Legal Marketing Blog

Yesterday, Google+ launched its business pages, open to all companies. Now we will see a flood of these pages showing up all over the social media platform, including Page 1 Solutions’ business page. (Add us to your circles.) It’s easy to set up your own company page and start interacting with your clients.

For more information, please read on http://www.page1solutions.com/page-1-blog/google-business-pages-have-finally-arrived.html

Page 1 Solutions would like to highlight one of our attorney clients this week—The Law Offices of Mel Coxwell. If you are seeking counsel in the areas of family law, criminal defense or civil litigation and live in Brandon, Jackson or Central Mississippi areas, then Mel Coxwell and his associates are here to help.

This Jackson lawyer believes in fully protecting the interests of his clients. As a seasoned attorney, Mel Coxwell worked as an assistant district attorney and then founded his own private practice, allowing him to work on thousands of cases over the years. He understands how legal issues can affect an individual’s life and their family. He strives to give personalized attention to each of his clients and devotes all his energy into preparing your case and working with you each step of the way. Whether you are going through a divorce, have been charged with a DUI or need a business dispute settled, Mel Coxwell and his friendly team can help guide you through the legal system and provide you with peace of mind.

Central Mississippi attorney, Mel Coxwell also believes in helping his community. Currently, he is active in Rankin County, serving as President of the Rankin County Bar Association, Vice President of the Rankin County Rotary Club and a board member of his neighborhood association.

If you are interested in learning more, please contact this Central Mississippi law firm to schedule your free consultation. They will discuss your legal problem and let you know how they can help at no obligation to you. You can find his officer at 20 Eastgate Dr, Jackson, MS 39042.

Last month, Google’s most recent quality rater handbook seemed to have leaked on the Web for a brief period.  This handbook contains insight on how Google rates the quality of a website.  Apparently, the information was removed after  a short while after Google recognized it and had it taken down.

What is the quality rater and what is the handbook used for?

Although Google’s is not a human edited search engine and uses algorithms to index it’s billions of pages of information, it does employ people that check its search results to ensure the ranking algorithm is providing the high quality and relevant results as intended.  Quality raters visit websites that get returned from searches and evaluates the results.  Quality raters can also downgrade websites it finds as spam.  The handbook contains the guidelines that quality raters us to evaluate web pages.

I will go through the information and share some insights to what is included in the handbook in the next couple of posts.  Keep you eye out for them.  In the meantime, here is more information on SEO for attorneys.  Here is also another lawyer website marketing blog you may want to bookmark.

Search engine marketing continues to be more competitive for both organic/”Places” listings and pay-per-click advertising.  I recently was asked:

“I am considering Pay Per Click advertising, but would I be better off targeting organic listings instead?  I understand PPC advertising can get very expensive.”

The fact is they both come with a high cost, if you are committed to secure top listings. 

Although cost is important, it is only expensive when you don’t get a return.  Even small marketing investments are expensive if you get nothing back.  Focus more on the return and you will find your marketing to be more effective.

When to consider PPC

• Immediacy – When there is a window of time or seasonality to an opportunity, PPC can more effectively get you visibility when you need it the most.
• Few Keywords – In cases where you are only targeting a small variety of niche keyword phrases, you may want to consider a focused PPC campaign, rather than optimizing your entire website for a handful of phrases.
• Rural Markets – PPC will allow you to target a broad geographic area (like direct mail), but also allow you to appear on higher trafficked, open-ended search phrases (without cities, towns, etc.).
• Frequency – PPC can also significantly boost your visibility and branding, even when your website already shows up on the 1^st-page of organic listings.  Dominating target search results is a very effective way to present an image of expertise and specialization.

Two Important Keys To High ROI

1-      Target the right searches – An important strategy is to research and target keyword phrases that qualify higher quality visitors, not just attract high quantity of clicks.  Effective marketing utilizes human psychology to think through how your most qualified audience consumes information, views websites, and searches for it. 

 For example, targeting phrases that indicate an interest in a person are much higher quality than searches for a general topic.  For example, phrases that include the words lawyer/attorney, dentist, surgeon, etc. are much higher quality than open-ended, topic-related searches.  Also, the more niche the geographic-related keyword phrases, the higher the quality.

 This also applies to what has been recently termed “long-tail searches”.  If they do not include important qualifying keywords, then they too can attract traffic (and cost you clicks) without turning into business.

 2-      Conversions!! – Getting traffic, and even if it is high quality traffic, is only a means to the real end, which is more leads and business.  Keep in mind, every market has a finite amount of search engine traffic for services you are promoting.  At some point, it is not about more traffic, but more leads.  Without exceptions, improving your conversions is the biggest variable in your overall PPC return on investment (ROI).  The key is to invest in online conversion strategies, including landing page strategies, A/B testing, layout and design concepts, unique calls-to-action, interactive elements, and to continually increase your conversion percentages. 

If you would like to see if pay-per-click advertising is right for your needs and goals, or if you can improve your results/conversions, feel free to call us at 800-916-3886, or simply reply.  Also, if you would like us to address a different topic in a future update, simply email us.

Best wishes,

Bill

It is no secret that the Google Places listings have become in important part of your online attorney marketing campaign. In many cases, Google has given priority placement to Places listings on some search results, while blending it in with the traditional organic listings on others.  

Your Places Page is a unique web page that Google created.  Google trusts its own online real estate so leveraging it needs to be an essential part of you SE marketing efforts.  However, it shouldn’t be the only thing.

1. Limited Real Estate – You Places page has but one page in which you can optimize for certain target keyword phrases and categories.  Trying to optimize for too many keyword phrase will likely confuse Google in what your business is all about.  Your website, on the other hand has the ability to grow, add and optimize new pages (which is also an important SEO strategy). 

2. Google does not show Map/Places listings for every keyword phrase you are targeting , particularly longer-tailed search phrases.  Here again, you will need your optimized attorney website and pages to secure your 1st-page visibility.  This is also true for more informational search phrases like “mesothelioma” or “mesothelioma Denver.”  Even keyword phrases like “car accident lawyer Denver” or “medical malpractice lawyer Denver” may not display map listings.

3. Your Google Places positions are likely influenced by the website that the business listings is associated with.  Although Google will not divulge exactly what it uses to measure website and Places credibility, the relevance of your website information, traffic and even your analytics data (if you use Google Analytics) are all likely having some impact on your Google Places’ listings.

4. Location – Getting listings for keyword phrases or geographic areas that are outside and even adjacent to your city/town/suburb is significantly much more difficult with your Places Page, than your website.  This is particularly true if you are outside of the major target city, which has lots of competitor Places Pages.  However, there are instances where Place listings that are outside the major city show up on 1st-page results (see last map listing).

Bottome line, if you are looking to consistently stay in front of your target audience for a wide variety of keyword phrases, don’t simply focus on your Google Places Page.  It is important, but it isn’t everything.  Don’t abandon your website and the broad visibility it can secure, along with all the credibility and influence it brings.

We are familiar with normal domain names ending in .com, .net or .org, but now there is a new ending– .xxx that the adult entertainment industry will be using. This may affect your firm’s domain name because they can choose any domain and add the .xxx to the end and it’s theirs, legally. This could tarnish your reputation on the Web as well as hurt your marketing efforts. However, there is a way to protect yourself and secure your domain name so that the adult industry cannot use it.

For further information, please read here: http://www.page1solutions.com/page-1-blog/xxx-domains-and-how-they-affect-your-dental-medical-and-legal-practice.html

I had a practice call me and ask if it was too late in the game for them to start targeting organic search engine listings.  The answer is no, you’re not too late.

But let’s face it, there are a lot more law firms competing for first page exposure than there is room for.  So, the vast majority of practice websites are on the outside looking in and are growing more impatient and frustrated.  

The key is to develop a strategic plan and a timeline in which to anticipate initial and long-term growth.  Establishing realistic expectations is everything.

The following are some baseline comparison to your competitors to help identify strategies and time frames in order to catch and surpass competitor websites.

-Google Page Rank

-Age of domain

-Number of Pages

-Substantive, Optimized Content

-Inbound Links – quantity and quality

-Google Places, Yahoo Local

-Reviews and Rating

-Listings on Authority Websites

Generally speaking, in smaller, less competitive markets, you may find you can start securing some 1^st-page listings within 60-90 days.  However, the most competitive keyword phrases may take 6-9+ months. 

In highly competitive markets, you will need to do a lot more and have a much more effective website. You can start showing up on some 1^st-page listings in the same timeframe, but the most competitive keyword phrases may take even longer.  But the key is to be consistent with the plan and you will see your listings rise over time and you can make up the ground.

If you are interested in taking a look at how your website compares to your biggest competitors’s website, feel free to contact us by calling 800-916-3886.

The rising cost of generating leads has forced practices to seriously evaluate how to improve their effectiveness in turning leads into new business.

However, recent Harvard Business Review research shows businesses waste opportunities created by online queries: Most companies are simply not responding fast enough. 

Online advertising to generate leads has grown from roughly $12 billion in 2005 to nearly $23 billion in 2009. Yet, 50 percent of leads don’t get a response within 24 hours (23% never get addressed at all!).

Opportunity #1 – You can likely steal business from other practices marketing online simply by having decent follow up.

This is particularly surprising when you consider how quickly leads become cold and old.

Businesses that follow up in less than an hour of receiving the query are seven times (700%) more likely to have a meaningful conversation with the prospective client than those that attempted to connect an hour later. They are also 60 times more likely to connect than those waiting 24 hours or longer.

Opportunity #2 – Connect with, qualify and convert more leads by following up within the hour.

Let’s face it. Leads grow cold very fast, particularly when prospective clients don’t believe they have been heard by anyone in your practice. The key is to get visitors who are willing to engage your office feeling like they have a personal “connection” with your practice.

Opportunity #3 – Utilize a Chat Service

Chat services have shown to increase leads to offices (I have heard that about 25 percent of visitors engage Chat elements on websites!). Since these chat leads have already had some human “contact” with your office, they are likely to be more receptive to your follow up and you may buy your practice more time to connect with leads. An important key is that Chat services are supported by live people, and you only pay when a chat turns into an actual lead (you get a phone number/email address to follow up). You should plan on spending no more than $10 per Chat lead.

Page 1 Solutions is holding a fundraiser from now until October 15th–for every ‘like’ we receive through our Facebook page, we will donate $1 to Second Wind Fund (SWF). Last year we raised over $700.

SWF is an organization that helps to prevent teen suicide. They have saved over 2,400 teen lives since they started their organization. Teen suicide is 100% preventable with the right help from the right people because it does affect us all. Now you can make a difference and help us reach our goal of $1,000.

You can get more information here: http://www.page1solutions.com/page-1-blog/our-facebook-page-and-help-prevent-teen-suicide.html

Recent changes in GooglesPlaces Business listings has many businesses thinking that stimulating positive client reviews is no longer important, unless they are posted on your Google Places listing.

Many have used this as an excuse to no longer try to generate more positive reviews.  This is a very sight shorted view of the value of review marketing.

1-      Reviews, even on other review websites like Yelp, CitySearch, Insider Pages, Yahoo Reviews, etc. still likely have an impact on your Google Places placement; just not as much as they once did.  The fact is, Google still indexes and posts links to other “Reviews from around the web:”.  If Google puts no weight or credibility into these reviews, they would not include them.

2-       Consumers are definitely using reviews and ratings more and more as a means to compare professional service providers.  Google Trends indicates searches for “attorney reviews,” “dentist reviews,”  “surgeon reviews” are all growing.

3-      Consumers are more likely to go out of their way to post a negative review than a positive one (unless prompted to do so).  At minimum, you will have a disproportionate number of negative reviews than what is truly representative of your practice’s actual client satisfaction level.  Poor reviews can be silently sabotaging your business if you are not on top of them. 

4-      Not only is it important to get satisfied clients to post reviews, it is also important that key audiences see them!  The most important audience that you need to view your positive reviews are visitors to your website and your Facebook Fan page.  Your website and social media pages need to pull in these reviews, and not require your clients to post multiple reviews on different sites.

5-      Stimulating client reviews can also boost your word-of-mouth referrals over time.  Clients that participate in the marketing of your practice by posting positive reviews take a little more ownership of you practice, are more personally committed, and more likely to remember to refer you when opportunities arise.

I recommend you not bury your head in the sand when it comes to this aspect of marketing your practice online.  Take a proactive role in stimulating them.  Utilize a review marketing services that can maximize your time and your clients’. 

If you would like more information on Google Place marketing or Review and Ratings marketing, feel free to give us a call at 800-916-3886.  Or if you have questions on other issues, feel free to send them and we can address them in another update.