Nov
18
SEO value of Lawyers.com
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I was recently asked by a client what i thought of lawyers.com for SEO purposes. Full disclosure: I used to work for LexisNexis, the owners of Lawyers.com. In my experience, attorneys got very few leads from lawyers.com – one client had less than 10 click-throughs in a year. But does lawyers.com have any SEO value? In my opinion, it does a little – but not worth it for the hundreds of dollars per month they charge. Instead, spend that money on a business.com or BOTW listing ($300/yr each), or hg.org (from $190//yr). Better yet, many attorneys can get a basic SEO package at Sequoia Legal Marketing for a similar investment.
Nov
15
Google Plus: Pages
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Last week, Google announced a new feature for Google Plus – pages for businesses and brands. Google Plus “pages” is similar to Facebook’s pages for businesses; so what is the point in joining a new social network so similar to Facebook? I quickly created a page for each of my clients, in hopes of gaining an advantage in Google’s search results. Facebook is more established and already has millions of users; chances are your friends, family and clients are using Facebook and probably haven’t taken up on Google+ yet, so don’t worry about having yet another website to keep up with on a regular basis…
By creating a business page, you can add link to your website and create a profile about yourself and your firm. In the future, I expect Google to incorporate Google+ pages into their search results, much like that already do with local business listings and Google profiles. Getting in early with Google+ pages costs nothing and can only increase your exposure online, so why not create yours now?
Dec
8
ABA Legal Ethics & Social Networking
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The American Bar Association has recently published an “Issues Paper Concerning Lawyers’ Use of Internet Based Client Development Tools” to examine the legal ethics issues of social networking on sites like twitter, Facebook and on blogs. The paper attempts to recruit comments on inadvertent attorney-client relationships, offering legal advice without disclosures via blogs and internet forums, and to establish a line between personal commentary and legal advertising (with the latter requiring attorney advertising disclosures) in blogs, tweets, and other means of electronic communication.
Inadvertent Attorney-Client Relationships
In social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, attorneys are often unable to post disclaimers warning prospective clients against posting information that could trigger ethical obligations. To maintain a safe distance from ABA ethics scrutiny, Consider the following recommendations;
- Professional and personal contacts should remain under separate accounts.
- Post ‘attorney advertising’ disclosures on blogs & websites.
- Above any submit forms on your website, notify potential clients about what kind of information should not be submitted online. Contact forms should not solicit Social Security or other ID information if it is not secured by a SSL certificate and received by secure email – to be safe, it’s just best to avoid this information being transmitted online at all.
- Be sure to review and certify that all information posted on your website and blog is factual and accurate. Any content written by non-attorneys, including assistants and marketing firms or writers, should be reviewed.
- Do not respond to specific questions asked by individuals on the internet. Hypothetical or general questions may be answered so long as they avoid addressing a potential client’s specific situation, which could be construed as legal advice.
- Be very careful when answering legal questions on sites like Yahoo Answers, LawGuru.com or even on your social media (Twitter / Facebook) account. While it can be tempting to use these services to enhance your reputation or gain new clients, it can be easy for a potential client to assume that you have offered legal advice or that you are or will be their attorney.
One point I would like to reiterate and stress; it is your responsibility to ensure the internet marketing firm or individual SEO specialist has your content reviewed by you before posting it online. At times e-marketers have found it easier to go ahead and post a ghost-written article on your website or blog – or a third party website such as HG.org – without your review and approval. It can be hard to get a moment to do this review, but make it a priority in order to ensure you are not offering incorrect information. Incorrect legal information has been widely disseminated in the name of internet marketing (or in the name of your law firm) due to non-lawyers writing legal articles with little or no factual basis.
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Nov
28
Converting Leads with “Bedside Manner”
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Throwing money at any kind of marketing or advertising is a completely worthless exercise when you cannot convert leads.
I recently had an experience with an client/attorney who closed his practice in a major metro area, but didn’t want to lose the many leads coming through his website. He decided to send these potential clients to another law firm, with the understanding that any leads converted would result in a referral fee for the client. This attorney had a thriving practice based on this somewhat generic website, and could not understand why the new law firm wasn’t getting any “decent leads”.
The problem was not with the leads, needless to say – it was with the firm. I personally called this firm and spoke with the receptionist, who served little more function than an answering service. The attorney at the new firm – who didn’t know me – took more than 24 hours to return my call. No wonder they weren’t converting leads!
Potential clients don’t care what law school you went to, or how many cases you have won. When a potential client calls, you have one chance to leave a good lasting impression on them. If you cannot personally answer calls, the second best solution is to train the person who answers calls to be empathetic, understanding, and to make the potential client feel like they made the right decision to call you.
It’s easy to forget these simple things. It’s hard to forget what you know about law and to put yourself in your client’s position. Your potential client may not “know the routine” and it may be their first time hiring an attorney. If you are a divorce attorney, a criminal lawyer, a personal injury law firm – chances are your client is under stress and this isn’t a fun process for them.
Even if your receptionist isn’t a lawyer or legal assistant, they can be trained to covert leads.
- Most importantly, listen to the caller. Don’t interrupt.
- Tell them you understand – if applicable, be sympathetic – and assure them they called the right firm and that your attorneys can help.
- Take the client’s information. Give them an estimate of when they can expect to hear from the attorney.
- Have an attorney call them back within the hour, whenever possible.
When potential clients call you without being specifically referred to you (ie, from the Yellow pages or internet), they are calling because they want to hire you. If they get a machine, or a receptionist who merely functions in place of a machine, they will call someone else.
Nov
18
What SEO Can Learn From Real Estate Agents
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In 2007 i invested a considerable amount of time and money and I got my Real Estate license. I scored 97out of 100 on my final exam, and I thought I’d be awesome at real estate. I quickly learned that technical ability had very little to do with success in the world of real estate.
In the world of real estate, the top producers are generally those who know the most people. They have a good reputation and people refer them, because lets face it; you’d rather have an agent someone you know has already ‘test driven’ for you. When you don’t know people in your community and don’t have these pre-existing relationships, you’re screwed.
Not only are referrals the best kind of leads in Real Estate, they are the best kind of leads as clients in general. How does this apply to SEO? Currently, Google looks at links back to your website as ‘votes’ for you. However, it’s easy to ‘game’ the system by buying links or hiring an SEO agency to find them for you. In the future, Google will rely more on a relationship-based sort of way of ranking in order to ‘better qualify’ links back to your site.
Social media is definitely a part of that. The friends you have on Twitter, on Facebook, and whatever social platforms we see in the future will help Google determine your ‘community’. The ‘Important People’ in your networks / ‘community’ who ‘recommend’ you (via Re-tweets, posting your links, etc.) will play a bigger role in determining how important you are – or will become – online.
Oct
11
Findlaw SEO:The “Hotel California” of the Web
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Welcome to Hotel California Findlaw.
…you can check in any time you’d like, but you can never leave…
I don’t usually take on my competition so directly, due to the fact that they are a multi-million dollar company who could potentially sue me just to keep me busy for a few years…also because its not so nice. However I want to address a concern that I find myself explaining to attorneys who call me, disillusioned with SEO. I find it somewhat un-ethical for Findlaw to call their product “SEO”.
Findlaw already knows they can take advantage of their wide network of high PR, high traffic websites. However, they appear to be relying on their network of Findlaw-owned websites for optimizing their clients websites. To a degree, this would not be a major issue IF these links were from practice relevant pages and they stayed there after the client stops paying for SEO.
However, Findlaw is not limiting their linking to content related pages, they are removing links once the client stops paying, and they are using paying client’s websites to promote other customers. They have simply set up a network of links on each paying clients websites to link to other paying clients.
Not only does this create a tiny neighborhood of links, where one infected or bad site could infect many, but this is FAKE SEO. It’s temporary promotion. Once a client stops paying for SEO, the links are removed and your rankings, PR and traffic will drop.
Here’s an example of a paying client providing links to other Findlaw clients;
On Findlaw’s New Jersey Lawyer Marketing Website, they promote a number of firms as ‘representative clients’. It’s easy to tell which are current client and which are past clients; current clients have many findlaw websites linking to them, and past clients do not. Using URL trends and Link Diagnosis, it is clearly evident that attorneys do not benefit from Findlaw’s SEO efforts after services have been rendered – Something the client likely does not expect.
As a side note, FindLaw’s website should be updated. Of the 23 representative clients, at least 10 have clearly taken their business elsewhere.
Is this ethical SEO? Essentially, paying for the privilege of having high PR Findlaw links to your website (which findlaw owns anyway) and losing that investment when you unsubscribe to their services?
Oct
7
Free Legal Directory Listings
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Here’s an easy list of websites to submit your legal website or blog to – at no cost.
Divorce Lawyer Directory PR0
Profiles In Law PR2 – Attorneys Only
Womens Divorces PR3
Arbitration Attorney Directory PR0
WashLaw PR7 – Attorneys Only
MyHQ Legal Directory PR5
AVVO PR7 – Attorneys Only
Lawyers By Language PR2 – Bi or Multi Lingual Attorneys Only
e-lawyer PR3
LPIG.org PR6
Oct
3
Managing your PPC Campaign: Keyword Selection
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The second step of a successful PPC campaign is selecting your keywords. In this article, we will tackle this topic.
Check back soon for the next article in the series.
Let’s look at our imaginary attorney’s PPC strategy – John Smith, a new york city divorce & family law attorney.
John Smith’s first inclination is to start out with some keywords that might describe his business;
New York City divorce lawyer
New York City family law attorney
New York City divorce law firm
This is the biggest problem I see made by most PPC D.I.Y.’ers. While broad terms like these will generate the most traffic, it also gives you the lowest ROI.
Consider if you were a client in NYC looking for a divorce lawyer. Getting from the Upper West Side to the far reaches of Queens could be 3 hours by train – you will most certainly rule out attorneys who are outside your neighborhood. A better keyword selection would be on that can find a balance between broad and narrow keywords. In our example, the broad location section of the keyword is “New York City“, where a more specific location would be “Upper East Side“, or somewhere in between with a keyword like “Brooklyn“.
Now also consider that a practice area like divorce has many specific components that fall within the “family law” and “divorce” lawyer’s practice area. Some attorneys will focus on fathers rights, some on high net worth divorces, and others on family court specifically. In the second part of our keyword – the practice area – a broad term would be ‘divorce‘ or ‘family law‘ while a more specific term like “separation agreement” or “Father’s custody rights” are much more descriptive.
Finding a balance of broad and descriptive keywords is generally a better approach to PPC success. Start out with a list of your most descriptive keywords. If you have a bigger budget, try expanding your keyword list to include a broad location + specific practice area, or vice versa.
In some cases, a specific location plus very specific practice are might not provide enough traffic; in one case, I had an attorney who practiced cruise injury litigation. Combining that VERY specific practice area with a small town would likely yield very few leads.
Check in with your PPC campaign weekly if possible; every month at the very least. See how your keywords are performing and make adjustments as necessary.
Sep
28
Managing your PPC Campaign: Step 1
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In 2008 I conducted a study of attorney PPC campaigns managed by a third party at Yahoo and Google for the year current year. Granted, it’s nearly 2 years later, but I don’t get the impression the results have changed; at the time, PPC leads were cheaper than SEO leads in only 1 of 8 chases. This was not including the campaign management fees (The third party service provider charged $1 for every $1 spent by the client), which made PPC leads more than twice as expensive as SEO leads in many cases.
However, PPC leads CAN work, and can in some cases be cheaper than SEO leads. First, lets look at how we calculate cost per lead. Call tracking must be implemented for both SEO and PPC campaigns. A different call tracking phone number is displayed for yahoo, google and natural / SEO search results, and SEO leads should be sorted to remove a percent of the total leads that corresponds to the percentage of unique direct website visits or referrals not related to SEO efforts and also to account for searched performed for the clients name; these are leads that would have occurred without SEO.
SEO cost/ Total SEO leads = cost per SEO lead
PPC cost / Total PPC leads = cost per PPC lead
On average, the 2008 study revealed an average SEO lead cost around $20/lead and PPC leads (with management costs figured in) at nearly $45/lead. If an attorney were to perform his own PPC maintenance and management, this figure would be much closer to SEO lead cost at $25/lead, which could be further reduced if the attorney find tuned his campaigns.
This is the first article of many that will help you manage your own PPC campaigns in Bing and Google (note; Yahoo is in the process of transitioning their PPC ad service to Bing.com and will serve Bing’s ads on its search platform).
Setting up your PPC accounts
Coming shortly!
Sep
21
Google Officially States: “We Don’t Use Meta Keywords When Ranking”
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Today Google officially stated they do not use keywords when ranking websites. What does this mean for legal SEO? Not much, actually. We still add keywords for smaller search engines who do still employ META keywords. Furthermore, Google likes to discourage certain habits – like purchasing links – by claiming they have processes in place to rank sites without it. It’s not that I doubt they ignore META keywords…. I just prefer to let someone else be the “early adapter”.