AttorneySync Blog

You Might Be Addicted To Rankings

Do you find yourself constantly checking Google to see where your website comes up? Are you confused because you rank #1 for your “favorite term” and yet aren’t getting new clients from your website? Are you paying your SEO dealer thousands of dollars each month because he promised to get you to be number one for the keyword “(insert your city) (insert your practice area) lawyer?”

If this sounds like you, you might be a rank addict. Luckily, now there’s a place for you to get help.

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. You see folks, “rankings” alone are not the answer to your law firm marketing prayers. You could rank #1 on Google for a variety terms that a) no one is searching for; or b) aren’t relevant enough to bring new clients to your law firm. Either way, your addiction to rankings is costing you thousands of dollars and not generating any new clients.

If you’re a rank addict, it’s probably not entirely your fault. On every street corner of the internet, stands a search engine marketing or SEO dealer waiting to get you hooked. They say things like, “Get ranked #1 on google in 48 hours guaranteed!” Or, “Generate thousands of new visitors to your website overnight!” Or, “Learn the secret to cracking the google code!”

Before you know it, one of these SEO dealers has you hooked on the rank crack and you’re in front of your computer typing in some keyword to find your web site.

Welcome To Rankings Anonymous

Repeat after me, Hi, my name is (insert your name) and I have a ranking problem. You see, the key to successfully generating new clients from the internet is not about being number one for any particular keyword. Sure, ranking is part of the picture, but ranking alone should not be your main concern.

The key to getting off the rank crack is to focus on the business your search investments bring to your law firm. Like every other law firm marketing or advertising strategy out there, you need to measure your return on investment. How much money did I put in, and how much money in new clients did it generate? While the results of search engine optimization strategies may take weeks to months to realize, in the end they have to generate new clients or they just aren’t worth it.

Follow these 3 simple rules and you will be free from your rank crack addiction in no time:

1. Ask your SEO company how they’re going to generate new clients. If they’re selling rankings, turn around and walk away immediately.

2. Make sure you have a system in place to measure the performance of your SEO efforts from visitor traffic all the way to new clients.

3. Give your SEO company no more that 6 months to prove that it can generate a positive return on the money you spend on SEO services.

Follow these simple rules and you’ll be off the rank crack in no time!

Free Guide: Hiring A Law Firm SEO Consultant Are you looking to increase your visibility online but are feeling overwhelmed by the number of service professionals promising the world to you? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide On Hiring A Law Firm SEO Consultant.

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There is a terrific urban legend about the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes.  In 1519, Cortes landed on the shores of the Yucatan looking to conquer the Aztecs and seize their riches.

As the legend goes, Cortes convinced 500 men and 11 ships to join him on his conquest.  Cortes knew that he had some distinct disadvantages.  He was far outnumbered and in a foreign land, “home court” for his enemy.  The Aztecs had survived and flourished for nearly six centuries before his arrival.  This was a monumental task for Cortes and his men.

As his soldiers rested, preparing for battle the next day, Cortes sent a few men to burn all 11 ships they had traveled in.  When the men awoke with their ships on fire, Cortes explained to his men “If we are going home, we are going home in their ships.”

With their backs against the wall, no means of escape, and no fall back position, Cortes and his men conquered the Aztecs.  The choices were simple, succeed or die.

The idea of “burning the ships” applies to many aspects of running a firm or business.  It’s easy to keep a safety valve instead of taking the risk to push through.

That’s not to say that it isn’t important to have a plan and a vision.  However, often what winds up happening is that we refuse to take much of a risk.  We stick with what we know and what is comfortable.  If we know that our ships are still out there waiting for us, when things get tough we instinctively head for them so we can escape. It’s just human nature.

I speak with lawyers every day that want to find new ways of marketing and advertising their firm, but without the risk or commitment.  Like any other aspect of running a law firm, we must take smart chances, try things out, and give them the focus, attention, and motivation they need to succeed.  Only then can we judge the merits of the directions we choose.

5 Lawyer Marketing Mistakes To Avoid Want to learn 5 of the most common mistakes when marketing your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: 5 Lawyer Marketing Mistakes To Avoid.

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AttorneySync has a brand new whitepaper we are releasing today. “5 Ways to Improve Your Return on Legal Advertising“.

Are you are currently spending money on legal advertising, attempting to grow your practice?  If so, download this free guide for some helpful tips on maximizing the return on your legal advertising investment.

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Anchor Text Definition from Wikipedia:

“The anchor text, link label or link title is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words contained in the Anchor text can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines.”

Anchor text is important for two reasons.

1. It helps with the usability of your site. Anchor text lets someone know what to expect when they click on the link.  For example, it is far less helpful to create a link to my site that says Click here than it is to say Learn more about Lawyer Marketing.  Both link to the same page but the latter gives you information about what you will find when you click the link.

2. Helps the search engines to understand what your page is about. In the world of search engines, links are the currency.  When links point back to your website and it’s pages, this tells the search engines that you matter.  The anchor text of those links tell the search engines what you “matter about”.  By getting external links to your site with specific words or phrases, the search engines will rank you higher for those words or phrases when a search is performed.  The number of links you would need to get returned in the results varies depending on how competitive that word or phrase is.

Photo by Eqqman

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Attorney Pay Per Click (PPC) search engine advertising is the advertising model in which the advertising attorney pays the ad host when their ad is clicked.  The two most prominent types of PPC advertising include bid-based and fixed price. Under the bid-based model, attorney-advertisers bid on selected relevant keywords. Attorneys can target their advertising campaigns with practice and geographic specific terms.  Under a fixed price model, the advertising host charges a fixed price per click rather than a bidding system. PPC ads are displayed when a keyword query matches an advertiser’s selected keyword. PPC advertisements are typically referred to as sponsored links or ads, and appear next to or above organic results.

Typically, the success of PPC attorney advertising is primarily dependent on click through rate of the ad, along with various other factors.

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We have lawyers ask us all the time about our various online marketing and attorney advertising methods.  One of the great things about the web is the abundance of free information that’s out there.  Today I have decided to compile a list of great blogs for you to check out if you would like to learn more about internet marketing and advertising.  I personally follow each of these blogs myself.   I have broken them down by more specific categories.

Search Engine Optimization – SEO

www.seomoz.org/blog

www.seobook.com/blog

Inbound Internet Marketing

blog.hubspot.com

sethgodin.typepad.com

Legal Marketing

blog.larrybodine.com

www.geeklawblog.com

kevin.lexblog.com

Web Analytics

www.kaushik.net/avinash/

Paid Search – PPC

www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/

Please feel free to leave comments linking to other blogs that you have found helpful.

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I often hear people use the terms lawyer marketing and lawyer advertising interchangeably.  They are referred to as if they mean the exact same thing.

The truth is that they are different and should be approached differently as such.

I have defined each in my own words below:

Lawyer Advertising:

This includes all ways in which you spend money to persuade and attract new clients.  In short, advertising=spending money for branding and new client acquisition.

Lawyer Marketing:

While lawyer marketing can include advertising, it is a much bigger concept.  Lawyer marketing involves all of the ways in which your firm interacts with people.  This includes customers, partners, employees, etc.  Marketing is everything from the logo on the stationary, the way your receptionist answers the phone, the way you handle a client, and the culture in the office of your firm.

Make sure when you are reviewing your firm’s marketing plan, you don’t just focus on the advertising aspect.  Look at your marketing as a whole, bigger than just the advertising part.

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Click-through rate or CTR is a core metric of your online attorney advertising campaign. CTR is calculated by dividing the number of users who clicked on your advertisement by the number of times the ad was delivered (which are called impressions).

For example, if your google adwords ad was delivered 100 times (impressions delivered) and one person clicked on it (clicks recorded), then the CTR would be 1 percent. Click-through rates are a key indicator of the quality of your attorney advertising campaign.  Since search engines are paid each time your pay-per-click ad is clicked, search engines like google, reward ads that have higher CTR with a better quality score.  Higher quality scores mean discounts on the cost you pay for each click.

While many online advertisers have seen CTR fall over time, highly-targeted ads with optimized adcopy have maintained strong CTR. In somey cases, a 2% clickthrough rate would be considered very successful.

CTR is most commonly defined as number of clicks divided by number of impressions and generally not in terms of number of clicks divided by the number of persons who clicked. This is an important distinction. As a person clicks a single advertisement multiple times, the CTR increases using the latter definition, whereas the CTR doesn’t change using the former definition.

Find out how our accountability-based online attorney advertising service can generate clients for your firm.

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One of the wonderful things about advertising online is the measurability of your attorney advertising efforts.  The web provides the ability for instant, measurable feedback.

With offline media campaigns, obtaining feedback for attorney advertising regarding what works and what doesn’t requires waiting and proper systems to measure results.  For instance, if you launch a series of television commercials, radio spots, yellowbook ads, or newspaper ads you must wait until the full run of those ads is complete to begin measuring your efforts.  All of your money has already been invested regardless of the outcome or performance of the ads.  In addition, you must set up some sort of process to make sure you can identify calls or inquiries from each ad.  This can be done by using a unique telephone number for each ad, by asking each caller where they heard about you, by sending them to a unique website url, etc.  I am not implying this media does not work or won’t bring in business, I am simply discussing the complexities of measuring these efforts correctly to see if they are working for you.

The beauty of online advertising is that with free analytics tools such as Google Analytics, you can see how people are finding you, where they are coming from, and what advertising is working.  It provides transparency and the ability to measure results more easily as well as more quickly.

Unfortunately, many attorneys are not measuring their efforts in either case.  They are investing money into what they “feel” is working, rather than taking a scientific and measured approach.

What should I measure to assess my attorney advertising efforts?

The key metric to measure is Return on Investment or ROI.

Advertising is an investment.  If you are bringing in more money than you are spending, your advertising dollars are working.  If not, it doesn’t matter how “cheap” the service is, you might be losing money more slowly but you’re still losing money.  It is critical that you understand what your ROI is for every campaign you are spending money on.  Going by “gut feeling” will lose you money.

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(11) Blog vs. (10) Marketing Consultants

So it all comes down to this.  A ten seed versus an eleven seed, who would have guessed?  Thanks to all who participated.

(11) Blog

In a shocking upset, law firm blogs has claimed victory over attorney referrals.  I myself am surprised to see blogs in the final.  Perhaps I shouldn’t be, considering most of our voters are likely lawyer/marketer blogger types.  Nonetheless, our experience supports the results of the vote.  Our blog is the backbone of our online presence.  It provides us with a platform to express our lawyer marketing philosophy.  It allows us to interact with our audience and develop professional relationships.  It has been a major source of new business for our company.

vs.

(10) Marketing Consultants

Marketing consultants’ appearance in the final comes as much less of a surprise.  Most lawyers simply don’t have time to manage comprehensive attorney advertising and marketing campaigns.  When incentives are aligned, law firm marketing consultants are worth their weight in gold.  The bottom line is that marketing consultants (and any marketing/advertising effort) should bring in more money than they cost.

Attorney advertising and marketing efforts are investments.  Just like stocks, real estate, and business investments, good advertising and marketing investments must make money.  If you’re spending more on any form of advertising or marketing than that medium is bringing in, cut it loose.

My Prediction: Marketing Consultants to take the title.

VOTE NOW!

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