New SEO and Online Lawyer Marketing Posts Over at GetLawyerLeads.com, I wrote a post commenting on an interesting and worthwhile article on lawyer site SEO at law.com.
In a separate post, I break down a paid lawyer directory listing offer, and whether it lives up to the value it suggests.

Labels: marketing, seo

 

posted by Dave Matson at 10:14 AM  (0) comments

  Marketing Upsell Analysis: Continential Airlines Traveling from Seattle to Boston last week, I was thinking about the airline's attempt to up-sell me on an alternate, "faster" route home. It was actually impressive, and had most of the tricky pieces in place for a successful program. Almost, but not quite.

The details: Flying from Seattle to Boston via a change in Cleveland on a red-eye.
Enthusiasm level of flyer: very low.
Opportunity: At the automatic check in, they scanned my itinerary, and said they had an alternate flight that would get me to Boston sooner. Was I interested? Yes.
Details: Alternate flight would route me through Newark.
Benefit: I arrive in Boston 20 minutes sooner.
Cost: $50 to change flight.
Result: Continental fails to make a compelling bid for my $50.

Again, I was sort of impressed that they had compiled this info at the right place where if the offer were good enough, I would have agreed. Imagine the same scenario with just one or two extra details:

Opportunity: Continental tells me that my flight to Cleveland is 99% full. Alternate route through Newark is 50% full. Maybe they even go the extra step and give me an opportunity to lock out that middle seat next to me, or even a whole row.
Result: They have my $50 in a heartbeat. Maybe $100.

No doubt these opportunities will arrive someday, maybe very soon. The future belongs to marketing that provides immediate benefits and customer information transparency to make those decisions.

What Would Seth Say? 

posted by Dave Matson at 4:31 PM  (0) comments

  Should I Rank? (SEO Magic, part 2) Why can't I rank #1, or on the first page for "keyword x"? An excellent question. The answer is - you probably can if you throw enough time and money at it. But that amount may be far more than you should be willing to spend.

A place to start is to objectively analyze the content of your site, compared with the top ranked sites.

• Is your site as comprehensive, helpful, and valuable to the searcher as those other sites?
• If not, why do you think you deserve to be a top ranked site?

Google and the other search engines have clearly stated their goals are to provide a quality search experience for it's users. Searches are questions - your site should provide the answers.

Of course, this system is far from perfect. We all know that there are many sites with top rankings that are not good sites. They are spammy, scammy, and content free. Some people can game the system get traffic and rankings for those sites. (Many people mistakenly believe this is what SEO is). However,

1. that person isn't you, and;
2. if you are running a real business, that shouldn't be your goal.

In most cases, getting a crappy site ranked for good phrases, and getting lots of traffic is, at best, a short term proposition. If you can pull off the slash and burn, and make money at it, then best of luck to you.

But for almost everyone reading this site, that isn't a realistic proposition, and shouldn't be your objective.

If you are running a real business, and plan to be around for a while, your goal should be to build quality, sustainable, defensible site for the long term. Your web site is your front door, and the first impression for many of your future customers.

I Do Have a Quality Site. Now What?

If you have a great site that is a great resource for searchers, with quality content and useful information, then the good news is that a) getting rankings and traffic is much easier, and b) you are hopefully in a position to take advantage of that traffic and convert it into business. Employing SEO/SEM, link building, and blogging will help you get the traffic and business you deserve. 

posted by Dave Matson at 4:44 PM  (2) comments

  How Can I Rank? (SEO Get Rich Quick Schemes) What can you do to get me to rank for "keyword x"? (and how much will it cost) is the classic question I get from people who thing they know what Search Engine Optimization is, but don't know how it works, or what it's about.

"I Have This Business Idea, I'm going to Start Doing X. Can You Get Me on Page 1?"

Quickly? Based on a half a page of content tacked on to your site? Umm, probably not.

Many people think SEO is a get rich quick scheme. If I just get this ranking, then I will instantly profit from it. And most people who think this haven't done any keyword research or comparative analysis of the potential value and competitiveness of the keywords they are fixated on.

In addition, because I've had success getting rankings and traffic for clients, some of them think I can do anything. They think I am just waiting for an offer of enough money to work the magic.

In some sense, that's probably true. If you throw enough money and effort at a site, you probably can get the rankings you want. But it many cases, that number well exceeds the business value of that traffic.

Are You Serious?

I think it is because SEO is perceived by some as a scheme, it can be easy to consider it detached from the real goals of your business - getting customers, and selling them services or goods, at a profit.

SEO/SEM needs to be just like any other marketing effort for a business. Either you are getting a return on your investment, or you aren't. And it is hard for most people to get anywhere with online marketing without putting some thought, effort, and real business goals.

Labels: seo

 

posted by Dave Matson at 8:49 AM  (0) comments

  What is a Lawyer Domain Worth? I was recently approached about buying a domain. It is a pretty good, narrowly targeted domain name. But what is it worth? This is a difficult question to answer, and it depends on a number of factors.

Open Market Value

There is a huge market in domain names. They are bought and sold on specialized sites like sedo.com and even on ebay. Domain name traders generally value them based on two factors:

Investment Value

Domain names are considered "internet real estate", and this real estate market is booming. Only one person can own "lawyer.com", and the millions of other valuable names. There is considerable speculation in this market about what domains are worth, now and in the future.

Parked Income Value

A domain is "parked" if there isn't a real site behind it. It could be redirected to another site, or it could be parked in a way that generates a page of links that are ads. Most people have seen these sites. You are essentially given nothing to do but click on a link that generates Pay Per Click advertising income for the owner.

For domains that get a lot of referral traffic (a click through from another site) or type in traffic (many people really do just type in "shoes.com" instead of searching for shoes), a good domain name can be a money machine, and is worth some multiple of income value based on standard business ROI metrics.

End User/Developer Value

Domains are generally most valuable to a person who wants to develop a site, and can directly monetize the traffic generated. The two main reasons you may develop a domain are:

Branding

This is fairly obvious. You may want your company or product name in you domain if that brand has marketing value to you. But this can get tricky and expensive if your brand also has significant keyword domain value - you may be competing against people who want the domain possibly for a different market altogether.

Keyword Value

Your keyword is a valuable brand in itself, particularly when it appears in search engine results for that keyword search. If you have search keywords in your domain, it is considered a big advantage. Many people believe that the domain name alone will help you rank for those terms. But regardless of how much it may boost you in the rankings, it is indisputable that when your domain does appear, it will help you in branding, credibility, and click through rates.
A domain with the exact keywords that a person searched for pops out in google search results pages, because the keywords are automatically bolded.
Secondly, when a searcher sees the domain of those keywords, it tends to give you an instant credibility boost - "This is what I am searching for". Of course, you still have to deliver on that promise with your landing page to get anywhere - but that's a separate topic altogether.

So, what's a lawyer domain worth again?

Back to the original question. So any domain has some base value that domain collectors and speculators think it is worth.

However, in most cases a developed site is worth more than a parked site that relies on pure click through ad revenue. That only makes sense - if the site owner is the ultimate destination of those keyword clicks/searches anyway, then you are cutting out possibly several layers of ad delivering middlemen.

In the case of lawyer domains, if you are a New York Immigration Law Firm, then NewYorkImmigrationLawyers.com (just an example) is probably more valuable to you then the average internet domain buyer. But this may be true only if you are in a position to take advantage of the value of the domain. You need to have a site behind it that generates business inquiries (leads) in a cost effective manner, than you are in a position to efficiently monetize.

So, a to a law firm, a keyword rich domain is worth:

(open market value) + (a premium based on the efficiency gained in picking up that traffic) - (the time and effort to actually make that happen).

Labels: domains, keywords, metrics

 

posted by Dave Matson at 12:50 PM  (0) comments

  News Flash: Lawyer PPC avertising is expensive, part 54 Interesting discussion in the Austin criminal defense blogging community about PPC (Pay Per Click) and online advertising budgets. The cost and value of leads is something I spend a lot of time analyzing.

While PPC can certainly be a great way to market your services, it is also very easy to spend it poorly. I suspect that many firms who get in bidding wars for the top keywords slots quickly burn through advertising dollars at a big loss, if they aren't paying careful attention to ROI.

There is more to successful online lawyer advertising than:

1. Buy $20-$50 PPC ads for "top local DUI Lawyer"
2. Pass marketing expenses on to clients
3. Profit!

What Does Your PPC Ad Buy?

Unlike buying yellow pages ads (where you can also easily spend $5000+/month), there is an intermediate step from someone seeing your ad to generating a lead.

When someone clicks on your ad, all you are buying is someone's attention for a very limited time. Most people click away within 3 seconds if a web site doesn't grab there attention, or give them something they were looking for.

So when that searcher clicks on your ad and goes to your web site (your "landing page"), you need to have to have something both compelling and relevant to what they are looking for. It really has to deliver on the promise of the ad that made them click.

How Often Does A PPC Click Become a Real Live Contact (Lead)?

In most industries including legal, 5%-10% is a very strong conversion rate from a PPC ad to a lead. Keep in mind that many people who are searching are not your target customers. It could be that a person finds out his cousin was arrested for DWI, and it curious what might happen to him. Or if someone famous gets arrested, that can often increase curiosity traffic.

So at a 10% conversion for a $50 click (or a 5% conversion on a $25 click), you are spending $500 just to get someone to call or email you.

Leads to Clients

An attorney who knows what he or she is doing, and who knows how to sell his services can probably convert between 10-20% of leads into clients.

So, at that original PPC rate, you are spending $2500-$5000 in client acquisition costs.

Most marketing experts state that businesses with any significant overhead need to return 3-1 on marketing dollars to make a decent profit.

Now you have to charge you clients as much as $15,000 just to make a decent profit, to cover your time, overhead, expenses.

There are probably only a handful of criminal defense attorneys in any given advertising market who get paid 5 figure fees for a DWI charge.

(I'm not even counting whoever the NFL player hires, or Senator or CEO calls when his son gets busted. Those people aren't searching online, so it doesn't matter how much you spend on advertising, you aren't getting that call.)

And if your fees are that high, your probably can't realistically convert nearly that many leads to clients, since you are pricing yourself out of what most of the market can afford. Especially when most of your competition is charging fees that are a fraction of that.

The bottom line is for a criminal law firm to successfully monetize some of the astronomical PPC rates people pay for the most competitive terms, they have to be at the very top of their game at every level.

I personally believe that most of these firms who continue spending at those rates simply aren't paying enough attention to the ROI. Maybe the firms are successful enough overall that they don't notice the thousands of dollars per month they are wasting. (Why not consider buying criminal leads?)

But I'm sure Google stockholders are appreciative. 

posted by Dave Matson at 1:23 PM  (2) comments

  Criminal Defense Lawyer Lead Generation Since I'm primarily focused on the end result of generating leads, and not so much the tactic of SEO/SEM these days, I put up a new page about lead generation for criminal defense lawyers. I talk about what kind of lawyer or law firm is a good candidate for buying leads directly.

The basic point is that if you already have the infrastructure and overhead to manage more client inquiries and handle more clients, it makes perfect sense to buy any leads for which you can generate a return on investment. This certainly would apply to any small business, but the law field is where I'm focused, and most criminal defense law firms are small firms with just a few lawyers, or sole practitioners.

I don't think analyzing ROI is some brilliant insight, but I am constantly amazed how many people I talk to can easily lose sight of the big picture.

Especially when practically everyone in business is spammed with emails about "getting you on the top of google..", etc. As everyone in the internet marketing business knows, virtually all of these are scams or empty promises.

Buying leads is a relatively low risk opportunity as long as you aren't locked into a long term contract. Calculating ROI is as simple as can be, and you'll know within a month or two, and often much sooner, whether the leads you are buying make any financial sense.

For new clients, we even give them at least two weeks of free leads, so they can determine for themselves the quality and value of the service we provide, with no risk.

Labels: law marketing leads

 

posted by Dave Matson at 3:15 PM  (0) comments

  Choosing a Domain Name for a Lawyer Site I largely agree with what David Ward says on the topic of law firm domain names, but he goes off the rails at the end.

If one of your goals is brand building, and for most attorneys it should be, that you want as simple and memorable as possible. That generally means still with .com only, and don't use any hyphens, since no one will remember them if they try to type it in.

I very much like keyword based domains, like kansasimmigrationlawyer.com, but good names like that are often unavailable. Incorporating your firm name or initials will usually net you an available domain, so if your initials are NJF, NJFimmigrationlaw.com is a workable domain. A well targeted keyword in your domain helps it stand out on a page of search results.

For most people, I would not recommend multiple domain names pointing to the same site. There are many ways for this to be done incorrectly that can hurt you in search engine rankings, if they aren't configured properly as a permanent 301 redirect.

There many be a few good reasons to have multiple domains for a Pay Per Click advertising campaign, but that also strikes me as a very advanced strategy where you can easily go wrong.

And adding misspellings as keywords in a PPC campaign is fine, but is crazy for domain names, unless you are in an extremely rarefied and highly competitive area. 

posted by Dave Matson at 11:15 AM  (0) comments