Spotlight Branding has joined forces with Danny Decker and his team formerly of the Automatic Marketing Agency. 

Together, they are now Spotlight Marketing & Branding and have combined decades of experience to deliver an even more comprehensive suite of legal marketing services.

Here’s What You Can Expect:

With this partnership, this new company will provide a complete legal marketing solution—combining content marketing with paid advertising & lead generation. 

Content marketing builds trust and nurtures existing relationships: 

  • Award-winning web designs and branding 
  • Blogs, Videos, & Social Media to drive referrals and repeat business 
  • Email Marketing to keep you top of mind with your clients and network 

And when you’re ready to go beyond where referrals can take you, leverage their paid advertising services

  • Facebook, Instagram, Google, & LinkedIn Ads
  • Lead Magnets 
  • Landing Pages 
  • Drip Campaigns

These tools are strategically used to generate leads and clients for your law firm!

Some Backstory

Danny Decker and Marc Cerniglia co-founded Spotlight Branding together in 2011. In 2018, Danny stepped away to explore new opportunities. He spent several years coaching business owners, running workshops, and publishing books on marketing strategy. And then he launched an agency focused on paid advertising and lead generation.

Marc continued building Spotlight Branding into a trusted leader in law firm marketing.

After Danny stepped away, Danny and Marc remained close friends and collaborators. After many conversations, they realized the best way to serve their clients was to combine forces and offer everything—branding, content marketing, and paid advertising—as a single agency with a unified vision. 

This was how Spotlight Marketing & Branding was born. 

For Firms Ready To Grow In 2025: 

Book a one-on-one conversation with this all-star team to learn how they can help your firm.

Although Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was originally designed to provide the best search results on your website, it quickly became a game to manipulate Google’s ever-changing algorithm. Now, as Google’s algorithm has become more advanced, the same SEO tactics that might have worked in the past could really hurt your website. Even if you just searched your own name or your firm’s name (which is really the only SEO you *need*) and you’ve been relying on some of these “black hat” SEO strategies, your website may not even show up.

1. Keyword Stuffing

We see this one the most on many lawyer websites. Does this sound familiar?

When you’ve been injured in a Long Beach Car Accident, you need the Best Long Beach Attorneys to handle your Long Beach Personal Injury Case. Call the Responsive Attorneys at the Long Beach Injury Firm of…

That was painful, wasn’t it? Keyword stuffing like that attempts to improve your site’s ranking on a specific search phrase by unnecessarily jamming it in places it doesn’t need to go all over your website. The result is usually a terrible user experience.

2. Duplicate or Mass-Produced Content

This SEO tactic involves the creation of dozens, if not hundreds, of duplicate or mass-produced pages in an attempt to get your site to rank for a variety of keywords. This often appears in the form of several pages containing the same content but with, for example, a different location for each page. Alternatively, it could be mass-produced blog pages stuffed with keywords that don’t provide any sort of value whatsoever.

3. Hidden Text

Hidden text is simply text on your website that is the same color as the background. This text is also usually coded off screen or behind an image so no one will be able to see it except for Google’s indexing bots. This is an easy way for SEO marketers to jam all of the locations and keywords they want into a website to try to trick the algorithm. However, Google has gotten wise to that and has made its processes sophisticated enough to spot and ignore this text.

4. Link Schemes

This might be the most prevalent black hat SEO tactic still in use today. You may have even received several cold sales saying something like this:

“We excel in the creation and execution of highly customized link campaigns in all niches. We have established connections with more than 20,000+ influencer bloggers in 100+ categories and also have a huge range of country-specific sites.”

DON’T DO IT! This is spammy black hat external linking and Google isn’t going to drive your page up the rankings just because other sites link back to it. In fact, there could be an ethical issue here as well, since your site could be linked to other websites that you do not endorse.

In the end, relying on SEO for your marketing’s success isn’t the wisest move. While there is a place for it in your strategy, it shouldn’t be the foundation, nor should it be the primary focus. Instead, build your marketing foundation on content that speaks directly to your human audience, not search bots.

Believe it or not, there is much more to digital marketing than search engine rankings. And while SEO has a place in the marketing world, SEO has long been positioned as the magical solution for online growth when the reality is far different. Marketers have tricked business owners who don’t truly understand how SEO or the internet works into believing that being on the front page of a Google search will automatically result in a flood of new business.

But that’s a myth. While there is a place for SEO, there are many online marketing functions that are more important than SEO. This article will highlight five of them and explain why they have more impact on your business than where you appear on a search result.

1. Developing a Clearly Defined Brand

Why did you become a lawyer in the first place? Did you open your own firm because of your entrepreneurial spirit, to make a ton of money, to help people in need? What do you do differently that sets you apart from every other attorney in your city?

How effectively you brand yourself goes a long way toward determining the success of your firm. Being “just another lawyer” in your city isn’t going to work. The internet allows customers to conduct more research on their options than ever before. You need to brand yourself as THE expert in your city and stand out from the crowd. You need to make yourself so memorable and attractive to your target clients that they view you as the ONLY choice for their legal needs. 

2. Having a Website That Highlights and Reinforces Your Credibility 

Does your website reflect your expertise and make you look like the credible professional that you are? A website is like the digital version of your physical office. You’re probably not working out of a derelict shack, so why would you allow your website to be the digital equivalent? 

If you’re spending the majority of your marketing budget on SEO and your website looks terrible, you could actually be doing more harm than good. Sure, being on the front page of Google is nice, but if hundreds of people are arriving at a bad website, they’re likely to go somewhere else and you’ve lost out on their business.  

3. Forming a Solid Networking Strategy

The internet is great, but it’s not a magical place that immediately sends eager clients to your door. You still have to get out there and build relationships in your community. Referrals are the best way to grow your business, and your marketing presence should support your networking and referral strategy. 

What’s your strategy? Are you active in local business groups like BNI, Rotary, or the Chamber of Commerce? Look for speaking engagements, too. If there’s nothing in your area, start your own monthly event to bring people together. 

4. Attracting the Right Clients

While SEO has the potential to drive additional traffic to your site, unless it’s done by someone who knows what they’re doing, you’ll likely get a lot of irrelevant traffic to your website. We’ve seen SEO tactics that would bring in hits from the other side of the country from people who aren’t even relevant to the client’s practice area. If the goal is to increase website traffic, then SEO has done its job. But if your goal is to get qualified prospects through your door, SEO alone won’t get the job done.

While the higher number of website visitors looks impressive, the results are meaningless unless they translate to new clients. Alternatively, by building referrals and having an online presence that brands you as the expert in your community, you’ll attract the right kinds of people that you want to do business with.

5. Implementing an Unforgettable Follow-up System 

People are busy. If you’re not following up and checking in on past clients or referral sources, chances are they’re going to forget about you and what you do. Having a system in place where you can remind people of what you do and how you can help them not only provides an extra touch of customer service, but it contributes to the growth of your business.

The easiest way to do this is by having a monthly or bi-monthly email newsletter. Social media is great too, as you can create daily touchpoints with those in your community and people already connected to your firm. Both of these methods remind people of who you are and what you do.

Having a presence on social media is an absolute must—we can agree on that, right?

However, what you do with that presence can make all the difference in how people perceive your firm and the success you have. When it comes to social media, most marketers out there will preach the need for likes, comments, and shares as the pillars of success for social media campaigns. And that’s true if you’re in other service-based industries like food or retail (or if you’re a giant brand like Coca-Cola or McDonald’s).

But if you’re a lawyer, that’s not necessarily going to be the case. While there will be a handful of “influencers” in your industry who will garner a ton of engagement, that just won’t be the case for the rest of you. And that’s okay.

To put it frankly, your subject matter isn’t sexy enough to generate a ton of engagement, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have value to provide on social media. People are still looking for information. They’re looking for experts to lean on, especially with the epidemic of disinformation constantly floating around. That’s why it’s important for you to post, and post consistently.

But it’s not just focusing on engagement or an inconsistent posting schedule that hurts small firms on social media. No, there’s a bigger mistake that firms are making—they’re making their content all about themselves.

You need a balance of content. If 90% of your posts are all the same call to action with your slogan and phone number, you can rest assured knowing that you’re alienating your audience (if you haven’t entirely done so already).

People aren’t looking to get sold to on social media. They’re looking for information. They’re looking for updates. Amongst all of the pictures of their friends’ kids and political drama, people are scrolling down their timelines and clicking on articles and videos that pique their interest.

So what does a content balance look like? While there isn’t an exact formula, you should have a ratio that looks something like this each month:

  • 30% lead magnets: Share a link to your ebook, whitepaper, or email newsletter signup. This can help you generate leads, but it also demonstrates your expertise as a thought leader willing to help their community.
  • 40% blogs and videos: Inform and educate with evergreen content like blogs or videos of you answering a frequently asked question. Depending on what you’re covering, you may not get much engagement due to the private nature of the subject, but it’s valuable content nonetheless.
  • 20% FUN!: Share behind-the-scenes photos of life at the firm. Share inspirational quotes. Talk about something cool going on in the community.
  • 10% Self-promotion: Yes, only 10% of your social media content needs to be directly dedicated to a call to action for someone to call or contact your firm. Anything more than that and you risk alienating your audience.

What does your firm’s content balance look like? If it’s like most firms we see out there, the balance is heavily weighted towards self-promotion (assuming they post consistently in the first place). Instead, put your audience’s needs first. Post content that will be helpful to them, which will in turn raise your profile as the expert in the community and go a long way towards making you the obvious choice to work with.

If you were looking for a caterer, which company would you choose: the one whose website only has their contact info or the one with 20 five-star reviews on Google? 

If you picked door #2, you’re not alone. According to TrustPulse, 83% of people trust reviews more than advertising and 97% of consumers look at reviews before making a purchase. For business owners like you, this begs a question: How can you get more testimonials to cash in on the power of social proof? 

1. Ask with confidence

At some point near the end of your working relationship, include a polite but pointed request for clients to provide testimonials. You can direct them to your social media, Google, or Yelp—whichever platform you prioritize. 

2. Leverage surveys

Platforms like Survey Monkey, SoGoSurvey, and Typeform make it easy to create surveys and send them to your clients. We recommend doing this at the middle and/or end of your case process and asking for feedback on each part of the client’s journey. This will bring in testimonials and also help you improve your systems and processes. 

3. Mine your emails

Clients send their gratitude and praise via email all the time. These are free testimonials! Don’t be afraid to pull positive feedback from your emails after asking the client for permission. 

Now that you have your testimonials in hand, it’s time to deploy them. Positive reviews can help solidify your expert status and turn prospects into clients, but they can’t do that if no one sees them. Hopefully your clients will leave testimonials in easy-to-find places like Facebook and Google, but you should also display them on your website. 

The best way to do this is with a dedicated page for testimonials. You can also install a scrolling widget on your homepage that cycles through your best positive review and/or pulls the latest feedback from Google and Facebook. Ideally, you should do both! 

You’re generating leads, but many of them don’t seem to be the most qualified. Maybe you’re referring out more cases than you’re accepting. Or worse, maybe you’re taking on more cases you need in order to stay afloat rather than just taking the cases you actually want. All of these issues could involve your lead quality. Here’s how to make some improvements.

1. Accurately track your lead sources

Do you even know where your leads are coming from? If your CRM isn’t attributing a lead source to your leads, it’s going to be difficult to understand where they’re coming from and why they’re not a good fit. However, if you know (for example) that the majority of leads that found you on Google aren’t the right fit, you know you can make adjustments to your SEO strategy to potentially correct the issue.

Conversely, if you received three referrals for the exact type of work you enjoy doing, and they all came from your most recent email newsletter, then you know that marketing channel is working really well.

2. Create Targeted Content

If you’re constantly referring out work because it’s a case type you don’t like or it’s someone who can’t afford your services, it’s likely because you have content that is attracting those people. It’s time to change it.

Create content that covers the exact type of work you want to be known for. This will help you get seen as the expert in that specific area, which begins to remove price as a primary obstacle because people will spend more to work with who they perceive to be the best. Yes, it really is that simple!

3. Maximize Your Referrals

Your best source of leads will come from the people and sources who know you best—your past clients and strategic partners! You’ve either worked with these people in the past or you meet with them regularly. They know what you do well, which means they know exactly what kind of business to send your way.

However, this only works if you keep in touch with them and stay top-of-mind. That’s why email newsletters work so well. If done correctly, you not only resolve issue #2 of this article, but you also work towards maximizing the number of referrals you could (and should) be getting.

If you’ve done any kind of marketing for your firm, you’re likely familiar with the term “SEO” — Search Engine Optimization. Over the last couple of decades, marketers have made careers out of trying to game the system, manipulate algorithms, and help get a business’s website to the top of a search ranking in Google, Bing, and others.

Now, the arena is beginning to shift away from SEO and into SGE — Search Generative Experience.

Google introduced this when it began incorporating AI into its search engine. You will now receive a more conversational and context-driven result when you search for something. Answers are becoming more intuitive and personalized.

The SEO model is about connecting your website to specific searches. If you are high enough in the rankings, people will click on your site and look for the information they need. SGE is a direct challenge to SEO tricks. 

Information now appears as natural language and appears before website results. Even after generating an initial response, it may suggest follow-up questions to expand your search. Though websites and links will appear, people are drawn to the direct answers that SGE provides. 

How SGE Impacts Marketing

SGE is significant because it alters how people search for information and engage with legal websites online. Because AI drives the results, keyword stuffing and technical SEO gimmicks will be less effective. Ironically, useful, well-written, and authoritative content will stand out more in the SGE-dominated landscape. Educational content that answers fundamental questions is more likely to be used and referenced in an SGE response. Google itself has said that its algorithms prioritize content from trustworthy sources. 

Content Marketing Is (Sort of) Merging with SEO

Even if you favor Google rankings over the more tangible results that content delivers, focusing on people, not robots, will get you there. Writing for people is now appeasing search engines. Publishing evergreen content gives Google timeless, reliable, and in-depth answers that it can use to answer questions. Ensuring that your blogs and FAQs go up consistently increases your chances of being featured in a generative result. 

That said, this is all a bonus—icing on the cake. Content marketing works even if Google doesn’t feature your website. There are too many people fighting for limited space. By focusing on delivering educational and authoritative content to your established audience, you will get more referrals and better clients.

When it comes to an effective social media strategy for small businesses, many marketing gurus will tell you that engagement is the name of the game. The more likes, comments, and shares you get, the more successful your presence will be.

That isn’t true for law firms.

Why? It isn’t because your subject matter is dry and boring (even though you may think it is). Rather, it’s because a lot of your subject matter is very sensitive and heavy. People won’t want to engage with that sort of content because they don’t want to air their dirty laundry out in public.

So what are you to do? Abandon social media entirely? NO!

Here are three other metrics you want to focus on instead:

1. Reach

Reach refers to the number of unique views that your post received. When there isn’t much engagement, reach can tell you how well your posts ended up doing. While some platforms (FACEBOOK) limit the organic reach of content, you can boost posts for as little as $1 per day to extend that reach beyond just people who already follow your page, making it an attractive and cost-effective alternative to past forms of advertising like billboards and Yellow Pages ads.

2. Impressions

Impressions are the TOTAL number of views that your post received. This number will always be larger than reach because it counts multiple views from the same user.

3. Click-Through Rate

If your content is valuable (blogs, videos, lead magnets, etc), then you’ll be encouraging people to click through to your website to consume that content. If a particular subject is especially pertinent to your audience, they’ll click through to your website.

What About Engagement?

If you’re still hoping for a lot of engagement, mix up the kind of content you post. Share more behind-the-scenes pictures and videos of life at the office. The more you can humanize yourself and your firm, the more people will be comfortable with engaging. However, you also get what you give. Don’t just sit back and wait for people to comment. Go out and participate in the social media community as well by leaving comments on others’ posts!

A Final Note About Your Numbers

You’re likely still wondering something like, “What’s a good number of impressions or clicks for my firm?” The answer, as usual, is “it depends.”

After all, a firm in Salina, Kansas, won’t have as large of a market as a firm in Atlanta. The goal, at least to start, is to work on building your reach until you notice a plateau. That may be 5,000 people or 500,000 people. Regardless, it will take time to get there, so focus on what you’re posting and how people click through or how many impressions you can get.

There’s no denying it: artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized the way businesses operate. Among Its many advantages are powerful tools that streamline more complicated processes and enhance overall productivity, allowing you and your staff to do your jobs more efficiently.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at five remarkable AI tools that can help take your firm’s efficiency to new heights. Learn how these cutting-edge solutions can transform the way you work and ultimately contribute to your firm’s success.

Jasper

Powered by advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, Jasper can support and streamline various tasks within the legal industry, especially the drafting of legal documents. By analyzing a vast collection of pre-existing legal documents, contracts, and agreements, Jasper can offer suggestions, identify potential pitfalls, and ensure consistency and accuracy in the drafting process. This not only expedites document creation but also minimizes the risk of errors or omissions.

By leveraging natural language processing and machine learning capabilities, Jasper can swiftly extract relevant insights, identify patterns, and provide comprehensive summaries of legal materials. This allows lawyers to focus on higher-value tasks such as crafting strategies, advising clients, or preparing for litigation.

Opus Clips

Law firms often rely on social media platforms to engage with their audience, share legal insights, and showcase their expertise. However, creating engaging content can be time-consuming, especially when dealing with lengthy YouTube videos. 

Opus Clips simplifies this process by allowing law firms to extract relevant clips from those videos, making it easier to generate concise and attention-grabbing content for social media platforms. These clips can serve as teasers, enticing viewers to explore the complete video or seek professional assistance from the law firm.

Midjourney

Midjourney is an AI tool that generates images from natural language descriptions or prompts. Lawyers can utilize these images in slideshows, exhibits, and digital platforms to enrich the overall quality and impact of their case presentations. In addition, Midjourney can assist in creating mock-ups and demonstratives that illustrate scenarios, timelines, and spatial relationships and improve jury understanding of their arguments. 

This tool can also serve as a valuable asset in legal marketing and branding, allowing lawyers to generate unique and captivating images that align with their practice areas, differentiating their firm and leaving a lasting impression on potential clients.

SheetAI

Lawyers can leverage SheetAI to enhance their Google Sheets experience and streamline their work processes. 

For example, when faced with complex legal questions or decision-making scenarios, they can use the SHEETAI_LIST feature to generate multiple AI-generated answers. This function provides lawyers with a range of diverse solutions and perspectives, helping them make informed decisions and explore different angles on legal matters. By having access to a variety of answers, they can gain valuable insights and consider various possibilities before finalizing their approach.

InboxPro

InboxPro is a powerful email tool with intelligent features designed to streamline email management and productivity. With the tool’s capabilities, lawyers can process and handle their emails up to five times faster.

InboxPro’s I-powered email assistant harnesses the power of AI to generate email drafts in a matter of seconds, saving lawyers time by allowing them to concentrate on the core content instead of spending time creating each message from scratch. Similarly, the TLDR feature automatically summarizes long emails, providing a concise overview of the content. These capabilities can ultimately improve email management workflow.

Otter.ai

Otter AI, an advanced meeting assistant, streamlines the note-taking process, promotes collaboration, and saves valuable time. With its AI-powered capabilities, Otter automatically records audio, transcribes meetings, and generates accurate written notes. It also facilitates collaboration among team members by allowing them to add comments, highlight key points, and assign action items in real time. Additionally, Otter’s automated slide capture feature automatically inserts shared slides into the meeting notes, providing a complete context of the discussed content for later retrieval.

Conclusion

Integrating AI tools into your law firm’s workflow can be a game-changer by revolutionizing how tasks are performed, increasing productivity, and driving efficiency. By harnessing the power of AI, law firms can optimize their operations, freeing up time for higher-value work, improving client experiences, and ultimately positioning themselves for success in a rapidly evolving legal landscape. Embracing these AI tools empowers law firms to stay ahead of the curve and maximize their potential for growth and innovation.

Over the last couple of years, engagement on LinkedIn has been booming. According to its parent company, Microsoft, the platform got so popular in 2021 that its overall revenue jumped 36% in the fourth quarter alone. And it hasn’t really slowed down since.

This is great news for you, because more people using the platform to connect professionally and nurture business relationships means more potential eyeballs on your content — which will generate leads, referrals, and ultimately revenue. 

To cash in on this popularity, you need to level up your LinkedIn game. Here are three tips to help you go that extra mile on your personal and business pages. 

1. Maximize your connections

LinkedIn shares your content to all of your connections on the platform, so the more you have the better! To beef up your list, try exporting your contacts from your email. LinkedIn will automatically search out accounts with those email addresses and make growing your contact list easy. 

2. Take advantage of the LinkedIn Publishing Platform

Did you know you can write and publish blogs directly on LinkedIn using the article publishing tool on your home page? You can even use images and hashtags. This is a great secondary spot to store your content and get more visibility with your network. Your blogs will appear on your profile, further positioning you as the expert.

3. Host events with LinkedIn Events

Yes, that’s right—you can host events and webinars with live-streamed videos right on LinkedIn. It’s even easier than setting up a Zoom meeting, and it’s another great way to show off your expertise, nurture your connections, and add value for leads and clients following you on the platform. Visit Business.LinkedIn.com/marketing-solutions/linkedin-live for all of the details. 

LinkedIn is also a great way to find and attract talent. According to Business Insider, roughly six people are hired through LinkedIn every minute. Whether you want to strengthen your network, convert leads, or grow your team, this is a tool you can’t afford to overlook.