Google Local (also known as Google Places or Google Maps) is typically found when the searcher performs both a keyword and geographical search… for example “Civil Rights Lawyers in Cleveland OH” or “Toledo Ohio Accident Attorney“.  Between the pay per click ads and the natural (or organic) results appears a map and a list of law firms, a pin indicating each firm’s location.  Google has also begun selling priority placement on these map results.  The location of the map on the search results page, and now it’s potential for being an additional revenue source, point to the Google Local area playing a big part in future internet marketing strategies.

Essentially all this means is that the law firms that recognize the opportunity that the internet has to grow their practice have one more thing to consider.  A well optimized website, although essential right now, may not be the only thing that will maintain a strong internet presence in the future.

The Top 10 Ways That Firms Squander Precious Marketing Resources

John Remsen, Jr in the Managing Partner Forum

So here we go – the “Top Ten Ways To Waste Money Marketing Your Practice,” in David Lettermanesque ascending order of wastefulness.

#10 – Random Acts of Golf and Lunch

Golf and lunch are fine marketing activities, very conducive to relationship building. But playing golf with an endless array of acquaintances who don’t have the ability to hire or refer you is hardly an effective use of your marketing time. Nor is that monthly “skins” match with your brother-in-law and his drinking buddies. The profession’s top rainmakers have a plan — even if only in their heads — when they go on their boondoggles… er, I mean, marketing ventures. They have determined who they want to get to know better and, from there, they develop a systematic plan to go about building and enhancing relationships with them. The key word is plan.

#9 – The “Really Big Show”

Reminiscent of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland deciding to “put on a show,” your firm decides to present the mother of all seminars. Over 300 people spend a half-day listening to you and your partners talk about the latest changes in state law. It was great. Problem is, there was very little follow up. When it comes to seminars and similar events, we suggest that you consider smaller, less formal and more interactive sessions. Think about a seminar series, focused on a particular industry, where participants get together repeatedly. This way, the follow-up is builtin. Wasted Time and Money.

#8 – Other One-Shot Wonders

Come to think of it, forget about any marketing activity that does not include follow-up. All the marketing events that your firm sponsors — seminars, open houses, holiday parties, and the like — should be looked upon as relationship building platforms. And personal follow is the key to making them work. All participating attorneys should follow up with at least two or three people at each event, focusing on folks who can help them achieve their objectives.

#7 – Brochures and Newsletters That Cure Insomnia

Good brochures and newsletters have their place among effective marketing tools. But who wants to read mindnumbing tomes about the history of your firm and its 14 practice areas? Not me, and not your prospective clients either. Keep the copy concise and easy-to-read. Use bullet points whenever possible. Hire a talented graphic designer who will produce sharp, attention-grabbing marketing material.

#6 – Invisible Advertising

No doubt, print and broadcast advertising works for attorneys with consumer-oriented practices (like family and personal injury law) and I’d recommend an ad in the Yellow Pages in a heartbeat. But things like traditional “tombstone” ads and “one-time” ads in a newspaper or magazine are practically worthless. Studies show that it takes 7-11 impressions before somebody will recall seeing your ad. Consistency and frequency are essential. Here again, hire a good graphic designer and stay light on copy to make sure your ads are noticed. If you want to advertise, do it right.

#5 – Holiday Chochkes

Ahhh, the holidays. Talk about getting lost in the shuffle! Effective marketing strategies get noticed and stand apart from the crowd. The holidays are far too busy a time for your cards, parties, and gifts to be fully appreciated. However, if you must send holiday cards, by all means, sign them personally!

#4 – Directories, Directories and More Directories!

Over the past ten years, law firm directories have sprouted like cattails in the Everglades. Unfortunately, most have little marketing value. Decision-makers simply don’t use them very much. In fact, our friends on the listserv think that only a few directories, such as LawOffice.com, Martindale-Hubbell and Best’s (for insurance defense counsel), are worth the money. Bottom line….hold on to your cash.

#3 – Vanity Letterhead

We’re talking about the kind that features every lawyer’s name on the masthead. Every letter becomes two-pages long, and each time a lawyer joins or leaves the firm the old supply gets chucked and a new supply is ordered. Often, the new letterhead is out of date even before it comes back from the printer! Most firms have abandoned this practice and yours should, too. Consider adding a snappy firm logo and/or a splash of color. Don’t worry, it’s OK.

#2 – PPPPs (Powerful Partner’s Pet Projects)

Our #2 money waster was sent in by Bev Davis, chief operating officer for a well-known Oregon law firm….and you know exactly what she’s talking about! The firm’s $5,000 contribution for a table at the “Belles of the Confederacy” Dinner Dance, for example. Powerful Partner Jim thinks it’s a great idea. (So happens his wife is on the Board of Directors.) PPPPs are rarely budgeted and are hardly ever consistent with firm-wide marketing objectives. They tend to consume vast quantities of money and staff time. A firm-wide marketing plan goes a long way toward reducing the number of PPPPs. Show Jim the plan and just say no!

#1 – Consultants Who Don’t Know **** About Law Firms

Law firms are a different kind of beast — big egos, lots of democracy, convoluted compensation systems and, in many cases, a disdain toward marketing. Yet, I see it happen time and time again. “We hired Sally because we liked the work she did for our big banking client. But she never could manage to implement much of anything around here.” When it comes to building consensus for a new idea or getting people to focus on non-billable activities, there is nothing quite like a law firm. It takes someone who’s been there to make it happen. If you decide to hire a consultant, hire somebody who has a successful track record working with law firms like yours.

No one can deny the movement that is taking place for law firms into the internet as a means of generating more clients.  As a web based marketing representative for LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell in northern Ohio, I am commonly asked about role Martindale-Hubbell can play in this increasingly on-line culture.

Over the past couple years, Martindale-Hubbell has been broadening it’s reach into this on-line space.  Most firms are aware that database used to create the Martindale-Hubbell is now available on the most searched consumer focused website, Lawyers.com, and the leading resource for attorneys and legal counsel, Martindale.com.  However, getting the most from these directories is still sometimes a question.

A recently published blog post on Martindale.com addresses those questions.  Through these simple steps, attorneys can use the power of these national directories to create higher visibility within their communities.  Even better, many of these best practices can be implemented without any additional cost to the firm.

If you are interested in having your law firm listed on Lawyers.com and Martindale.com, please contact me today.

Here are five things to remember when considering your website optimization:

1. SEO takes time

You cannot optimize your website today and expect results tomorrow or next week. Search engine optimization takes time. Search engines have to find your new optimized pages, they have to find the new links to your website, they have to update the index, etc.  Many times it takes weeks before the search engine spiders will visit your website for re-indexing.

2. You must change your web pages

If you want to get high rankings for certain keywords, then these keywords must appear on your web pages. It is only possible to get high rankings for a keyword that is not listed on your website if lots of other websites link to your website with that keyword. That’s the exception, though.  The best practice is that if you want rankings for – lets say toledo injury lawyer – you need to make sure you have a page of content related to that set of keywords.

3. You need links and you need the right links

Good backlinks are the key to high rankings on Google. Automatically created backlinks usually won’t help your rankings and they even might get you banned from Google’s index.  These kind of links are typically offered by very low cost optimization company that even take the great leap of guaranteeing rankings.

As a general rule, the easier it is to get a link, the less is its influence on the position of your website on Google. The links to your website should be from related websites and they should contain your keywords in the link text.

4. It’s crucial to choose the right keywords

If are a Cleveland criminal attorney, than you might think that it would be cool if their site was found for the keyword “cleveland drug laws”. That might be cool but it does not necessarily make sense.

People searching for “cleveland drug laws” can be interested in anything: a law student working on a paper, another attorney researching a case, etc. If these people come to your website, they are not likely to result in a new client.

Optimize your website for keywords that attract the right kind of people. For example “charged with a drug crime in cleveland” or “dui lawyer in cleveland“.

5. You must be realistic

If you have a website with just a few pages and your competitors have large websites with forums, communities, blogs, etc. then you must improve your website if you want to compete. Search engines want to show the best sites on the result pages.

If you absolutely want to get high rankings for a term such as “cleveland bankruptcy attorney”, start with less competitive keywords and then proceed to the more competitive terms. Search engines must trust your website before they give you high rankings for very competitive keywords.

Some content inspired by Axandra Search Engine Facts July 6 2010 – Issue #428

The article references a New York law firm that took the opportunity of the recent gulf oil spill to build topical websites related to that event.  With the resources of the 20 technology specialists behind this effort, it has generated big results.  Within less than 60 days, they generated over 1000 leads related to the gulf oil spill.  There are not too many marketing vehicles available that can generate that kind of results.  A point illustrated very clearly when they indicate that their internet marketing has… “recently begun to supplant some more traditional marketing methods, such as yellow-page ads and radio and television spots” in generating leads for the firm.  One of the partners even indicated that they dedicate “$1 million a year on digital marketing, about a third of its average annual marketing budget”.

Most firms probably do not have 20 technology specialists or $1 million dollars to dedicate to their internet marketing program.  However, this is an area (and opportunity) that law firms can no longer afford to “opt-out” of.  A strong internet marketing strategy focused on the firm’s ideal client is CRITICAL for the success of law firms in the 21st century.

So the natural conclusion is to look for as many linking opportunities as possible.  In a recent announcement regarding links, Google’s anti-spam engineer Matt Cutts, reminds us to proceed with caution especially when it comes to paid links.  The official Google policy on paid links is as follows:

“Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”

It now appears that Google has been working on new algorithms and tools to be able to detect paid links.  So although these types of instant rankings boosters may be temporarily beneficial, ultimately they could result in devastating consequences for your website. Once paid links are found going to your website, Google will completely remove your website from search results as soon as they are discovered.  Google also allows for the reporting of link violations, something that your competitors may also be on the watch for.  So between the algorithm itself and vengeful competitors, it’s not about if but more like when you will be discovered.

The better alternative is to build credible in-bound links from websites that do not engage in any link selling.  Although this takes more time, you avoid the risk of having your website disappear all together.  This type of consistent, gradual increasing of the value of your website will show the search engines that your website’s position is warranted and not stolen.

As the old adage says “you get what you pay for” and this definitely applies when building a website.  There are many factors to building a good website and building an effective Internet marketing presence.  When you consider the shear volume of people who are using the Internet to hire an attorney, these “cheap” websites can be a very expensive mistake.

Here are a few questions that you should keep in mind:

Does the website developer understand Search Engine Optimization?

A website that is properly built with basic search engines optimization best practices can make the difference between an effective site and a site that might as well be a billboard in the desert.  Unfortunately I regularly analyze beautiful websites, some even with award winning designs, that have no presence on keyword based search results.  An innovative, cutting-edge website design is great, but it must be coupled with an effective optimization strategy that is in place both during and after the website build is complete. In some cases, it is better to have a basic website design if it means more time and money can be spent after the build is complete on optimization.

Does the website developer understand what your customer is looking for?

The potential customers that are on your website have very specific questions that they need answered before they decide to contact you for more information.  If you don’t address those questions, they will leave your website and search for another that does.  From the content that written to the image it conveys, speaking to the right customer with the right message is essential in making sure your website is contributing to your bottom line.

Will your website developer be around next week?

In basements all across America you will find home-based website builders.  Nothing against these noble entrepreneurs, but a reputable company that has website development as a focus of their business is far more likely to be around when you need to change or update your website.  These ongoing changes to your website are critical for helping your website gain and maintain rankings on the search engines.  Far too many businesses are held captive to a website that can’t be updated because the developer is M.I.A.

Factors in Search Engine Optimization from Matt Cutts

In an interview published on March 14th, Google’s Matt Cutts outlined some of the factors that play a part in determining a website’s search rankings.  For many of you reading this article, the vast majority of those factors are completely controlled by your website developer.  So your best action plan as it relates to those elements is to hire a website builder that will build your site with both design and optimization best practices in mind.

However, one area that you can help control is the number of websites that link to yours.  And not just your website, but also all of the pages within your website.  When asked about how many pages Google will index within a website (which plays a big part in determining rankings), Matt Cutts made it very clear that links are a big part of that equation…  “There is also not a hard limit on our crawl.  The best way to think about it is that the number of pages that we crawl is roughly proportional to your PageRank.  So if you have a lot of incoming links on your root page, we’ll definitely crawl that.  Then your root page may link to other pages, and those will get PageRank and we’ll crawl those as well.  As you get deeper and deeper in your site, however, PageRank tends to decline.”

So I know what you are thinking… let’s develop as many links as possible from as many websites as we can.  Your on the right track, but proceed with caution.  The value of the website that is linking to your website is as important as the link itself.  Relevance and credibility of the site play a part in how much value will be given for that link.  Especially if the link is coming from a website known for selling links, or as Google likes to call them “spammy” websites.

This is a common tactic used by companies that solicit their optimization services with offers that are too good to be true… “guaranteed page one ranking on Google for only $500!”.  As my mother always says, you get what you pay for!  These types of optimization companies will sell links from websites in which their only purpose is to create link juice.  So when implemented, the website experiences a temporary boost in rankings – “Hello first page of Google”.  But once these tricky links are discovered, the value of the link is lowered and the rankings are lost – “Easy come, easy go”.

The best bet in creating these valuable links is to contribute to the on-line community in relevant and legitimate ways.  Blogging, Twittering, FaceBook, YouTube, LinkedIn – all are great ways to establish relevant inbound links to your website.  Or, you could always hire a legitimate search engine optimization company to do it for you

It’s not possible to get top 10 rankings on Google by focusing on a single strategy. Getting listed on Google requires you to work on all elements of your website. Here are the top 5 factors that influence the position of your website in Google’s search results:

Ranking factor 1: website accessibility

It doesn’t make sense to optimize your web pages if search engines cannot access your web pages:

• The HTML code of your web pages should be error-free and your web server should return the correct response code. The contents of your web pages should be readable to search engine spiders.

Ranking factor 2: site architecture

Google wants to show relevant websites in the search results. Your website shouldn’t be a collection of random web pages. If you want to get top 10 rankings on Google, the pages of your website should be related.

Your web pages should show Google that your website is relevant to a certain topic. All pages of your website should be linked. If possible, web surfers should reach any page of your website with a maximum of three clicks.

The links and the directory structure of your website should make it easy to search engines to categorize the contents of your website.

Ranking factor 3: keywords

Choosing the right keywords is one of the most important steps. If you choose the wrong keywords, you won’t succeed with your campaign.

• Optimize different pages of your website for different keyphrases. The more pages of your website you optimize, the better.
• Start with very targeted keyphrases that consists of many words, for example “find inexpensive hotels in brussels“.
• When you have top rankings for these targeted keyphrases, proceed with more general keywords such as “hotels in brussels“.
• When you have top rankings for these keyphrases, you can proceed with very general keywords such as “hotels“.

In general, targeted keywords have a much higher conversion rate than general keywords, i.e. you will get more sales per visitor with “find inexpensive hotels in brussels” than with “hotels“.

Also think about the type of visitor that you attract with a keyword. Are these people interested in information or do they want to buy?

Ranking factor 4: content

Your website won’t get high rankings on Google if it only offers articles and affiliate links that can be found on dozens of other websites.

Separate your website from the rest by creating unique and trustworthy content. Write your own articles about the topic of your website, publish them on your own website and make your website a useful resource.

Ranking factor 5: links from other websites

It is not possible to get high rankings on Google without having links from other websites.

The more links point to your website, the more likely it is that your website gets good positions in Google’s search results. The links to your website should be from trusted websites.

If a web page that links to you is related to your own website then the effect of that link on the search engine rankings of your website is higher than the effect of an unrelated link.

It also helps if social bookmark websites link to your website. If many people bookmark your website on social bookmark sites, then this is a sign that your website might deserve high rankings.

A small error in one element can destroy your effects in all other ranking elements. For that reason, it is important to use the right strategy when optimizing your website.

In a recent video that is posted on my You-Tube page, I talk about why an effective internet marketing strategy is essential to the success of law firms.  Until recently, lawyers relied on yellow pages advertising to generate new client leads.  Far too many of them spent tens of thousands of dollars every month to ensure that their ad was seen.  However, across the county, attorneys are starting to notice that these ads are not generating the same return on their investment that they have come to expect.

So what’s next?  Enter the dapper attorney wearing the cape of an effective website and internet marketing strategy.

I won’t give away all the secrets… you will just have to watch the video