Fresno California lawyers - attorneys legal directory
The Cost of Internet Search Engine Optimization for Legal Sites
By Bob Schwartz, CRS, GRI ©2007 Promotions Unlimited All rights reserved.
This
material is subject to copyright and any unauthorized use, copying or mirroring
is prohibited.
This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorized use, copying or
mirroring is prohibited.
Five years is a while to hold cost in any industry. With Search engine
optimization, payroll costs are high to secure high-tech employees who can work
with new and ever changing Internet landscape. The last two years have seen a
boosted frequency of search engine algorithm changes, especially with Google.
Needless to say, with our increased costs and work load, we introduced our first
ever ad cost increase.
There are a variety of Internet advertisement choices for law firms. Personally,
I think that most of them are less effective than putting out flyers on
windshields in a supermarket parking lot. An attractive site with a fancy name
will NOT be effective unless it also has many city specific legal keyword
phrases in the ‘organic’ results on the major search engines.
Traffic figures can be easily changed and short term top pay-per-click positions
can be instantly purchased. To the non-tech layperson, these tricks can be
effectively utilized to fool one into thinking they are making a very good
Internet advertising purchase, when in actuality, just the reverse is true!
Well-known national firms have by omission, left out important facts that have
caused potential ad purchasers to believe they are utilizing the full value of
the Internet’s new client potential by signing up with such a major player.
Though the major firms may generate huge traffic, how much of this traffic will
benefit a regional small law firm? Plus, will ranking high for terms like law,
legal cases, court rulings, Supreme Court decisions, etc. really drive ANY
traffic that will convert to a solid paying client for a San Diego criminal
defense firm?
On the other hand, will terms like San Diego criminal defense,
San Diego
lawyers, San Diego attorneys and
San Diego defense lawyers offer a much better
probability of attracting a paying client?
It’s not so much the traffic a legal site brings about, but the highly targeted
traffic that can only be secured from page one, or page two, of the organic
results of a major search engine search. As an example, just for our Houston
directory, we are currently on page one of MSN for the following search phrases:
Houston lawyers, TX lawyers, Houston attorneys, Houston TX lawyers, Houston TX
attorneys, Houston Texas lawyers, Houston Texas attorneys, Houston estate
lawyers, Houston probate, Houston divorce lawyers, Houston family lawyers,
Houston family attorneys, Houston DUI, Houston DUI lawyers, Houston DUI
attorneys, Houston accident lawyers, Houston social security lawyers, Houston
labor lawyers, Houston employment lawyers, Houston labor attorneys and Houston
employment attorneys. In August, this directory had 3,110 unique visitors, 100%
from high organic legal keyword standings!
The major legal directory firms surely generate much more traffic. Even our
total August traffic for our fifteen sites was 39,289. However, it is the 3,110
visitor number that is really important here. Since we hold more page one
placements on the top search engines, we must be receiving more directed traffic
as compared to any other similar operation.
I hope you see my point! High organic placement for city specific legal phrases
should be your tip-off to maximization of the true potential of the Internet
…Back to our slight rate increase. When is an advertising rate increase not an
actual increase? With the Internet, it’s when you are delivering more visitors
for a cost that is LESS than the original cost per visitor. This is exactly what
we are doing! For the period from January 2005 through July 2006 our legal site
traffic increased 84%! A small sampling for a few directories showed San Diego
up 160%, Los Angeles up 33% and Houston up 22%.
With top pay-per-click legal phrases going for up to $15 per click, giant local
newspaper costs and astronomical monthly phone book ad costs, we firmly believe
our directories offer the most cost effective new client acquisition cost on the
market!
Copyright 2007 Promotions Unlimited. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bob Schwartz runs 15 legal directory sites, a few of which are:
Houston lawyers, Dallas lawyers, Riverside lawyers, Sacramento lawyers, Fresno
lawyers Promotions Unlimited started out as a general search engine optimization
firm but has morphed into a specialized search engine optimization service. Our
attorney client’s results through our directories have proven to be far more
cost effective compared to Yellow Pages advertising. What is surprising to us is
the amount of skepticism still prevalent among legal practitioners about the
effectiveness of the Internet to generate new business. Some times old habits
die hard!In August 2006 Bob's legal websites generated over 39,289 unique
visitors.
In August 2006 Bob's legal websites generated over 39,289 unique visitors.
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