Case Study – CA Criminal Defense Law Firm

When The Law Office of Sheny Gutierrez in Santa Ana, CA, first partnered with us, the goal was clear: establish a strong online presence in a highly competitive criminal defense market. With services for defense ranging from DUI and domestic violence to gun crime, drug charges, and sex crimes, Sheny needed visibility that matched his experience. Our strategy not only delivered measurable growth but also positioned him as a trusted authority in the local legal community.

Standing out in Orange County’s crowded criminal defense space isn’t easy—but for Sheny, building the right digital presence opened unexpected doors. Sheny’s practice gained attention not just from potential clients in Santa Ana, but also from the Mexican Consulate, which recognized his reputation and invited him to serve as an official attorney for their office.

Our focus on Local SEO meant that we tracked keyterms on both Google Maps as well as Google Search. However, our work didn’t stop there. We also tracked and monitored rankings across Bing Search, ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and Copilot. In an age where potential clients may go to alternative platforms before deciding to hire an attorney, we knew we had to hit all the check boxes to make sure the online presence was not limited to just one medium. Our holistic approach towards search presence was able to make the most out of the marketing budget that we managed for this law firm.

Although our team doesn’t have other native speakers, we generally work across both English and Spanish by using AI platforms to generate accurate translations across the different steps we take on campaigns. We have developed a process which allows almost anyone that knows English to be able to easily understand the different parts of the website as they perform their work on both sides of the website. Using hreflangs, we match all of our pages across the different languages we use, so that they follow Google’s guidelines. This also allows the English pages to be able to contribute towards the rankings of the Spanish versions of the equivalent pages on the site (and vice versa).

Results

This client started work with ELC in late 2023. The results shown in this case study are pulled in August of 2025.

DUI

Here is an example of a target query, which is higher intent as compared to long tail or informational searches that potential clients may have online.

We can see that the first and second image from the left are for Google Search, where the last one is of Bing Search.

Next, we will look at the Maps results for this same case type. Below, you will find the rankings for their main office location, expanded across the local area so that you can see exactly how far the rankings reach. Otherwise, prospects will see this in a more 2-dimensional manner shown on the image directly to the right of the GeoGrid:

Finally, here is the year to year comparison to show the increase in calls for the Google Business Profile for this main office below. This increase in calls represents more qualified leads coming directly from Google. Instead of just ranking higher, the firm was able to connect with more people who needed immediate legal help — the kind of cases that drive real revenue growth for a criminal defense practice.

The Breakdown of Deliverables

Although we won’t reveal the full scope of our deliverables, we can show what the core of the work performed was composed of. These are the main deliverables which our clients check on each month to know that we have done our work as promised.

• Link Building – Roughly 5 new placements each month, varying as prices fall upon a wide range from bloggers and media sites.
  • We rely on long-term methods for link building such as guest blog posting and one-off niche edit placements when they are available.
  • We also begin our campaigns with citations in the form of industry-relevant directory listings and profiles.
• Content Production – With a team of legal-experienced writers, we have a high capacity for legal content production. Thanks to AI usage, we expanded from a few new articles or pages each month, to over 10 each month.
  • This includes staff which use the latest AI and LLM platforms for further expanding client budgets while still maintaining quality standards through the use of human editors.
• Digital Public Relations – While other agencies stop at predetermined press release wires. Our team includes an assigned publicist which focuses on finding opportunities online for features and contributions for media sites.
• Web Development + Full Stack Devs – Not only do we have dedicated WordPress developers, but we also work with “full stack” devs to accomplish custom automations/integrations with CRMs as well as custom items for websites such as calculators.
• GBP Optimizations – While we no longer use outdated methods for our client Google listings, we use integrated dashboards to monitor performance as well as monitor for malicious edits done by competitors. We also watch for new Review frequency to coach our clients as to where to focus or divert their review acquisition efforts for best performance.
  • (In some cases, obtaining a high ranking on Maps may result in competitors suggesting malicious edits in attempt to lower the rankings.)

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Strategy

One of the biggest differences with working with our team at ELC would be the strategies used on each campaign.

We do not use predetermined strategies, so we cannot tell you what we will do specifically on a certain future month (other than the core deliverables). Instead, we make changes ongoing depending on how platforms react to our work. This way, we are always managing the marketing spend as optimally as possible.

We are known in the industry for our deep knowledge and experience with backlink building, and we use it for every client. We do not use any vendors, we are using our own in-house team to facilitate outreach, control quality, and perform topic selection for contributions made to other sites. This means that we have full control of the way our client sites are referenced, and towards which case type and which geo they would like to be visible in.

This is opposed to Public Relations work done to earn links from larger publications, which are typically pointed towards just the homepage.

For this campaign, we focused heavily on the way we collaborated with third party websites to be able to continuously build more mentions for our client’s law firms. We like to focus on websites that are willing to collaborate with us on a new article for their own blog. Since we are working with attorneys, we have built up connections over the past several years to build an internal database of available websites for this purpose. We creatively choose topics which would aim to get traffic on the third party’s site, and then we reference our client’s website as the source of the information.

This approach allows us to have the best long term success with backlink building, as we have seen those with weaker relationships face more frequent link drops over time. By following these steps, we have been able to have a level of control over the rankings so that we can make our client visible for specific searches relating to their target case type and their target geo.

One of the biggest new changes in backlink building has been the additional boost in rankings seen from online references which are not directly linked to the source’s website. At least, this may be the case for AI and LLM platforms that are using logic to associate authority. With traditional search engines like Google, PageRank is what ends up having the most weight as far as what should rank first. However, an AI platform would take these rankings and apply further weighting on them to attempt to make it a better result for their user.

We also took the time to research competitors on a monthly level so that we are always on top of any changes they are making which may affect the ranks we are working on. This lets us have a competitive edge over other agencies which may be using either predetermined campaigns, or AI led campaigns.

For Content Production, we are aiming to answer frequently asked questions first, but over time, expand into more niched down queries a prospect may search for when they need an attorney. We have a separate strategy for practice area pages than what we do for informational pages like blog posts. With both options coming into play, we form a specific order of which we want to be targeting topics each month. Thanks to AI development, we are able to expand budgets if the law firm opts to allow us to use AI generated content.

• Human written content was aided by tools such as SurferSEO or ahrefs.

The website is made as a custom WordPress theme, which is done in a way that is able to load quickly and competitively. By following Google’s guidelines, we are able to have a high rating from tools like their PageSpeed Insights

This case study highlights how a thoughtful, adaptive marketing strategy can elevate a law firm’s visibility and credibility in a highly competitive space. By combining strong SEO fundamentals with creative outreach and consistent content production, we helped The Law Office of Sheny Gutierrez grow online in a way that directly translated into new opportunities — from increased client calls to recognition by the Mexican Consulate. For us, success isn’t just about rankings; it’s about positioning our clients to achieve lasting growth and authority in their field.

By building visibility across multiple platforms, we helped protect the firm from relying only on Google. As more people search using AI tools or alternative search engines, this broader presence ensures the firm keeps attracting new clients no matter how technology changes.

The showcased visibility didn’t just bring in more local cases — it also elevated Sheny’s reputation. The Mexican Consulate took notice of his online presence and credibility, ultimately selecting him as one of their official attorneys to refer clients to. Noting that they found his website after searching online for a local defense attorney. This is a powerful example of how the right digital strategy can translate into career-defining opportunities.