To earn clicks from these searchers, you can:

• Pay Google for clicks via AdWords
• Earn clicks from the local pack
• Earn clicks from traditional organic results

Very generally speaking, and depending heavily on the query and the nature of your listing (or ad), the higher you appear on the search engine result page, the more clicks you are likely to command.

Today, I wanted to share with you some observations we’ve been making relating to visibility and click-through rates from local pack results.

Here is some Search Console data for a Google My Business listing:

TL;DR: Click-through rates from local pack listings seem disproportionately low.

We’re tracking this listing with parameters. These parameters are intended to help us distinguish Search Console data for the Google My Business listing from data for the page from other channels (i.e. traditional organic, etc).

As you can see, the average click-through rate (Avg. CTR) for this listing is about 0.62%.

Notice also that the average position for this listing over the period is 1.2.

This trend is not isolated and is supported by data across several sites we manage.

Anecdotally, this seems very low to me.

So, what are the possible reasons.

First, there’s the possibility that the Search Console data is grossly inaccurate.

Admittedly, we’ve seen a lot of inconsistency with the data in general and have always viewed it with a healthy skepticism.

When compared with corresponding Google Analytics (GA) data for the same parameter, we see much different data over the same period:

Sessions: 6
New Users: 5

While these numbers are small, at least in this instance, Search Console data corresponds pretty closely to GA data for this page.

We also looked to our rank tracking data from STAT to corroborate the Search Console position data.

STAT supported Search Console’s position reporting.

Finally, we figured we’d look at Google My Business dashboard data:

With respect to visits to the website, even the notoriously inaccurate GMB data supported the other sources.

Therefore, at least in this case, the Search Console data appears reasonably accurate.

Second, we hypothesized that the low local pack click-through is the result of appearing after four paid search ads. After all, on a mobile device, the pack listings fall way below the fold.

So, we compared Search Console data:

to AdWords data:

for a variety of terms.

In just about every example we looked at, AdWords outperformed the local pack for clicks and click-through rates.

However, even clicks and click-through rates for AdWords seemed pretty low.

Is it possible that most people are scrolling down past AdWords and local packs to traditional organic results?

Nope. At least not in the results we examined.

So, what’s the source of all of these impressions without any clicks?

We’ve tentatively concluded that there are two major causes.

First, it’s the bots. Despite Google’s best efforts, we believe that bots, rank tracking software, etc, are running-up a lot of impressions without generating any clicks.

Second, it’s searches ending in the SERPs. In other words, searchers are finding the information they need without clicking-through to the results.

Most of the results we studied were related to law firm look-ups. Most queries followed a pattern of:

[practice area] + [legal modifier]

OR

[location] + [practice area] + [legal modifier]

For these searches, our theory is that most searchers are looking for contact information for a law firm, usually a phone number.

If you look at the results for these types of queries, most of the listings, including AdWords (call extensions), local packs (Google My Business listings), and even organic results (page titles and meta descriptions) contain phone numbers.

Our guess is that these searchers are calling firms directly from the results.

From our experience, we know this is happening for AdWords. To a less reliable extent, we know it’s happening for local packs. We don’t have great data to support a conclusion that it’s happening for traditional organic results (but anecdotally, we know it happens).

So what does this mean?

First, if you have data / examples to the contrary, please share them. We hope we’re wrong.

Second, make sure your phone numbers appear prominently in your listings. As best you can, you should also try to track calls by source (I realize this is nearly impossible to do in local packs and very challenging in organic).

Third, unfortunately, you probably have to pay Google to get a significant amount of click share for these types of terms. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying AdWords is right for all firms. But it’s undeniable that a significant amount of click share goes to paid ads, just like Google likes it.

Fourth, particularly if you don’t have the budget to compete in this sandbox, don’t heavily rely on clicks from these types of queries. Focus on less competitive long tail queries. Focus on other client development initiatives.

Finally, hopefully it’s been obvious to you for a long time that you shouldn’t hyper-focus on rankings. While we know that search visibility plays a role in earning new business, it’s certainly not a magic bullet. In fact, as we’ve tried to illustrate here, you can rank really well and still not command much click share.

You can’t pay your firm’s bills merely with impressions, rankings, and even traffic. Be sure you are tracking actual clients and fees all of the way back to their source. If you have questions about how to do this, don’t hesitate to ask.

The post Local Search Click-Through Rates appeared first on AttorneySync.

Headlines purporting astronomical cost-per-clicks make for great “internet bait.”

For example, when ClickZ’s Chris Lake published their top 100 most expensive U.S. keywords, it generated some decent social buzz and even some links.

After all, “$935 for a single click?” Wow!

However, there’s little question that legal AdWords clicks can be expensive, it’s worth understanding a few things about how this data is derived and the factors that contribute to the actual cost-per-click (CPC) that a lawyer is likely to pay.

TL;DR: Legal CPCs can be much lower than these reports if you know what you’re doing.

Why Are Legal CPCs So High?

If you’re completely unfamiliar with how AdWords works, check out our post on the AdWords auction first.

Generally speaking, lawyers (particularly personal injury lawyers) are willing to pay a lot of money per click on AdWords because of the high value of the fees that they are able to obtain from a significant injury case.

For example, if a lawyer spends $100,000 on AdWords with an average cost-per-click of $100, they can purchase 1,000 highly-targeted click from users who are searching for their services. If only one percent of those clicks leads to an inquiry from a potential client, that equals one-hundred potential client inquiries. If only one percent of those inquiries turns into a case with a $200,000 fee, the lawyer has realized a return on ad spend (ROAS) of 200%.

Obviously, any given campaign can perform much better or a lot worse than this example. But it’s a good starting point for understanding why legal CPCs can reach such heights.

However, there are a variety of reasons why the CPCs that you ought to pay can be wildly different from the typical most expensive keyword post.

First, many lawyers tend to overpay for keywords. Some lawyers who manage their own AdWords campaigns simply have no idea what they’re doing. They’ll do things like broad match to legal terms (i.e. lawyer, attorney, etc). They’ll set their maximum CPC (the most they’re willing to pay for a click) with the intent to maintain an average number one position. Sometimes this is can be attributed to inexperience. Other times, to ego. Whatever the reasons, in my experience auditing legal PPC campaigns, bids are set without much regard to conversion.

To be fair, it isn’t always the lawyers who are unnecessarily driving the costs of clicks. Many paid search management agencies are compensated on percent of ad spend basis. This means that they are paid a fee based on the amount of money their lawyer-client spends on AdWords. Therefore, the more money they persuade their client to spend on AdWords, the higher their fee.

This arrangement isn’t inherently wrong, but the agency must be held accountable for delivering meaningful results to the firm. Typically, this should in terms of things like return on ad spend, cost-per-client or some other meaningful business metric.

Second, if you read our AdWords auction post, you know that there are a variety of other factors that contribute to the actual cost-per-click in any given account. For example, your Quality Score can have a significant on your actual cost-per-click. These factors typically aren’t accurately reflected in the average most expensive keyword post.

In other words, by improving Quality Score factors, you can greatly decrease the amount you pay per click in your AdWords campaigns.

Third, many most expensive keyword posts aren’t reporting actual campaign data. Instead, they are reporting from tools that attempt to predict cost per clicks. For example, the ClickZ post appears to have used a dataset provided by SEMrush.

Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m not specifically calling-out ClickZ or SEMrush here. Without access to specific campaign data, tools like SEMrush serve to give advertisers a general sense of advertising trends. However, in my experience, most of these tools can be markedly different when compared to actual campaign data. Cost-per-click happens to be one area where the data is particularly inaccurate.

In any event, lawyers ought to be cautious in relying on posts like this to benchmark the performance of their own campaigns. Ultimately, as with any advertising, AdWords performance must be measured in terms of meaningful goals. Usually, they should be somehow connected to fees specifically generated from the campaign. If your campaigns aren’t delivering fees at target multiples above your ad spend, you should probably get someone to give you a second opinion.

The post On Expensive AdWords Legal Keywords appeared first on AttorneySync.

Prepare for the top listing in the 3-pack on Google search to become the 2-pack + an ad! Eeekkk #LocalSEO #SMXLocal

— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) June 21, 2016

Here's the crappy photo I took of the presentation showing the 3-pack with 1 ad. #SMX #SMXLocal pic.twitter.com/LwCnc2WHPl

— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) June 21, 2016

Early buzz seems to indicate that the new 3 Pack will include 1 Ad & Only 2 Listings. In other words, as Powered By Search’s Colan Nielsen puts it:

Google Local 3-Pack is turning into a… 2Pac

If true, this could have a cataclysmic impact on some local businesses that previously owned the number one local pack spot.

To get a sense of what this might look like in a legal SERP, I mocked-up this example (this is not an actual SERP):

First, it’s worth noting that if Google goes in this direction, the first five spots will be paid results. If you’re competing for keywords for which Google is showing ads, you had better take this into consideration in your online marketing strategy. Organic clicks for these types of queries is likely to decline.

Second, if you’ve been relying on the top local pack spot for fees, you should seriously consider what the cost / benefit looks like to pay to remain in that spot. Hopefully you’ve been using URL parameters to track clicks, calls and fees originating from the local pack. However, as Conrad notes over at Mockingbird, we may be looking at exceptionally high cost per clicks for legal clicks in this spot. Additionally, assuming you were in the third spot, you might find yourself out of the local pack results altogether. Yikes!

Another interesting question posed at Search Engine Roundtable is whether a business that has an organic number one spot will maintain the second organic spot if they pay for placement in the first spot. Historically, Google has treated ads and organic as church & state. For example, you could take the number one spot in AdWords, number one in the local pack and number one in traditional organic, which I call the trifecta. If Google changes its policy on this, it would stand as some pretty concrete evidence that ads and organic at least talk to each other.

Third, assuming this paid spot reflects your Google My Business listing, you’re going to want to make sure that it’s putting your best foot forward. One of the biggest mistakes firms make here is spending a great deal of time and money to achieve that first spot but spend little time providing remarkable service that leads to client reviews. If you pay for the number one spot and have negative reviews, you’re paying to promote your poor reputation among at least some clients. Don’t do that.

Finally, even if you have no interest in competing on general legal keywords, you ought to consider a modest budget to appear prominently for searches related to your name and firm name. You might also consider using remarketing and custom (email) audiences here. By using remarketing and custom audiences, you may be able to appear prominently in pack results with a significantly reduced cost-per-click.

At this stage it’s really too early to draw too many conclusions until we see these listings roll-out. Smart search folks should be keeping a close eye on Search Console, Analytics and ranking tracking data. If you haven’t done so already, it’s also a good time to make sure you’re using those tracking parameters in Google My Business listings. Stay tuned.

Have any prognostications? Feel free to comment below.

The post Local Search Ads 2.0 for Law firms appeared first on AttorneySync.

Speed

If your pages don’t fully load in around one second, you’re losing visitors unnecessarily. If you’re not sure whether your pages are too slow, you can find out with:

• Google Analytics
• GTmetrix
• WebPageTest
• PageSpeed Insights
• Pingdom

Again, you really want to get down to around one second. If you’re under three seconds, that’s pretty good. If over three seconds, make it a priority.

There can be a lot of different things slowing your pages down. Some of these things are relatively easy to fix. Others are much more difficult. If you’re somewhat technically savvy, you might be able to fix some of these yourself. If not, you probably want to get some help.

If you pay someone to host / admin / manage your website, ask them about why your site is running slowly. If they can’t fix it, find someone who can. This is one of the most common reasons that business websites fail to deliver.

Security

Security (or lack thereof) is a big deal online. First, if you accept user information through your site, you probably have an obligation to protect it. Second, insecure sites are bad for business. If your site gets hacked, it might not show up as prominently in search results (or at all). Plus, if your next client’s browser warns them about visiting your site, they’re likely to click back and head to your competitor’s site.

Part of the security equation includes implementing TLS. If you’re not currently using a cryptographic protocol, call your web vendor. Don’t accept excuses as to why they’re not implementing it.

If you use WordPress (and you should), you should take steps to harden it.

Some of the most common reasons sites get hacked include insecure WordPress installations, themes and plugins.

Don’t use WordPress themes and plugins that aren’t regularly supported and updated. In fact, use as few plugins as you possibly can.

I can’t tell you how many major issues I run into from crappy themes and plugins. It’s a huge problem that isn’t understood by most lawyers.

Tracking

In competitive areas, some law firms spend tens of thousands of dollars per month on some form of web marketing. Many of these same lawyers don’t track anything! That’s just dumb.

Some will loosely track things like overall traffic and rankings (meh). Here are some better things to track:

• Fee per Client by Source
• Cost per Client by Source

If you’re inclined to track additional proxy metrics, I suggest:

• Traffic in your geographic region (i.e. city, state, etc) by Source (i.e. organic search traffic in Illinois).
• Potential client inquiries (i.e. phone calls / form fills) a/k/a goal conversions by Source.
• Directional ranking trends (i.e. for x number of keywords your pages are trending in the right direction).

There are a ton of tools you can use to track this stuff, here are a few I like:

• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools)
• Stat (GetStat)
• CallRail
• Salesforce
• Optimizely

If you don’t track the performance of your web marketing, don’t spend money on it.

Client Service

Huh? Client service? What’s that have to do with web marketing? Answer: Everything.

Here’s the simple version: If you suck at providing great service to clients, it’s likely to show-up online. Furthermore, even if you don’t suck, but you’re just unremarkable, it’s going to be very hard to stand-out online.

You can’t SEO your way of providing crappy service to your clients.

That’s one of the real game-changing aspects of the web.

Obviously, a big part of client service relates to competence, skill and experience. But remarkable client service also means things like:

• Keeping clients informed.
• Listening.
• Respect.
• Dignity.

After all, most of your clients probably don’t have a very clear idea of how skilled a lawyer you actually are. But just about all of them will know whether you’re a jerk or whether you actually care about them.

Put in places systems and processes for people to provide you feedback about what they think about you. Be proactive about feedback. Ask people for it. Create an environment in which people feel comfortable telling you how they really feel about you. You might be very surprised to see what kind of impact your real-world behavior has on your online presence, and more importantly, your bottom-line.

Obviously, there’s a lot more to winning online, especially in competitive locations and practice areas. But if you don’t make speed, security and service priorities, much of the rest of the stuff won’t matter.

The post Legal Web Marketing Priorities appeared first on AttorneySync.

A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for his client.

– Proverb

When many lawyers hear things like do-it-yourself legal forms, online legal tools and online legal question and answers they immediately cry: Harm!

And there’s little doubt that legal services consumers, like consumers of other professional services, who rely solely on information on the internet, are likely to exacerbate their issues.

Does that mean that lawyers should boycott the internet? Should they ignore the demand for online information and answers? Of course not.

Since our founding in 2008, we’ve been thinking and writing about how legal services consumers use the internet. Back in 2010 we briefly discussed two common ways in which consumers used the internet to perform research and look for law firms.

We’ve also discussed how lawyers can learn about attracting potential clients from their local search behavior. Lawyers who add information to their sites that other people find useful and trustworthy will continue to enjoy an online competitive advantage over those who do not.

And we continue to observe how the behavior of legal services consumers evolves with technology.

No matter who your clients are and how they begin their lawyer decision-making process, at some point, for some purposes, they’re going to go online.

Avvo recently wrapped their annual Lawyernomics conference. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this year. Thankfully, through the magic of Twitter, Periscope and Dan Lear (@rightbrainlaw), I was able to follow some of what was going on from afar.

Of particular interest to me was Avvo CEO Mark Britton’s (@Mark_Britton) State of the Union. Over the years, I have had the good fortune to get to know Mark and, from my perspective, there are very few people who understand the legal landscape as well as he does.

Hopefully, by now it is clear to you that people turn to the internet for information and answers about legal issues. But just in case:

Don't think people turn to the internet for answers about legal questions? #lawyernomcs pic.twitter.com/Sn696HweGF

— AttorneySync (@AttorneySync) April 10, 2016

If you’re a lawyer who still questions the relevance of the web to your potential clients, I wish you luck.

To me, the real question is not whether, but rather, how lawyers ought to respond to this demand for information online.

Not Your Parents’ Do-It-Yourself

As discussed above, lawyers think of legal do-it-yourself’ers as fools. Undoubtedly, there are limitless examples of this proverb holding true. But let’s face it, lawyers also have a thumb in this war. If people could solve all of their legal issues on their own, well, there would be a lot less lawyers.

But there are also some sets of circumstances in which hiring a lawyer might not be the right move.

Regardless, the overwhelming majority of life issues that might eventually give rise to the need for a lawyer start with questions that have nothing to do with looking for a lawyer.

The truth is, most people have no idea whether they need a lawyer until they are told so. And then, even when they suspect that they might, there are a variety of reasons that make them reluctant to hire one.

Furthermore, there’s at least some misunderstanding of what do-it-yourself really means. Traditional concepts of d-i-y tend to be binary:

The very definition of do-it-yourself legal means without a lawyer.

But from the perspective of a legal services consumer, this isn’t always the case:

"56% of people say immediate discussion with a lawyer is the most valuable legal self help too." – @Mark_Britton #Lawyernomics

— Avvo Lawyers (@AvvoLawyers) April 9, 2016

85% of people who complete a form online want to talk to a lawyer. #Lawyernomics

— John Skiba (@JohnSkiba) April 9, 2016

You see, in the digital age, people have been empowered to exercise much more autonomy over their lives. However, they are still able to recognize that there are limitations to self-help and advantages to professional help.

Genetically Cheap, Pain Adverse

If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.

– commonly attributed to Red Adair

Many people don’t hire a lawyer because they don’t think that they can afford it. Others, who might recognize that they need a lawyer, will begin their search based on price.

However, even the most “genetically cheap” among us are also adverse to pain.

Often times the challenge is that we aren’t very good at conceptualizing the potential pain that can result from choosing cheap.

This is where smart lawyers have an opportunity to communicate the value of their services.

Give Them What They Want, “Sell” Them What They Really Need

Britton suggests that lawyers give legal services consumers what they want:

.@Mark_Britton: Give consumers what they want. Understand PA-DIY searches, give them info, content, tools, forms, etc. #lawyernomics.

— Victor Li (@LawScribbler) April 9, 2016

.@Mark_Britton: Then give 'em what they really want. Get them talking, let them know you’re standing by, offer contact options #lawyernomics

— Victor Li (@LawScribbler) April 9, 2016

In other words, lawyers ought to supply do-it-yourself’ers’ demand for information, and at the same time, help them understand the risks and costs associated with declining professional help.

By fostering legal services consumers’ independence in seeking answers, lawyers can build trust and help consumers draw their own conclusion that they actually need the lawyer’s help.

via GIPHY

Start a Conversation

Furthermore, lawyers ought to make interfacing with potential clients frictionless. For many lawyers, this presents significant challenges.

Too many lawyers seem to believe that creating contact barriers is essential to their ability to get work done. Sadly, these barriers lead to the most common complaints that people make against lawyers: lack of responsiveness, lack of communication, failing to keep clients informed, etc.

Instead, lawyers ought to encourage legal services consumers to start a conversation with them.

Does that mean posting: Free Legal Advice everywhere you can?

Of course not. What it does mean is that lawyers should communicate how they can be contacted. They should set expectations about communication. They should build intake systems that help qualify whether or not they would be a good fit for the potential client. They should be explaining:

Who they help. How they can help.

How to Get Started

If all of this is new to you, I encourage you to start by listening to people. If you have them, listen to your existing clients. Ask them how they looked for information about the issues they were facing. Ask them what types of things they found most appealing about you.

What messaging @AvvoLawyers has learned is appealing (or not) to prospective clients. #Lawyernomics2016 pic.twitter.com/PjnAaG33w2

— John E. Grant (@JEGrant3) April 9, 2016

You should also listen to what people are asking online. Look at your Search Console data:

Search Console data, great way to find what people are searching. pic.twitter.com/34QKQxk6qR

— AttorneySync (@AttorneySync) April 10, 2016

Filter query data containing questions words like:

• how
• what
• where
• why

You can also use Google autocomplete and related searches to get a sense of what types of searches people perform:

Once you understand how legal services consumers are searching for information, you can explore ways to supply that demand:

Of course, you should also explain the risks and costs associated with making certain decisions. For example, the advantages of working with a lawyer, as opposed to, trying to do-it-yourself.

You should also learn something about how the web, social networks and search engines work. For example:

• How to Improve Your Law Firm’s Local Ranking on Google
• The Role Links Play in Search Engines
• The Future of Local SERPs

Of course, you can also hire people to help…

Finally, if you’d like to learn more about bringing your law firm website into the twenty-first century, join us for this upcoming webinar:

The post Giving Online Legal Services Consumers What They Want appeared first on AttorneySync.

Local legal search results are delivered to people who search for attorneys and law firm near their location. It’s also worth noting that these results are shown across a variety of places across Maps and Search.

For example, Google will likely show local results if you search for “personal injury lawyer” from your smartphone.

We’ve know for a long time some of the major local search ranking factors. Recently, Google provided some additional documentation about how businesses can improve their local rankings. While most of this information isn’t new, there are a few things that might be worth re-prioritizing.

Google has historically broken these factors into three major categories:

• Relevance
• Distance
• Prominence

Relevance boils down to how well your firm or practitioner listings match the search. Improving relevance comes down to completing and maintaining your firm’s business information (i.e. name, address, phone, category, description, etc).

Distance relates to the physical distance between your firm and the location information used in a search. Unless you’re willing to relocate, there’s not much you can do to influence distance.

Finally, there’s prominence. Prominence is a calculation of well-known your firm is in Google’s eyes. This includes information that Google can find about your firm across the web (i.e. links to your site, articles, and even some directories).

Google has also confirmed that:

Google review count and score are factored into local search ranking: more reviews and positive ratings will probably improve a business’s local ranking. Your position in web results is also a factor, so SEO best practices also apply to local search optimization.

Let’s walk through this.

First, Google confirms that review count, as well as, score are factored into their local results. This is yet just one more reason to deliver remarkable service to clients. Niki Black and I briefly chatted about this at ABA Techshow:

This is one reason why listening to what clients think about you is so important. Fortunately, it appears that Google now allows reviews to be left with just a Google account (Google Plus no longer needed).

Second, Google confirms that traditional SEO factors play a role in local search engine optimization. This largely confirms what local SEOs have known for a long time.

Combining this update with other recent Google updates, we can confidently say that OMG, It’s Links also applies to local search.

Couple these updates with some of the things we know from Google’s search quality rater guidelines, particularly those related to your money or your life pages, and the direction in which Google is headed becomes clearer and clearer. Put simply, if you’re not adding information to your sites that other people find useful and trustworthy, you’re going to have an increasingly difficult time appearing in local search results. Plus, of course, you’re likely going to have to pay for visibility (i.e. AdWords and potentially a local paid platform).

If you’re interested in learning more about how local search works, be sure to check out the Local Search Forum’s Featured Local Search Articles.

The post How to Improve Your Law Firm’s Local Ranking on Google appeared first on AttorneySync.