While doing a webinar on Advanced SEM, some SEO & PPC questions were asked that I thought deserved to be answered here on this public forum. These will be published in part or in whole on the LexisNexis site at some point, I believe, but here’s a sneak peek at this SEM Q&A session:

D.D.
What are the most important metrics to track using web analytics software?

1. Unique visitors per day or per month
2. Page Views per visitor
3. Time on Site per visitor
4. Conversions
5. Referring URLs
6. Referring Keywords

D.P.
Why do you recommend a 300-word per-page max. for content? If I have a 4000 word article, I must break it up into 15 pages will people read it?

300 words per page is a general recommendation for keeping the content to a length that’s able to be digested by viewers and the search engines. It’s not a hard and fast rule, though. If you have a 4000 word article, I would likely break it up into 4-8 pages OR, better yet, break it up into pages according to the sub-topics within that 4000 word article.

Another way to look at it: you’ll have better luck targeting 10 keywords with 10 pages about each of those topics than 10 keywords against 1 page of content.

D.P.
Does subscription to an article publishing service who post links back, constitute buying or selling links that pass PageRank?

Without knowing more, it’s difficult to say – they could be distributing your work to hundreds of websites in a spammy way or they could be simply distributing your article to a select few publishers, which would be fine. Either way, article publishing services wouldn’t really be viewed as a paid link but it might fall under scrutiny because of a propensity to post to too many places too quickly.

D. G-H
re. link building, would link referrals to other atty that practice other practice areas be o.k.? what about having a reciprical link from that atty?

As part of a larger link development strategy, reciprocal linking between quality websites is just fine and will help rankings a bit. Reciprocal links aren’t as valuable as 1 way links and make sure the sites you’re linking to are reputable.

D.D.
Is it better to have an independent blog that links to your website or integrate the blog on your website?

Depending on the circumstances of the firm, either approach can help drive clients to the law firm. But my short answer is, ultimately, the best place to have a blog is as a directory within your larger website. (www.firmname.com/blog/) This is because that blog’s posts will grow your larger site’s breadth and, importantly, your main URL will be the one people cite when they talk about your blog.

B. W.
Any suggestions for the best approach to obtaining links from EDU sites such as local law schools? My experience is they are fairly resistant to requests from local law firms.

EDU links are tough to get, so I don’t have a great answer for you. Leverage relationships you may still have with professors for a backlink. Develop content that’s useful to a group of professors and let them know about it in hopes that they’ll link to it. Look for EDU blogs that allow comments or post trackbacks.

D. Y.
I work for a large family law firm that focuses on clientele with large assets and complex financial matters – what is the best way to market to this demographic when typical people online do not represent our intended client. Should we avoid PPC?

Given the description of your clientele, it’s likely that referrals, networking and word of mouth advertising generate the most business for your firm. Many “B2B” firms are in a similar position. For niches like this, I’d first suggest that you continue to build those personal networks that have proven to work in the past. Consider B2B tools like Martindale.com to improve your referrals. Perhaps social networking through LinkedIn can help extend your contacts to new clients. Of course local advertising and face to face communication are great ideas too. But don’t forget about PPC quite yet.

The great thing about PPC is that you only pay for the visitors that click on your ad. Let’s say you bid on a keyword that only gets searched a few times a month and costs almost nothing per click… but it’s something your firm does extremely well and at a high margin. Let’s say “million dollar estate settlement lawyer” is that phrase. PPC would make sense for your firm to use so they can make sure that IF a potential client for that “rich” keyword does do an Internet search, they see your firm’s ad. If it rakes in the clients, great, if not, you’re not paying for much anyway. The only mistake would be to bid on too-general keywords or keywords for services that don’t yield much profit.

J. M.
How can you prevent ‘phantom’ clicking on a PPC campaign? I once knew a guy whose full time job was to surf the web and click on websites to trigger ‘PPC’ entries. He was paid for each one he found (from a list) – is this still being done?

There are always going to be scammers who set out to defraud the PPC systems by clicking on ads with no intent to buy/transact. Some click fraud is from organized crime, other simply from over-zealous competitors. The major pay per click systems (like Google, Yahoo and Bing) are the group doing the most to fight this sort of activity by tracking clicks per IP address and “hundreds of different factors”. A great resource to give in-depth answers about click fraud prevention can be found here: http://www.google.com/adwords/adtrafficquality/. You can also report suspected click fraud if you supply the PPC ad system with details of the suspicious activity.

D. F.
how do you find out they are bouncing?

Defined, “bounce rate” measures the percentage of web site visitors who arrive at a web site entry page, then leave without going any deeper into the site. This is a metric that’s available on the front page of the Google Analytics reporting panel. For systems that don’t specifically report “bounce rate”, an effective metric for judging visitor engagement is number of page views per visitor.

B. W.
What is the cost/benefit analysis for pay for click? How much can you expect to spend to make pay for click worthwhile?

I’m afraid the answer is… it depends by industry, by competitiveness of the keywords and by the quality of the website to which you’re sending the PPC traffic. Of course, the margin on the product or service you sell also comes into play when you’re talking profitability.

Let me paint a typical scenario, though.

1. I’m a widget manufacturer.
2. My widget average sale value is $500 and, on that, I make $350 profit.
3. I can use PPC to pay $5.00 per click to my website.
4. My website typically can turn every 100 clicks/visitors into 1 sale.

Q: Is this PPC campaign worthwhile?
A: you paid $500 for those 100 clicks. At a 1% conversion rate (1 sale out of 100 clicks), you’ve only made $350.00. No, the PPC campaign wasn’t worthwhile, unless you start to work to increase your conversion rate and reduce your keyword costs. If you could just change it so 2 customers out of every 100 made a purchase, you’d make $700 on your $500 PPC investment.

Most lawyers have a low visitor-to-client conversion rate but a very, very high conversion value per client. As a lawyer, you have to know the value of the average new client and balance that against your PPC spend. If each new client was worth $1,000 to you and your website gets %0.25 conversion, the PPC campaign is still worth while if you’re able to drive 40 visitors for under $1,000.

S. T.
Do people really like contact forms? It seems to be impersonal to me.

We’ve found that three to four times more people tend to pick up the phone and call a law firm from their website rather than fill out a web contact form. That’s why we stress the importance of using a unique call tracking number on our SEO clients’ websites: to enable firms to track the phone as well as web contact form submissions.

D. Y.
Our web developer raised concerns about Google Analytics visitor privacy and accuracy. Is this something that we should be concerned about?

I haven’t heard anything major about Google Analytics privacy concerns beyond the standard: they aggregate data from Analytics, the Google Toolbar, your sign-in history, etc. With all of those things, they can paint a pretty accurate picture of a user by their behavior. (But then again, doesn’t your grocery store “savers club” card invade privacy more???)

One thread I did read about Google Analytics, its use and relation to a site’s privacy policy is here: http://eric.openflows.com/node/25. In that article, the author posits, “If your privacy statement says that “we log hits to our website by IP number and use that data to better understand how people use our site. No private information about our users is stored and no private data is shared with any company” AND you are using Google Analytics, you are breaking the law. You have violated your privacy statement.” So there is a need to review your privacy policy if using Google Analytics.

As far as accuracy: their system is as accurate as web analytics is able to be. There may be differences in how they count a “unique visitor” as opposed to how WebTrends counts them but I haven’t read anything about Google Analytics being inherently inaccurate.

B. W.
How many blog posts per day are recommended?

I’ve seen blogs gain readership and SEO rankings by blogging as little as once a month but I’d recommend once a week posts. Once a day posting is a great goal, but probably not attainable given many lawyers’ schedule.

R. M.
Any thoughts about using Facebook & Twitter in a SEM/SEO campaign?

I’ve personally never seen Facebook do much for anyone but sports, music and entertainment lawyers. As far as Twitter goes: it’s a large investment in time, but can pay off very well. See http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2009/09/im-a-fan-of-twitter-and-have-been-using-the-service-since-early-this-year-both-personally-brucecarton-and-as-a-news-feed.html

R. K.
How is a “blog” different than what we used to call a bulletin board?

Ah! I remember the old BBS days. They were the greatest: a place where a network of users could post files, programs, etc. I suppose they’re similar in that they both encourage two way conversations (post/reply) and they both operate with the idea of a “community” behind them. The same could be said of the best phpBB “discussion forums” today.

But blogs differ significantly in that i) they’re available with little/no barrier to entry, so a wider audience can create blogs and/or participate; ii) blogs are focused more on topical articles than on single ideas or items; iii) blogs carry better META information than BBS systems did so they’re more accessible and iv) RSS feeds, trackbacks, pings, plugins, etc. all make the functionality of blogs far more extend-able than BBS or phpBB systems. It’s a great topic for further consideration, though.

J. M.
is a 60% a reasonable bounce rate?

Short answer: as an overall number, for “organic” traffic, yes, 60% is reasonable. 70% or more would indicate poorly targeted traffic. Bounce rates in the 40-60% range usually indicate that tweaking your content, layout or load time would make for a better experience.

For PPC traffic (where you’re paying for every click and directly determine the targeting, ad copy and landing page of the campaign) I’d expect my bounce rate to be in the 40% range or less.

D. M.
I was approached by a marketing/advertising company last week regarding” Google Top Ten List” – Provided information that to maintain a position on the first page of a Google search, $2500 yr. Is this a new market for Google? I am assuming that this is not accurate; however, is there a possibility in the future?

Easy answer, do not trust any company guaranteeing you top results in Google, particularly for “organic” or natural traffic. Sure, they can pay to get top spots in PPC listings and perhaps take payment to optimize your website and Google Local profile but their guarantee to attain, if not maintain, those rankings inevitably will have an “out” for the firm. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291
“Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google.”

Hope these questions and answers helped any do-it-yourself lawyers or CMOs out there who are weighing your time investment versus return. SEO and PPC Questions are always welcome through comments on this post!

Just a short post to acknowledge what a great thing I think the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization has become. I remember when they started at shows back in 2002 with a mission much like what they display today:

Our purpose is to provide a foundation for industry growth through building stronger relationships, fostering awareness, providing education, promoting the industry, generating research, and creating a better understanding of search and its role in marketing.

I’ve been a SEMPO member for a few years now and my 9-5 is a SEMPO Circle agency but, until recently, I hadn’t gotten certified. That’s been corrected! In a vainglorious post, I’ll proudly display their widget:

One thing that I always recommend to my clients is that they put a unique call tracking number on their website. In today’s post, I’d like to outline what a call tracking number is and why it’s an essential part of marketing.

What is a Call Tracking Number?

A Call Tracking Number is a dedicated phone number that can be placed on a website and/or online or offline advertisements. When a potential customer calls the tracking phone number, it will automatically forward to whatever phone number you choose.

Why Would a Call Tracking Number Benefit Me?

Using a call tracking number is one of the best ways to track your advertising expenses. Typically, on a monthly basis, you will receive a report as to how many people dialed in via your tracking number. You can now compare your advertising costs, to the leads generated. Ultimately, this can help you when determining your ROI.

Where Else Can I Place a Call Tracking Number?

Call tracking numbers can be placed on:

• Websites
• Print Ads
• Online Ads
• Blog Posts
• Local Listing
• Profile Pages
• Landing Pages

Are Lawyers Using Call Tracking Numbers?

Being that I am in the field of Legal Marketing, we have made this concept available to many attorneys who have purchased websites with us.

Many of our clients have taken advantage of this tracking service, regardless of the area of practice. Participating clients have been from practice areas such as LA car accident attorneys to Ohio bankruptcy lawyers. Attorneys are spending valuable dollars on a monthly basis to expand their business. Legal marketers are placing call tracking ads anywhere they can to track their efforts. More recently, lawyers have been placing call tracking numbers on there articles on the lawyers.com Law Blog.

Return on investment is what online marketing is all about – without effective tracking of the phone calls generated by a law firm website, the attorneys will never know if their website investment is paying off.

Popular Call Tracking Providers

• ATG (eStara)
• CallSource.com
• Telecapture

One of the major changes in Google over the past few months is the increased implementation of customized search results. Publicized in July 2008 on the Official Google Blog, customized or personalized search results deliver website listings according to the searcher’s location, past & recent history. As Google states in some of their search results’ fine print,

When possible, Google will customize your search results based on location and/or recent search activity. Additionally, when you’re signed in to your Google Account, you may see even more relevant, useful results based on your web history.

This means that, if you search for securities lawyers, it will likely return lawyers within what Google determines to be your location. Another example would be that if you have searched for Philadelphia car accident lawyer in the past, visited a site and quickly returned to Google, it’s likely your quick abandonment of that site in the past will result in its demotion within your Google results in the future.

“Ok,” you say, “but everyone pretty well already knows that Google is customizing search results.” You’re right. There’s been a lot of chatter (1, 2, 3) about the issue for some time now. The extent to which they harvest & connect information is still to be determined but one thing is for sure: the idea of a “universal” set of search results is quickly becoming antiquated. SEO professionals have been talking about the use and uselessness of ranking reports for some time now, but the increased customization of search engine ranking pages now forces clients (like lawyers) to recognize that rankings vary, so website traffic and conversion of that traffic into a phone call or contact form submission is a much better, more quantifiable marker of success. As Mark Jackson with Search Engine Watch says,

“The best thing you can do now is to start focusing on a different measurement of success. Don’t focus on search engine rankings. Focus on ROI, conversions, and overall traffic.”

Since a lot my day centers around what attorney is found for what keyword, this issue is extremely important to me and SEO agencies like the one I work in. Most law firms are still absolutely focused on rankings and what they show up for. The SEO Ranking Report is a standard, expected part of legal and almost any other type of SEO services. Most agencies are prepared to deliver the traffic and conversion metrics, but the client conversations to re-set ranking display expectations will be very difficult. Imagine trying to explain to a client that they’re not showing up when they search Google because they (themselves) have searched it too much without clicking on their own listing?

Anyone with any thoughts? Oh, and what am I, as a user of the Bruce Clay SEOToolSet, supposed to think about their dedication to the quality of their ranking report product when Bruce Clay himself is reporting the imminent demise of the ranking report?

It’s no secret that, during the day, I work for LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell as the Director of Web Services. That means that I have the daily opportunity to meet and speak with lawyers about their Internet marketing goals. As much as I learn about the business of law from the firms themselves, I like to give back and offer free online SEM/SEO advice to law firms. That’s where webinars and online video excel – easy delivery of information to a wide audience. So what online SEM advice have I made available to lawyers?

• Generating Leads with Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – September 2008 Webinar that outlines best practices in PPC, SEO and Measurement
• 2008 Legal Marketing Videos – two online videos presenting i) the basics of Search Engine Marketing and ii) introduction to Search Engine Marketing services at LexisNexis
• Marketing Your Law Firm on the Web – October 2007 Webinar concerning law firm marketing online

Now I’m the last person to want to be an Internet star and, yes, shooting a video can be a difficult process but the folks at LexNex were excited to give the “new” mediums of online video and self-guided webinars a try. These productions are very basic – so if you’re an SEO wizard already, these probably won’t benefit you very much. But, for the typical lawyer, these provide an easy to understand entry into the world of SEM.

It’s the time of year when the 2009 budget gets approved. As such, I sat down and compiled a quick list of the top SEO/SEM conferences coming up in 2009. Tops on my list are:

# Conference – SES New York
Mar 23-27, 2009
Approx. $1,500 per pass

# Conference – SMX East
October 2009
Approx. $1,500 per pass

# Conference – ad tech New York
November 2009
Approx. $1,500 per pass

# Conference – Streaming Media East
May 2009
Approx. $1,100 per pass

# Conference – PubCon
November 2009
Approx. $900 per pass

A majority of these have both East Coast and West Coast sessions, so do not let the dates above deter you from attending. Additionally, you don’t have to be an SEO expert to benefit from these sorts of conferences. It is valuable for attorney website owners, webmasters and CMOs alike to hear what the latest trends are directly from those who determined them.

Mark your calendar now and I’ll probably see you there!

The devil’s in the details but…

1. Your SEO? Content + Authority = Rankings
2. The Payoff? Rankings + Analytics (including conversion tracking) = $

See also: ROI

p.s. How ya’ like that zingy title?

As most SEO professionals will tell you, a common question asked by clients is “Why does Site X have better rankings than mine?” Restated, the question is really “What is SEO and how can it work?” Explored using lawyer websites as examples, let’s hit the high spots:

First, is the firm looking for keywords or keyphrases that actually appear or pertain to their site? Meaning, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to firms who wonder why they don’t rank for, say, Los Angeles palimony when, in fact, they have no content about either Los Angeles or palimony. This is a very simple example to emphasize one point: develop content about your target keyword topics. Many times, the law firm website with better rankings simply has better content about the subject.

What else can give one site better rankings than another? Well, in general, there are two elements involved in getting good rankings: on page factors and off page factors.

        On page factors include good content and targeted TITLE and META tags to start.

        Off page factors include who is linking to the firm’s website, how long the site has been online and other things.

Alternately phrased:

        Content + Authority = Rankings

This highlights the fact that content development isn’t the only thing involved in getting rankings… particularly in highly-competitive markets like New York injury law or Florida workers comp. With content development assessed, we turn our attention to the idea of the law firm website’s authority.

The primary determination of authority is the quality of incoming links to a given website. Does Law Firm A have incoming links from topical sites where Law Firm B does not? To check, go to Google and type this in to the search box:

link:www.yoursite.com

and compare the results to

link:www.theirsite.com

Many times, the site with the better rankings will show more, quality links within this result set. It is the quality of the linking site that is important, not simply quantity.

In short, that’s how you answer the question, “Why does one site rank better than another?” Yes, it is far too simplistic a presentation, but it will get the non-technical user oriented quickly as to what things they can do to improve their visibility within high-density searches.