The Truth About Lawyer Internet Marketing

The Wild Wild West.

I used to love that show (the original one-as much as I enjoy Will Smith, the movie version was not the same). I never dreamed that I would be living the life Mr. West in my 40s. Actually, I was hoping to be more like Superman.

Anyway…

How about SEO in the Wild Wild West.

In my job with LexisNexis I am the SEO/SEM/Internet marketing consultant for all of the states West of Kansas except for New Mexico and Arizona, but including Hawaii (is Hawaii West of Denver or East of Denver-trick question). As I have been making my rounds this month I have met with attorneys from Los Angeles and Seattle, to Hillsboro, OR, Salty Lake City and Honolulu. In every city and town attorneys are trying to figure out the most cost effective way to market their firms online. In Hillsboro I met an attorney that is doing his own optimization-and doing it pretty darn well. Conversely, in Seattle I meet attorneys that are STILL trying to figure out how the heck to get SEO done properly and who the heck to trust-and they are in the same town as Amazon, Microsoft and Google!

Below is my basic criteria for choosing an SEO service provider. These are the questions I would ask if I was looking for someone to optimize a website for my firm:

1-Can you show me multiple examples of your customers who are getting high rankings on Google for terms that are at least as competitive as mine?
Not from my direct competitors, but if I am going to have confidence that you are going to be able to optimize my site for “personal injury lawyer seattle” or “intellectual property lawyer seattle”, then you better be able to show me that you have success optimizing a site for “Medical Malpractice New York City” or “dui lawyer las vegas”. If you show me that you have optimized a site for keywords like “landscaping contractors Denver”, then I cannot be confident you can the same thing for “personal injury lawyer seattle”. The landscaping market is just not that competitive on the Internet.

2-Will you take the time to develop an SEO strategy based on the needs of my firm and the competitiveness of my particular geographic market and area of practice?

If your SEO consultant is saying “We CAN do this, or we could TRY this.” Then you should be leery.

After I tore my 1st ACL on my left knee after my brief professional soccer “career” came to an end, I met with the first Dr. I could for a consultation. I will never forget when he looked at me and said “Dan, I am not sure what we should do here. We could this, or that, or maybe this-what do you think?” At the time I was 25, it was my first knee injury, and I had not even completed my undergraduate degree. How the heck could I make a decision on what to do with my knee? I still didn’t even know what an ACL was. (After 4 ACL reconstructions I feel like I could “virtually” perform the surgery if I had to-”virtually” meaning in a video game or something like that).

Lucky for me, I was coaching the sons of Jim Bartimus, a top medical malpractice attorney in the Midwest. He was able to get me to the top of the list to meet with Dr. Yost, one of the KC Royals orthopedic surgeons, and one of the top Orthos in the KC area. Dr. Yost took the bull by the horns. He looked me in the eye, and while his assistant took notes he told me what he wanted to do, he scheduled my surgery, and sometime later I was back on the field playing better than I had played before.

As an attorney, you realize that ultimately your clients make the decision on what they want you to do for them, but if you do not give them competent and confident recommendations you are probably not providing them with a good service. (hopefully, as an attorney you can back up your recommendations with a track record)

3-Will you report to me on a regular basis the work you are doing on my website, the progress you are making, and your plans for the future of my website?

Not just Webtrends, impressions and clicks, but ranking reports, backlink reports,  and call reports, along with a summary analysis at least monthly of what the heck all of these reports mean.

Some SEO specialists act like they have the secret to SEO success, therefore you should just give them some money and trust them. They cannot tell you what they are doing, because it is a secret.

It’s not a secret. YOU could learn how to do SEO yourself. YOU could hire an SEO consultant for a few hundred dollars an hour to teach you how to do everything yourself, just like I could try my PI own case if I wanted to do so. The reason you want to hire someone to optimize your site is because they can do it more effectively than you, they can do it better than you because it is what they do every day and they can and will do it well for YOU. Not because they have the secret. If they claim to have the secret, I would eliminate them immediately as an option.

4-Do you offer any kind of exclusivity?

There are only 10 spots on the first page of Google organic results for a particular search. Few of the companies who do SEO offer exclusivity. They will sell the “first page of Google” to as many PI firms in Denver that will pay them for it. In the hopes that the lack of their reporting combined with the fact that their attorneys will not have the time to babysit their programs.

5-Have you been in business for a while, and how do I know you will be in business next week, next month, and next year?

I have heard more than once from attorneys and other business owners where someone has given thousands of dollars to an “SEO specialist”, with no results, no recourse, and no more “SEO specialist”.

6-Last, beware of:

A. Non descriptive SEO agreements combined with Pay-Per-Click programs. Pay-Per-Click can be profitable, but often it is hidden in a $1,000-8,000 a month program that has very little SEO and a lot of PPC.

B. Guarantees of placement.

Doood! Come on! You are an attorney! How could you fall for this trick? The only guarantee you will get from an SEO placement guarantee is that it will be written in such a way as to guarantee that the “SEO specialist” will set the standards so low that they cannot fail to meet the guarantee. Read my post where I expose the fine print of Network Solution’s SEO guarantee. It’s bogus.
If and when one of your peers says they guarantee they will win a tough case-what do you think? Of course the come back I hear from attorneys is “well, we work on contingency-why can’t you?”
I will. The first personal injury firm that offers me 30% of the revenue they generate from my search engine optimization efforts will be able to obtain my SEO services for free. I would expect to earn about $300K + my first year with this type of arrangement.

C. They tell you SEO is the only way to go, and to avoid PPC marketing. The truth is that both can be done well, and both can be done poorly-it is usually the latter. They both have their place when implemented strategically and with the proper expectations.

Of course that’s just my opinion. I might be wrong.

Option 1: Your Yellow Pages Representative

Here are the positives of using this source:

If you are dealing with the major Yellow Pages Company in your region they may have a good program for advertising on their Internet Yellow Pages. The official “Phone Company” Yellow Pages usually has excellent usage, and provides a good return on investment. Verizon/Superpages typically has decent usage outside of their region because of their wireless brand that is known everywhere. Yellow Pages.com also has fairly good usage nationwide.

Dex Media usually provides good results in their region, but the jury is still out on new markets they are trying to enter like Las Vegas. They have a good television ad campaign, but it’s hard to beat the “verb”: Google.

You may have a good relationship with your rep if you have had the same rep for years. You probably trust them and they probably want to do what’s best for your business.

Risks of dealing with your Yellow Pages Representative as your Internet marketing consultant:

Here is what to watch out for:

Yellow Pages reps are under a lot of pressure to sell you as much advertising as they can-whether or not it is good for your business. This may result in them overselling their Internet Yellow Pages, and they will do everything they can to keep your print advertising. Back when I was working with Dex Media we were $1.6 Billion a year print media company, and even though we more than doubled the Internet revenue for the company-the end result was still under $70 Million in yearly revenue.

RH Donnelly/Dex and other major yellow pages companies are holding on tight to a sinking ship. You can still get a good quantity of calls from the yellow pages with the big ads and the outside cover products, but trusting them with your Internet money is risky. One of the major reasons is that the yellow pages companies do not specialize in attorney Internet marketing. In my previous post I elaborated on how that can be a problem.

Yellow Pages advertising does have merit, and many businesses profit from Yellow Pages advertising, but usage is declining and the return on investment is not as good as it used to be-certainly not as good as a quality Internet Marketing Strategy.

While the rep may have your best interests in mind, the experienced Yellow Pages rep rarely understands what the best Search Engine Marketing solution is for law firms. If they did, they probably would not try to sell you all of the Search Engine Marketing products their company offers. Utilize them for their online Yellow Pages, but you are probably better off utilizing an Internet Marketing Consultant to help you succeed with the search engines like Google, Yahoo! & MSN.

Be careful of any Search Engine Marketing program they try to sell you. The Yellow Pages companies are usually not completely “transparent” with where your clicks are coming from, and they may charge you as much as a 2,000% mark up (yes-TWO THOUSAND) on your Pay-Per-Click program to manage it for you. This can eliminate the potential return on investment that a program like this SHOULD be providing your business.

Their websites are usually packaged with marketing programs that are often over-priced. While often times a package deal sounds good, in this case it may be more costly than if you were to buy them separately or invest in a more law firm tailored program.

Next week I will be posting the Google rankings for the major online yellow pages in Seattle and Las Vegas for the top online lawyer searches.

Option 2: A Marketing Firm
Marketing firms can provide some great strategy development and big picture programs. I have yet to find one that truly understand the ins and outs of Internet marketing, and figured out how to implement a strategic Internet marketing program. If you find one, please let me know.

In many cases they are your outsourced “Creative Marketing Project Managers.”

This is very important, because when your whole marketing program is designed to work together it can be much more affective than the sum of the parts.

The downsides to utilizing this kind of service is that they will probably outsource anything to do with the Internet, and you will be relying on their discretion when it comes to picking a web designer or an Internet marketing firm.

They are often provided with referral commissions from the advertising they sell, and may be biased towards using media providers that pay higher commissions. I have seen some Marketing firms cut out their clients profitable advertising programs because they could not get paid commissions from that media provider.

Option 3: A Website Developer

MOST good web designers and web developers build great websites. Few of them are SEO experts and fewer still are Pay-Per-Click marketing experts. If they try to steer you away from Search Engine Marketing, you probably should steer away from them, or hiring an Internet Marketing company to work with them.

Lately I have seen a lot of well-designed sites on the front end, but on the back end they are still using pre-2005 search engine optimization strategies.

Option 4: An SEO Firm

There are some superb SEO firms out there-and there are also some scam artists. In a previous post I discussed what to watch out for when it comes to SEO firms. If you need help before then, please feel free to call me and I will help you avoid getting ripped off. You call me at 702-966-9414, 206-501-4569 or 720-985-7945.

Option 5: An Internet Marketing Firm

A high quality and trustworthy Internet Marketing firm will help you build a website that meets your specific needs and budget, and recommend a marketing plan that will help you grow your business. They will show you how to get the most for your marketing dollar utilizing the Internet, and also help you integrate it with your other marketing efforts. They will also help you avoid Internet scams.

It is hard to find a firm that has been around and is going to be around in 2+ years.

If you are going to trust anyone with your money-more specifically the potential success of your business, you need to check their references.

Most people I work with simply trust me, but I often think they are lucky that I am actually a trustworthy Internet Marketing consultant. So many people are so confused or naive about the Internet they want and need to trust someone, and often times it’s simply the first convincing person that comes along.

An Internet Marketing Firm That Focuses on Lawyers’ Needs

LexisNexis/Martindale Hubbell has the most comprehensive Internet marketing solution for attorneys that I am aware of nationwide. They are experienced, they are honest, and they have been at it a long time-long enough to learn what works and what does not. They Lawyers.com, Attorneys.com, they offer SEO services, Press Releases, Pay Per Call, Pay Per Click, semi-custom web sites and fully custom web sites. They even have a classy television advertising program that is affordable for smaller law firms.

Thomson Westlaw
I have discussed in previous posts how they fall short in meeting Lawyers’s needs, but they do know the industry. Attorneys tell me it is difficult to get them to live up to their SEO promises, because they tend to over promise more often than not.

The two easiest ways to get your site to the top of Google:
 
1-Follow SEO best practices so people can find you by name in your geographic area.
 
Even if you spend thousands of dollars on SEO or some other form of Internet marketing, it is likely that around half of the traffic to your site will come from people searching for your firm by name and usually including your city and/or state in the search.

This is because your referrals often search for you before they call, or your other advertising media such as television, radio, magazine, billboards and yellow pages drives people to search for you online.

If your site does not come up at the top of the search engines over other information then you do not give the first impression you desire to give to your prospects.

It sounds simple, but there are still sites out there that attorneys are spending thousands of dollars on that Google and the other search engines cannot read, or what the search engines read does not identify the firm.

I saw a site last week that very nice-but it was all written in flash. Google saw nothing on the site. It was designed by a ‘PR Firm’ professional who was talented and creative, but like many talented and creative web designers, he or she gave no consideration as to how the search engines were going to find the sites.

Here are some basic rules to follow:1-Meta-tags:

Meta tags will not alone get you to the top of Google for competitive keywords, but if they are not done correctly you may not even come up by name.

There are 3 types of meta-tags you need to consider: 
Title Tags:

Title Tags need to be different for each one of your pages. Your home page should have your firm name and geographic location in the title tags and have no more than about 60 characters.

Don’t know what title tags are? You aren’t supposed to if you are an attorney, but if you do then proper title tags will make sense to you. I am not even sure what “tort reform” means, but I have an idea, and I could find out in seconds. However, it is not my job to really know how to rattle off the definition of “tort reform” on a regular basis.

This is why you should look to hire a true SEO professional for $100-$150 an hour, instead of spending your $300+ an hour time learning something new.

Off my pedestal and back to the other Meta-tags:

Description Tags:

Description tags are the textual results that appear on the organic search results. It is important that this accurately describes your firm, and you may even consider putting your phone number in the description tag to drive calls before a searcher clicks on any web site. Keywords in the description tag are good, but not as important as the title tags; therefore first and foremost make sure you put your best foot forward in your description tags.

Keyword Tags:

I often see web site designers make the mistake of putting all of the site keywords on everyone of their pages’ Meta keyword tags. It is much better to have the keywords focused on the content of the page, and therefore the keywords should be different for every page.
2-Sitemap:

A sitemap helps the search engines read your site. Having a Google sitemap is a great way to go, but not necessary. Most sitemaps can make up for a site that is hard for Google to read due to javascript or some other issue (I am not a programmer, I just keep up on these things).
3-Pictures and Videos

Make sure your pictures and videos have names relevant to your site.

URLs

www.myfirm.com/updsaufisua?ioupioudf=+-? Is not a great URL.
www.myfirm.com/keyword-keyword-keyword is much better way to go.
‘nuff said
The “last” best way to get to the top of Google and other search engines?

Have your site listed on a site that is already there for the keyword searches you want your site to be found.

You want to be at the top for the search “las vegas attorney”? Do the search yourself and see who appears. Some of those sites are directories that will pay for you to be listed on.

Lawyers.findlaw.com (Westlaw’s Directory) and Lawyers.com (a LexisNexis owned directory) are the two sites that consistently get the most searches of all of the lawyer online directories. This is confirmed by Nielson Ratings, ComScore and Hitwise-3 of the top 3rd party verification sources.

Essentially you have Lawyers.com and Findlaw.lawyers.com as the top two lawyer directories, with Lawyers.com getting about twice the visits as Findlaw.lawyers.com, and all the others getting significantly lower search volume.

In some markets you will find niches where a local directory may compete with these search engines, but again-that requires some research. In Nevada the oen I have heard positive feedback about is www.attorneyguide.com.

Whatever you do don’t just take someone’s word for it. Other attorneys aren’t likely to tell you what works for them if they compete with you in any way.

On Google, lawyers.findlaw.com does a better job at coming up for local searches in many cases, while Lawyers.com comes up at the top nationwide; therefore being on both helps you cover your market. When someone searches for “lawyer”, “lawyers”, “attorney” or “attorneys” on Google they are likely to end up on Lawyers.com and then work their way down to the city and/or state in which they are looking for a lawyer.

Lawyers.com often comes up on the first page of Yahoo! for local searches.

There are other sites that come up on various searches, but these two have the most consistent results.
Another benefit of being on Lawyers.com is that when you list there you are also put on Martindale.com, Superpages, CitySearch, GoogleLocal, Business.com,CNN and a host of other search engines.

Another place to consider listing your web site is online yellow pages directories. Each market has directories that get significant usage from placement on search engines and/or brand recognition.

As mentioned in an earlier blog of mine-many online yellow pages are a waste of time and money, but consistently superpages.com, yellowpages.com and in some markets Dexknows.com receive significant traffic. The problem is that the yellow pages reps will try to sell you products they have developed that may work for landscape contractors, but are a waste of time and money for attorneys.

I was speaking with a Las Vegas attorney who had just committed to a $500/month “SEM” product with Dex Media. I told her the problem is that while a program like that may work for a landscape contractor it is not likely to work for an attorney.

I gained instant credibility with her when she said “They demonstrated their product with a landscape contractor-which is why I bought it.”

Go figure.

In the last post on search engine optimization and pay per click marketing, I discussed how these two strategies could be used to help you get your web site to the top of Google.

In this post we will be talking about another way to get your site to the top of Google: Google Local (or Google Maps) and listing your site on directories. Next week I will discuss the 4th way, and as a bonus, a 5th way we do not normally discuss.

 1. Google Local

Often, when a person goes to Google and does a search that includes local search terms like “Denver”, “Denver,CO ”Las Vegas”, or “Las Vegas,NV”, Google brings their “Local” or “Maps” results towards the top of the page. They used to bring back 2-4 results, but as of this writing they are bringing back around 10 results-and sometimes their are organic results above the Local results.

 For example, if you type in:

 lawyer las vegas,nv

You will see this screenshot: Google Search Results-’lawyer las vegas,nv’ 

You will see these firms at the top as part of the Google Local results, next to a map:

	Lionel Sawyer & Collins: Goldstein Mark H  - www.lionelsawyer.com - (702) 383-8888 - more
	Jones Vargas: Cohen Douglas M  - www.jonesvargas.com - (702) 862-3300 - more
	Kummer Kaempfer Bonner: Gronauer Robert J  - www.kkbrf.com - (702) 792-7000 - more
	Santor Driggs Walch  - www.santorodriggs.com - (702) 791-0308 - more
	Greenberg Traurig  - www.gtlaw.com - (702) 792-3773 - more
	Albright, Stoddard, Warnick & Albright  - albrightstoddard.com - (702) 384-7111 - more
	Lewis & Roca  - www.lrlaw.com - (702) 949-8200 - more
	Thorndal Armstrong Delk  - www.thorndal.com - (702) 366-0622 - more
	Mc Donald Carano Wilson  - www.mcdonaldcarano.com - (702) 873-4100 - more
	Dempsey Roberts & Smith Ltd  - vegaslawyer.net - (702) 388-1229 - more

Above this you may see sponsored results, and below you will see the “optimized”, “natural” or “organic” results. If you click on:

More results near Las Vegas, NV »

You will see a longer list, and you can browse the results.

As an attorney, how do you get your site listed in Google local?

Google populates their Local listings one of 2 ways:

1. Businesses submit their information for FREE-do a Google search for google local business center to find out how.
2. Google gets data from other directories that they trust.

For attorneys, Google only trusts one Legal Directory; Lawyers.com. As part of listing on Lawyers.com (the most used online lawyer directory according to ComScore, Hitwise and Nielson Ratings), you are automatically listed on Martindale.com, CitySearch, Superpages, Google Local and a bunch of others, with a link to your Lawyers.com listing. LexisNexis has made it easy for you to make sure you are listed on all of these online directories.

Attorneys and other businesses I have seen try to do it themselves have mixed results. Google is so busy that only about 50% of the time does self-submission work. Which means you may have to do it 2 or 3 times before it works.

How does Google determine who they show on the first page?

This is the million dollar question for which I have yet to get the answer.

I can tell you this: 

It is not ONLY geography based. While it looks like they may be bringing back the results closest to the center of the city that was specified in the search, this is only one of the factors, and cannot be depended upon. If you are in Henderson, NV, or on the outskirts of Las Vegas, you probably won’t be able to move up to the top of Google Local for Las Vegas searches.  However, if you are in very center of the city you are not guaranteed to appear at the top either.

The businesses that have optimized web sites seem to have the advantage in Google Local placement. Firms my company (LexisNexis) has optimized web sites for are consistently at the top of Google Local in addition to being at the top of the organic results for their search terms.

This leads me to believe that Google Local looks for some of the same things they look for in the organic results:

Quantity and quality of content.

Updated content.

Number of links to your web site.

How do you optimize your site to get to the top of Google?

See last weeks post on search engine optimization.

First of all:

Why get your website to the top of Google?

1. Local Searches on major search engines has been growing by 40% a year.
2. There were over 100,000 Nevada attorney or lawyer related searches last month.
3. Bottom Line: people are looking for attorneys online every day-if you are not there, your competition is.
4. Because of the habits of searchers-a recent study of online searchers showed:

• 23% only looked at the first few results
• 39% said they only look at the first page of results
• 19% looked through the first 2 pages
• 9% only went up to the first 3 pages
• 10% went more than 3 pages deep 

There are 4 ways to get your sit to the top of Google:

1-Pay-Per-Click marketing.
2-Search Engine Optimization
3-Google Local
4-Having your site listed on a site that is already there.

First of all; if anyone tells you that one of the above is the best, one of the worst, or the only way to get to the top of Google, then they are probably trying to sell you on their solution, rather than providing you with objective advice on what will work best to meet the needs of your firm.

The benefits and challenges of each:

1-Pay-Per-Click marketing.
The biggest benefit to Pay-Per-Click marketing is that you generate revenue for Google and potentially help drive up their stock price. So the strategy here is to buy their stock, and invest the rest of your money into thousands and thousands of dollars of Google Adwords advertising.

OK-that was a joke. I was just pandering to all of the sceptics out there.

The truth is that I have seen very poorly run Google Adwords campaigns, and I have seen very well run Google Adwords campaigns. I hate to say it, and I might lose my Google certification for stating this; but some of the worst Google Adwords campaigns I have seen have been the ones that people have had Google setup for them. I had a client who was spending about $800 a month on Google Adwords, but $200+ of that was for clicks that were not relevant to his business. He had relied on Google to set it up for him and they had not set it up in his best interest.

After my consultation we created a win-win-win situation: He spent more money on Google Adwords for more targeted and more profitable keyword terms, therefore Google increased their revenue, searchers found what they were looking for and the business increased profits.

The bottom line is that you have to know the ins and outs or pay someone who knows the ins and outs of Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search marketing or you will most likely waste much of your budget on paying for clicks that are not generating the most profit for your firm.

If you are going to learn the ins and outs you are going to have to be fairly technologically savvy, and spend 5-20 hours going through Google tutorials, and then learn from mistakes you will make in the first few months even after going through the tutorials. Of course you will have to do the same thing for other Pay-Per-Click programs as well. You will not have to re-learn everything for each Pay-Per-Click program, because they have their similarities. However, if you miss the differences it can cost you. What works on Google does not necessarily work the same way on Yahoo!.

When deciding on whether or not to become an expert on Pay-Per-Click yourself you have to ask yourself two questions:

1-How much is your time worth? You probably bill out at $300-$500+ and hour, and if you have a family or enjoy other activities like golfing or biking, then spending 5-20 hours learning about and 2-5 hours a month managing your Pay-Per-Click programs might be very costly.

That’s at the very least $8,700 a year in billable hours you spend on yourself managing your Pay-Per-Click program-and probably a lot more.

2-Who can you trust to manage your Pay-Per-Click program?
That’s another challenge to Pay-Per-Click marketing. While I do not believe having Google or Yahoo! setup your campaign is your best options, finding “some guy” to do it is probably not any better. LexisNexis/Martindale Hubbell offers this service to attorneys, Findlaw/Westlaw does not. There are a bunch of start ups and boutique firms that might also do a good job for you, but it is hard to find one that is dependable.

Make certain whoever you choose meets the following criteria:

a-They will let you have final word on the keyword phrases they use.
b-They tell you what search engines you will be on.
c-They allow you the choice of geo-targeting (IP targeted) and content targeting, but they do not force this on you (they better know what geo-targeted and content targeted means)
d-They give you monthly reports.
e-They are a legitimate company.
f-They have other customers (hopefully attorneys) they are providing this service for.
g-They limit the number of campaigns they will run in a certain area of practice in a certain geographic area.

2-Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is a service or a skill requiring a lot of expertise and a lot of time-not a product you can pay for.

Search Engine Optimization can raise the ranking of your site so that you appear higher in the “organic”, “natural” or “optimized” side of the search result on Google, Yahoo! and others.

These are the advantages to having a well optimized site:

• Being viewed as an ‘industry leader’ in the eyes of potential clients. A recent online study found that 76% of all on line searchers believe that sites with the highest search listings are the top companies in their field.
• Increased brand awareness and visibility. SEO can single-handedly make your law firm a Top brand name in your target markets
• 24/7 advertising. Web site is constantly advertising your brand 24/7, 365 days a year. Potential clients can find you anytime, anywhere
• Traffic Ceiling: unlike a PPC campaign that has a set amount to work with, traffic from an organic search ranking just keeps on a coming. There is no running out of cash to keep them flowing into the site. In the world of Pay-Per-Click Advertising you are only going to get as many eyes on the prize as you can afford to bring – organic search traffic has it’s doors open 24/7 and you will never hit the ‘ceiling’.
• More qualified traffic to your site-60-80% of the clicks on the first page are in the organic section of the page. If you are not there you are missing out on 60-80% of your potential prospects,

What are the challenges of optimizing your site?

The number one challenge is figuring out who you can trust to optimize your web site.

Option 1: Learn how to do it yourself.

NOT RECOMMENDED for attorneys. The attorney market is so competitive for Search Engine Optimization that you would have to spend hundreds of hours learning how to optimize your site and implementing the optimization-every year.

You would need to learn HTML, learn how to code the HTML on each page of your site differently, write gobs of content, change and add to the content everyday, make sure the content was properly linked-and these are just some of the things you would have to do to your website-not to mention building the site in the first place.

Then you would have to figure out how to build hundreds of links to your site from others.

You could learn how to do all of this, but it could be the equivalent of at least 1 full time semester in college.

Option 2: Hire someone to do it for you.

The biggest challenge in having someone do it for you is finding an SEO service provider you can trust.

An SEO service company pitch usually goes like this:

“Pay us X thousands of dollars and see what happens.”or

“Sign a long term contract with us for x thousands of dollars and see what happens.”

Neither of these approaches are advantageous for most attorneys-and few of them actually deliver the results you want.

The problem is that it is hard to hold an SEO firm accountable, because they cannot guarantee results. Most of them will not tell you what they are doing to your site every month. It would be nice if more of them were “transparent”.

In addition, there is not room for everyone on the first page of Google.

There is only one company I know of that are breaking the mold when it comes to “transparency and SEO“:

LexisNexis/Martindale Hubbell is actually offering an SEO service for attorneys that is as transparent as it can be. They provide the attorney with an estimate of the hours it will take to provide a successful SEO campaign based on the competitive landscape of the keywords. The attorney receives reports every month with reports services provided so that the attorney can hold them accountable. They also help you track leads so you can see how well your program is working for you by determining your return on investment and/or cost per customer acquisition.

No one else that I know of is providing that transparent of a service for attorneys.

In addition, after successful beta tests where they provided this service to just a few dozen firms across the country, they are now only offerring it to a few attorneys in each market, because there truly is limited space at the top of the search engines. If SEO is one of your marketing goals you better call one of your local LexisNexis/Martindale reps ASAP to to see if you qualify for this service.

Come back next week or call me to discuss other ways to move your firm to the top of Google: Dan Stratford at 702-966-9414.