Come join us for a 1 hour educational session on search engine marketing presented by Dan Stratford
Time: 3pm
Location:
Willows at The Boise Centre on the Grove
850 W. Front St.
Boise, ID 83702
Phone: (208) 336-8900
Common Internet Marketing Mistakes Attorneys Make When Building a Website
As I have stated many times before in this blog, in my conversations and in my seminars; there are more bad Internet marketing programs available for attorneys than there are good ones.
One of the most common mistakes I see them make is in the website building process.
MOST attorneys believe they need to have a website. So the first thing they do is build a website or hire someone to build it for them.
Example One: The attorney or law firm may decide to choose to “save money” by building a site themselves or having it done the “cheapest” way possible.
Example Two: The attorney may decide that they are willing to spend whatever it takes to have a beautiful site designed by a competent and creative web designer.
Which one of these attorneys is making the biggest mistake?
Answer: With this limited information we cannot really know which attorney or law firm is making the biggest mistake, but it seems they are both making the same mistake:
They may have both made the mistake of building a website as their first step to improving their web presence, when there are many other things they should have considered first.
Before building a website you need to ask yourself some key questions:
What do you expect from your website presence?
If you want to get new customers from your website, then you need to consider search engine marketing as an option. More people use a search engine like Google, Yahoo! or MSN to find an attorney than the yellow pages. (according to TMP Marketing). You may also want to consider local directories like yellowpages.com, dexknows.com, or vertical directories like lawyers.com, martindale.com and others.
If you simply want someone to find your site when they have been referred to you then you do not need to spend a lot of money on marketing your website.
However, in both cases you need to invest wisely in a website that will meet the following minimum criteria.
A: Represent your firm well online. More people will see your site than see your office. If you have a clean, professional office that puts a good foot forward for your firm, then you should also have a website that is clean, professional and content rich (like you!).
If you skimp on a website with an ugly template or fail to put good content on your site you may hurt your firm’s reputation rather than help it, and you may even lose a referral that checked out one of your competitor’s websites. When you are being compared online your referrals may feel your competition is better qualified to handle their legal needs.
I met one firm who apologized for their site when they got a referral call from someone who began the conversation; “I was looking at your website…”
As you can tell by my blog I am not a website designer; I am a search engine marketing expert. If you came here for some honest information about Internet marketing you have come to the right place, but if you want a website designed for your firm I would have to recommend an expert that works for me to do it for you.
Conversely; most web designers are not up to speed on the latest search engine optimization (SEO) best practices.
B: Your site needs to be search engine friendly.
You may not need an extensive SEO program to meet your needs, but if your website is not search engine friendly then your prospects or referrals may not even be able to find your site when they look you up by name in your city. Furthermore, if your site is built correctly from the start, then driving your site to the top of search engines like Google is going to be a lot easier, and you might even get up there for specific searches with very little additional effort.
I think it is worth repeating: most website designers are not up to speed on the latest search engine optimization (SEO) best practices. If it was my firm, and I was looking to build a website I would first begin looking for an SEO specialist. They can help you find a web designer that will build a site with search engines in mind, or they can manage the process for you so that your web designer builds your site correctly from the start.
Come back soon to learn how to find the answers to the questions below-and do not hesitate to call me at 720-985-7945 for a free consultation.
For what types of searches do you want your site to appear on Google and other search engines?
How competitive is your market?
Who are your competitors and what do their websites look like?
What is your budget for your website?
What should your budget for your website be?
How do you select a website designer?
How will you track the success of your web presence?
How much should you invest in an Internet marketing program?
Should you build your site yourself?
By the time you read this you may have read the books, blogs, or listened to someone you trust explain how to get your site content “optimized”. You researched your search terms (“long tail”, “short tail”, “no tail”)You update your site more than your competition (you hope). You know about all of the acronyms; “URL”, “SEO”, “SEM”, “PPC”, “SERP”, “CPC”, “CTR”, “ROI”, “CPA”, etc.
Now what?
Just wait?
No.
If you haven’t done so already, you need to get the highest quantity and quality of links to your site. How many? How high of quality?
How long is a string?(It’s all relative)
If you have a better website than your competitors, and better and/or higher quality links to a website that is more consistently updated than your competitors, you may beat them to the top of Google.
Could I BE more ambiguous? Short of stealing the “secret sauce” from Google, this is about as specific as it gets.
Back to links:
How do you get links?
Links can be a lot of work. Finding someone who has successfully optimized other law firm websites could save you a lot of time, but make sure they have a track record of SEO work they can show you.
Think about Search Engine Optimization this way: no matter how good you are, if you are not getting yourself out on the Internet letting everyone know what you are doing, what your expertise is, how experienced you are and what makes you the right choice for your prospects-and on a regular basis, no one searching online for a lawyer will be able to find you.
Many attorneys want to get to the point where they can just practice law. They want the phone to ring with the best cases calling from referrals, or at least have the choice of operating this way once they have grown to the level they are comfortable with. Your referrals “Google” you by name, and as long as your site represents you well and is decently designed you should come up at the top of Google by name. Even the referral based firms need to remember that more people will see their website than see their offices, so they need to try to keep their website up to date and at a level that does not increase the risk of you losing referrals.
I was at a firm a few months ago that said every time the phone rang from a referral that said “I was looking at your website…” the attorneys cringed because as good as they were, their website looked very “last century”. They did not want to invest in optimization for advertising purposes, but they needed to be represented online at least as well as they were at their office location and through the words of others who were referring them business. A firm like this can get a fully customized website with RSS feeds, and add flash and video for a total cost of between $5K and $15K-with no need for significant time or money spent on Search Engine Optimization.
If you aren’t already famous, but think that you have something to offer, and you need more quality clients, then you need to treat the Internet like another community that you are reaching out to and getting to know. You need to “take Google out to lunch” and discover what they want from you for you to be considered an authority in your field and recommend you to the people who come to their site looking for an attorney like you.
You need to get up to date information about you and your firm online regularly. Taking a doctor out to lunch once every two years is not going to work as well as taking them out once a month or once a week.
How do you do that? The short answer is through blogs, press releases, forum postings, videos, emails and of course your website or websites.
If networking is not your strong suit, you might consider developing that skill or hiring a PR or sales/marketing specialist to do it for you. If you are not capable of implementing the strategies required to earn Google’s respect and have them begin to refer you business, and you do not want to spend your time learning how to be a website developer and optimization specialist, then you need to hire someone you can trust to do it for you.
How do you find someone to do it for you?
Check out my previous post on search engine optimization.
Of course, if you really wanted to be thorough, you could take the time to put together a comprehensive RFP (request for proposal) and ask 2-3 reputable SEO service providers to look at it, put together a proposal and present it to you.
The problem is that you are not likely to be an Internet marketing expert (if you are, that’s still only half the battle). Every SEO service provider has a story as to why you should hire them and not the other guy. Call me at 720-985-7945 and I will help you put an RFP together for free, as long as you let LexisNexis be one of the respondants to your RFP.
Meanwhile here is a link to an RFP outline you might consider using- rfp-outline.doc
On two occasions in the last two weeks someone has told me that one of my SEO competitors is “guaranteeing” 1st page placement or they will give them their SEO investment money back.
I have dismissed it, poo-poo’d it or avoided it, because it is such a ridiculous idea-NOT because I think it has any legitimacy. It is a tool used by companies who have inexperienced “Internet Marketing Consultants” who have to have a gimmick to entice businesses to spend money with them. I have heard of other companies providing ”bogus” clicks that they were driving to their customer’s website as part of a “guarantee.” Since then, any time I hear the word “guarantee” and search engine marketing in the same breath I assume 2 things:
1-The guarantee is only that the guarantors will not fail to meet the terms and conditions of their guarantee.
2-It could be interpreted as “bogus” by an educated observer.
What is bogus?
bo·gus
–adjective 1. not genuine; counterfeit; spurious; sham.
Here are the details of Network Solutions guarantee, taken from their website:
It is boldly titled:
“Top 10 Search Results Guarantee”
Part one is reasonable:
“Any Web site that is all Flash, contains frames/layers or adult content is not eligible for the guarantee. Guarantees may be voided for, among other reasons, Web sites that have downtime for one day or more, Web sites that have been altered after they have been optimized by Network Solutions, Web sites that are cloned, or that do not use 301 for redirects.”
This might be considered Reasonable:
“If customers do not respond to communications from Network Solutions for more than 60 days, the optimization project may be considered “abandoned” and payment will be surrendered in full.”
This is where it gets fishy:
“For optimization packages (”Top 10 Search Results service”), Network Solutions guarantees a minimum number of top ten listings in one or more of 12 search engines within 10 months from completion date. Most engines will index your site in about three (3) months, but it takes time to gain the popularity and ranking needed to compete using competitive phrases. Network Solutions will only submit keywords to search engines in the United States. The search engines included are: AOL®, AlltheWeb®, AltaVista™, Ask.com ® (formerly known as AskJeeves.com®), Google®, Hotbot®, Looksmart®, Lycos®, MSN®, Netscape®, and Yahoo!®. The minimum number of top ten listings guaranteed is 5 for the 20 keyword phrase package, 10 for the 30 keyword phrase package and 20 for the 50 keyword phrase package. There is no guarantee for the 10 keyword package. The guarantee is a full money back guarantee, subject to these and the other terms and conditions of our Services Agreement, provided at the 10 month mark from date of completion if results are not obtained.”
Why is this fishy?
In the best case scenario you will get 20 keywords out of 50 in the top 10 search results. That sounds reasonable, right? 40% of YOUR keywords in the top 10 of the search engines?
Not so fast-it is 20 placements out of 12 search engines. Not so fast-it is 20 placements out of 12 search engines. This means only 20 keywords out of 6oo opportunities have to be on the first page of a search engine. That is only 3.3% of your keywords. It could be your lowest 2 (least competitive) out your 50 keywords on the first page of each search engine to meet their guarantee-and they have 10 months to do it!
Like many performance statistics in the business world, you are likely to get 80% of your performance results from the top 20% of your performers, and 90% from your top 10%. Target keywords are no exception.
You would likely get 90% of the traffic to your site from your top 10% most searched keywords if you were ranked number one for each of your keywords.
The point is that you have NO guarantee of an even moderately successful campaign from this example of a “guarantee”.
(back to the guarantee)
This is Reasonable:
”In no event will Network Solutions be liable to you for any lost profits, lost savings, or other incidental or consequential damages arising from the optimizations services provided.
This service(s) does not guarantee any sales or traffic to your Web site. Traffic and sales depend upon the demand for your particular product or service, the design and layout of your Web site, and many other factors that are beyond the control of Network Solutions.
This is Reasonable, but a cost that a good SEO specialist could include as part of your investment…
“Network Solutions services do not include the paid submission fees that some engines charge for inclusion. Network Solutions is not affiliated with these submission services in any way. You may opt to pay these fees directly to the search engine for inclusion. Additional fees may apply for changes, modifications, updates, and optimization alterations that exceed the scope of these optimization services.”
So is this a “bogus” guarantee? Based on my analysis and these dictionary.com definitions, well, I will leave that up to you to decide…
bo·gus
–adjective 1. not genuine; counterfeit; spurious; sham.
coun·ter·feit
–adjective 1. made in imitation so as to be passed off fraudulently or deceptively as genuine; not genuine; forged: counterfeit dollar bills.
spu·ri·ous
–adjective 1. not genuine, authentic, or true; not from the claimed, pretended,or proper source; counterfeit
sham
–noun 1. something that is not what it purports to be; a spurious imitation; fraud or hoax.
coun·ter·feit
–adjective 1. made in imitation so as to be passed off fraudulently or deceptively as genuine; not genuine; forged: counterfeit dollar bills.
Here is the guarantee without my interjections…
“Top 10 Search Results Guarantee
Any Web site that is all Flash, contains frames/layers or adult content is not eligible for the guarantee. Guarantees may be voided for, among other reasons, Web sites that have downtime for one day or more, Web sites that have been altered after they have been optimized by Network Solutions, Web sites that are cloned, or that do not use 301 for redirects.
If customers do not respond to communications from Network Solutions for more than 60 days, the optimization project may be considered “abandoned” and payment will be surrendered in full.
For optimization packages (”Top 10 Search Results service”), Network Solutions guarantees a minimum number of top ten listings in one or more of 12 search engines within 10 months from completion date. Most engines will index your site in about three (3) months, but it takes time to gain the popularity and ranking needed to compete using competitive phrases. Network Solutions will only submit keywords to search engines in the United States. The search engines included are: AOL®, AlltheWeb®, AltaVista™, Ask.com ® (formerly known as AskJeeves.com®), Google®, Hotbot®, Looksmart®, Lycos®, MSN®, Netscape®, and Yahoo!®. The minimum number of top ten listings guaranteed is 5 for the 20 keyword phrase package, 10 for the 30 keyword phrase package and 20 for the 50 keyword phrase package. There is no guarantee for the 10 keyword package. The guarantee is a full money back guarantee, subject to these and the other terms and conditions of our Services Agreement, provided at the 10 month mark from date of completion if results are not obtained. In no event will Network Solutions be liable to you for any lost profits, lost savings, or other incidental or consequential damages arising from the optimizations services provided.
This service(s) does not guarantee any sales or traffic to your Web site. Traffic and sales depend upon the demand for your particular product or service, the design and layout of your Web site, and many other factors that are beyond the control of Network Solutions.
Network Solutions services do not include the paid submission fees that some engines charge for inclusion. Network Solutions is not affiliated with these submission services in any way. You may opt to pay these fees directly to the search engine for inclusion. Additional fees may apply for changes, modifications, updates, and optimization alterations that exceed the scope of these optimization services.”
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 - |
 |
Jones Vargas: Cohen Douglas M - www.jonesvargas.com - |
 |
Kummer Kaempfer Bonner: Gronauer Robert J - www.kkbrf.com - |
 |
Santor Driggs Walch - www.santorodriggs.com - |
 |
Greenberg Traurig - www.gtlaw.com - |
 |
Albright, Stoddard, Warnick & Albright - albrightstoddard.com - |
 |
Lewis & Roca - www.lrlaw.com - |
 |
Thorndal Armstrong Delk - www.thorndal.com - |
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Mc Donald Carano Wilson - www.mcdonaldcarano.com - |
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Dempsey Roberts & Smith Ltd - vegaslawyer.net - |
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:
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.
I think it is appropriate to begin this blog dedicated to the Truth About Lawyer Internet Marketing discussing the effectiveness of blogs.
I am obviously a believer of blogs and the value of blogs to the readers and writers of them, but they are not THE answer for attorneys.
Hold on a minute:
Blog writing tip #1:
DON’T write your blog online. Write it in another program like Word or a text document. When you are done, login to your blog and then copy and paste it as a new post. If you have ever gone through writing a lot of content in a blog, email or website only to lose your connection AND your content you will know why I am suggesting this.
In fact, I switched to a Word document after I wrote the second sentence in this post, after remembering the potential pain of not doing so.
Back to this post:
While a blog can be a good way to generate traffic to your website, it is better utilized as a means for you to engage with your potential prospects and current customers with current advice on topics they may be interested in like new tax laws, new medical malpractice issues and other current events.
In fact, one of the great things about blogs is that the search engines love them, and you can easily update them to reflect news events like the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada Hepatitis and HIV scare that is going on right now.
Of course, this blog is competing against a host of other blogs and press release organizations, and I would be surprised if just by posting to this blog I could appear at the top of Google for the search: Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada.
Some of you may have heard that blogging will bring your website to the top of Google or Yahoo!, and that you just need to “blog, blog and blog more”-link to your site and watch it rise to the top.
This may work in less competitive markets for less competitive keywords (like “rodent racing”, as Peter Kent always says), but it is not sufficient for a competitive market like Real Estate, Insurance, and of course; the highly competitive attorney market.
The fact is that you must generate tens, hundreds or even thousands of links to your site if you are going to win the battle to get to the top of Yahoo! or Google for search terms like ‘injury lawyer las vegas’.
One quality link from your blog will not do the trick.
The moral of the story is; keep on blogging if you want to, but don’t expect miracle placement for your website as a result.
There are other things you can do that will generate higher rankings on Google and Yahoo! that are much more efficient.
What can you do to get your site to the top of Google?
THAT is the question.
Getting an honest answer to it can be very tricky.
Until now.
You can ask me through the form on this blog, wait until my next post, or call me at 702-996-9414 to schedule a free Internet marketing consultation for your firm.
Have fun blogging!