The Impact of Video Snippets on CTR’s for Legal Informational Searches

Matthew Green — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:44:47 +0000

About the Authors: This survey and corresponding write-up were
executed by SEO strategists Matt Green (@mchuckgreen) and John Van Bockern (@johnevanbockern) from Ethical SEO Consulting.

As is common on legal websites, The Reeves Law Group has invested heavily in video production. That has led to us to ask the question: Should law firms be creating videos to supplement informational website content?

Our previous research indicates that authorship snippets in search results are more effective at increasing CTR’s than video snippets for transactional legal search queries like “Car Accident Lawyer”. These findings sparked many related questions, one being whether the results would change for keyword searches with legal relevance, but which are more informational in nature.

Our hypothesis was that results containing video snippets would be clicked on at a greater rate than in our previous study, but that authorship snippets would still provide the greatest positive increase. Our findings shed light onto user’s preferred medium for digesting legally relevant information which will help attorneys, and their marketing teams, make more informed choices regarding video creation, and implementation, for long-tail optimized informational content.

Methodology:

Test Keyword Phrase: “car insurance claim denied”

Prompt: Your insurance provider has denied your auto insurance claim. You want to find more information so you perform a Google search for “car insurance claim denied”. Which result do you click first?

Control Image:

Control Results:

Control Numbers:

Author Image:

Author Results:

Author Numbers:

Video Image:

Video Results:

Video Numbers:

Author — Video Image:

Author — Video Results:

Author — Video Numbers:

Video — Author Image:

Video — Author Results:

Video — Author Numbers:

Conclusions:

After taking a look at the numbers, it is apparent that authorship snippets are much more effective at increasing CTR than video snippets in both a transactional queries and informational queries as well. It can even be asserted that video snippets actually deter CTR. Enough of our conclusions, though, the numbers speak for themselves.

Survey: What Information do Consumers Want to Find on a Law Firm Website?

johnev — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:18:57 +0000

Last week, I saw a post from AJ Kohn on a concept that Google uses to determine search success called “time to long click” The concept is this:

“A long click occurs when a user performs a search, clicks on a result and remains on that site for a long period of time. In the optimal scenario, they do not return to the search results to click on another result or reformulate their query.

A long click is a proxy for user satisfaction and success.”

If Google places importance on this metric as an indicator of how their product (the Google search engine) is performing, then surely as web marketers, we should do everything possible to ensure that the maximum amount of clicks on our site result in a long click.

So, we conducted a Google survey that attempted to shed some light on what is the best type of content to feature on law websites do induce long clicks. We needed some numbers on which to base our reasoning, and the results of the survey has turned our heads considerably.

How did we construct the survey? First, we used this screening question:

Why is this significant? If we would not have used this screening question, the majority of answers would have come from people with zero experience hiring a lawyer. That would have helped to make our data a majority of less-useful data.

Next, came the actual question, and the wording was of utmost importance. After, 500 responses, the following data was collected:

When we first got these numbers back, even the overall numbers surprised us. When we broke down those numbers by how different demographic groups answered this question, the results further intrigued us:

For the age group 18-24:

For the age group 25-34:

For the age group 35-44:

For the age group 45-54:

For the age group 55-64:

For the age group 65+:

As you can see, depending solely on the age group, the results differ significantly. This question does not specify which type of lawyer a person is searching for. It does not specify whether you are searching for a personal injury lawyer, a lawyer to help draft a will, or an attorney to help with estate planning. By keeping this question more general, it enabled a more clear look into the role that differing demographics plays on the level of importance of certain information found on attorney websites.

To further prove this point, here are the results comparing answers from people who have differing amounts of income:

Possible Takeaways:

Depending on your target demographic, the type of information that they are seeking (what you should feature on your website) changes immensely.

What content your choose to feature on the pages of your website is a determining factor on how well your firm presents itself online to its target market, and thus, on how often your site obtains a long click. Position it accordingly.

This data also indicates that the importance of the differing types of information on attorney websites is something that changes over time. Even though priorities may change for people as they grow older and more world savvy, in no way does that mean those priorities will remain stagnant within age groups. People are growing up in an increasingly web-familiar world, a different world than ever before. What someone prioritizes as a younger adult, may change by the time they are much older, but it doesn’t mean that those priorities change uniformly across age groups. Essentially, it is increasingly important to continue to keep a close eye on this type of data in order to more highly convert the traffic you are working so hard to acquire into paying clients.

Written by John E Van Bockern and Matt Green

Most Trusted Online Review Sites for Lawyer Searches?

Matthew Green — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:26:57 +0000

One of our law firm clients recently approached us to find out the answer to a simple yet important question; where should we be placing our efforts when it comes to gaining reviews online? Do customers trust certain review sources over others? Inspired by this post from Mike Blumenthal, we headed over to Google Surveys and collected responses from nearly 1000 respondents. You can find the complete survey data here.

Here’s our breakdown:

The Question: When you need to find a specialty lawyer, what online review source do you trust most?

The Choices:

a)      Google Local
b)      Yahoo! Local
c)       Yelp
d)      CitySearch
e)      InsiderPages
f)       Other Site

The Results:

Methodology

The question: We were careful to specify in our question that we were interested in determining what sites people trusted when searching for a specialty lawyer. The choice of legal representation is obviously far more critical than, say, where to have to have lunch, and so this specification matters here.

The choices: The next deliberate action was the choices we provided. We chose these sites because they are commonly seen as among the most popular in the local search ecosystem. We thought that survey takers would be familiar with each of these sites to a degree that would allow for an accurate response.

Variables worth mentioning

The choices: Because we were only focused on determining where individuals would turn online to obtain the information they needed to make their choice, we provided no choices which lay outside of the online realm such as “ask a friend” or “ask your current attorney”. These were shown to be the most popular search methods in Mike’s similar survey, and this fact may well be reflected in our “Other Site” options, as respondents may have thought “I wouldn’t trust a website, I’d ask a friend, or seek another outside referral” and so chose the “Other Site” option as the best reflection of the opinion.

Implications

When looking a little deeper into the data that this survey provides, some valuable insight is gained. Of the people who participated in this survey, those who fell in the 18-24 age range turned to Google local more. As the age of those surveyed increases, that trust seemingly deteriorates. What does this mean? The younger the crowd, the more trust has been placed in the Google brand. Or, perhaps the importance of seeking other opinions gains importance as one gets older. Meaning that word of mouth (i.e. asking a friend or trusted colleague) holds more value than ranking well on search engines.

Taking that a step further, of those who do not seek ‘other sites’ Google has established enough trust, through their ability to provide relevant searches, that ignoring their ability to drive fresh traffic would be foolish. They are still the number one way to gain a foothold in the referral world as well (assuming the services rendered are up-to-par) by converting people who previously didn’t know who to turn to in a specialty lawyer search into active applause for a firm. As always, providing a quality service/product is the best way to get more business. Managing the reviews on all of the sites has validity, but none more so than Google local.

Play around with the settings on the toolbar in the left sidebar of the complete survey data. Draw your own conclusions while analyzing the different age groups’ answers to this telling question.

What to take away?

The data speaks for itself to some degree. Here’s what I would take away:

1. As far as the major review sites, Google is trusted above the other most popular options, at least for people searching for lawyers. This may be different if we were looking at restaurant or auto shop reviews.

Reviews here are valuable not just for this reason, but also because, starting at 10, the reviews on a Google Local page actually have a positive impact on local search rankings.

2. Yahoo! Local is still important, and may only increase in relevance with their (kind of) new leadership.

3. As a lawyer/law firm, while the online space is certainly important, offline referrals are still critical and should be a substantial part of your marketing efforts.

4. Because all of the options in our survey received at least some percentage of the votes, it’s important to obtain reviews on each of these top sites. Failing to do so could very possibly have a negative impact on case sign-ups.

Matthew Green — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 20:35:04 +0000

Proven Effective Internet Marketing for Lawyers

from, Ethical SEO Consulting

“The Proof is in the Pudding”

We are SEO experts who specialize in internet marketing for lawyers and law firms. Using our proven effective SEO techniques, we’ve helped law firms across the nation sign more cases than ever before all while reducing their marketing budget and streamlining their marketing efforts. Because we have a track record of proven success, we don’t need to offer gimmicks or guarantees. For us, the best proof is always “in the pudding”.

One of our first page rankings – Slip and Fall Lawyer

Ethical SEO Consulting is proud to be the company behind the search engine marketing strategy development and implementation for premier law firms throughout the nation, from Los Angeles, California to Denver, Colorado. Not only have we been able to achieve first page rankings in the major search engines for some of the most competitive keywords in the legal field, we have accomplished a few other, far more meaningful goals:

We have drastically increased our client’s marketing return on investment over previous methods.
We have taken our client’s marketing strategies from exclusively phone book and referral based, to inbound search based, creating a sustainable approach that will produce results for years to come.
And, most importantly, we have helped their businesses grow.

Our Lawyer SEO Solutions

We are experts in both organic and local SEO, and have produced incredible results by offering a targeted combination of these optimization areas. We also offer PPC management, social media services, and web design solutions. When it comes to your online presence, their is nothing that we cannot provide to make you successful. What makes us so sure? Because the proof is in the pudding.

If you’re ready to take you law firm to the next level with a dynamic and sustainable internet marketing strategy, give us a call at (888) 789-4198 or drop us an email today. We look forward to helping you achieve your goals!

This content was written by Matthew Green+

Locally Influenced Organic Search Results

Matthew Green — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 20:27:11 +0000

How poor geo-targeting could be costing your law firm clients

Back in February, Mike Ramsey published a piece on SEOmoz detailing the Google Venice updates, and the hybrid local/organic results they produced. These hybrid results, which I’ll refer to here as local(ish) are being triggered more and more often when a user seaches a broad keyword query which GOogle identifies as being locally relevant. For example, try searching “Personal Injury Lawyer” with your Google browser localtion set to “United States”. You’ll probably see something like this:

Now, change the browser to a specific city. Here is what you will see searching the same broad term “Personal Injury Lawyer” with the browser location set to Seattle:

These organic results, displayed beneath the traditional local results, are locally relevant even though the search term is broad, or not geo-specific.

How to optimize for these local(ish) results

There is a lot of research and testing still to be done on the ranking factors that go into these local(ish) results (which we at Ethical SEO Consulting are working on as we speak!). However, there are a couple of things that we do know are necessary to be able to rank highly for these kinds of searches:

1. Location + keyword in page title, URL, H1, meta description, etc.
2. High domain authority (quality and quantity of inbound links)

Why does this matter to your firm?

Simple. Without the proper optimization you could very well be ranking highly for these broad search phrases on a national level, but when users in your target markets are searching these broad queries, you may be getting beat out by local competitors whose sites are better optimized for these local queries.

Matthew Green+

Local Keyword Generator Tool!

Matthew Green — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 23:19:10 +0000

I was delighted this morning to see the below Tweet from local search guru Mike Blumenthal pop up on my feed:

Here is the link to the tool. I poked around with it a little bit, and while it is pretty basic, I like it a lot! When I say it is basic I mean that it does not provide keyword search statistics or any kind of comparative analysis information. What it does do is spit our a whole bunch of keyword variants based on the keyword phrase, zip code, and radius that you enter.

For me this is a big time saver and also a way to discover local keywords that you may never have thought of, simply because you never knew that some of the towns the tool gives you even existed! This is particularly helpful for law firms, as lawyers are typically only restricted by state laws, not by city laws. Meaning, if you can find some untapped geo-search sources, you may be able to capture leads from areas you never even though to focus on!

Written By, Matthew Green+

Why SEO is an Effective Way to Market Your Law Practice

Matthew Green — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 21:33:52 +0000

As an attorney, you provide a service that is in constant demand. However, the key to sustained growth is ensuring that the people who are actively searching for the services you provide are finding you, and when they do, what they see is influencing them take action in the form of an email, a live chat with a representative, or a good old fashioned phone call. In order to achieve this “find-ability” for your law firm you have to choose the right marketing plan. We have seen time and time again that SEO is a great way to market your law practice. There are some very specific reasons for this compatibility. Here they are:

1. Niche

The field of law is full of niches. Both in terms of practice areas and in terms of geo-restrictions. The niche factor is one of the most critical elements in determining whether search engine marketing will be an effective option for a given business, and law firms fit that bill perfectly. For example, every single day in every single city there are people who are actively searching for an attorney to represent their interests in a very specific case. If your firm’s website is find-able when those searches are performed, and you have a solid site design which facilitates action, you can capture leads you never would have before.

2. Price Point

Like with any marketing effort, it is essential to ensure that a SEO campaign makes financial sense for your business, and the fact is that, with SEO you get what you pay for. When it comes to marketing your law practice, SEO is a great option because of the average value of an additional case sign-up. In the personal injury field for example, a case could be worth millions of dollars, so spending 25-50 thousand a month can be very much worth the investment, when those new leads and cases are coming in through the web daily. On the flip side, an expensive SEO campaign won’t make nearly as much sense for a business with a much lower average ‘ticket price’.

3. Scaleability

Unlike purchasing T.V. spots, radio ads, or billboard space, SEO is completely scaleable based on the size of your firm, and ultimately, your marketing budget. Because there is so much flexibility as far as what you need to invest in order to get a return, search engine marketing is a great option for any sized firm. Of source, just like with anything in this life, you will get out what you put in. None-the-less, a small investment in SEO is possible, and you will see a return, unlike other more traditional methods, where the entry level price point is a barrier for many smaller firms.

Written By, Matthew Green+

A Website Without SEO = 50% of a Website

Matthew Green — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 18:31:52 +0000

The average business’s website get’s 50% of it’s traffic from search engine users. That means that, if your site does not have a strong search engine presence it is essentially only reaching people who have already have determined that they want to visit your site. In this case, you might as well not have a website.

The beauty of SEO, specifically for lawyers and law firms, is that you have a captive, and impatient audience already built in on search engines. You also have a lot of people searching for a very specific service, which you offer. Hold the top search engine spots for the search queries that these people are searching for and you will find that signing cases, and lots of them, is far easier than you ever imagined.

There is no doubt that have a great law firm website, which looks clean and has an intuitive navigation and useful content is a good thing, but if the only people who are ever using it are people who were already looking for it, then you site simply isn’t fulfilling its maximum potential. With a targeted SEO campaign for your law firm, you can transform your site from a nice resource for your already existing clients and colleagues, into a lead generation tool which can help sustain growth for your firm indefinitely over time.

Don’t settle for a business website that doesn’t work as lead generation tool for your firm. Get on track with a effective and sustainable SEO strategy which will produce results for years and years to come.

Written By, Matthew Green+

Are you using Avvo?

Casey Meraz — Thu, 31 May 2012 18:19:39 +0000

I’m sure you have heard the words social media before which usually brings up mental images of Facebook, Twitter, etc. But did you know there are attorney social networks as well? With so much competition out there today in the legal fields it makes sense that consumers are shopping potential attorneys on third party sites such as Avvo. So what is Avvo? Avvo is a social network for lawyers and doctors that allows you to post information about yourself, your experience, and will give you a rating. Although their system is inherently a little bit biased and skewed it’s important to have a high Avvo score incase your potential clients are looking for you on this platform.

So how can you raise your Avvo score?

Like I mentioned before the scoring system can be a little skewed. But you can start by completing the following four items:

1) Fill out your profile to 100% completeness

2) Ask your clients to review you on the site. Get their real feedback and hopefully high ratings.

3) Ask your fellow attorney friends to give you a peer review. Getting connected with more attorneys will help you in the long run

4) Participate in the community. Avvo has its own community of legal questions where potential clients can ask questions. Provide solid answers, good feedback, and advice to help raise your score.

How to Sign More Cases

Casey Meraz — Wed, 23 May 2012 21:49:58 +0000

It wasn’t long ago that Yellow Page Ad’s, Television Commercials, and Radio advertising got Attorney’s a consistent number of new cases for a decent rate. Recently however that landscape has evolved into one where Online Marketing and SEO can be your best investment for acquiring new clients. With over a billion daily searches on Google it’s no surprise that Attorney’s who rank well for useful keywords are being very successful.

With thousands of Lawyer related searches such as “local car accident attorney” or “I need a bankruptcy lawyer” it’s easy to determine the searcher’s intent when they type these keywords into Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines. Ranking highly for terms such as these that get a decent a number of daily traffic is the first step in generating new clients for your firm. In fact, if you’r website is user friendly, useful to the searcher, and has clear calls to action; you might just sign a new case. And that is where Ethical SEO Consulting comes in…

Imagine that you were ranked number one for “Los Angeles Car Accident Lawyer” which gets approximately 590 daily searches. Just this one keyword has the possibility of bringing you many leads and cases each month. Naturally, one of our clients, The Reeves Law Group has had and continues to maintain this ranking benefiting from it’s rewards. The position that this keyword holds is an organic ranking meaning that our client does not have to pay for every click that the keyword generates. While we also do pay per click ad’s it’s clear to see the value when you realize that this keyword in a pay per click campaign would cost over $50 for each and every click! So how can we help you?

We currently maintain thousands of first page rankings for our clients across the United States and specialize in attorney clients as it’s our bread and butter. But what does it take to ge there? Creating great content, having strong website designs, building links, and sharing on social channels are all part of the equation. Most of our clients run very busy law firms so they have enough to worry about. Our goal is to lift the online marketing burden from you and create a turnkey package that will drive clients to you. In fact if we do our job right you will never want to stop paying us because the return on investment will be very high. Having experience in the most competitive SEO markets gives us a strong competitive advantage over most search engine marketing companies. Not only have we already achieved these results, but we can prove it to you. So how can we help you?

Give us a chance to provide you with a free no obligation site analysis. We will discuss your goals, options, and budget with you and develop a solid plan of action that will make you a serious competitor in the market. Most of our clients start seeing the results within 3-6 months at which point they realize they made a very solid investment. Since we are confident in our abilities we won’t make you sign a contract or hold you to a commitment. Our proof is in our hard work. Our proof is in the pudding!
This content was written by +Casey Meraz