Legal Search Marketing Blog

Yahoo Launches My Web Personal Search

Chris Sherman explains how Yahoo is not standing still with their My Yahoo personal search features.

I personally use My Yahoo and really like it because it allows me keep track of many different things on one page and now these new features add even more value.

I can't say the same thing about the Yahoo search engine though, I just don't think its keeping up with Google as far as the amount of traffic it produces. It has a long way to go before it ever catches Google in my opinion.  Google not only produces more traffic but they also seem to have a much better handle on how they index sites.

Websites Do Generate New Leads

Article from Emarketer about how Small businesses are embracing the web in a big way and how having a web site has led to more new leads.

*80% of respondents said that their Web site generated leads for their business.

* 77% said they believed that a Web site helped to make them more competitive.

I would concur with this and know for a fact that every legal site I have worked on, that has used some kind of search engine optimization or directory listings, has resulted in more people coming to the sites, which then leads to new contacts and ultimately new business.    

Yet just having a web site isn't enough. It will make you more competitive, but the site isn't going to generate leads on its own. You must have it optimized for the search engines or at least listed on the pay per click ads in order to get anyone to the site. Getting listed in the search and legal directories is also a good idea,  as is starting a weblog or BLOG.

Gold Mine Found in Web Searches

Lisa Baertlein looks at the different wrinkles of paid search and its continued growth. Interesting stats including...

Global search advertising revenue, which was $369 million in 2001, is expected to hit $7.9 billion this year, according to research from Piper Jaffray & Co.

According to Piper Jaffray, the cost to acquire a customer is about $8.50 for search, $20 for Yellow Pages, $50 for online display ads, $60 for e-mail and $70 for direct mail.

Overture now is YAHOO Search Marketing

Story from CNET about Overture changing its name to "Yahoo Search Marketing".

The portal giant on Monday shed its Overture Services brand and renamed the unit Yahoo Search Marketing. The replacement of the Overture brand will take place in the U.S. market initially, the company said. Other international markets will be re-branded later, but the Overture brand will be maintained in Japan and Korea.

The change comes nearly two years after Yahoo's purchase of Overture, a pioneer in the commercial search business. The acquisition was meant to bolster Yahoo's marketing efforts and its position against rivals Google and Microsoft.

I remember when Overture was GOTO.com, which really wasnt that long ago. I still hear people referring to it as Goto.  I do like how they changed the name close to my sites name of Legal Search Marketing though!

Google & Yahoo in talks with TIVO

News from ZDNET about Google and Yahoo being in talks with TIVO over a deal that might bring search to TV.

TiVo is in talks with Internet search giants Google and Yahoo over a possible deal aimed at bridging television and the Web, CNET News.com has learned.

One scenario that's been discussed would see TiVo partner with Google or Yahoo on a new service that would let consumers search for videos on the Web and then watch them on their television sets, according to one person with knowledge of the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

LexisNexis Uncovers More Consumer Data Breaches

Story from Yahoo news about Lexis Nexis reporting that identity thieves have stolen information on 310,000 US Citizens from its computer systems, 10 times more then its initial estimate, thats not good.

Thieves have used stolen passwords to lift Social Security numbers and other information from LexisNexis databases 59 times over the past two years, the company said.

Several similar incidents recently have prompted calls for greater regulation of companies that can create comprehensive profiles of nearly every adult in the United States.

"When a company like LexisNexis so badly underestimates its own ID theft breaches, it is clear that things are totally out of hand," said New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer.

AOL Rolls Out New Pay Per CALL Web Ad Service

Story from Yahoo news about American Online rolling out a new advertising service that helps small businesses get their phone numbers in front of web searchers via a "Pay Per Call" service.

Privately held Ingenio Inc. provides the technology and advertiser services for the new AOL ad program, called "pay per call."

As with so-called pay per click Web search ad services from Google and Yahoo, ads are served up when Internet users search for specific items -- for example "mortgage, San Francisco, CA."

The Google and Yahoo ads are delivered in the form of links to an advertiser Web site. Advertisers bid for the price they will pay for each click their ad receives.

Pay per call delivers ads in the form of business listings. Advertisers bid for the price they will pay for each call. Each time a consumer calls a business using the toll-free telephone numbers provided by the ad, the advertiser pays AOL and Ingenio.

The minimum bid for pay per call is $2 per call since person-to-person contact is often viewed as more valuable. Per-click prices for search ads provided by Google and Yahoo start at just a few cents.

Track Your Firms Key Information Via RSS Feeds

Great Post from Kevin O'Keefe at LexBlog about BlogPulse offering RSS search feeds and how you can use these to track information about your firms name, top partners, etc.

---> RSS search feeds allow lawyers and legal marketing professionals to track key words and phrases. Firms should be tracking, among other things:

• Their lawyers' names and firm name to see what people are saying about them
  
• Names of competitors
  
• Nature of work they are looking to grow
  
• Subjects relevant to litigation and transactional work

I was surprised at the LMA national conference this last week that no one but me, was talking about, or for that matter even heard of, the ability to do this.

I'm with you Kevin. I'm also amazed that more lawyers and law firms aren't taking advantage of things like this.  Blogs and RSS Feeds are the future.

Ask Jeeves Enhances MyJeeves

Ask Jeeves has just released an upgrade to their MyJeeves personalized search tool:

New for MyJeeves users are several enhancements including:

+ An option to add your own "tags" to any item. To do this, save an image or web page and then click the "modify" link next to the entry on your MyJeeves "Save Results" pages. You'll then find a box labeled "tags" to add your metadata.

+ My Jeeves integration into the Ask Jeeves Toolbar. In other words, save any web page without having first find it from an AJ web results page. Big improvement!

+ Save images into My Jeeves from any web page (right-click) or directly from an AJ Image Search results page.

+ Important your bookmarks from IE and Firefox into MyJeeves

+ Organize your saved material into hierarchical folders.

Mark Cuban Promotes IceRocket.com's Blog Search Engine

Mark Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and is known for his like of, and investment in, IceRocket.com. In a recent blog post, Cuban lays down the gauntlet to Feedster and other blog search engines.

...we have just completely rewritten and reindexed our blog searching ability so that we now reach more than 10mm blogs. That right, with every portal now with their own blog hosting offering, we have passed the 10mm mark