The Truth About Lawyer Internet Marketing

Most Common Internet Marketing Mistakes:
Letting your yellow pages salesperson talk you out of a good plan and into a bad one.

Both of these cases studies are based on true stories I have heard from attorneys. Names and possibly genders are changed to protect their anonymity.

Case study one:
Tom is waiting for his yellow pages rep to meet with him to go over his yellow pages plan. He is prepared to cancel his whole plan because he remembers; “The calls are not coming in like they used to, and I am tired of paying $5,000 a month for a yellow pages ad because I am afraid that I will miss out on that one I case I would have received had I been in there. I am going to put this money towards something that will bring me more and better business or buy a Porsche and give up on this advertising thing.”

The yellow pages rep, Joe, arrives with Judy; his “Internet Specialist”.

They explain the “power of the Internet”. They say “Online yellow pages yada-yada, Google yada-yada this, Yahoo! yada-yada that, and yada-yada websites.”

Then they say:
“If you take advantage of our Internet marketing/SEM/SEO/PPC/online yellow pages program for $3,000 a month, we will lower the price of your print yellow pages to $3,000 a month.”

Tom thinks: “Wow, I only have to pay 20% more than I paid last year, and I will now have a website and an Internet marketing program from my trustworthy yellow pages salesperson and their brilliant Internet Marketing Guru! This is going to be my year!”

Stories like this have been going on for years nationwide, and they still happen every day across the country; especially to attorneys.

The next day, week or month Tom realizes he has just signed a 12 month contract he cannot possibly get out of, and he is worse off than he was the year before. He does not have a $3,000 Internet marketing program. He has a sub-par website, a sub-par Internet marketing program that is at best over priced, at worst completely useless and he still has a yellow pages ad that is generating fewer calls than ever.

He has invested more money, he is getting fewer clients and now there is less of a chance Tom is going to get a Porsche, a boat, or buy a house for a homeless family anytime soon. (You were thinking of doing the last one, right?)

Ouch!

Case study two, part 1:

Eva cancelled her “double-truck” (2 page) yellow pages ad last year when the yellow pages rep visited. The rep, Justin, called shortly before the close of the book and said; “Eva, we would like to invite you to get back in the book for half price. Would you be interested in that?”

Eva said “Certainly-come on out and let’s talk about it.”

Justin came out with his “Internet Guru” Judy. They offered the Yellow Pages ad at $7,500 (half the “rack rate”) and an online program for $2,500 a month.

Eva was mad. She said; “I only paid $10,000 for my double truck last year. You have two choices:
1-Leave now.
2-Give me my ad this year for $5,000 like you ‘implied’ (promised?) over the phone, and then leave.”

She got her ad for half price.

Case study 2, part 2:
Mike and Dan from the company that built her custom website the year before came in to visit with her a few days later and began to talk to her about the advantages of SEO.

They had a sound strategy that made sense:

1. They could show her examples of other law firm websites they had optimized in other competitive markets.
2. They offered conversion tracking-not just clicks and impression tracking.
3. They offered transparent reporting of the work being done on her website and monthly ranking reports.
4. They offered limited exclusivity, so she knew they would not be providing this service to all of her competitors.

She asked for references and she got them. Mike and Dan came back a week later and she signed up for the program.

Case Study 2, part 3:
8 months later the yellow pages came back with the tactic attempted in case study one. Eva said: “My SEO is working. I dominate Google and other search engines for my search terms and I am getting clients from the program every month. There is no way I am going to mess with that. Either renew my yellow pages at the same rate I had last year or take me out of the book.”

And so it goes…

“BSEO”:

BSEO obviously stands for “Bad Search Engine Optimization”, but some people seem to think it implies something else.

The major problem with “BSEO” is that it is difficult to define. “BSEO” programs are usually vague “BSEM” (Bad Search Engine Marketing) which include other programs like online yellow pages and pay-per click programs that provide very limited or no results in terms of ROI (Return On Investment). The Best case “BSEO” or “BSEM” scenario is a low priced “SEM” program that is very expensive due to the amount of wasted time and wasted money. Worst case scenario is a long contract costing a LOT of money that wastes even more time and more money.

I have to give credit to LexisNexis Territory manager Mike Mahoney, who came up with the term “BSEO” after he heard me describe a Seattle yellow pages “SEO” program.

Something different: Transparent SEO:Transparent SEO is an integrity based SEO service. It is a service where the SEO expert informs you along every step of the way as to what you are paying for, and what you are getting in the way of service and results. They do not make you sign any long term contracts (more than a year), nor do they ask for huge sums of money up front. You will own the content that you are paying to have developed for you, and you own your optimized site. This minimizes your risk and builds continued trust between you and your outsourced SEO expert that you can keep, promote or fire at any time. In this partnership environment the SEO expert strives to continually earn your business by under promising and over delivering results.

How to detect “BSEO”

1)      Your “SEO expert” implies a lot, but never says anything definitively. For example; “See all of our customers who are near the top of Google? Sign here, pay us only $500 a month and we will build YOU a website.!”

Questions to ask that will thwart their evil plan:

a.      “Are you saying that for $500 a month I will experience the same results your other customers will experience for my competitive keywords like (for example) ‘injury attorney seattle’?”

b.      “I see you have a few customers whose sites are well optimized-how many firms do you limit your services to in a given geographic area for specific areas of practice?”

c.      Can you put any of this in writing?

2)      Your “SEO expert” gives you a quote for a service that includes some sort of landing page, and/or a Pay-Per-Click program combined with an SEO program.

Questions to ask that will expose their elusions:

a.      How much of my money will go towards Pay-Per-Click vs. SEO?

b.      What specific services do you provide on a regular basis that will help my site rise to the top of organic search results?

c.      Do you have examples of other attorneys in my area of practice in a comparable market that you have successfully optimized sites for? 

More on this in my next post. In the meantime, for a free, comprehensive and honest Internet marketing analysis call me on my cell anytime at 206-501-4569.