I just want to touch one more time on this because it’s so, so important. I can write anything I want on my website. I truly can. I don’t want people to take my word. I think it’s a little bit self-serving. We all understand that on a basic human level. My clients talk for me and they talk for me through the reviews. Don’t take my word. Look at any of the 150 whatever reviews on Google.

Wherever else they may be, Super Lawyers, Facebook. It doesn’t matter because people just like jurors are far less interested in what I have to say than what the reflections of the reality of people who were there and lived it have to say.

Viktoria Altman (10:34)
So to go back to that point, yes, it’s important to have reviews on third-party software, but it’s just as important to have it on your website. And so what we found is that incorporating those reviews throughout your webpage as you are saying, talking about being, let’s say, a car accident lawyer, and then you have a review of being, you know, a great case. And then again, you have some other texts and then you have another review. That’s very important. We have A -B tested this. By adding additional reviews throughout the page, you can bring the strength of those reviews that are on a third party into your website. Yes.

Michael Sabbeth (11:00)
Can I give you a plug? Find a firm that’s doing A -B testing. Not everyone does it. Some people say they do it, and it seems maybe they don’t, I don’t know. But I think good firms are doing that, because again, you’re the expert, we know that, right? But let’s see how people react and interact. And that’s why A -B testing is critical. And a lot of firms don’t do it.

Viktoria Altman (11:31)
The most important place to do the A -B testing, as you mentioned before, is PPC is much more expensive than SEO. The most important thing to do on A -B testing is on your ad page. If your agency is not doing A -B testing on wherever they’re sending traffic, that is a problem because you are paying more than you should be for those clicks, for those conversions.

Michael Sabbeth (11:52)
That is a huge problem. And I’ll go a step further. Know, PPC, as you said, can be very, very expensive depending on what you’re bidding. And you need an agency that’s constantly dialing that in and showing you what was different this month than last month. What did we change? Why? We don’t have to get crazy granular, right? We don’t have Autopsy it, but you know, again, one, hopefully, you start with an agency you trust, you meet the people, get to know them, ask them questions, you know, you’ll get a feeling, but, they have to be honing it, but I will, I just need to say, because I know some successful firms up here, where the people are running their own paid ads, they cannot do what you’re talking about. And let me tell you, they are burning money. Don’t do it you will save more money by paying the agency to dial it in, to get it right. The agency that knows what they’re doing. Talk to them about your demographic. Talk to them, and make sure that you give them all the information they need. And in any situation I’ve ever seen, whatever you’re paying them is money saved over what you think you’re doing while you’re trying to run your law firm and work your cases and somehow continually dialing your PPC. You’re not doing it correctly.

Viktoria Altman (12:58)
Right. And don’t feel we are like lawyers in the sense that we have prior experience. If I start doing, let’s say, your ad campaign, I’m bringing all the stuff I already learned from other clients. You know what I mean? I’m not starting from scratch. I know that this color works better than this color for this kind of law. And that’s some, that’s stuff you got to get through experience. Nobody’s going to tell you that stuff because it’s expensive. It’s expensive to learn.

Michael Sabbeth (13:07)
It is. Well, thank you, it’s expensive to learn because I think people, it’s penny wise, pound foolish. You know, they’re going to save a few hundred, a couple of thousand. I don’t know what they’re going to save, but they’re going to, they’re losing more in the long run because they’re paying an agency for the education for all the time they spent learning this. as we, we, I think we spoke about the fact of the nature of the work and that it is evolving day after day after day without a break.

And you have to have a professional whose job is simply to stay on top of that to manage it. Gonna, you you want to take a shortcut. Can do it, but prepare not to have a family or a life and prepare to have subpar results.

Viktoria Altman (14:03)
Right, right. So you’ve done, it sounds like you understand marketing, you know, pretty much as well as any lawyer I’ve spoken to. And you’ve done a lot of things right. Tell me the one thing that you’ve done wrong. What was your biggest marketing failure? Just one.

Michael Sabbeth (14:15)
God. I mean, I have a huge one. I think doing the opposite of what I just, what I’ve been talking about through, which is to say in, right away, start the firm. I’m trying to learn anything about SEO and have my money in stuff that feels more tangible, and safer, like phone books, right? Which are, which are no more. And other similar things, radio, which,I don’t think works unless you’re running a coordinated campaign with TV, unless you just have money to spend on some branding. I think it’s a fine thing to do. You better make sure that you have your intervals. How many commercials are you running per day? When are you running them? So on and so forth. To me, it’s not a good use of our money. I don’t spend any money on that. All our money, basic, most of our money, we spend a lot of money on branding outside, but most of it goes in. But when I began, I did not study, I didn’t understand the basics of SEO. And I spent money on, a few, agencies that I just sort of picked without really speaking to without hopping on a Zoom call or Skype as it would have been back then, I guess. And I didn’t understand what was being done or why it was being done. And I just knew I needed it done, whatever it was. And I was paid thousands and thousands of dollars. And didn’t have any.

Were one-off works. So I would say the biggest mistake I would make is not asking questions, knowing, not understanding that, you know, to help, to make sure you get with the right agency in the first place, right, you need to know something. Learn something. I mean, it’s not hard. Google probably, I bet if you Googled SEO for dummies.

You’d probably get a 10-minute article that would tell you a lot. Do that and talk and ask questions and, and, be open and have a rapport with whomever you’re speaking to because that’s how you’re going to learn. If somebody is not interested in helping you learn, you know, it’s probably not the right fit. I guess what I would say is slow down due diligence, uh, would be my best recommendation.

I think that’s, I have a lot of sort of what I would say small losses, most of them in the beginning, but if you’re out there and you’re trying things, you’re going to have th, em and don’t be afraid of them. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be fast. Don’t be too fast and lose, but don’t be afraid to get it wrong. We’re not, no one’s perfect. You’re not going to get it.

Viktoria Altman (16:36)
That’s, right don’t be fast and loose, but don’t, know, don’t, don’t be so afraid to make mistakes. I have a lot of people come to me who’ve been burned by other agencies and they almost say they almost have PTSD, you know, because I feel like, you know, they’re coming from like, my God, this bad thing happened. And it did. And I get it. And I get it. It’s upsetting. But you’re here now and you know, and things can, and things will get better, you know, especially now that you have those lessons.

Michael Sabbeth (16:48)
Yes! That’s right, and it’s a very vulnerable position. Again, I think a lot of lawyers aren’t particularly comfortable being vulnerable. So we step into your world, Victoria, where we don’t know a whole lot. We certainly don’t know as much as you do. And if somebody like you said, comes in with that bad experience, so many of us have had them, I’ve had them. It’s part of growing up, I guess, maybe, whether we like it or not. But yeah, not everyone’s bad.

There are a lot of great companies. Are really good companies, I think, these days in all price ranges. Don’t project the past on the future. Learn from the past, but don’t let it limit your world because what’s going to happen is you’re going to end up cold and alone, and you’ll be worse for wear. That’s a good way to let an old loss just carry forward and keep compounding the losses, and nobody wants.

Viktoria Altman (17:29)
You know what works in relationships and it works in marketing.

Michael Sabbeth (17:57)
Yes, exactly.

Viktoria Altman (17:58)
Michael, thank you so much for joining us on Law Firm Accelerator. I appreciate you giving up some of your very valuable time to be here. And I will be in touch with you and provide some more resources for our listeners as to the things we discussed. Thank you.

Michael Sabbeth (18:09)
All right. Well, thank you, Victoria. It was a pleasure. It was lovely speaking with you and keep doing good work.

Viktoria Altman (18:16)
Thank you.