Legal Search Marketing Blog

Google Adwords For Lawyers

What is Google AdWords?

This is Googles pay per click program. If you type in a search term like "Chicago Lawyers" and click search, two types of search results come up: on the left and below the search box are the organic search results that are also known as natural or free results and on the right side of your browser screen, and sometimes above the organic results, are the Sponsored Links.

An advertiser only pays Google for the times when someone actually clicks on the ad and goes through to the advertiser's website. Thus the term, "Pay Per Click".

BIDDING MORE IS NOT ALWAYS THE ANSWER

The higher the advertiser bids on a keyword combined with the users Google quality score will determine how high the ad ranks. So it's not always a matter of bidding the highest amount, your campaigns have to be optimized so that they produce a high CTR - click through rate.

So this basically means you should create a number of different campaigns and ad groups and focus the ads on the keywords your bidding on.  If you only create one campaign and one adgroup and have like 50 keywords, your ads wont match up to the keywords your bidding on, so your quality score will be low and your ads wont show up as much, your won't get a high CTR and you will wind up paying more per click.

Sometimes its a good idea to lower your Cost Per Click (CPC) and instead of being #1 for $2.50 a click, you can be #4 for only 50 cents a click. It takes some tweaking and experimenting with different strategies but the goal is to drive as much focused and qualified traffic to your site for the best possible value.

There is no doubt that Internet marketing and pay per click marketing work, if you setup a Google adwords campaign and focus on the keywords related to your firms practice and have a professional monitor and maintain the account, theres a really good chance thaty ou will get a lot of traffic to your site of people looking for your firms speciality.

Marketing is more important than ever

94% of CMOs believe that "a tough economic period is precisely the time when marketing plays a key role."

Consumers will look online more

This year has seen a 10% increase in people who research online before buying in the store. Additionally, Compete, Inc. reports a 21.8% growth in oline search queries from last year to this year. *

* From Google Adwords Tactics 2008

We can help your law practice market via Google Adwords. We have helped many attorneys market via Adwords and have driven a steady stream of qualified visitors that have turned into new clients. Adwords is one of the best ways to market your site online and it can give you immediate results.

Contact us today to see how we can help your law firm succeed with Google adwords.

Legal Mini Site / Blog Concept

I've come up with an updated version of the Legal mini site called the Legal Mini Site Blog.  The mini site is a site that is focused on one specific geographic or practice area and then optimized for a set of specific keywords.

LATEST MINISITE / BLOG:

The latest mini site design now also includes a blog, which is a great way to keep your site updated with fresh content. The latst site we have employed this setup on is for a redesign of an existing mini site for a Chicago Criminal Tax Lawyer.

The new site has an updated crisp design with a home page that lists the firms main information, as well as listing the latest posts from the sites blog. 

This type of layout can have many advantages. For one if the blog is updated on a weekly basis, then over time you will build the sites number of pages and amount of content and combined with other SEO tactics, the site should be able to generate top organic search engine rankings. 

Then since the site is done with Worpdress, which is a Content Management System (CMS) you can easily make updates to the pages, add new pages and update the blog with minimal training. 

Also Wordpress has a numerous plugins and widgets which you can add to your site to expand it.  Many plugins for wordpress are made with SEO in mind, so there are many ways to getting better rankings if you utilize the proper plugins and set your blog up correctly.

So in summation, a mini site / blog can help your law firm expand its Internet presense and get better search engine rankings. It can give you a 2nd website, as well as a blog and if done right, over time you will then have another website bringing traffic and potential clients to you.

If your law firm needs assistance or would like to explore the legal minisite / blog, contact us today. 

Google SearchWiki: Make Search Your Own

From the Google Blog:

Have you ever wanted to mark up Google search results? Maybe you're an avid hiker and the trail map site you always go to is in the 4th or 5th position and you want to move it to the top. Or perhaps it's not there at all and you'd like to add it. Or maybe you'd like to add some notes about what you found on that site and why you thought it was useful. Starting today you can do all this and tailor Google search results to best meet your needs.

Today we're launching SearchWiki, a way for you to customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don't feel belong. These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users. We store your changes in your Google Account. If you are wondering if you are signed in, you can always check by noting if your username appears in the upper right-hand side of the page.

The changes you make only affect your own searches. But SearchWiki also is a great way to share your insights with other searchers. You can see how the community has collectively edited the search results by clicking on the "See all notes for this SearchWiki" link.

This can be a cool and useful feature. Google just keeps getting better!

Latest Web Re-Design: Chicago Environmental Lawyers

Its a must now a days to have a website for your legal practice. Yet it's also a must to have an updated website that reflects your current legal practice and is optimized for keywords related to your firms practice areas. 

WEBSITES MUST BE UPDATED AT LEAST ONCE EVERY 5 YEARS!

Many times firms put up a website 5-6 years ago with the thought of updating it, but as we know, thats easier said then done.  Plus many times firms realize that they would like to do well in the organic search results but they have a site that is not setup properly or has very little content.   The solution here is to either update your existing site or create a new website that has more content about your firm practice, updated photos and images, videos, attorney profiles and other elements your current site may be lacking.

LATEST LEGAL WEB DESIGN:

We have helped many law firms redesign and create new legal websites for their firms legal practice.  The latest legal website we have created and optimized for the search engines is for the Illinois Environmental Law Firmof Carrey S. Rosemarin.  The firm had an outdated small 5 page site that didn't really reflect all that the firm did.  We updated the site with a new design, new legal images, a flash animation logo, a firm profile page, expanded practice area pages and a publications page with articles done by the firm.  Then of course we also optimized the site for the search engines because the previous site was not coming up for any keywords related to the firms environmental law practice. 

TOP 10 ORGANIC GOOGLE RESULTS WITHIN A WEEK!

After launching the site about a week ago, the site is already in the top 10 for keywords such as Chicago Environmental Lawyers (#5) , Illinois Environmental Litigation (#1) , Illinois Environmental Attorneys (#3) and a number of other terms. 

This demonstrates how many lawyers have older websites that are just not optimized for the search engines, but if they were, they would get better rankings at the search engines, more traffic, which would then lead to more clients.   Yet most of them will never do anything about it and not capitalize on their older well aged domain names.  If you would like to be one of the attorneys who has success with their website and online Internet marketing efforts, contact us today.

Law Firms Finding Success With SEO

FROM LAWYER CASTING:

Alyn-Weiss & Associates has just released a study showing that 59% of law firms have used SEO over the past 24 months(up from 20% in the prior 2 year period). And 20% of firms said they got new business from SEO in 2007-2008 (up from 8% in the prior 1 year period). The average size of firm in the study was 46 lawyers.

I'd venture that the 80% of the firms who feel they didn't get new business from their SEO efforts weren't properly tracking traffic and conversions, didn't do the SEO right, or did a poor job of closing leads. Basically, it's somewhat difficult not to get new business (or least get new leads) over time when SEO is done right. 

I would agree here that the firms that say they didnt get new clients with SEO, either didnt really do SEO or more then likely didnt track where the new clients came from.   Every lawyer that we have helped with SEO or PPC has gotten new clients as a result.  Josh is correct in that if the SEO is done right, its almost impossible not to get new clents! 

Source

Updated Legal Design & SEO = Top Google Results = New Clients

I blogged a couple weeks back about the first updated site we launchedfor Tax Attorney Ken Sheppard and I said I would be blogging soon about the Top Google Search rankings the site was going to soon have.  I didnt think it would be this soon!

Sometimes you have to start over with a site to get the best possible results at the search engines.  In this case we moved the site to a new webhost, created a search engine friendly design with an additional 15 pages of optimized content and fully optimized the site for the search engines. 

Just two weeks ago the site could not be found for any keywords, now the site is #1 for Ohio Tax Lawyer, #1 for Ohio Tax Attorney and its basically in the top 10 for all keywords related to Ohio Tax. Its even in the top 10 for national tax keywords such as irs tax attorneys and tax lawyers. These are harder keywords to get ranked for because your competing against everyone, not just attorneys in Ohio.

This site is still not 100% done and we are adding more content to the site daily.  No coincidence that the traffic over the last week has more then tripled.  I talked with the client today and he told me he got a high number of calls this week and signed up a few new clients as a result.  So already not even before the site is done, it pays off bigtime with new clients!   Plus he has a better looking site that is easier to navigate, has more content and is ranked in the top 10 for all his keywords, how is every lawyer not doing this? It works!!

Google Aborts Yahoo deal That Sparked Fears of rising PPC Costs

Google Inc. announced today it was dropping plans to provide some ads on Yahoo search results pages and publisher sites, laying to rest fears that the partnership would increase Google’s dominance in search marketing and lead to higher prices on pay-per-click ads.

Since announcing plans for the partnership in June, Google and Yahoo Inc. have been negotiating with the government about possible modifications that would address objections from advertisers. “However, after four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it’s clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement,” Google chief legal officer David Drummond said in a statement today.

The government made clear in its own statement that it viewed the proposed deal as anticompetitive. “The arrangement likely would have denied consumers the benefits of competition—lower prices, better service and greater innovation,” Thomas O. Barnett, the assistant attorney general who heads up the antitrust division of the Department of Justice, said in the statement.

In its own statement, Yahoo expressed disappointment over Google’s decision, but says the deal was only an add-on to Yahoo’s own product road map “and does not change Yahoo’s commitment to innovation and growth in search.”

Google’s announcement is good news for search advertisers, says Mark Simon, vice president of industry relations at search marketing firm Didit LLC. “As Google’s reach in the search landscape has grown exponentially, it is important to the advertiser that there remains viable competition in this ecosystem,” Simon says. “Without having those options, we are all under the direct control of the lead horse.” He added his hope that Yahoo, the second-leading search engine, and No. 3 Microsoft Corp. “can help create this environment of choice for the marketer.”

Search marketing firm SearchIgnite released a report in July saying that pay-per-click ad prices could go up as much as 22% as a result of the planned Google-Yahoo partnership.  Source

Im not sure how much this would have raised any prices, I mean the bottom line here is that it would have just meant your Google adwords ads would now be shown on Yahoo sites, giving you more exposure at a higher cost.  It probably makes more sense to just open a Yahoo PPC account since the prices are usually cheaper at Yahoo per click. 

If your law firm is considering advertising online with Google, contact us for a free PPC analysis. We have helped many lawyers setup PPC programs at Google Adwords, Yahoo search marketing and MSN adcenter and have saved them all a lot of money.  PPC works because it can drive the types of clients your looking for directly to your website.