The Challenge
Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP is a highly respected U.S. intellectual property law firm with offices in Chicago and Raleigh, serving innovators, research institutions, and some of the world’s most recognizable brands. Despite its strong reputation and decades of thought leadership, the firm had never formally invested in SEO.
Their digital presence was split across two properties: their primary firm website and a dedicated thought leadership blog, PatentNext. While the content quality was high, there was limited visibility into keyword performance, and organic growth opportunities were largely untapped.
The firm’s goals were clear: increase organic visibility, improve keyword rankings across competitive IP-related terms, and establish a stronger foundation for long-term law firm SEO growth, particularly in major innovation hubs across the United States.
The Solution
We implemented a comprehensive, long-term SEO strategy tailored to law firms, focused on building a strong technical and content foundation while leveraging Marshall Gerstein’s existing thought leadership.
1. Technical & On-Site SEO
- The engagement began with extensive on-site SEO improvements, including optimization of page titles, meta descriptions, internal linking, and keyword alignment across core practice areas and industry pages. This ensured the firm’s services were clearly understood by search engines and aligned with high-intent search queries.
2. Thought Leadership Integration
- At the same time, we supported a thought leadership–driven SEO approach, strengthening the connection between the firm’s blog content and the main website through strategic cross-linking. This helped distribute authority across both properties while reinforcing Marshall Gerstein’s expertise in emerging and highly competitive areas such as biotechnology, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and medical devices.
3. Keyword Strategy
- Keyword strategy was intentionally focused on practice-area and industry-specific search terms, allowing the firm to compete not just on “intellectual property law” broadly, but on specialized, high-value queries tied directly to its strongest practice areas.
The Results
Over the past 12 months:
- Average keyword position improved from 8.5 to 3.1, signalling a strong shift toward top-of-page visibility.
- The firm gained 30 additional keywords in the top 3 positions (104 total) and 37 additional keywords in the top 10 (147 total).
- Notable keywords that reached the #1 position include femtech patent lawyers, renewable energy patent law, chemical patent attorney, and biotech law firm.
Organic traffic performance also showed consistent growth. Organic traffic increased 12% year over year, and when compared to historical data, the results are even more compelling – as average monthly organic sessions grew from approximately 2,900 in 2020 to 4,660 in 2025, representing a 60% increase.
By combining technical SEO improvements, targeted keyword strategy, and thought leadership integration, Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP significantly boosted its Google rankings, organic traffic, and online authority. This case demonstrates the impact of a strategic, long-term SEO approach for U.S. law firms.
