CaseDetails.com - Internet Marketing for Law Firms

Knowing the maze of regulations surrounding legal advertising (that vary state by state), I suppose I thought lawyers would never pursue spammy marketing tactics. In a general sense, I never thought lawyers would pursue broadcast email marketing, just because of the difficulty in targeting qualified candidates, extremely low conversion rate and the negative reflection of the firm I believe it imparts. I was entertained by a piece of perceived lawyer spam I received via email the other day.

Now I’m sure I’ve never indicated I was in need of legal services. I honestly wonder how many clicks and/or calls the law firm will receive from this - the conversion rate? As the Wikipedia entry on Spam says:

Although only a tiny percentage of their targets are motivated to purchase their products (or fall victim to their scams), the low cost may provide a sufficient conversion rate to keep the spamming alive.

It’s the broadcast nature of this kind of solicitation that breeds mistrust of the brand (your law firm’s good name). Is it worth 500000 negative impressions of your firm for, say, 5 leads? Granted, that’s assuming a low, spam-like, 0.001% conversion rate, but the overall message is that, in my opinion, broadcast email marketing that’s perceived to be spam by 99.9% of recipients isn’t the best way to market your law firm. What can lawyers learn from this?

Take away: don’t be tempted by offers to conduct broadcast email on behalf of your firm. Be skeptical of (nearly) all “pre-qualified” lists of email addresses. The most effective email marketing your firm can conduct will start with opt-in lists developed through your own website or client list. This protects your good name by making sure that you approach recipients that are receptive to your message and it pays off in ROI by delivering more leads than non-targeted lists.

The next question is “how does my firm effectively build an email marketing list that I can trust”? Start with a reference or two such as:

Selecting Specific Targets When Marketing Your Practice by LexisNexis for general advice (disclosure)
28 Ways to Build Permission-Based Email Lists by EmailLabs
Email Marketing Tips, Tricks and Secrets by About.com

Then move on to deciding what success will mean to you in this campaign. Meaning, do you want X number of new clients? Then your message should target potential clients. Do you want to spread the news of a recent verdict? Increase referral business? Then your message should target other law firms.

Above, I’ve used this example of lawyer spam to advise the average small law firm on the do’s and don’ts of email marketing. Am I the end-all expert on email marketing, list development and targeting? No. But I do hope I’ve at least stirred a gut reaction from you on the approach that was taken recently to deliver this un-targeted message. That aversion should lead you to explore the right way to pursue an legal marketing campaign via email.

Technorati Tags: lawyer spam, email marketing

I probably forgot to turn off some opt-out when filling out an online form, so this may not truly be a 100% "unsolicited" email message but that’s why I’m “protecting the innocent” law firm by not revealing their name.

When assessing if a site is a good one to get a link from, the first thing I look at is the site’s PageRank in the Google Toolbar. (PageRank is a quantification of how much authority or “juice” the page has in the eyes of Google.) When developing links, your goal is to pass that authority from their site to your site by having them link to you. It follows that a link from a high PageRank site is good, where a link from a site with a PageRank lower than yours is not as good. Of course, the end goal is to have a site with good, targeted content complemented by authoritative, incoming links - those are the websites that receive good rankings.

When judging the quality of a link placement opportunity, it’s important to look at the PageRank of the page where your law firm’s URL will ACTUALLY appear. I’ve seen many, many sites where the homepage has a PR6 or 7 but NO PageRank assigned to any of the internal pages. (There are times when the location of your intended placement is too new for PageRank. In these cases, you can either assess that site’s older pages’ PageRank and take your chances or wait a month or two and take another look.) Ultimately, the quality of the incoming link is determined by the PageRank of the page(s) actually bearing your site’s link.

Next, if the page where the link is to be placed has PageRank, I then look at what KIND of link to the firm’s website is available. Is the link pointed to your law firm’s site direct to your URL or is to be sent through some jumbled JavaScript or have the nofollow attribute set? It matters. Direct links are good. Links through JavaScript don’t pass PageRank. Nofollow means what it says. Search engines discount links tagged with nofollow.

In a final step, I usually step outside a pure SEO viewpoint and ask myself (regardless of PageRank) if this is a good advertising value. In other words, even without PageRank, would the firm benefit from placement on this site because of the audience targeting, traffic or overall corporate outlook? After all, getting rankings is only a means to an end: new clients for your law firm. At the end of the day, if I can drive new business with a $100/year ad, it doesn’t matter to me if search engine rankings for my URL is included as part of the deal.

Here’s a sample assessment of MerchantCircle.com:

• The homepage (http://www.merchantcircle.com/corporate/) has PR5. Ok, fairly good.
• There are a few promotions of individual businesses on the homepage but, ultimately, businesses are listed either through a feature city page like the one for Denver Colorado (PR3) or through a directory listing like the one for Walnut Creek, CA (PR2). Neither prospect is great but I do see individual businesses on these PR3 pages, that’s good, right? Nope - we’re not done yet.
• Notice that the individual city pages don’t link to the individual businesses’ websites. Instead, they link to a feature page about each business. That means the city page isn’t the one that will pass authority to you.
• Looking at a typical, small town individual business promo page, we see that there is no PageRank to pass to the “Main Website” link allowed within the profile. Not ideal. If we revisit a higher PR page like the one for Denver, we see that some local businesses there have profile pages with PR2. While PR2 isn’t ideal, at least there’s PageRank to pass when featured within a major city.
• Final judgment of the quality of this incoming link: individual business profile pages currently have a max of PR2. If a law firm’s site is PR3 or higher, this won’t do much good. If a law firm’s site has PR2 or lower AND they’re located in a major market, this would be a link worth pursuing.
• Not too promising, eh? Remember my final assessment step: go outside SEO considerations. Is this, in general, a good advertising value? For the price, would a business benefit from the exposure this site brings? Is the site/business of a high enough quality that they’ll prospectively gain more authority and traffic in the future? With these questions in mind, let’s note that MerchantCircle.com’s “web 2.0” approach is growing in popularity and recognition. Major cities like Denver ARE receiving higher PR and passing it to profile pages - telling me that the site structure CAN support passing of authority. (There are no stops like JavaScript involved.) Moreover, the price is right - FREE! For these reasons, despite the site’s low PageRank, I would recommend building a profile on this site. If it doesn’t work out, what’s the cost? About 30 minutes’ time.

While this post totally ignores linkbuilding opportunities like .org affiliations, blogging & article syndication, I hope this sample assessment helps lawyers effectively build authoritative incoming links using sites you find every day.

Technorati Tags: incoming links, linkbuilding

It’s the day before Christmas, so I thought I’d post something entertaining: the SEOmoz Unusual SearchTerms from the Month of November. Hilarious… take a look if you’re a search nerd like me.

Have a happy new year.

We’re all guilty of “ego surfing” every once and a while (searching your name in Google and seeing what comes up). For some, it’s scary to see how much of your life is documented online. For others, it’s a nice ego boost to see your name “up in lights” within Google’s search engine results pages. Either way, a quick search of your name will turn up who’s saying what about you online.

Turning my attention to attorneys - is it hard to imagine an attorney would be interested to see what others are saying about him/her? Well, sure. But let’s take this a step further and learn a few things from ego surfing. How about a few recommendations on getting the most out of your profiles online:

• In your initial search, make sure you put your name in quotes (eg “Your Namehere”) to specifically return results for you and not a mixture of your first and/or last name. Do the same for your law firm’s name, if different from your own.
• Once you’ve pulled up the search results, my next tip is to make sure that the first page of information that’s returned contains correct information. No, you can’t change others’ opinions about you, but double check that the address and phone information printed along with your name will actually reach you or your office.
• If you don’t see too much online about you, your practice or your cases, there are a few sites that should be high on your list for building your name online. Yes, you are effectively “brand-building” your name and, thereby, your firm’s visibility.
• Lawyers.com - you should get a listing.
• FindLaw.com - you should (probably) get a listing.
• LinkedIn.com - you should set up a profile
• Jigsaw.com - you should set up a profile for your firm
• Naymz.com - you should set up a profile
• Finally, if you’re the type that’s interested in actively TELLING THE WORLD about what you’re up to, top options include:
• Start a blog at a site like Blogger.com or WordPress.com
• Wink.com is a good place to aggregate your information (as is Naymz.com)
• Sign up for Twitter.com (ugh, waaay too much detail for me)
• Sign up for all the social bookmarking accounts you can… and use them!

Yes, there are those who love to document the minutia of their lives for their mothers to read… but there are also those that carefully manage their name and “reputation” online to maximize the impact of search in client development. Whether you’re an old timer who’s still scared of what’s being said online or on the cutting edge, it’s important to learn from what you see when ego surfing and take action as necessary.

Technorati Tags: ego surfing, search engines

I wrote a more extensive post on FeaturedSystems.com, but I wanted to put put a buzzword on your radar: Android. Google and the Open Handset Alliance have announced they will be publishing an open source mobile device platform (software and/or hardware) to support user and dealer customization of the devices. Very interesting. Instead of tacking iPhone head on, they’re positioning themselves to provide the “operating system” everyone will want to load.

Technorati Tags: Android, Open Handset Alliance

Quick post - Google AdSense publishers can now elect to feature YouTube videos in conjunction with Google advertising. It’s an interesting idea. I’m giving it a test run on my travel video page but I’m not sure of the value for professional organizations. I suppose with the right targeting… maybe a test is in the works.

Technorati Tags: adsense, youtube