Las Vegas 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 quite some 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 forever 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 brought about our first ever ad cost increase.
There are lots of Internet advertisement choices for law firms. Personally,
I think many 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 fixed 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 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 cases, law, legal, court rulings, Supreme Court decisions, etc.
really bring 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 lawyers, San Diego attorneys,
San Diego criminal defense and San Diego defense lawyers offer a much better
probability of attaining a paying client?
It’s not so much the traffic a legal site produces, 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 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 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.
Hopefully 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 modest rate increase. When is an advertising rate increase not
an actual increase? With the Internet, it’s when you are providing 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 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 astronomical monthly phone book ad costs, we
firmly believe our directories offer the most cost effective new client
acquisition cost available!
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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