Year-End Review & 2026 Planning — 2026-04-05

Overview

Sebastian Gant (Asymmetric) and Nicole Hadaway (Axley) reviewed 2025 marketing performance and aligned on 2026 strategy priorities. The meeting covered strong organic and paid results, a family law page restructure to fix keyword cannibalization, a new PPC pause protocol, and a forward-looking roadmap including LSAs, Waukesha local SEO expansion, and FAQ additions across practice area pages.

Attendees:
- Nicole Hadaway — Axley (nhadaway@axley.com)
- Sebastian Gant — Asymmetric
- Paul Buniel — Asymmetric

2025 Performance Highlights

Organic Search

• Consistent blogging per the attorney SEO checklist contributed directly to ranking growth.
• Dedicated local pages were built but not yet published; nmh plans to publish in January.

Paid Ads (PPC)

• CallRail was integrated mid-year for better attribution.
• Several campaigns shifted to manual CPC to improve cost control.
• Google's AI optimization feature was enabled at some point and began pulling irrelevant search terms; it has since been disabled.

Year-End Report

• Sebastian built the report in Gamma (AI presentation tool); nmh was added as a collaborator to edit slides.
• nmh will use the report for an executive presentation; she may send clarifying questions before the Jan 16 meeting.

Key Decisions

1. Family Law Page Restructure (Keyword Cannibalization Fix)

Multiple pages were competing for "divorce" queries. Agreed restructure:

2. FAQ Sections on All Practice Area Pages

• Decision: Add FAQ sections to all practice area pages.
• Sebastian will draft FAQs for existing and proposed pages; nmh will review and approve before publishing.
• Existing landing page FAQs may be repurposed where relevant.

3. PPC Campaign Pause Protocol

• Decision: Campaigns may be paused for practice areas at or near capacity to protect ROI and control spend.
• Process: Sebastian emails nmh with a pause recommendation → nmh responds with approval or direction before any change is made.
• Capacity risk assessment:
• Low risk: Criminal Defense, Personal Injury, Academic Misconduct
• Primary risk: Madison Family Law (especially during long trials — rare, first time in ~a decade)

4. 2026 Budget & Spending Thresholds

• PPC spending thresholds to be reviewed and finalized at the January 16 meeting.
• Family Law Waukesha spend was already reduced following the prior in-person meeting.

2026 Priorities

• Local Service Ads (LSAs): Launch as a new channel.
• Waukesha Local SEO: Expand content and visibility in the Waukesha market.
• FAQ Additions: Roll out across all practice area pages.
• Backlink Profile: Continue building referring domains and industry partnerships.
• Reviews Integration: Add embedded reviews to practice area pages (SEO benefit).
• Blog Content: 9 family law articles planned, written by associates using Sebastian's top-10 topic list with focus keywords added.
• Salesforce Discussion: Schedule a post-holiday meeting with Mark (flagged from prior in-person meeting).
• Spotify Advertising / Video Assets: Exploratory — discussed as potential new channels.

Action Items

Next Meeting

January 16 — Agenda will include 2026 budget finalization and PPC threshold review.

Related

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