Legal Internet Search Engine Optimization Costs
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.
Five years is a long time 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 stepped up frequency of
search engine algorithm changes, especially with Google. Needless to
say, with our increased costs and work load, we instituted our first
ever ad cost increase.
There are many Internet advertisement choices for law firms.
Personally, I think the vast majority are less effective that
putting out flyers on windshields in a supermarket parking lot. A
good looking 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 manipulated and short term top
pay-per-click positions can be instantly purchased. To the non-tech
layperson, these shortcuts can be effectively utilized to fool one
into thinking they are making a very good Internet advertising
purchase, when in truth, just the reverse is true!
Totally reputable 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 large amounts of traffic, how much of this
traffic will benefit a regional small law firm? Plus, will ranking
high for terms like legal, law, cases, court rulings, Supreme Court
decisions, etc. really attract 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 bringing a paying client?
It’s not so much the traffic a legal site creates, 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: TX lawyers, Houston
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 lawyers,
Houston DUI, 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 biggest 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 most important here.
Since we hold more page one standings on the top search engines, we
must be receiving more directed traffic when compared to any other
related operation.
Hopefully you see my point! High organic ranking for city specific
legal phrases should be your tip-off to maximization of the true
potential of the Internet
…Back to our modest rate increase. When is an advertising rate
increase not an actual increase? With the Internet, it’s when you
are supplying more visitors for a cost that is LESS than the
original cost per visitor. This is exactly what we are doing! For
the time from January 2005 through July 2006 our legal site traffic
saw an increase of 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,
huge local newspaper costs and ridiculous monthly phone book ad
costs, we firmly believe our directories offer the most cost
effective new client acquisition cost out there!
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.
Click the link below to return to:
-