Legal Search Marketing Blog

Google Hits All-Time High in U.S. Search Referrals

Google’s U.S. search referral percentage hit an all-time high, climbing above 52 percent for the first time.

According to independent research that was collected and analyzed by WebSideStory, Google’s search referral percentage – the percentage of search traffic it sends to other sites on the web – is more than double that of its nearest competitor and culminates a meteoric, four-year rise.

This is no surprise to me because every site that I monitor gets more traffic from Google then anywhere else, always.

New Study Sizes Up the Web

Danny Sullivan has details of a new study that tries to estimate the size of the web and what percentage the search engines have indexed so far. Google is per usual the leader of the pack.

The paper, from Antonio Gulli of Università di Pisa (who is also director of advanced products for Ask Jeeves) and Alessio Signorinialso of the University of Iowa, estimates what percentage of the Web is covered by each search engine:

Search Engine	Self-Reported Size (Billions)	EstimatedSize (Billions)	Coverage of Indexed Web (%)	Coverage of Total Web (%)
Google	8.1	8.0	76.2	69.6
Yahoo!	4.2 (est.)	6.6	69.3	57.4
Ask	2.5	5.3	57.6	46.1
MSN (beta)	5.0	5.1	61.9	44.3
Indexed Web	N/A	9.4	N/A	N/A
Total Web	N/A	11.5	N/A	N/A
Note: "Indexed Web" refers to the part of the Web considered to have been indexed by search engines.

The first thing you wonder is whether any of the search engines are lying about their size. Google claims to have the biggest search index, 8.1 billion pages. The estimate shows Google's claim is pretty much on target. The same holds true for MSN and Ask Jeeves.

Value In NOT Bidding On The Top 3 Spots At Overture Yahoo

Ive noticed that when your bidding at the Overture Pay Per Click search engine, that sometimes it makes more sense to NOT bid on the top 2-3 spots, at least for the Yahoo results.

This is because at Yahoo, the top 2 or 3 spots are listed at the very top of the page and then the #3-5 spots are listed at the bottom of the page, AFTER the top 10 organic listings. THEN on the right side of the page, the first 3 listings are the same as the bottom 3 listings, thus giving you two listings on the main page.

An example of that is for the term of california elder law and at Overture my clients site, California Elder Care Lawyers is #5 in the sponsored listings and its at the very bottom of the page and then also the 3rd sponsored listing on the right side.

Not only does he get two listings on the main page, but he's only paying 10 cents per click, where the #1 and 2 are paying over 50 cents per click.

MSN USES OVERTURES RESULTS A LITTLE DIFFERENT

NOW the other search engine that uses Overture pay per click results is MSN and they do it a little different, they list the top 3 bids at both the top and bottom of the page, then on the right side, they start out with the #4 bid and work down. 

So this is why the California elder law site is only listed on the right side as the 2nd listing at MSN Search. Luckily though they are coming up in the organic or free listings and are #5 & 6!

**Actually they now moved up to the #3 spot in the pay per clicks, and also moved up in the organic listings to #4&5. Plus the basic elder law blog we put up is coming up #3. **

Its important that you know the pay per click rules and its usually best to employ a professional to optimize your legal web site and then also manage a focused pay per click campaign.  Contact us today if we can assist your law firm.

Organic Listings At Search Engines Are Better Then Paid Listings

SOLVING THE PAY PER CLICK PROBLEM BY GETTING INTO THE ORGANIC LISTINGS

I blogged last month about the legal client who setup his own Google adwords account and made the mistake of bidding to high and wound up paying $39 for one click for the keyphrase of "chicago estate planning lawyer".

We wound up getting the cost down to $1.30 per click BUT the best solution to that problem is getting listed in Googles organic or free listings or what I call "the gift that keeps on giving". It takes time and effort to get listed in the top 10 at Google but we have achieved this and the client is now #7 for chicago estate planning lawyer, as well as #3&4 for chicago wills, #3 for chicago estate planning, among many others.

Its a good idea to still maintain the pay per click listings though because it gives the law firm more overall exposure at Google, but its not as important now and can be cut back on.   

The best way for a law firm to get good rankings in the Google organic listings is by having good content, content that changes, listings at the key directories and links from other high rankings legal sites.    If your law firm wants to achieve long term results in the search engines, contact me.

Search Users Don't Recognize Organic vs. Paid Ads

DMNews has a study about how a big number of Internet users don't know the difference between Organic and Paid listings. This doesn't surprise me because most people I talk with about search marketing have heard about paid listings but don't know exactly where they are located.

Fifty-six percent of Internet users don't know the difference between natural and paid search, according to a study released yesterday.

However, the "How America Searches Study" that Harris Interactive conducted for search analytics firm iCrossing, Scottsdale, AZ, noted that more users of Google than other search engines know the difference between the two types of searches. Fifty-four percent of frequent Google users report knowing the difference between paid and natural listings. The next-closest group is Yahoo users at 42 percent.

Search Advertising to Reach $5.6 Billion in 2005

Both Google and Yahoo saw a healthy rise in stock price today as a new report suggested huge growth in the search advertising industry.

Investors moved into both Google and Yahoo shares, making technology stocks one of the overall market's main drivers. Google shares rose $5.69, or 2 percent, to $285.25 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq, while shares of Yahoo jumped 81 cents, or 2.2 percent, to $37.44.

A report from Merrill Lynch & Co. projects search advertising will generate about $5.6 billion this year — then more than double to $12.3 billion by 2009.

As more people switch to broadband, Merrill Lynch predicts they will become savvier web users.

"We continue to believe that broadband growth is driving Internet traffic growth," said Merrill Lynch analyst Lauren Rich Fine. "Especially with recent discounts by broadband providers, we believe this will drive more users online or to simply switch from dial-up connections to high bandwidth connections."

This makes perfect sense to me because there are a lot of people that still don't even realize what search engine advertising is, and I'm always surprised at the number of people that are still on dial up connections.

Search Engines Still Failing to Disclose Paid Ads

ClickZ has details of a report release by Consumer Reports WebWatch which claims search engines are still not doing enough to identify sponsored search results.

Of the top search engines, AOL Search, Google, and Yahoo! Search Marketing were given good marks for disclosure, but showed minimal change over the year before. Ask Jeeves and Yahoo! Search were downgraded for making headings less visible, and removing hyperlinks to disclosure statements. MSN Search was the only major search engine to show improvement, largely because MSN discontinued its paid inclusion and content promotion programs, giving them less to disclose.

I think that most of the search engines do a good job in identifying the difference between the paid and organic listings but I know a lot of people are still confused as to the difference.

Google Launches New Sitemap Service

GOOGLE MAKES IT EASIER TO GET MORE PAGES INDEXED

Google Sitemaps is an easy way for you to help improve your coverage in the Google index. Its a service that will help get more of your pages included in the Google index and it lets Google know when you make updates to your site.

Updating your pages and adding fresh content is a very important part of getting good rankings at Google, so when Google wants to give you a way to make that process easier, I would take advantage of it!  Below is info from Google about the process.

What is Google Sitemaps?

Google Sitemaps is an experiment in web crawling. Using Sitemaps to inform and direct our crawlers, we hope to expand our coverage of the web and improve the time to inclusion in our index. By placing a Sitemap-formatted file on your webserver, you enable our crawlers to find out what pages are present and which have recently changed, and to crawl your site accordingly.

Basically, the two steps to participating in Google Sitemaps are:

1. Generate a Sitemap in the correct format using Sitemap Generator.
2. Update your Sitemap when you make changes to your site.

Who can use Google Sitemaps?

Google Sitemaps is intended for all web site owners, from those with a single web page to companies with millions of ever-changing pages. If any of the following are true, then you may be especially interested in Google Sitemaps:

• You want Google to crawl more of your web pages.
• You want to be able to tell Google when content on your site changes.

Blogging Becoming A Corporate Job

Good post from The Wall Street Journal on how blogging is becoming a corporate job. A growing number of businesses are hiring people to write blogs, otherwise known as Web logs.

Companies are looking for candidates who can write in a conversational style about timely topics that would appeal to customers, clients and potential recruits.

Blogging as a job has emerged as companies of all stripes increasingly see the Web as an important communications venue. Blogs allow firms to assume a natural tone rather than the public-relations speak typical of some static Web pages, and readers are often invited to post comments. While some companies are hiring full-time bloggers, others are adding blogging duties to existing marketing or Web-editing positions.

Currently only 4% of major U.S. corporations have blogs available to the public, according to a recent survey by eMarketer, a New York research company. But ads for blogging jobs are popping up on online job boards in recent months. "Blogging jobs are growing in popularity," says Jennifer Sullivan, spokeswoman for CareerBuilder Inc.'s CareerBuilder.com, based in Chicago.

Response From Google AdWords About $39 click

I had blogged last week about a legal client who made the mistake of setting his bid to high for the term "chicago estate planning lawyer" and got charged $39.52 for one click. 

I got a response from Google adwords (see below)and like I thought there's nothing that can be done because of the fact the maximum CPC (cost-per-click) was set so high and other variables were in play.  Once I took over the account, I was able to reduce the max CPC and got the click charge down to $1.30 per click, from $39 per click. 

Here is the response from Google Adwords:

After reviewing your client's account, I found the keyword 'chicago estate planning lawyer' was charged $39.52 on April 3, 2005 because his maximum CPC was designated at $39.88. He was charged a lower amount of $1.30 per click this month because his maximum CPC is currently set at $2.00. These clicks are not charged the full designated maximum CPC because our AdWords Discounter automatically keeps your actual CPC at the lowest possible cost needed to maintain your ad's position on the page.

Additionally, the position of your AdWords ad varies per keyword and is determined by various factors such as your maximum cost-per-click (CPC) for the matched keyword, your clickthrough rate (CTR), and your ad text in relation to other advertisers' CPCs, CTRs, and ad text. Because Google AdWords doesn't rely solely on your CPC bid to rank your ad, it is not possible to know what your competitors are bidding.

The bottom line here though is that if you set your max cost per click so high and have competitors that are also bidding high, there's a very good chance you will overbid. 

I usually start with a lower bid and then see how the keywords perform and then raise the bid when needed. Google adwords is more complicated and harder to manage then Overture (now Yahoo Search Marketing) but much more effective, if setup and managed correctly.