The Challenge Of Big Company Innovation

Original Article has been republished to: https://dustinruge.com/the-death-of-searsand-are-you-really-surprised/

Google New “Ad” Button Advertising Changes

Have you noticed something different about Google’s search results screens lately? Those little yellow “Ad” buttons are not a mistake – despite the fact that those who have observed Google’s continued domination over the years of their own search results screens are mostly surprised by such an omission.

Yes – Google has called-out their ads on their search results screens. Why you may ask? Just look at the history of Google’s continued blending and pushing off of organic search results and you may see what anybody with a pulse has seen and now governments are pursuing – namely, their continued problems with anti-trust regulations and the EU.

Along with the new “Ad” buttons comes the removal of the contrasting backgrounds for their ads. These backgrounds have been so diminished over the years that it is doubtful anybody will even notice they are now gone.

So what will be the impacts on Google and your PPC advertising with them? Time will tell. As people become more sophisticated in search, they have become more immune to advertising – hence the continued pushing down of true organic results. The “blending effect” between organic and PPC results has been a problem for years – especially on mobile search results. Simply put, most mobile search results have been overly limited to begin with and have little/no contrast. The fact that these new yellow button also display on mobile search results could result in even larger potential impacts. In the end, this is Google we are talking about so the only constant is change with them. Could these buttons eventually go away tomorrow? Who knows? If they negatively impact Google’s own ad revenues, don’t be surprised if they do…

#lawyermarketing  #google  #PPC  #payperclick

HOW LAWYERS USE LINKEDIN - 7 THINGS EVERY ATTORNEY SHOULD KNOW ABOUT #LINKEDIN

Successful attorneys spend a great deal of time networking to generate new clients, cases, and referrals. There is no better networking tool online today to support these efforts than LinkedIn. Some attorneys today are literally building their entire practices through the heavy use of LinkedIn while many others continue to struggle in fully understanding the potential value provided by LinkedIn in helping to support their legal practice. The following are seven of the most important aspects of LinkedIn that every attorney should know…

LinkedIn is Now Your Online Resume and CV

LinkedIn is now looked at as one of the most trusted sources for professional and company information online.  Gone are the days when a CV request is sent. Nobody now wants to make this request and wait for the response when all they typically need is now online and real-time with LinkedIn.  Your LinkedIn profile is now your resume and CV and it is now online – so make it work for you!

HELPFUL TIPS AND HINTS:

• Make sure you create and fully update your LinkedIn profile. Add ALL of the pertinent information you would normally include in a CV – the more detail the better. Also make sure to regularly update your information and include important links to other online properties such as websites, blogs, etc.

Most attorneys are on LinkedIn

According to recent studies, upwards of 95% of ABA members currently have LinkedIn accounts. Moreover, roughly 770,000 members of the legal community are also on LinkedIn. The bottom line is that LinkedIn is the most widely-adopted social media / online networking site for the legal industry, period. Marketing 101: Fish were the fish are. If you are not on LinkedIn now, you are simply not keeping up with the legal industry.  

LinkedIn Is the Most Effect ATTORNEY Business Card Rolodex

Some of the most effective networking attorneys have historically maintained a voluminous rolodex of business cards. With LinkedIn, those days are gone – and the trees are now celebrating. The problems that plagued business cards in the past have now been largely solved by LinkedIn – namely; how do you best manage and utilize your contact data AFTER you receive the business card? Moreover, with all of the other means of collecting contact information (Outlook, Gmail, etc.), how can you manage them all together? Again, LinkedIn is now the answer…

HELPFUL TIPS AND HINTS:

• You can import any of all of your contacts from Outlook and Gmail into LinkedIn and make connections to them from LinkedIn.  Save the time and manage them from one location moving forward – it gives you far more options and capabilities.
• You can now easily find and create connections to your law school and/or graduating class alumni in LinkedIn. You can also build your connections by connecting with past clients. Why let past relationships fade away when you can utilize them to your advantage moving forward. Need to build up your referral bases? Why not start with people you already have various types of connections to already?  Through the “advanced” search feature, you can select contacts from graduating schools and classes that you may have lost touch with over the years. Connect and see what happens to your referral network…
• When making LinkedIn connection requests make sure to personalize your messages and try not to use the default wording instead. The more personal, connecting and compelling the message, the better the chance you will have in getting your connection request accepted.
• Include a link to your LinkedIn profile in your email signature, business cards and online profiles. Use phone number test: anywhere that you feel compelling to promote a phone number should also include your LinkedIn profile link.
• Download “cardmunch” to your smart phone and use it to scan every business card you receive. Cardmuch fully integrates to your LinkedIn account and allows you to scan and connect with other people within a matter of seconds. Cardmunch is the most effective app for attorney networking on the market today.  The next time somebody hands you a card, take out your smart phone, take a picture of it using cardmunch and hand it right back to them…see what kind of initial reaction you receive.  Then tell them that they will receive a connection request from you shortly in LinkedIn and ask them to accept it. This is the future of networking and you will be potentially introducing them to it firsthand. What will that say about you? Think they will now remember you better?
• Build connections with “people with leverage.” Do you know other attorneys who seem to know everybody? How about people who are well known and respected in circles of people you want as clients? These are called people with leverage and chances are if they know everybody, they are connected with many of them now on LinkedIn. Take the time and effort to connect with them on LinkedIn and all of the sudden you will have access to all of their connections and moreover, they can see you are a part of that leverage person’s network – which potentially gives you added credibility.

LinkedIn Supports Frequency Marketing

Ever wonder what Coca Cola runs highly expensive ads during the Super Bowl? Every heard of Coca Cola before? Of course you have – we all have, many times.  There is an old saying in marketing that you should touch your prospects (in one form or another) at least 7-12 times a year for them to actively member you when they will need you. That is the basis for frequency marketing. This also applies to legal marketing as well.

Most attorneys rely on the majority of their business from referrals from other clients and attorneys. Since many of these referrals tend to happen infrequently with intervals ranging from weeks, months to even years, how are these people expected to actively member you when they will potentially need to send business your way? That is where LinkedIn can help…

HELPFUL TIPS AND HINTS:

• Provide news and/or links to your blog entries in your LinkedIn profile. Why? Because this will provide you with a means of actively staying in front of all of the people on LinkedIn you are connected with so when they see your posts on LinkedIn, they will more actively think of you. In the past, LinkedIn used to provide an App called BlogLink that allowed you to do this automatically. Today, it has become a manual process but should only take a minute to simply copy and paste from your blog into your profile updates stream.
• Join LinkedIn Groups – Alumni, practice area specific groups, target client profile organizations, etc. are all waiting for you to join them. This will allow you to collaborate, participate and help you build your awareness and network of contacts. Group associations will also help you in making connection requests through increased search options and mutual association.

LinkedIn Allows You to Build a Better Referral Network

Referrals are the lifeblood of most legal practices. A recent 2012 ABA study has shown that around 75% of corporate counsels regularly use LinkedIn to help them select third-party counsel. Why? Because it is the most effective way to find detailed information about other attorneys and connect to them. The same applies for your referral network.

LinkedIn provides robust “advanced” search capabilities that allows you to find and connect with other people and attorneys based on location, demographics, education, position, employer, past employers, keywords, title, experience, industries, groups they are associated with, etc. There is literally nobody you cannot potentially reach and connect with on LinkedIn and since roughly 95% of attorneys have LinkedIn profiles, you should be able to find most everybody you want when you are building your referral network.  The larger your number of connections, the easier it is to build on them so don’t delay and get start today.

HELPFUL TIPS AND HINTS:

• Write recommendations for other attorneys – it is easy and VERY effective. If you look at another attorney’s profile, you may or may not see recommendations from others. Ask yourself: what impression do these recommendations make over others who have none? Writing recommendations is also good karma: you should to give in order to receive. Make the effort to write solid and relevant recommendations for other attorneys and clients and watch what happens in return…

LINKEDIN IS THE TOP WEBSITE FOR PROFESSIONAL RECRUITERS

Gone are the days when job boards like Monster.com and others were the way for professionals to find and be found for jobs online. Most recruiters today want easy access to search for and find people based on their complete profile and job history. That is why good professional recruiters today start most of their job candidate searches on LinkedIn.  

LINKEDIN IS THE #1 SOCIAL MEDIA TRAFFIC GENERATOR TO YOUR WEBSITE

Even though a broad-based social media strategy should be utilized by a law firm, not all social media vehicles produce the same results. According to the Q3 2013 Audience Insight Survey, LinkedIn drives fully 64% of website traffic from social media sources (In comparison - Twitter: 14%, Facebook: 17%).

Like it or not, most LinkedIn profiles and pages for attorneys and law firms are commonly in the top search results in Google. This means that referral clients and other attorneys are commonly seeing your LinkedIn information at the top of search results when looking for you and information about you.

HELPFUL TIPS AND HINTS:

• If you haven’t done so already, create a LinkedIn companypage for your law firm. These are related to but separate from your individual profile so make sure you have both. LinkedIn pages also DO NOT require that users have connected access to review them – unlike profiles. When properly optimized, they also tend to show up high in Google for law firm searches by name.
  
• If you have a website, blog and other social media, you should also provide links to them from your LinkedIn profiles and pages. This will both provide an easy access point to your other online properties but will also provide link value authority to them as well.

               

               

LINKEDIN CLE CREDITS / TRAINING

As you can see, LinkedIn provides attorneys with a combination of unprecedented capabilities to help grow their practices through increased awareness, branding, referral networking, and new client and case generation. If you would like to learn more about how lawyers use LinkedIn, you can inquire about our CLE program on Attorney LinkedIn Networking provided by Dustin Ruge.

More information:

Blog: http://www.seolawyermarketing.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawfirmseo

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dustinruge

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dustinruge/

#lawyermarketing  #CLE  #LinkedIn  #DustinRuge

Maricopa County Bar Association CLE: Oct 25th Attorney Marketing Trends & Best Practices #attorneymarketing

Dustin Ruge will be speaking at the Maricopa County Bar Association on Attorney Marketing on the Internet on Friday, October 25th from noon to 1pm. Topics covered during this CLE will include:

- Recent Trends In Online Marketing
- Better Understanding Attorney Search Online
- How To Utilize Blogs, Social Media and Video
- Recent Changes in Google Search


For more information and/or to register: https://m360.maricopabar.org/event.aspx?eventID=88766 

#attorneymarketing #cle #lawyermarketing #seo #arizona #maricopacountybar

Say Goodbye To #attorney Website Keyword Analysis

There is an old saying in business that you cannot manage what you cannot measure. If you are an attorney and look at your website analytics, you may have noticed something dramatically different over the past few months.  Over the years, most attorneys will do a quick read of their website analytics and look at things such as overall website traffic, search traffic, bounce rates, content page performance and keywords.  Keywords took a particular interest to many because it provided a simple insight as to what people where typing into the search engines when they landed on a website. The problem is what Google has changed the game …again.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING KEYWORD DATA

When reviewing search keyword performance, many #attorneys have noticed a trend over the past few years where (not provided) has continued to increase and now dwarf the other keywords listed. Google started by “hiding” this information in 2011 for signed-in search users and just a few months ago and now extended this to all users – even those who are not signed-in to Google.  What does this mean? According to Search Engine Land, upwards of 74% of all keyword data is now “Not Provided” by Google. I ran a similar test on a couple of my client sites (see example) and noticed that over the past year-over-year comparison, I have seen a roughly 75% increased in (not provided) traffic data. When I isolate this data down to just Google, I am seeing similar results as the study provided above.

GOOGLE CONTINUES TO CREATE AN UNEVEN PLAYING FIELD

As we have pointed out many times before, Google is not in the business to help anybody more than Google.  95+% of their revenues come from paid advertising, which you buy directly or indirectly from Google by the way. Google’s major competition is from organic search results which typically provide a higher ROI and they know it – that is why they are trying to shrink it down to oblivion.  The fact that they are now not providing keyword search data is yet another in a long line of trends to confuse and frustrate advertisers to a point where they end up buying more paid advertising…from Google of course.

WHAT YOU CAN DO FROM HERE

If you are active in #attorneymarketing online, there are a few things to consider moving forward:

1.) Stop relying on search keyword data to measure performance.  The 665 changes Google made to their search algorithm in 2012 should be a clear indicator that keyword chasing and ranking is heavily frowned upon and now can be severely penalized.  Attorneys would be much wiser to focus in on analyzing practice area entry page data, traffic sources, conversion rates, and overall ROI. After all, why advertise in the first place

without ROI? What does a keyword really do for you beyond measuring a tanker by staring at its wake?

2.) If you have to rely on keyword data, draw it from the places that continue to provide it such as from Yahoo and Bing. If you run PPC, make sure to connect it with your Google analytics because, surprise, Google WILL provide you with keyword data from advertising spending with Google. Isn’t that nice of them! Depending on the level of PPC spending you do, this data can be helpful but in not a complete answer for keyword performance in organic search.

3.) Create more of a focus on localized and mobile search. The two most dramatic changes taking place online are the impacts that local optimization is having on attorney search and in what devices your clients are using to find you through.

4.) Create more and better content and win in the long-tail. Attorney search is becoming much more competitive and sophisticated and your website strategy needs to adjust to this new reality.

#attorneymarketing  #ppc  #lawyermarketing  #keywords

Long Tail Search Tools - Making The Most Of Your #lawyermarketing Dollars

Everything online is a function of competition. When attorneys want to compete with other attorneys for new cases and clients online, they commonly and mistakenly feel that they need to go toe-to-toe with every other attorney based on vanity search terms like "Omaha Real Estate Attorney", Phoenix Personal Injury Lawyer", Denver Divorce Lawyer," etc.

Many attorneys want to compete with have long-established attorney websites that have actively been building up authority for a number of years. In short, starting out from behind creates an "authority gap" that needs to be closed in order to compete. The challenge with this strategy includes many hurdles including:

• Authority building must look natural to Google otherwise you can get penalized. Build up authority too rapidly and against Google rules and you put your firm and your future at risk.
• The best attorney websites will continue to extend their lead while you try to catch up with them. This is like trying to hit a rapidly moving target.
• Most attorney searches online that convert into clients and cases ARE NOT from vanity search terms. Over time people are becoming increasingly more sophisticated in how they search and simple "head term" searches like "Omaha Estate Planning Attorney" are simply not specific to most client searches any longer. People are becoming more sophisticated online and so must your search marketing techniques to match it.
• Most attorneys simply do not have the budget to compete at the levels of many of the top vanity search terms attorneys in most metropolitan areas. 

As we have discussed before, long-tail attorney searches are considered to be "money searches"and are largely created through an active content strategy. The problem with this strategy is that many attorneys either hit a writer's block, do not know how to properly structure and distribute content,  and/or simply do not know how to research long-tail terms.

For those struggling with direction in long-tail search, there is one tool I would recommend: http://www.hittail.com/. This tool takes a lot of guess work out of the equation and for a small monthly subscription fee, can provide a high level of value for your firm. It should be noted that this should not be a substitute for a more detailed and strategic case generating process. Rather, this should help in assisting with the process of creating more unique and relevant search results in areas of lesser competition and authority.

As they say, there is more than one way to skin a cat and when it comes to attorney search online, this is especially so. Try to tool and tell us if you see the value...


#lawyermarketing #longtail #SEO

Dustin Ruge Speaking On The Importance Of Social Media In Starting Your Own Law Firm (CO Bar Association Aug 17th)

Dustin Ruge will be speaking at the Colorado Bar Association's Hanging Your Shingle program on the importance of social media in law firm marketing and management. Topics Include:

• How blogs and social media work for attorneys
• How to create a successful social media strategy for your practice
• Social media best practices
• How to us social media to help build your referral networks

For more information on this upcoming program: http://cle.cobar.org/Seminars/EventInfo/sessionaltcd/LP081513L.aspx#.UgA6WG18omJ

Date: Saturday, August 17th at 10am MST
Location: Colorado Bar Association, 1900 Grant Street, suite 300, Denver CO
Downloads: http://www.cobar.org/cle/photos/eventpdfs/LP081513L.pdf 

#attorneymarketing  #socialmedia  #clecredits  #cle  #cobar