Legal Technology Track: Digital Marketing: Expert SEO & SEM Advice for Your Firm

Legal Technology Track: Digital Marketing: Expert SEO & SEM Advice for Your Firm

Show Video

Oh, I. Only like my voice if it is amplified, into your eardrums, how, are we doing everyone. Yes. I'll. Make you do a shake after the next one cuz I feel that lugging this but we'll pull it back together, but. We. Have an amazing two presenters for you once again because we're giving you double dose all this afternoon. Now. These next two presenters actually, share a podcast, together called, client teen there. Are the marketing, director and founder, of attorney, sync and. Let's, just get things started right away well you. All get a get up here first get seated. I want, to hear cheers. Guys. Let's cheer these people in come on let's get out get in come, on I. See. You all I love it get closer we love the love but. Don't touch. Cuz. It's yeah well, I mean there's screens in between us so you can't but there's yeah now this is just awkward anyways. So again the, marketing, director and, founder, of attorney sync podcast. Together client, team the one and only geese, Alcala keys and Kelly Street. Hello. Hello. I'm. Gay Kelly. You. Guys ready to talk about marketing today. So. We'd love for this, to be more. Workshop, II we've, got slides we're gonna present some stuff, but if you've got questions we got mics feel free to interrupt, but. We, only got 35 minutes also so we're have to go for it kind of quickly let's. Dive right in all right you have two clicker I don't have the clicker where's the clicker Oh wrote a mistake. We're. Getting it we'll go there. All. Right. This did not translate well but, we're gonna be talking about search, marketing trends that you need to pay attention to and then, ones. That you can probably just kind of forget. Our trends, and ignore them yeah, and I think the the kind of theme here in the in accordance. With the theme of the conference is, I want, you to start thinking about search marketing, like, potential. Client experience. In search, results, right so we're, gonna try to make. A better experience, for our next clients, using. Search engines and I think if you frame it that way, a lot of this stuff will resonate a lot more than the classic, rank, for a keyword that doesn't have the same valuable, we'll get into that. First. And foremost Google turned 20, it, seems like they've been around for forever I've. Been, googling for a long time but, they're actually only 20 years old so. Really. Haven't, been part. Of our marketing. Landscape for that, long when you think about it yeah and I think that with that kind of 20 year anniversary it. Makes you think one the. Way that, we have we've used search engines, in the way that your potential clients new search engines is constantly evolving it, so it changes, the types of things they search on what they're looking for and. It also is. A nod. To the, technology. Isn't perfect right I mean Google is amazing don't get me wrong most, well-funded. Educated. Company. Perhaps in the history of humankind. Maybe. But. There's. Still holes in the technology, and so I think it's important to have that context. That you'll hear things like spam. Black hat and my, cautionary. Tales use this some. Of that stuff does still work but, it works until it doesn't work right and so if you're investing time and money to. Try to gain Google, even. If you take get a leg up in the short term in the long term it's gonna be really hard to compete with trying. To trick these guys because, they're pretty sharp yes. So. First. And foremost when. We're talking about SEO, and SEM, what, do we mean it's kind of this great. Acronym, that, were just like oh yeah search engine optimization, search engine marketing, but what are these different things so. When you think about search engine marketing you're thinking about the ads that you see at the top of Google search and then, below. You know your pay-per-click. Formerly. Adwords now Google, ads and then, SEO, a little bit different this, is your, organic, and. Your. Local map your local pack right. So you know ads you pay Google for per click most of the time and. Organic you, in. A nutshell need. People, to link to your pages share, your pages talk about your pages and your. You know a lot of people will say there's, some wizardry, behind, SEO it's, really a lot less wizardry. Than you think I mean there's some technical things you have to know but. I think another thing that for framing this conversation. Is to think about search. In the way that you think about some of your other client development strategies, it's putting good stuff out there that people actually want to consume link, to and share keep, reminding yourself of that as we have, this conversation today. So. How do clients find lawyers. Anybody. Want to do it just shout out some ideas how do pet how do clients, look searching, ah've o Conrad. Thank you, word.

Of Mouth yep, that's a very good one. Google. Maps. Yep. Good one. So there's a lot of different ways that people look. For lawyers, and my. Kind of take, on this is that more. And more no, matter how someone, gets, a lawyer's name is referred to a lawyer but it's a word-of-mouth a friend, a family member. They're, gonna go look the lawyer up right they want to know when for more information about the lawyer they want to know what their reputation is, they want to know what other clients, say, and the first place they're likely to go to for that search is more, and more likely to be Google and so. The. First, way that people really look, for lawyers on search, engines this is about size and SEO it searches, on your name right they type your name in your name plus attorney maybe, your law firms name and so if you do nothing else with SEO or SEM or the Internet in general I would suggest that, you keep an eye on the. Conversation. That's, going on about you on a, search result for your name yeah. And I think we we, heard from Cleo's. Trends report last year that there, are still more referrals. Than anything else and that's how people are finding lawyers, but, what. Do you think people are doing after they get your name is a referral of course, they are looking you up online they're, not just gonna blindly call you unless you're, I don't know their cousin they're. Not just gonna blindly call you and say hey what can you do for me they're gonna make sure you are who you say you are who, your friends said they are. Gonna make sure you look like someone they would be comfortable with working with and giving their money to so. Our. Great. Friend Aaron was willing to be. A guinea pig for us in our talk and we wanted to point out some good things that she's doing, are. We looking the wrong one sorry no. Google. My business is the first place to go to. Make. Sure that you have control of what, Google's. Showing for searches on your your name your firm name it's, free so, just go to Google my business follow. All their instructions fill out all the information a couple high notes and. Good examples, that ehg. Law firm is doing here be. Conscientious, about the images you're using in your Google my business listing, use, picture if you need a picture of yourself as great a picture of you at work if you've got clients that are willing to agree you can also now put videos in your. Google my business listing. And you, know that's this again this is how a lot of people are gonna form their first impression, of your practice, after, they get your name this. Is where you should be in my opinion spending, them the lion's share of your, Google. Marketing. Time if you're going to be doing a lot of this stuff yourself, group. Deliver great client, experiences, nudge, them towards going to your Google my business listing, to leave reviews because that's going to be the the. Primary first impression for people that go look you up online and one. Of the other things we wanted to call out were the hours, so, of course she, has that she is, open. And closes, at 5:00 p.m.. The. Great thing about Google, my business listings, that you can do is add in your holidays, that you're off and, if.

You're Here as a solo practitioner and, you have your Google my business listing, but you know you are not available, during this time, make. Sure that Google knows that your business, is closed otherwise potential, clients are calling you and they're not able to get a hold of you and they're wondering what's going on and they. Are just next down on the list because you, didn't pick up your phone so. Google my business big. Takeaway from this one. Another. Part of Google my business are, the posts. These. Are becoming. More, and more important, they, make, your Google my business listing, profile. So, much more rich and. They. Call, more attention to you, people can see that you're doing things consistently. Online, and that you're that. You're active and you're probably, more readily available to them so we have a few things listed here the, first is, we. Call out reviews. From. So. If you use checkout, the tool Google small, thanks with Google you, can take a review, if that's on your Google my business page feed. It into this tool and we'll give you this pretty little, you. Can pick different colors different design elements and then take. The image. From small, things with Google and put it on posts, and now you've added an extra area, for client testimonials, on your Google my business listing. That's going to show up for those searches on your name searches on your firm it's very compelling right because it jumps off the page you've got design element. Control that you don't have with other areas on search result pages, another. Thing that's really important, is the. Option or Google my business post, is offers. So, that's the second one we have listed here and you. Can just even do a free consultation if that's something that you offer or, free. 15-minute phone call anything, like that that, can kind of hook. People and, it's, sort. Of marketing, it's sort of advertising, but, it also just builds, out that post and the last one is a Minneapolis. Law, firm they're an immigration, firm they, have, the most amazing. Google. My business post, that I've seen, they just are constantly updating, it and adding new and different things like they're introducing. New lawyers in their firm. Our, a, wide, variety of things but. To. Slightly backtrack, and go. Back to the main Google my business listing, the, other thing they also do that was incredible, is, as. An immigration firm they, have, people asking. Them questions, the question, and answer on Google my business listing, and they, are responding, to those questions, immediately. And they, are responding in Spanish if the question. Asker. Submits. A question in Spanish it's, just it's. Awesome so I would definitely maybe. Look up Wilson, Law Group and see what they're doing on their Google my business listing, and then for folks yep. You. Just go so they'll. Walk you through the process but basically you search to see if they've already created a listing for you in there if they, have used click it claimed it so here's connecting your email basically to it and then you have to verify it once, you verify it you'll have access to be able to enter the information and update it and take control of it if there's not a listing there for you they'll give you the option, to create one. One. So quick couple quick pro tips for the people are a little bit more familiar. With this stuff and, sophisticated. Tracking. Of their marketing use. URL, parameters. In your, website, link and your appointment, link and you, can track and analytics, that, keep the number of people that are actually clicking, on that particular link.

On Your group my business profile that way you can actually tie back, clicks. From Google my business to, your website ultimately. You know if you're using cleo in to cleo in it towards, a fee and that's gonna be how kind of the framework for being able to track, return. On your time, and money spent on this, part of Google. You can also put parameters in your post URL so you can see if your posts are actually resonating with your audience Google, has some insights data. On this stuff but it's not as effective. In terms of actually measuring who's clicking on what and where it's, actually putting URL. Parameters, you can go because. Of limit on time I can't explain the whole way of creating, URL, parameters but if you go look at search for it it's really not that hard just a question, mark and some UTM codes and, be mindful of the buttons. That you use so if you want to do an appointment, there's you know there's book appointment, that's as much different psychological. Call-to-action. Than something like learn more or subscribe, or download, but if you're doing a bunch of different content marketing your posts with the button are a really effective way to get that content in front of people that are searching on your name. Alright, more fun stuff structured, data and snippets. Of, course we had to call out Patrick Pallas he's. Everybody's. Favorite, and. He does, some really great stuff with structured data yeah. He's so a couple, things I just want to point out on this listing. Here you'll notice the Facebook listing. You. Act so, Facebook's, generating, those little stars through. Structured, data on Facebook, right so Google's crawling, that the Facebook page, seeing, that structured data and showing, that review, snippet so the good news is you can also use, that same structured, data markup on your own site so if you have a testimonials. Page or maybe your attorney bio page if you use aggregate, review markup, schema. Or json-ld. You. Can actually generate those snippets so when someone searches on your name your, bio page is very likely to be one of the first spots and then you can also include, testimonial. Snippets that jump off the page and again talking, about that potential client experience these are the types of things they want to see they want to see what clients have. To say about you the experience that you've provided them the service that you provided them and again it's another way to validate that on your own site as well. There. We go, video, we. We. Absolutely had, to call out Jess here because she is really using, video and maximizing. It in. In. All of her, marketing. Efforts and so, what, she's doing this video is so great it's coming, up in her search results, you, can see as, a potential, client, things. Where she's talking about her experience, as a lawyer, how. She works with clients and it, just makes. You really excited to be like oh let me click on this and find more about her and then you know exactly what the experience, of working with you is going to be like because she tells, you in her videos what, working with, her will be like right. And you know that's what people care about right like this is it's. A relationship. Reputation. Business and so video.

Is A very effective medium. To, be able to communicate what. You're like why. You do what you do it shows up in searches on your name if you're whether, you're using YouTube or some other platform, and again you can also add now videos to your Google, posts and, Google. My business just. I think actually in there's a video section as well those will show up right on the side there underneath. That knowledge panel to the right of the search results so really, powerful, way to, form, up a help form a first impression of the potential client that's searching on your name yeah. And, Google. Of course is the number one search platform but YouTube is the, number, two search platform, so. People. Are. Going there to look for a lot of things do, alright. Again how. Do clients find lawyers right. So we covered, in the the, kind of the we, would call branded, search searches on your name so your firm the. Next probably biggest thing that people let do on Google is ask, a question right and in fact I think this is one of the biggest mistakes that, lawyers make is everybody thinks that all their potential clients search on some pattern. Of practice. Area city attorney right so like Chicago. Divorce, lawyer, Chicago. Personal injury lawyer in fact those are business lookup searches they, actually represent a much smaller, group. Number. Of the total searches then, you'll see in terms of each compared to like something like a research asking a question and so my, the other nice thing is is that they tend to be a lot less competitive, to actually appear for so if you're putting content, cream content, on your pages answering, questions frequently asked questions sections getting. That stuff optimized properly you're, much more likely to appear for. Those kind of searches than trying to rank for the same handful. Of what they call head term searches, that everybody else is paying thousands, of dollars to try to rank for and. Again those might be very. Targeted and lower funnel types, of potential clients but there's this whole universe, of people that are looking for information they don't even realize they need a lawyer yet and, so part of their journey is going to be trying to find answers and that's where you come in with providing some of those answers on, your website and, then. Along, with those very, specific searches one, of the things, that. You want to be paying attention to are the featured snippets also, called spot. Zero in. Your, searches, but these are this. Is the the, searching that you're doing where you get. The results back and you. Either have one thing called out or you only get one result, and it's. Rich. Content, it's something, that answers. Most. Google has determined most fully answers, the searchers query and you. Get this. With, all of the little kind of mini. Mini. Added options at the bottom so you can kind of customize like okay yep I I do wonder about how to file for divorce but oh there we go I'm in Georgia so I'm gonna tag, that on there and then also of course the people also ask, yeah. I think one more point because again this is an area where you could, dive really deep just about features snippets for the whole talk, check, out get. Stat stats. Search analytics they have a bunch of white papers and reports.

Search Intent and crafting content in a way that's more likely to influence generating. A future snippet really, really good stuff all free to download but. If you're interested in trying to claim these position. Zero spots, I think that's that'd be the starting point for me. Once. More how, to find science, fine lawyers, but. Beyond. S G mentioned, beyond. Looking for, your. Name and beyond. Asking, a question and then getting to know that they will need a lawyer of course, there's the look, for a lawyer near me the, personal, injury car, accident, New, Orleans Louisiana lawyer. Near me yeah. And I think the other thing I think this is the place that everybody wants to focus on right like this is acquisition, this is people that don't know you they, think they need a lawyer they're looking for a lawyer couple, things I just, point out one is proximity, matters to the, overwhelming majority of legal services consumers so even, though we talk to plaintiffs, lawyers they'll say well you know for the right case, I would go anywhere in the state you know we practice statewide you've. Got to think about how, your. Strategy. And if you're using AdWords, how your bidding relates. To proximity, quick. Stupid quick version is if you're, trying to convert. People that are very far away your, conversion, rates are going to tend to be lower just based on the consumers, view. Of the proximity right so if you're in Chicago and you're bidding on keywords downstate, Illinois your. Conversion rates aren't going to be as good so even though you might want to advertise to those folks you might adjust your strategy, your bidding the messaging, to recognize, that it's, not the same search intent as somebody that's in Chicago looking for you so don't. Overlook proximity, I know that lawyers, tend to be like oh yeah I practice, statewide think. About it from the clients perspective think, about their experience, are they going to be as likely to hire you if they've got to you know they've got a drive right that's another thing to marketing wise if you offer your, services in a way that they can you, can interface with clients, remotely, make, sure you're putting that messaging out there so that again you spend money to acquire, that client communicate. To them that hey you actually don't need to come into Chicago for a lot of the representation. That, what's going to help them have a better experience and also be more likely to convert as well which, is good for you guys so. What does this actually look like personal.

Injury Lawyers New, Orleans Louisiana. Of course at the top of every search result you're going to see the. Ads lovely. Three, ads here yeah. I mean my big thing is if you're going to manage your own ads. Spend. The time to learn how this stuff works right, I mean so many accounts we look at Google. Makes it very easy to. Go spend money on Google it's very easy to open an account up it's very easy to pick your keywords and start, running ads it's, very, difficult, to. Actually, consistently. Generate return, on adspend without, some knowledge about, all. Sorts of nuances, about their ad platform and their ad platforms continuing, to get more, sophisticated, and. So it's really more for me as a cautionary. Tale spend. The time learning before you go dump money into AdWords so many lawyers just conclude well AdWords doesn't work for me or my clients don't use don't, click on ads and the truth is it's like it failed, because of the way you implement a campaign this is not the same thing as just like running a TV ad or a billboard or taking an ad out in a bar Journal this is a much more sophisticated, advertising. Method, and again is, it this is a 30 minute so I can't get all the nuances but I want to at least say that so that you're not walking out of here being like oh gee and Kelly said go, open up AdWords accounts and bid on lawyer and then expect that you're gonna get some kind of result from that and as. Someone, who is more on the content marketing side of things I really want to call out the. Copy. That each of these ads are using because, if you're, looking at record-setting, case victories free case evaluation how, much is my case worth each. Of those ads are kind of pointing to a different, search. Intent, or a different want or a different need and so, testing. Out the different copy that you're using is another, point before you say that it failed you make. Sure that you're, testing out different things like that because you're going to each one of these people is going to get a different kind of client. Depending. On what they have written, in their ad copy, absolutely. And again if you're gonna do advertising you've got to define, what success is gonna look like for you make forecast in advance if. You're working with someone that's helping you with this stuff make sure you're having those conversations upfront, because, other what you know you don't want to be measuring success by things like dollars, spent number, of clicks add positions, impressions, you want to be measuring things like return on ad spend, whatever.

It, Or marketing. Business, objective, for your practice there's, all sorts of ways to use Adwords, but, make sure that you're tying the success, of it back to something tangible for your business and not just blindly, you know pouring, money into you, know funding the big Google machine. Another. Big trend watch that's been, more recent these local ads so in, historically. Local. I their, local, pack has been completed organic meaning that you couldn't pay to add a spot, there Google's open that up my hunch is is that you're gonna start seeing a lot more, ads. In a local pack I think that that's a natural place for Google to monetize. On small, business unfortunately. Right now you can't actually. Tightly. Managed to that spot there's some things you can do to try to influence showing up there but I wanted to point that out because it's kind of a newer thing and a lot of folks have been confused. About all I thought that local pack were complete organic be, prepared for more ads showing up and local in my opinion. All. Right and then voice. Search I'm, guessing if I just hit play, here there. We go hey. Siri. How. Do I file a workers comp claim in Minnesota. Hey. Siri, find. Me a workers, comp lawyer. One. Possibility, I see nearby essenti or psychotherapy. On Cleveland, Avenue South and st. Paul I want to try that one. No. Sirree, find me a lawyer. The. Second is shoemaker and shoemaker, an international, dry Bloomington, about, three miles to yourself want to try that one, thanks. Siri. All. Right so I I. Kept, this video even though Siri didn't give me what I wanted right away just. To show you that voice, search is not infallible, it is not perfect yet it. Is, something. That you. Do, need to be watching for do. You need to be looking for. But. It's, still not totally there yet yeah might, say I've been a little bit I think, there's a lot of hype around voice search right now I think it's an exciting technology, Google's obviously making a lot although all the majors, are making, huge investments in.

Language Processing, because they know that this is the future of how we're going to engage with devices today. For you though I would say this is a little bit further down the horizon I think be cognizant. Of it if you have a Google home device or an Alexa, if you use a, voice assistant on your phone I think it's useful. To be doing. The research to see what they're showing which firms are coming up I don't think this is a top priority for you but I do think that it's something to have on your radar because if you talk, to, you. Know what kid the, kids they, interact, with these voice. Products. By, natively, right they don't even think to actually look for the keypad, anymore it's a huge, indicator of where we're gonna go for interfacing, however, right now I do think that you know in terms of things that you quote. Unquote it can ignore I would be aware, of it but not, stressing. About it too much but if you really want a future-proof your practice I'd be starting to look into how, to mark up your pages so that they voice. Search it works well on voice search your showing up in these local packs so that your the result when give are asking these questions and when they're looking for lawyers that on voice that you're still the ones showing up and one. Of the things when people do ask about voice search the. Response. And how to come up in voice search the number. One response we give is just like just do good SEO just. Do good SEO if you're coming up number one for, your other searches and, on the actual search results page, you're. Gonna be just fine so dude, SEO overall, and that's kind of how you can, figure out the voice search landscape. Google. Updates all, right so there, there. Are always these like oh this Google update and how did this affect you, and how, does this affect law, and. Generally. Frankly. Google. Updates are not going to break, your website or, cause. You to soar, through the roof typically. The. Last, school update day that they did was medic. And. They. Call it medic because it tended to affect. The your, money your life. Websites. Which is often. Law, firm websites but more so affects the the health industry which is why they ended up calling it medic yeah. I wouldn't I don't obsess about these updates they're thousands of updates they do every single year they you know the search industry, goes out and publishes and oh let's, the, skies falling so everybody's scared they call the SEO have to try to fix their penalties, and all this stuff and you, know in. The last 10 years of doing this I would say maybe like there. Have been less, than a handful. Of these updates that actually. Tactically. Change what you should be doing you know again it's still the same things you got to have the technical stuff right on your site they're, getting better at being able to distinguish. Signal from noise you've, got to get, quality. Links pointing back to your site people talking about you talking about your practice online sharing, your pages getting, in front of people these, updates I think that that's another one where like we tend to like hyper focus on this stuff so I would say put that a little bit lower on your priority list put, out great content market. That content, get, it in front of audience that can that can link to it and then you have to worry about these updates because you're aligning your interests with Google as opposed, to trying to game them all. Right we have three and a half minutes left so I'll try to get through these slides and we can at least take one or, two questions so of. Course we're always talking about speed. Check. Your website speed if you have issues with that we can you know talk, about it later, or or, another day but, just check this beauty for website make sure that people are coming. To it and it's actually loading in less than four seconds usually less than two. Otherwise, they're going to bounce and. What. Does Google know about you everybody's like oh well google has all this history on you and they know everything about you and so. You need to be, taking. That a consideration, when you're trying to get clients online. Yeah. Well knows a, lot about you they do, but. They are not necessarily, defining, their search results for an interview individual.

Person Yet they. Do base, your, future, search, results on your past searches, that you've done but don't. Worry too much about that yet and. Of. Course do, we really still need to say have, a mobile-friendly, website. Yes. Unfortunately do, so if anybody has no, idea we're talking about take out your phone and go, look up your website on your phone and if you need to swipe, or pinch, or slide to, find your contact information. Any. Of the content your site is difficult to read the, answer is is that you don't have a mobile-friendly, website and. Losing, business people that are otherwise might, contact, you because, you're making their experience, more difficult, to find information learn. About you your, potential clients, they've, got short attention spans, they're gonna go back to the results, you know obviously people that refer. To you might give you a little bit more of a benefit of doubt but think, about what it says about one. Their experience, but also about your practice, if your, website is very difficult to use looks out-of-date and, isn't providing that information that they're looking for and it's a search, ranking factor so for those of you that are like trying, to rank make, sure speed, mobile. Friendliness security. Those would be top priorities that goes to the technical stuff yeah. And as a as, a user a pet peeve of mine is, if you, are, like oh yeah I have a mobile site but it's that separate, mobile site that, isn't your full website, fix. That place because, as a user that is also, not. Friendly, yeah the buzzword there's responsive, design you can go look up a responsive, design that covers, 90%, of it there's some exceptions to that but make, sure say, responds. To all the devices that people might access it on alright. We technically have a minute so questions. Yes. So the question was can you customize the buttons on the Google, my business call-to-action, they give you some predefined, ones I think there's like maybe a half-dozen on there I would test different types because, again. Based on what your the content you're putting up there I would have one that maybe is like a really soft like learn, more download, something. And then a more. Direct. Response type of like book now or subscribe. Depending on what you're offering there but, have a mix of those don't just use it as a direct response vehicle, because they're gonna feel that there might not be ready to make that appointment but, they might be willing to like download something or learn, more or watch a video ok, we can probably do one more really really quick. Yes. Yell, it out. Great. Question, so the question was should you drive, the AdWords, traffic to, specific, landing pages based on maybe. Geography, or practice area or have like dry, them to like your home page of your main site and there are different, opinions on this I know my friend. Sitting, here Konrad, Saum was also at, the conference great guy to talk to about AdWords. As well. I'm, very, as a general, rule and there's obvious exceptions to it the, more tightly relevant. Your ad copy your. Keywords, your ad groups, and your landing pages are from a relevance perspective, it's going to perform better you're gonna get a better quality score, which, is a basically Google's assessment, of the, combination, of your copy ads and, landing page, and the more, tightly that is relevant the higher the Quality Score you're gonna bring cost per clicks down your, conversion, rates are gonna go up and you know if you think about it makes sense right so if someone's searching for a specific practice, area in a specific place are they more likely to look. And hire and click and fill. Out forms and live chat requests, and call those, lawyers in their area that are speaking to the issues that they're dealing with or are they going to be more likely to convert on a page that's just like more general legal, information regardless. Of all that robust it is so I strongly. Believe, in keeping it very relevant between ad copy keyword. Bid strategy and landing, pages, great. Question if you have any more questions you can find us out there will be out fire Boone Sena thanks so much for joining us.

2018-12-19 02:15

Show Video

Other news