Legal Search Marketing

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Statistics show that video improves online visibility and drives more action online than plain images and text. For example, according to the BIA Kelsey Group, viewers engage more after watching a video, with clicks for more information increasing by 30-40% and phone inquiries by 16-20%.

Whether you choose to do-it-yourself or hire a pro, marketing your business with online video doesn’t end with the production. Remember, videos need to be seen. Here are a few tips to help you make the most out of your video marketing:

1. Aim for Authentic, Actionable Content

Don’t worry about stock photography, templates, or videographers who will make you look like all their other clients. Be authentic. Be personal. After all, this is your big chance to highlight your strengths and show what really makes you different. Keep the video short and the less scripted, the better
— since customers are jaded by typical sales pitches and marketing
buzzwords. Creating authentic video that captures the human element
behind any business allows customers to connect on a personal level.

This is TRUE and creating a video that is personal and shows who you are and what you do can be a big factor when a new client chooses your law firm.  Also creating a video of client testimonials can be another powerful tool.

And don’t forget to incorporate a call to action.
While your authentic video builds trust and drives action, viewers must
be given a reason and a way to call you, visit your website, or stop by
your store. Be sure to include some action path — for example, a
trackable URL, a coupon, discount code, or unique phone number to call.
This not only encourages viewers to engage with you, but also provides
a tangible way to measure the results of your video.

2. Optimize Video for Google Search

The advent of blended or universal search has changed the search
game. Search engines now display more and more videos, images, blogs,
maps, and books in their results. These new search algorithms weigh
video heavily, giving you a great opportunity to increase your
relevance in search results (and even achieve that coveted first page
ranking on Google). In fact, Forrester Research ran an experiment on
the top-searched keywords and discovered that videos have an
11,000-to-1 chance of appearing on the first page of Google’s results,
while text has a 500,000-to-1 chance of making it on the first page —
in short, video has a 50 times better chance than plain text for getting to the top of search rankings.

Even with this incredible opportunity, many marketers don’t yet
think about making their video Google-friendly. There are several
simple steps you can take to optimize your online video content.

3. Add Video to Your Facebook Page

Most likely, your Facebook fans are already customers — the social
network gives you the chance to strengthen existing relationships,
build your brand, present special offers, as well as find some new
customers as you reach into the extended networks of your current fan
base. On Facebook, use video to show the human side of your company.
Think fun and creative. Show a ‘behind the scenes’ peak at your office
or shop. Use video to announce a new contest or special. Post video
highlights of past events, customer testimonials, etc.

4. Put Video on YouTube and Other Video Sites

YouTube has quickly grown from a network of user-generated content
to become an invaluable repository of content. Next to Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine, with more than 3.5 billion queries a month according to comScore. YouTube and other video sites are great vehicles to reach an audience who might not find you otherwise. Best of all, you can create a branded YouTube channel and host your videos without incurring any bandwidth costs.
And don’t worry — you don’t necessarily have to create the next viral
sensation to find success on YouTube. Small businesses can create
valuable new relationships and build sales without generating a million
views.

5. Add Video to Your Google Local Business Listing

By adding video to your business listing on Google Local,
you’ll be able to tell your story and connect with those people who are
looking for your products or services, at the very point in time when
they’re actively researching or ready to buy. This ultra-targeted form of marketing is highly effective
for driving clicks and calls. And amid a list of company names,
addresses, and phone numbers, an engaging video brings your listing to
life and sets you apart from the crowd.

Most Importantly – Get Started

There’s no time like the present to get started with video. While
spare time is always in short supply for the small business owner,
online video can be less time intensive and is relatively low cost
compared with other marketing initiatives. Most importantly, video will reap dividends in both the short and long term.

This is all great video advise.  Putting a video on your lawyer website is a great move for many reasons, just do it!

Read full post at Reel SEO

We have helped another law firm updated its web site presence and have created a new web site for the law form of Colosimo, Patchin, Kearney & Brunfelt, LTD. A Minnesota Personal Injury law firm located in Virginia, Minnesota.

Colosimo, Patchin, Kearney & Brunfelt, Ltd.

The firm provides high quality
legal services to the people of northern Minnesota.  …with deep
roots in the Iron Range and a firm commitment to ethics and fairness.

The firm’s partners — John M. Colosimo, Michael J. Patchin, Michael
K. Kearney and Mitchel J. Brunfelt — offer over 100 years of successful
client representation.

The firm prides itself on prompt, responsive customer service, timely
case management, and candid client relations.  With Colosimo, Patchin,
Kearney & Brunfelt, Ltd. attorneys you’ll know the strengths and
weaknesses of your case under the most current law and what needs to be
done to accomplish the best-possible results.

Google launched a new social effort today called Google Buzz.
If you're immediate reaction is, "Wait, doesn't Yahoo! already have a
product named Buzz?" Then you'd be correct. But Google didn't acquire Yahoo! Buzz. Nor has Yahoo! Buzz gone defunct and Google felt ok about picking it up as a name.

The two products are alike in name and the fact that they're social. But that's about it.

Google Buzz lets you be social from Gmail. You can update your
status there and share photos. (Yahoo! Buzz is more akin to social
bookmarking and trending topics.)

Who do you share Google Buzz with? Gmail contacts, for one, but you
can also send your updates to Twitter as well. Your Gmail contacts can
respond to your updates, using the @ symbol much like Twitter and now
Facebook use. Your Gmail inbox will be used to push notifications to
Buzz users.

Buzz is rolling out, so it may take a few days before you get access. In the meantime, check out this vid to see how it works:

Nearly 178 million U.S. Internet users watched 33.2 billion online
videos during December 2009, according to the latest data from comScore Vedio Metrix.

This means Americans watched an average of 187 videos per viewer during the month.

Here are some other related stats from comScore's announcement:

• 86.5 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video in December.
• 134.4 million viewers watched more than 13 billion videos on YouTube.com — 97.1 videos per viewer.
• 44.9 million viewers watched 423.3 million videos on MySpace Sites — 9.4 videos per viewer.
• The average Hulu viewer watched 22.9 videos, totaling 2.2 hours of videos per viewer.
• The duration of the average online video was 4.1 minutes.

It's no mystery any more, you should create videos for your law firms practice!

We have helped another law firm upgrade their legal website presence and created a new design and layout for the Chicago law firm of Kupets & DeCaro, P.C.

At Kupets & DeCaro Law Office, we represent people, not
corporations.  Our practice consists of personal injury, wrongful
death, and victim’s rights cases.  Unlike many firms, our focus is
quality, not quantity.  We strive to assist clients throughout the many
difficult situations that arise from injuries caused by wrongful
conduct. 

Contact the Chicago Personal Injury Lawyers at 312-372-4444 or toll free at 1800-870-6333 for a free case evaluation.

We have update the Legal Directory and expanded the number of practice areas and geographic locations to cover all legal practice areas and all states in the USA.List your law firm today in the updated Attorney Directory and get a bonus listing in a practice area specific directory or blog of your choice.

Our Legal Directory works
because we aggressively market the site offline and with
the search engines. We are well ranked at the search engines
for keywords related to your practice. 

BASIC LISTING – $250

BASIC PLUS LISTING – $499 

PREMIUM LISTING – $995

Google posted a very strong Q4, given the recession, with $6.67
billion in revenues. This beats financial analyst general consensus
estimates. Here are some top-level highlights from the earnings release:

Revenues – Google reported revenues of
$6.67 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, representing a 17%
increase over fourth quarter 2008 revenues of $5.70 billion.

Google Sites Revenues – Google-owned sites
generated revenues of $4.42 billion, or 66% of total revenues, in the
fourth quarter of 2009. This represents a 16% increase over fourth
quarter 2008 revenues of $3.81 billion.

Google Network Revenues – Google’s
partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.04
billion, or 31% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009. This
represents a 21% increase from fourth quarter 2008 network revenues of
$1.69 billion.

International Revenues – Revenues from outside of
the United States totaled $3.52 billion, representing 53% of total
revenues in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to 53% in the third
quarter of 2009 and 50% in the fourth quarter of 2008 . . .

• Revenues from the United Kingdom totaled $772 million, representing
  12% of revenues in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to 12% in the
  fourth quarter of 2008.

Paid Clicks – Aggregate paid clicks, which include
clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our
AdSense partners, increased approximately 13% over the fourth quarter
of 2008 and increased approximately 9% over the third quarter of 2009.

Big surprise Google kicks ass per usual!

Read Full Story

A little over a year ago, comScore’s US Search Rankings Report for
Dec. 2008 showed that YouTube for the first time, could be thought of
as the second largest search engine next to Google with 2,905,000,000
total search queries that month. According to comScore’s December 2009 US Search Rankings Report published last week, YouTube searches grew 35% year over year to more than 3.9 billion search queries. 

In fact, YouTube not only had 50% more searches than Yahoo web search (3.918B vs 2.629B) and 180% more searches than Bing (3.918B vs 1.399B), but the number of searches at the online video giant made up almost 28% (27.95) of the total searches on Google sites for Dec. 2009.

Searching as a Means for Video Discovery

Is there any question that people are accustomed to search as a
means for video discovery?  I hope not.  When you combined the above
information with the notion that 23% of YouTube’s total visits for
December (130.3Million according to compete.com) originated from Google search , it is clear that video search is here to stay.

comScore Search Statistics for December 2009

Here is the data as released from comScore for December 2009:

• 22.3 billion expanded search queries in the U.S.
• Google Sites (including YouTube) accounted for 65.7% of all searches.
• Microsoft Sites grabbed 10.7% market share.

Other notable findings:

• Bing experienced large growth during the month with a 6-percent increase
• eBay and Amazon had a great month which can be attributed to retail search activity for the holiday season.
• YouTube searches were only up 1% month over month.  Still, 1% is equal to an increase of 45 million searches.

This is just another reason that lawyers should be creating videos to help market their legal practices.

Source: Reel SEO

Good article from Reel SEO about legal issues related to video marketing.

Mark Rosenberg was recently published in Affiliate Summit’s FeedFront magazine
with his article titled “Video Marketing and the Law.” We have the
article for you to read here and Mark shares with us the basic
proactive measures that all video marketers should be aware to to avoid
common legal pitfalls, including: right of publicity issues,
copyrights, licensing, contracts, and receiving proper consent.

Videos can be a very effective Internet marketing tool. Yet, this
tool comes with several hidden legal issues. These pitfalls can be
avoided if the video marketer is aware of them and takes proactive
measures.

Right of Publicity issues with online video

The most overlooked issue in video marketing is the right of
publicity. This right relates to a person’s ability to control whether
and how his or her name, likeness and voice are used. In order to avoid
right of publicity disputes, affiliate marketers should have all
persons appearing in their videos sign a release granting the marketer
the right to use that person’s name, likeness, image, etc. in
connection with the recording, display and distribution of the video.

Get consents in writing

These consents must be in writing. That is because some states do
not recognize oral consents even if the consent is recorded on video.
Everyone appearing in the video should sign a release, regardless of
whether the person is an employee, family or a friend. That way, if an
actor has a change of heart after the video is taped or after it begins
to be displayed, the marketer is protected. Otherwise, the actor could
potentially bring a lawsuit for a monetary award and an injunction
prohibiting the use of the video.

Copyright issues with online video

Copyright law also plays a major role in video marketing.
Preliminarily, in almost all cases, using video images copied from
YouTube or from a television network’s or a show’s Web site without
consent is a copyright violation. While the basics of copyright
infringement are usually obvious, the concept of copyright ownership is
not. As a result, affiliate marketers are often not aware that just
because they pay someone to create a video, they do not necessarily own
the copyright in that work.

In many cases, the person who actually creates the video is
considered the work’s author and the owner of its copyright. In fact,
everyone involved in the creation of the video, including the script
writer, the director and the production crew may own a portion of the
copyright in the finished video and possess the legal right to
determine whether and how the video can be used.

This issue can be avoided by having all persons involved in the
creation of the video sign a work-for-hire agreement before production
commences. These agreements are written contracts which specify that
entity which commissions the video owns the entire copyright in it.

Background music is an additional copyright issue in video
marketing. This issue is often overlooked. Unless the video uses only
original music created by the affiliate marketer, the marketer must
obtain consent to use the music. Otherwise, there is a potential
infringement issue.

By employing these basic measures, you can avoid many of the legal issues raised by video marketing.

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