Did you know that search engine marketing is a 16 billion dollar industry? It works, businesses believe in it and have reaps the benefits. By now many of you are engaging in search engine marketing in some fashion or another. Maybe it’s pay-per-click (or paid advertising), maybe it’s blogging or search engine optimization, perhaps it’s banner advertising or maybe it’s something differently altogether.
TechCrunch, a well-known online resource for the tech industry, estimated that $917 billion worth of retail sales were web-influenced, $155 billion sold online in the same year – 2009.
Google has been the search power-house for several years. With Yahoo and Bing merging their search systems the competition between Google and the others is closing in. Are you focusing on only Google results or are you diversifying your search engine optimization efforts?
Do you know how many visitors have viewed your site or search for products you sell from a mobile device? As mobile devices are advancing consumers are beginning to make purchases and conduct research directly from their device. Make sure your website functions and looks as it should on at least the primary mobile devices: Blackberry, iPhone, iPod, etc.
We recently came across an article from American Express OPEN that discusses 5 ways your small business website might be failing. The items are listed below:
You don’t fill out your about us page
You don’t actually say what your business does
You don’t strut your stuff
You don’t capitalize on social media
You aren’t blogging (or not blogging enough)
As small business owners we are all busy working on our businesses and working in our businesses. There are a couple items in the list above that I know we are guilty of; social media, not blogging on a regular basis and not strutting our stuff. This article explains why it’s important to stay ahead of the game and get on a schedule or at least be aware so that you make a conscious effort to engage with the tools at your fingertips.
Search engine optimization is the process of making a website "likable" by search engines. Having relevant, up-to-date content, proper website coding, inbound and outbound links to other sites that are relevant, all contribute to "good" search engine optimization. However, these items are only the beginning. True SEO goes very deep and get complicated, as such it requires monthly or quarterly updates and monitoring.
The internet is a very competitive space. While you are optimizing your site, your competition is doing the same. SEO can be extremely profitable and yield bushels of new leads for your business.
Search engine optimization coupled with proper website conversion tracking, telephone tracking, email conversion rate monitoring as well as consistently adding relevant content are the ingredients needed to succeed.
Below is another great article by American Express OPEN on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We subscribe to the American Express OPEN newsletter to receive updates weekly about particles that are relevant to what we do. I strongly urge every small business owner to fill out a brief profile on the OPEN website so you start receiving articles that are relevant to your business. The articles can help you manage your organization more efficiently, reduce operating expenses, derive new methods of conducting business, and much more.
When customers search for products and services to purchase, they go to search engines. And when your site ranks highly among those search engines, you (the business owner) stand to enjoy tremendous profits. If your site is not being "seen" by the search engines, then you’re missing out on a ton of opportunity!
New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.
We have all been asking ourselves why Flash hasn’t been available on Apple’s mobile devices and when it will become available. The answer is in this article. I don’t know about you but it make sense to me. I also sense a little Adobe Apple tension.
The end of our first quarter in 2010 is approaching and web design trends are piling up! This is a great year to reexamine your website and ask, "how can I grab more attention?" There are many great attention-grabbing sites out there. Here is a great link that highlights some popular trends for 2010.
As many of you might have heard Google and other search engines are increasing their use of blended media types to provide more relevant search results. This is a great article from American Express OPEN for Business.
Research indicates that if you have video on your homepage, up to 80% of your visitors will click that first, so it better be good!
Many blog platforms lend themselves to exceptional organic search engine rankings. In our opinion the WordPress platform has the best infrastructure and features to increase existing organic phrases as well as introduce new phrases to the search engine results pages.
The Purpose Of Blogging:
The majority of the time our tendency is to write blog articles with Google and the other search engines in mind; this is mistake number one. The true purpose of blogging is to share your thoughts and expertise on a given topic. Journalists do not write articles just to fill up pages, they write to inform and educate.
Basic Blog Article Parameters:
Blog articles can be long or short. If there is something relevant to your law firm or an area of law your firms practices in the local or national media you could link to an article or video with a few lines of commentary. Oppositely, if you just wanted to share your thoughts on a current issue or topic, or perhaps you wanted to educate people on a particular process or procedure your article could be roughly 200 or 250 words in length. It is good to vary the length of articles, but in general do not exceed 250 words.
Link to other pages of your website for additional information. For example, if you make reference to chapter 7 bankruptcy or a particular taxation law and you have a page that explains these areas in more depth make the text ‘chapter 7’ a link to the chapter 7 page. The link text should correspond to the text on the page you are linking to. If your link text says California Taxation Laws Click Here but the page you are linking to talks about New Jersey Social Security Law, you are likely to have wasted a linking opportunity.
It can also help to create links that go to other websites such as NYTimes.com, Wall Street Journal, CNN and other mainstream media outlets.
Photos & Rich Media:
Adding photos, sound clips and YouTube videos make the article more engaging for a user but do not necessarily help with search engine rankings. Again, we are writing the articles for humans to read, not for search engines to index and catalog.
When preparing your blog post ask yourself if you would take the time to read the article – is it engaging, informative, interesting, or is it plain old boring?
You’re The Expert:
There is a reason you have a blog. It’s not just because you want to get to the top of Google or Yahoo, it’s because you have a wealth of knowledge that makes you an expert. Write articles that prove you know what you are talking about. However, write the articles with your reader in mind. Try to avoid using too much legal jargon that the average person would not understand. You want to relate to your readers by explaining the laws, processes, procedures, pros and cons in a language that anyone can understand.
Blog articles are not an advertisement for your firm. There should not be any plugs for your firm, free consultations, mention of your success rate, etc. Simply provide good, relevant, high-quality information.
Choose Your Keywords Wisely:
When starting to write a blog article have a couple keywords or key phrases in mind. For example, if your firm specializes in Personal Injury you might want to write an article on slip and fall injuries. Even better would be to include your local city name and state. A good sentence might be:
“In Raleigh, North Carolina, Slip and Fall injuries have risen 25% from 2008.”
Or another good option might be…
“Slip and fall injury attorneys in the Raleigh, North Carolina area have seen an increase in xyz.”
Your keywords should be phrases that people might search to find a solution to their problem. If their problem is overwhelming credit card debt they might type: eliminate debt, file bankruptcy, how to eliminate credit card debt, how to reduce debt, etc.
The general rule of thumb is to repeat your keywords or key phrases 4 times per 100 words (4%). If you exceed 7% or 8% you could suffer the consequences of Keyword Spamming (trying too hard).
National Vs. Local Geography:
Competition is strong for almost all types of law therefore you must be as specific as possible. Writing an article about divorce law will not help you find clients. Writing an article about choosing a divorce attorney in Buffalo NY will help you find clients. Not all articles have to be tailored to local geography but the majority should be.
Duplicative Content:
This is very important… Do not ever repeat, copy exactly or duplicate an article on more than one website. It is perfectly acceptable to cite a couple links and link to another article, but never duplicate. This is true if you have more than 1 website, you have to write unique content for each site. You can write an original article and then re-write that article for your other site but be sure they are not duplicative.
Relevant Categories:
When posting articles to your blog they should be tagged and categorized. If the article relates to recent bankruptcy law changes you could tag it as December 2009, new york state, bankruptcy law change. You might file the article under: New York Bankruptcy Law or Bankruptcy Law Changes.
It’s not wise to create a new category for each article. If a user wants to view all articles posted in a given category they should see multiple. Organize your articles wisely.
When creating categories the keyword structure is important. Everything should correspond and relate to each other. Below is an example of an article title, category title, tag and a few interior article links.
Article Title: How to Choose your San Diego Bankruptcy Attorney
Category: San Diego Bankruptcy
Tags: san diego, bankruptcy, attorney
Interior links: San Diego Bankruptcy (link to a bankruptcy information page), Bankruptcy Attorney (link to a bio page that provides information on a particular attorney within your firm). Experienced San Diego Bankruptcy Attorney (link to another blog article that talks about why you should use an experienced bankruptcy attorney rather than go through the process yourself.).
Last, but not least:
Be genuine, do not be wordy, do not use too many technical terms or lingo, repeat your phrases at a rate of 2% to 4%, post relevant content, link to good content that is relevant (both on your own site and on other sites), ask yourself if you would take the time to read the article – do not duplicate content.
When your telephone rings do you know where the caller originated from? What campaign, what made them call and what is the probability they will purchase?
More than ever before, tracking advertising efforts has become incredibly important. In today’s economic times you do not have the ad budget to hope for the best. In general, advertising is very uncertain. You allocate funds where you *think* the best returns will be. However, you rarely know how many phone calls or website hits you receive from a single ad campaign.
New technology allows us to track our ad campaigns in a way that removes virtually ALL THE UNCERTAINTIES of advertising. If you know where your revenue is coming from you can better maximize the benefit from that ad campaign.
Imagine having a Google Pay-Per-Click campaign with 200 phrases. Your total budget is $1000 per month. You spend on average $4 per click and get about 250 clicks per month spread between 200 phrases. Currently you only know that the campaign gets clicks and brings traffic to your site – perhaps you track how many people submit email forms for more information. Ad Track allows you to accurately and effectively determine which of your 200 phrases are bringing the most phone calls that ultimately turn into sales.
After running the Ad Track system for a couple months you would have enough data to eliminate a portion of your 200 keyword list, freeing up more dollars for the phrases that produce sales. Imagine if your list went from 200 to 25 high producing phrases – you would now get almost 10 clicks per phrases (before you were getting 1.25 clicks per phrase). Where you were getting 1 phone call you could be getting 10.
What if you could track phone calls that originated from various Internet Marketing campaigns?
What if you could record the call to better anticipate and prepare for pre-sales questions, aid in sales training efforts and much more?
What if you knew 80% of calls from Google Organic lead to sales and 60% of calls from Google Pay-Per-Click lead to sales – or vice versa?
What if you knew phone book advertising only brings 10 calls per year and only 20% turn into sales?
Would this information change the way you spend your advertising budget?
We like to call it Advertising Accountability and Advertising Forensics.
The time is now to start strategically measuring the performance of virtually every advertising campaign you deploy.
Lawyers increase Internet marketing to gain clients
An article that was recently published, both in print and online, explains the potential implications for law firms not engaging in strong, tactical and strategic internet marketing campaigns. The article discusses how new bankruptcy law firms are forming as a result of larger firms downsizing.
Axis Creative Group, an Internet-marketing firm based in Manheim Township, Lancaster County, is focusing a lot of its energy on the attorney market and specifically bankruptcy attorneys, said Zach Walker, an Internet marketing consultant.
Axis is working with several New York-based lawyers to increase their business through Internet marketing, Walker and founder Michael Canarelli said.
Increased use of the Internet to find lawyers is also generational, Carr said. Young, tech-savvy business people are comfortable with the expanse and pace of the Internet so they’re more likely to use it to find services such as legal counsel, he said.
