Tips to Niche Down Successfully with Chris Dreyer, Rankings.io’s CEO

Welcome to the Marketing Growth Podcast. I’m your host, Shane Barker. Today, Chris Dreier, the CEO and co-founder of rankings.io, will join me. He runs an Illinois-based SEO company that helps elite personal injury law firms dominate the SERPs. His company has made it to Inc. 5000 the last three years in a row. He’s also the founder of Esq Marketing, a firm that specializes in legal SEO. On top of that, Chris hosts the Ranking Podcast, where he interviews top entrepreneurs and personal injury attorneys. On today’s episode, we’ll discuss what it’s like to work in a niche market, and he’ll share tips for entrepreneurs who are struggling to find their niche. Since we’re talking about niches, I’m going to take a quick moment to tell my listeners about mine. I have two decades of experience in end-to-end digital marketing. My expert team of strategists, writers, and editors will look after all your digital marketing needs—from content marketing to PR. For more information on how we can help you, head over to shanebarker.com, and with that, it’s time to get back to this episode. All right, you guys—I’m excited today. We’ve got the Marketing Growth Podcast, and we have an old friend of mine, Chris Dreier, here. Hey, welcome to the podcast, bud.

Yeah. I know we’ve crossed paths—maybe at events or online. I’ve seen you here and there, and you’ve been doing some big things. I’m really impressed with how you’ve carved out a niche for yourself, and I’ll jump into that a little later. I know that’s one of the hardest things to do, even with my clients—you do so many different things until you find the sweet spot. But let’s get to know a little bit about you. Tell us more about yourself—where did you grow up?

It’s funny—we have a very similar background. I even sent my son into telemarketing, telling him he might not like it, but it teaches you a lot about working with people and understanding the psychology of how people say no or yes. And then there are restaurants. I’ve always joked with my wife that everyone should work in a restaurant for at least three to six months to learn how to treat people.

I used to work at Chevy’s Mexican Restaurant—back in my early days, I started as a busser and worked my way up through the ranks. That background in customer service, where exceeding expectations is key, is invaluable. I know telemarketing isn’t easy or fun; I remember doing it for mortgages and thinking, “Oh God, I’m harassing somebody.” I even worked at my buddy’s mortgage company. They held Friday meetings where they’d tally up everyone’s calls—“Alright, John Smith, 400 calls! Great job!” Then they’d announce, “Jennifer, 390 calls and 10 closed deals,” and finally, “Shane, you made 4,646 calls.” And I’m like, “Yep, love this job.” Even though deep down they knew this might not be for me, we kept going—even when people were busy with dinner and didn’t want to refinance. Anyway, that’s awesome. So, you grew up in Illinois—a small town. How big is your family?

Don’t do it! That’s too funny. My parents had a nurse and a counselor—very stable jobs. They got their steady raises and all that. I learned later how valuable that stability is, unlike the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. In the beginning, I had fantastic months and other months when I had to borrow taco money from friends. But over the years, you build stability. I find that interesting. Any fun or interesting facts about the city you grew up in?

That’s insane—that’s so true. I have a naive question, though. When you date someone in a small town, you pretty much can’t date anyone else because everybody knows everything about you. How does that work?

Oh, that’s awesome. You got a little size to you, huh?

That’s it. I mean, you’ve got some mass to you. I wouldn’t want to run into you in an alley and say, “Hey, what’s up?” You definitely have some size.

Same here. It’s funny—I walk about five miles a day as my workout, get some work done, and listen to music or audiobooks. I have to, because I’m Irish and I love good craft beer. If I didn’t, I’d be sneaking on extra pounds. I remember being around 240 a few years ago—actually, that was probably eight or nine years ago. It’s so easy to gain 15 pounds without noticing, but you can shed them pretty easily too. I’m sure you’re one of those guys—I get it. So, are you still in Illinois?

That’s a great setup. I visited St. Louis for the first time two years ago when I was speaking at an event—I can’t recall the event’s name; there are so many. I love St. Louis, man—what a great city, especially for barbecue. I was literally eating barbecue every night during that five-day trip. I think I gained seven pounds in those five days. I told my wife, “I’m coming back a different man,” because there were just too many types of barbecue. And there was this dessert unique to St. Louis—gooey butter cake. Oh man, that changed my life. I even joked about moving to St. Louis just to eat it for every meal.

Yeah, lots of options out there. I was staying at the Marriott right in the middle of town—restaurants everywhere. Good times, good times. So, where did you go to college?

That’s funny—you went into teaching, and your parents were happy because you had a stable job, then you had extra time and thought, “Hey, this thing called the internet—I’m going to start my own business.” And they were like, “Nobody’s failing us—what have we done?” You were so stable for three years, then you took a leap. Now you can tell your parents, “Hey, I was on Shane Barker’s Podcast.” They might not really know who I am, but it’s exciting—the numbers are growing.

That’s where we’re hoping—”Look, Mom, your little Chris made it! Now check out that big-boy style!” I love it. So, how long have you been doing SEO? When did you jump into the SEO game?

Crazy. Dude, isn’t it? Fifteen years ago—was it even called SEO? I remember when I jumped in, it wasn’t SEO yet, and then somebody dubbed it SEO. It was one of those weird shifts, fifteen years, dude.

Yeah, look at that! That’s a classic—hitting the press releases and getting articles written. Oh yeah, that’s classic. Now you gotta tell everybody what that says.

That gave me goosebumps. I was like, “Oh snap, you got that mug.” I don’t know how many of those they gave out—I probably got like ten of those or something.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Because the thing was—that was the spot, right? That was like, “Hey, I’m gonna go get links.” And it got hot until Google was like, “No, we’re not doing that anymore. No, no, we’re…”

Yeah, yeah—they did see a little drop in rankings. So, fifteen years in all. And then, when did you—rankings.io—when did you start that? When did it come to fruition?

That’s interesting. And you know, what’s fascinating is how certain industries become easier when it comes to backlinks. For example, maybe three or four years ago, we thought about expanding into attorney work. We had done so much in the SaaS and entrepreneur spaces—it was very easy to get mentions on other websites. We jumped in because an attorney reached out with a good budget. When you’re young and dumb, anything over a thousand bucks is amazing. But then, while struggling to get those backlinks, you realize you’ve carved out a nice niche—not in the attorney realm—where I can get a link any day of the week for my clients. I think that’s what we all realize eventually. You might think, “Hey, we’re doing a dentist thing.” And while you can do that, there are more challenges when you already have one niche figured out on the attorney side.

In theory, you might want multiple revenue streams—bringing on dentists, surgeons, physical therapy, etc. But then you realize there are, like, one million attorneys in the United States, and you’re not working with anywhere near that many. So, why not just niche down and keep it that way? It makes total sense. Sure, the peers say, “Go out and branch out,” and that seems like a good idea until you do it and wonder, “Why did I do that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

I love that. So you’ve even gone from serving attorneys to narrowing down to PI—niched down even further. You’re like, “Listen, how many PI attorneys are in the United States?” I should know, but I don’t. I mean, if there are 20,000, 50,000, or 100,000, how many do you really need to close? Early on, I’d take on any client with a budget—like, “Oh, it’s only 50 bucks, I don’t care, let’s do it”—thinking I could make it work. But over time, you realize you don’t have to do everything. We used to do websites, and so many other things—we’re good at a lot, but not great at everything. It just becomes too much to handle.

No, I think that’s awesome—awesome. So you guys heard it first: this is the new industry to go after. Chris has already got personal injury unlocked, so there’s no need to go there. But when did you—I’m trying to think—so that was back in 2013 when you tried to do some other things, and then you said, “Okay, hey, we…” When did you go back to doing just attorney PI stuff?

I mean, I think we all do. I could probably talk for three hours about all the things we messed up. But that’s what makes you stronger—from an SEO perspective and from a business perspective. You try all kinds of stuff, and looking back, you think, “Yeah, that was kind of dumb. I shouldn’t have done that.” But you did it, and it took you to where you are today. Maybe there was a reason for it—maybe it was foundational. I love hearing your journey. There are so many similarities.

So what advice do you have for entrepreneurs trying to find their niche? At what point did you decide, “Why go after all attorneys or dentists?” What was that pivoting point where you said, “There’s enough out there; I should just niche down and keep it here”?

And that makes sense. In the beginning, you’ve got to go after everything and see what you like or where you have the best connections.

Yeah, and that makes total sense. You start broad—doing websites, content marketing, SEO, or whatever—but you have to try other areas and see which one makes the most sense, both financially and operationally. When you already have 80% of the work done in one area due to your sphere of influence, it just adds up. Thanks, Chris—that was a rocking conversation. I’m sure the budding entrepreneurs in our audience will appreciate all the great advice you brought to the table. Thanks for being a part of this episode. There’s lots more to come on my next episode—Chris joins us for a discussion about the intricacies of Attorney SEO, so stay tuned to the Marketing Growth Podcast.