The Truth About Lawyer Internet Marketing

Before the Internet, marketing for law firms was so much simpler. Certainly there are more opportunities now that the Internet is such a big part of our lives. However, instead of a handful of choices of marketing programs available, an attorney has dozens or even hundreds-depending on how you slice it! What makes this even more challenging is that most of the Internet marketing programs are sub-par at best and scams at worst. No wonder most law firm marketing programs are bad, and most attorneys are still frustrated with the whole Internet marketing world.

So in this post, I will highlight what I have seen first hand to be some of the biggest mistakes Law Firms made in 2009. Don’t worry-my next post will be more positive. It will be all about what strategies you should be implementing in 2010!

Here are the mistakes I saw-did you make any of them?

Local Internet marketing mistakes:

• Picking the wrong local Internet marketing program (most of them are bad, but a few are worthwhile and great opportunities you are probably missing)
• NOT localizing their SEO efforts, for example: optimizing for “auto accident attorney” instead of “Atlanta auto accident attorney“

Just Do It…or don’t!

• Just doing “something”
• Just doing “nothing” (at least if you do “something” and fail, you have the opportunity to learn from it)
• Just putting “anyone” in charge of Internet marketing for your company
• Putting “no one” in charge of Internet marketing for your company
• Just throwing a bunch of links in a blog post to your website, without thinking about potential negative ramifications or how you should structure the links
• NOT putting links from your blog posts to your website

Embracing “absolutes”:

• Deciding SEO was the only way to go
• Deciding SEO was dead
• Deciding Pay Per Click marketing was dead
• Deciding social media was the only way to go
• Deciding that blogging for business was a waste of time
• Deciding a blog was the major or “only” key to success
• Deciding Internet marketing was a waste of time
• Deciding they did not need a website
• Deciding Social Media Marketing was a waste of time
• Utilizing the wrong solution provider:
• Trusting a big company because they are big
• Letting Google manage a PPC program
• Buying a search engine marketing program from a yellow pages company

Fire…Aim…Ready!!!
(Strategies implemented before goals were set and a strategy for reaching those goals was mapped out)

• Implementing an Internet marketing strategy and then asking good questions
• NOT analyzing the competitive landscape before or during the development of an Internet marketing strategy
• Buying the wrong website
• Signing up for a Google Adwords program without consulting an expert
• Building a website and then asking the question “What do we want to do with our website”
• Building a website and then asking the question “How are we going to get people to our website”
• Implementing a social media marketing strategy
• Spending too little
• Spending too much

Opportunities Missed
(Due to perceived “cost”, laziness, busyness, or unwillingness to look at options)

• Not implementing a social media strategy
• Thinking that implementing a social media strategy was the answer
• Not considering search engine optimization
• Not considering pay per click marketing
• Not building a website
• Not utilizing marketing automation tools
• Not utilizing Internet analytics or website analytics tools

Lack of Research

• Asking the wrong questions
• NOT contacting Dan Stratford, Peter Kent, or someone else who is as honest and straightforward as he and I are.

For help on developing the right strategy for your firm, you can call Dan at 303-952-0844 anytime

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?

I have been traveling around the western United States since November giving 60-90 minute seminars on “SEM for Attorneys”. So far we have been in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Pasadena, San Diego, Spokane, Boise, Salt Lake City, and Denver. Many of these are CLE certified. I have a few more I am doing this month-and more in the months to come. Next Tuesday I will be in Salt Lake City, and on the 26th I will be in Long Beach California. I have more scheduled in February and March.

The feedback from law firms has been very positive:

“Very informative.”

“I appreciated the fact that it was not a sales pitch, but truly a learning experience.”

“Finally! I have needed to learn about this for a long time time!”

If you are interested in attending one of these coming up, or if you would like me to come to your area, please comment on this blog and I will respond.

Here is an outline of what we cover:

• What is Search Engine Marketing (“SEM”)?
• Key SEM Definitions
• Keyword Research
• PPC Best Practices (Pay-Per-Click)
• SEO Best Practices (Search Engine Optimization)
  • Site Development and Updating
  • Link Building Opportunities
  • Social Networking
• Best Practices in Measurement
• SEM-Do it Yourself or Outsource?
• How do you find someone to implement and manage a successful SEM program?
• Free Tools
• Q&A

I can doing over a lunch, or even in the evening.

It’s a great way to start off 2009!

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?

1. Internal links
   • Link content within your site to other pages within your site-in ways that make sense.
   • Example: Link the words “divorce lawyer” to the page on your site that is about “divorce lawyer”, link the word “links” too your page about links.
   • Level of difficulty-low
   • Time consuming? Yes, but still easy
   • Beneficial? Yes
2. Link your site to other sites. This is very easy-and easy usually means you will not get much SEO value from it. However, more Internet users may appreciate useful and relevant links and come back to your site after realizing you give them valuable information.
   • Level of difficulty-very easy.
   • Beneficial-possibly a little.
3. Reciprocal links:
   Linking to someone else’s site in exchange for their site linking to yours.
   • For a while this was the “game” everyone played.
   • This is still a good way to get links to and from relevant sites.
   • Get links from the highest ranked most relevant sites you can:
   • The bar, other attorneys you would like to recommend, and who would like to recommend you.
   • Level of difficulty-medium to hard
   • Beneficial? A little bit.
   • Biggest problem with this type of linking-lots of time to get lots of them with minimal value.
4. “Narcissistic” links, or one-way links: links that are all to, for and “about” you.
   • Links from legal sites-but you don’t link to them
   • Links from blogs
   • May be easy to get from your own blogs or friends
   • Very time consuming
   • High time to link ratio
   • Can be a very high quality link.
5. Links from press releases about you or your area of law
   • Not too hard to get
   • Take time
   • Take money
   • Need to be done right to achieve value
   • If they are not done right they could be a waste of time and/or money
6. Links from non-news articles about you and/or your area of law
7. Links from forums
   Examples: Lawyers.com blogs and forums
8. Links from directories
9. Social Networking
   Setting up profiles about you and/or your firm can be a great way to improve your web presence and get links.
   • Linked In
   • Facebook
   • MySpace

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

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.

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.”

“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.

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.

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.