The TOP Return for YOUR Law Firm’s Advertising Dollars!
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.
If you are reading this and think that the Internet is just a
passing fad, stop reading now…this article is not meant to change
your mind but to show the huge potential for moving your practice to
the ‘next level’ through cautious use of the Internet.
The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) self-assuredly states in a
recent article that:
• The Net is the Fastest Growing Medium in History
• Internet Demographics are a Marketer's Dream
As Jeffrey Graham writes "Good online advertising incorporates into
the user experience and offers relevant, compelling information just
as any other form of advertising does."
As maintained by a PriceWaterhouse Coopers Internet Advertising
Revenue Report for the 3rd quarter of 1999, "Internet/online
advertising revenues surpassed the $1.0 billion quarter for the
first time, totaling $1.2 billion for the third quarter of 1999" and
this was a "148 percent growth over the 1998 third-quarter total of
$491 million."
The Industry Standard magazine conveys projections for online
advertising to reach a surprising $30.8 billion dollars by 2005 - up
from $7 billion in 2000.
All of our clients have their own firm websites. Because the
Internet and search engines, the gate keepers to the Internet, are
not listed alphabetically, they have joined our many city-specific
legal directories. Thus they are able to take advantage of the
potential search engine page one placement for a city specific legal
phrase that frankly relates to their practice areas.
Yes, the explanation is page one placement of specific targeted
legal phrases that a potential client would enter into a search
engine to find your firm. Broad phrases and single words are a waste
of time in this regard. It’s not the general traffic you want but
the targeted visitor that produces real returns. That being said,
our experience in the legal Internet field shows that it takes quite
a few targeted visitors to equal one paying client!
Now look at the ROI for the Internet vs. the phone book. The
competition for phone book ads is intense. Unless you are prepared
to spend thousands per month on a multi-page color ad, your chances
of getting noticed, and called, greatly lessen. Our clients tell us,
due to the huge costs involved, the ROI is in almost all cases
substantially less than what is being earned through the Internet.
We have one very successful client attorney who has now dropped not
only phone book advertising, but all print advertising, in favor of
the Internet! We have also had a couple of clients, whom after a
year in our directories were not sure if they were effective for
generating new business. Both of these clients were back with us
after just a few months when they became aware of the reduction in
inquires and real clients. In truth, one of these clients even
raised their firm’s ad with us by 300%!
I’m not saying make a rash move, though I would love it, but to
think about ROI and the low price it would cost to have your city
specific legal phrase on page one of Yahoo, Google, MSN, AOL, etc.
Our flagship San Diego legal directory
www.sandiegolawyerforyou.com
had 4,970 unique visitors in March ’04! Rather than take a search
phrase from this directory, let’s look at a much smaller directory
for Los Angeles Orange County lawyers.
Look at the very competitive legal phrase: Los Angeles civil
litigation lawyers
The five major search engines below, all show that our directory
earned a page one, position one result as of 4-4-04. AltaVista, AOL
Web Sites, Google, MSN, Netscape.
To get the maximum potential from the Internet, your website must
achieve page one placement for your specific practice area key word
phrases. With directories like Google returning merely ten sites per
page, to say that any one firm could achieve more than one page-one
placement, would be most unlikely. This is where search engine
optimized legal directories can provide the lynch-pin to maximizing
your firm’s Internet potential.
Copyright 2007 Promotions Unlimited - search engine optimization -
All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bob Schwartz is the founder of Promotions Unlimited, an Internet
legal directory (CA, TX & Las Vegas) publisher and search engine
placement technology analyst. You can contact Bob via e-mail at
seo711@gmail.com or visit his San Diego legal directory at: http://www.sandiegolawyerforyou.com/special.htm
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