Local Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Becoming A Hot Topic

Local Search Engine Optimization for Locally Focused Companies

Although many companies begin using search engine optimization (SEO) to help increase their national - or perhaps international - visibility online, some companies are only concerned about attracting customers in their neighborhood, something experts says is much easier.

Local Law Firms Looking to Boost Local Search Engine Traffic

As part of its Website Remedies feature, CNNMoney.com gathers a number of experts in an attempt to assist businesses looking for help with their website. Its most recent piece focused on North Carolina-based law firm Conroy & Weinshenker which is looking to boost local traffic.

Local Search Engine SEO Makes It Easier To Focus

Pamela Swingley of California-based Savvy Internet Marketing says there is a lot of focus on local search at the moment and notes that creating search engine optimization (SEO) content for local traffic is simpler than trying to lure people from across the country."


Attracting local search traffic is much easier than optimizing a website for a national or international audience," she told CNNMoney.com. "Local search is starting to really heat up."The experts say Conroy & Weinshenker should expand their content to help increase their search engine optimization (SEO). The news provider also suggests that the site update its news site at least once a month. While this can have the benefit of increasing SEO, it can also be of assistance to prospective clients.

Google Local (Maps) Added To Search Engine Results

Many local companies saw an increase in search engine optimization (SEO) earlier this year without doing anything to their websites when Google made local search the default setting for result pages.

Click here to learn more about Local (Google Local) Search Engine Optimization

Source: www.brafton.com/industry-news/seo-can-work-generating-local-traffic-$1313220.htm

Google Tags Makes Its Debut

In 2007, Google first introduced Google Local (or maps) listings to website search results. Today, these results on average display on 1 out of 9 page 1 search results. Google has recently added “tagging” to its local (places or maps) listings. These “tags” are simply highlighted markers added to Google local listings to help them better stand out and promote things such as: websites, coupons, promotions, etc.

Google Tags are currently offered as a limited release in: Atlanta, Austin, Boulder Chicago, Houston, Mountain View CA, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, and Washington DC. Once these become available in New York, Google will notify me and I will be in turn notifying my customers. You can become a fan of our Law Firm SEO Facebook page to receive the same notification at: www.facebook.com/lawfirmseo

How Google Tags Works:

For a flat $25 monthly fee, you can add these markers to your current Google local listings and it is important to note that these markers WILL NOT improve your Google local listings – only Google Local optimization can accomplish this.

As you can see from the following screen shots, these markers to DO stand out and as we have seen through recent Google local heat map analysis, it is not as important to be displayed #1 in your Google local listings as it is to simply show up. These markers make you show up better and more importantly can include a call to action.

So are these Google Tags worth the $25/mo. for attorneys? It depends really on the level competition and frequency of search. If you currently display in Google local for the more ubiquitous search terms such as: divorce attorney, construction accident attorney, personal injury attorney, criminal defense attorney, immigration attorney, etc. then this may be a very small price to pay to make you stand out even further.

To learn more about Google Tags, you can visit Google at: http://www.google.com/help/tags/ to learn more and get started. If you need further help in optimizing your Google maps / local listings, contact a law firm SEO consultant to help you get started.

What Attorneys Need To Know About The New Google Places Release

The summer of change for Google hit full throttle last week with their latest changes to their search results pages. First came Google’s May Day Release this summer followed by the introduction of Google Instant in September. But they saved the biggest change for last with the release last week of their integrated Places search results pages.

What Happened With Google Places Search?

For those of us who use Google (everybody please raise your hands), you know that Google displays a maps or local listing on their search results pages for many of the more popular local searches. Prior to last week, this included a separate map display and up to seven local business listings prominently at the top of the organic search results. With the new changes, the map has been shifted to the right-side of the screen and replaces the top 3 paid listings on the right-hand side of the screen. Places markers along with address, phone details and photos are now added to the end of the organic search results listings.

What Is The Significance Of Local Search?

Local search is one of the fastest growing categories online and Google now claims that 20% of their search queries are local in nature. Furthering this is the rapid growth in mobile search where Google now claims that over 100 million people conduct maps searches from their mobile devices each month. By 2013, mobile device searches are expected to exceed PC based searches. But Google makes money off the their paid advertising and when local online advertising is expected to grow at 18% compared to only 11% for all online advertising by 2011, it is little mystery why Google is looking to profit from it.

The Impacts On Attorney Searches

Up until this point, many attorneys have been able to create visibility and generate new cases from either high organic search results, a prominent listing in a Google Places listing, or both. Attorneys who performed well in the organic search results would often complain how the maps display would be stacked above the results page. Alternatively, there were attorneys who focused on optimizing their Google Places listing to try to create visibility for the more common targeted searches. With the new changes to the Google Results Page, it is no longer an either or proposition. The law firms who will benefit from these changes are those attorneys that optimize for both. Furthermore, if your firm does Pay Per Click advertising, it has also become clear that the top three listings (immediately above the organic search results) just become a whole lot more significant in visibility – be prepared to pay more for these prime positions.

Why Every Law Firm Needs To Do Now

1.) 1.) Fully optimize your website and web resources such as pictures, videos, blogs, facebook, social media, etc.

2.) Claim and optimize your Google local listing. This includes everything from keyword optimization, citation building, video and images, tags, etc.

3.) 3.) As previously discussed, encourage Google Places reviews to help build authority for your listing and increase conversions.

4.) 4.) Remove duplicate Google Places listings that commonly share the same address, phone, etc. These can impact your Places performance and ultimately get all of your listings flagged and even banned from Google.

5.) 5.) Readjust your PPC adverting and try to shoot for the top 3 positions in those searches that include a map display. If you can’t afford it, simply look for other terms that you can.

It used to be relatively easy for attorneys to claim and optimize Google Places Listings but for most, it is better to leave it to the pros now. Due to advanced options, increasing competition, and years of abuses and recent clamp downs by Google, Google Places SEO should be left to a professional. In short, unless you can fully optimize your website, you will have the same challenges with Google Place listings either now or in the very near future.

Contact us today to learn more about Google Places Optimization and how we can put a strategy together for your law firm to successfully grow online.

Update On Google Places and Law Firm Search

We are now a few weeks past Google’s release of their new integrated organic and places search results pages and now we have some historical, although brief data to work off of. When looking at the results pages, it has become abundantly clear that search engine optimization (SEO) has shifted dramatically in a very short time.

People continue to ask me why Google has made such a drastic change and my response is simple: to make more money. Google knows that 92% of all businesses in the United States serve a radius of only 50 miles from where they are located – most law firms are no different. With the new release, Google now looks at your location and behavior online and includes a greater number of local based results for you to see. As yellow pages continue to decline and more people turn to the web for local searches, local businesses will be more compelled to compete online and pay more for paid advertising.

So how have the new changes impacted law firm search results?

Some law firms that were once #1 for organic results for a particular search can now find themselves near the bottom of the page – below those listings with Places appended to them. Conversely, those firms that relied on highly optimized Places listings now find themselves struggling for visibility without an equally optimized website. All this of course depends on the search and how the results are displayed. Here are three examples:

Head Term Search Results

A head term search result is simply a more commonly searched keyword or phrase in Google. An example of this is “New York City Personal Injury Attorney” - which also happens to be the highest pay-per-click ad to run in Google for NYC. For these results, we see ten results on the first page – 7 of which have a Google Places ad appended to them.

Second Tier Terms

Second tier terms are simply search terms that are less commonly used than Head Terms but are still repeated. An example of this would be “New York City Bus Accident Attorney” – A far less searched term in volume than a typical header term but still garners a relatively high pay-per-click cost in Google for NYC. In this display, three Places listings are independently displayed at the top of the organic results followed by 10 organic results

Long Tail Terms

Long Tail search terms are those terms that are rarely repeated in search volume. An example of this would be “New York City Crane Accident Attorney.” Due to the relative infrequency of these types of accidents, there is less competition for these or organically and in paid adverting. As a result, there are no Places listings on this search results page in Google and no map. There is however videos displayed in this search result which indicates that good video optimization can better support your results here.

What Can Law Firms Learn From This?

There are a number of conclusions law firms can derive from all of these changes in Google:

• If you don’t have an optimized website for your practice, you need to get one now. The Google algorithm rewards length of stay online and the longer you wait, the more it will take to eventually catch up to your competition
• Both websites and your Google Places listings must be fully optimized. It is relatively easy for an attorney to claim their local listing but very few know how to fully optimize these properly and build citations for better performance. Moreover, most website developers don’t understand this either so you are best to work with an SEO consultant who can help you.
• Google Places Optimization should take into consideration what search terms you are targeting and how they will be displayed in the new Google search results. For example, there is no point in optimizing a Google Places listing for long tail terms if they do not display in the search results. Moreover, Head terms should also be weighed based on your level of competition for these as well.
• Local results are not limited to just your Google Places listings. This also includes how you use your local information on websites, directories, videos, images, inbound links, and other web properties. It is important to make sure that they are all consistent, localized and ultimately sends the same signals to the search engines.

Contact Us Today to learn more about lawyer website search engine optimization.

Google Tags Are Now Available In New York

If you have an Optimized Google local (i.e. places or maps) listing in Google and you practice in New York, Google Tags are now available as an upgrade on your account.

As I previously posted about the introduction of Google Tags in May of this year, for a flat $25 monthly fee, you can add these highlighted markers to your current Google local listings to make them stand out. If your Google local listings consistently display well in targeted searches of higher volume, then this is another great way to draw user eyes to you.

If you are an attorney in New York, you should:

- Optimize your Google and Bing local listings

- Add tags to your Google local listings if they display well in higher volume searches

Visit the SEO consultant firm website to learn more about Law Firm Search Engine Optimization and our blog to learn more about Google Tags Optimization.

The Importance Of Online Customer Reviews For Google Local (Places) Listings

On average, 1 in every 9 Google (page one) search displays now contain a Google Local (Places) listing. It is undeniable that Google Local (now Places) listings should now be both claimed and optimized. But there is also another step that is just as important and it has to do with customer reviews.
Customer reviews is a feature that has been added to Google Local listings to allow your customers to write positive or negative feedback about their experiences with a business. These reviews are now present both on the search engine results pages but also in detail within the listings. So why are reviews so important?

According to a Jul7 2009 study by AC Nielson; 70% of people now indicate that they trust online consumer opinions. This is second only to opinions received from friends (90%). Just think about that for a moment: Next to opinions received from friends, 70% of people will now trust opinions provided by complete strangers online. Wow!

In reading through this analysis, I guess I really shouldn't be surprised after all. Thinking back to the last time I picked a florist, book, service station, and new TV, I too relied on the opinions online of complete strangers. How did fare as a result? Pretty well I must say...count me in as one of the 70%.

So what does all this mean for you? Simple: beyond claiming and optimizing your Google Local (Places) listing, you should also be asking your [happy] customers to be writing reviews for you online in your ad. The end result will be improved visibility and better conversions - apparently 70% of you strangers out there tend to agree.

Social Media – Where Do We Go From Here?

Just when things look like they couldn’t get any worse for Facebook; a new survey was recently released indicating that 34% of Facebook users are spending less time on Facebook than six months ago. On top of that, nearly 50% of the respondents spent around the same amount of time on Facebook. Why the lack of interest? Maybe it has something to do with perceived user value? It’s a pretty simple concept really: if somebody finds more value in A than B, they will demand more of A. Looking at my own daily experiences, Facebook competes for my other offline and online time reading news sites, blogs, websites, etc. In short, the more value I find being on Facebook, the more of my time it will demand…and lately that too has been in question. Just how many narcissistic posts about where somebody currently is or what they just ate for breakfast can get a little, shall we say; boring.

Google +’s  “me too” Answer To Facebook

As I have noted in previous posts about Google +, Google + is like they guy who shows up at a party at 2 am in the morning and yells “let’s get this party started!” Even former Google engineers have referred to Google + as a “pathetic afterthought” and make it out to be symptomatic of Google losing its way. Since Larry Page took the reins at Google last year, it seems like everything they do these days hinges on the success of Google +.  To wit: just this week Google announced the movement from Google Places to Google + Local. Why the change? Why else – Google wants more Google + members and seemingly everything else they have tried up to this point to generate more Google + users have failed in comparison to Facebook. So when all else fails – try and coerce again.

Google + Local to Drive Google + Membership

Now that business owners are once again confused by changes to formerly Google Local, then Places and now Google + Local, they will continue to try to understand, claim, optimize and generate client reviews for their local listings. The catch? Only people with a Google + account can leave reviews. But this all didn’t start here. A few months back, Google found yet another way to generate Google + users by adding thumbnails adjacent to the certain listings on the Google results pages. How do you do this? Easy, you need a Google + profile and then you can follow these instructions. Wayla! More confusion for regular business owners and more Google + accounts as a prerequisite to play.

Facebook’s IPO Problem

Most good technology investments have a financial business model in place to generate revenues – which is what attracts good investors. When Facebook priced its IPO at 100X earnings compared to Google who is selling at 11 (and controls 82% of the search market and 98% of the mobile search market), one has little to scratch one’s head over when Facebook loses 30% of its value in the first few weeks. Facebook has a valuation problem based on revenue growth and anybody who watched the movie Social Network should understand that this problem was clearly in sight for all to see long before the IPO ever took place. All these people that ponied up millions of dollars over the years to Facebook were expected a big return on their investment and thanks to Morgan Stanley, all glory is fleeting.

Where Do We Go From Here

 Social Media could very well be at a crossroads. On one hand, you have Google who seems to want to cannibalize any and all of their services to support a system, Google +, that nobody outside of Google really wants to use. On the other hand, you have Facebook that has 900 million users, 34% of which indicate that they are losing interest and a company that now has to somehow generate a boat load of revenues to keep the dream alive and their investors happy and not jumping for the shore once the IPO shareholders sell window opens up. Now that’s a pretty tall task for any 28 year old whose whole business model is built around the promise that Facebook is “free and always will be.” Perhaps Mark should have learned from Google whose motto “don’t be evil” has led to the senseless hatred of panda’s and penguins everywhere.

As for the rest of us, new innovation fostered by freedom of thought and need will clearly help steer our appetite for better and more useful innovation in the months and years ahead. Where will all this come from? Who knows! But is it very likely where we know it will not come from. As Henry Ford was fond of saying “A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one.”

Organic Search & Google + Lead The Way on ROI (Return On Investment)

So how does the Return On Investment (ROI) for Organic Search compare to PPC (Pay Per Click or Google Adwords) advertising?  This is a question I receive on almost a daily basis from attorneys.

A recent survey by BrightLocal was conducted to determine the highest levels of ROI -  and the results may be surprising to some. We often think in the context of organic search versus PPC but what this surveys shows is that we may be missing one of the most important and fasting growing tools of all: Google + / Google Local.

Since 2009, we have been posting countless articles on the importance of local search for attorneys  as well as the recent emergence and importance of Google +. Google, who is now in effect the traffic cop of the internet, has made it abundantly clear that Google + will be integral to the use of their other services - including Google Local which is a must for attorneys.

So the next time you are debating whether your search strategy should include organic or PPC, make sure you are not missing out on #2: Google+ / Local. Additionally, a lot of attorneys today are  spending heavy on social media and most do nothing to feed their Google + strategy beyond a simple setup. These results should also question that thinking as well...


#lawyermarketing #attorney #lawyer

Using Citation Building For Better Google Places Optimization

With the recent changes in Google, local businesses and services are struggling to find ways in which to further optimize their Google Places Listings for better performance. One of the questions I often receive about Places optimization is why do certain listings getting listed higher than others (independent of their organic website search listings). With the recent changes in Google however, it is no longer a question that includes two different types of search results – both are now intertwine.

In the past, Google Places listings would be displayed is a separate display from the organic results. Now the places listings are added to the organic listings – further promoting the importance of good organic search results and fundamentally changing the ways these listings are displayed.

By now, most people realize that they need to claim their Google Places listing and fully optimize it for better results. But now that other competing businesses are increasingly doing the same thing, the competitive real estate for these listings is rapidly diminishing. That is where citation building can help.

What Are Citations?

The goal of Google is to provide the most relevant and accurate search results to their users. Along with their organic search results, they also need to provide Google Places listings that are the most legitimate and relevant. In order to do this, Google goes beyond their initial claiming validation process and looks for other sources that help validate these listings. These third party sources, commonly referred to as citations, include other local listing sources such as Yahoo, Yelp, Bing, Best of the Web, Localeze, etc. In looking at these citation sources, Google ultimately wants to see your information listed the same on all of these sources – including your website and of course Google Places.

How Can I Build Citations?

1.) Makes sure to claim and optimize ALL of your local listings from the major listing sources on the web. The two best places to do this are by going to http://getlisted.org to see where you are currently listed and to claim and optimize all of these sources. Second, you should create an account and listing in http://www.Localeze.com. Why Localeze? Because they send their complied list of local businesses to the search engines on a weekly basis.

2.) Make sure your company name and address is consistent throughout all of your listings. If your business name on Yelp is different than that of Google, it could work against you so make sure they are the same everywhere.

3.) Make sure to claim your existing Google Places listing first. In most cases, existing and unclaimed Google Places listings are there based on citations from other sources which work to your advantage. By deleting these existing listings and starting over, you are actually putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage in more competitive markets.

4.) Remove duplicate Google Places listings based on listings claimed with the same phone numbers, addresses or both. It is ok to have multiple listings based on phone numbers and addresses that are unique to each location but each should be treated separately and not allowed to potentially compete with each other which may cause Google to suspend your listings.

These optimization processes are not something that the average novice user can successfully master and definitely have their downsides when done incorrectly. Unless you have experience with these processes, I would advise that you contact a good search engine optimization consultant to handle this process for you.

4 Steps To Create An Effective Online Review Strategy For Attorneys

Yesterday online review company Yelp Inc. exploded onto the scene with a strong IPO with first day trading up 61% from their strike price – not bad! Yelp’s IPO follows recent IPO’s of GroupOn and Angie’s List, with Angie’s List still fairing the better on the two on the street. Yelp currently averages around 66 million unique visitors a month and users have created more than 25 million consumer reviews to date.

Why Are Online Reviews Important to Attorneys?

There is a 90% chance that somebody has already written a review about you online. To date there are at least 20 major online review sites where anybody can write anything about you and your practice and unsolicited reviews are very often negative! How long will these reviews remain online? Well, according to recent IPO’s like Yelp, it looks like forever at this point!

As we have previously reported - according to studies by AC Nielson; 70% of people now indicate that they trust online consumer opinions. This is second only to opinions received from friends (90%). The question of whether or not you need an attorney website and/or an online reviews strategy is no longer optional when reviews about you and your practice are now being written online – like it or not.

Impacts of Online Reviews on Your Referrals

As yourself a question about how you behave today before you buy a product or service. I know when I buy a book, product or get a referral to a service provider; I almost always look online at what people have said (online reviews) about each before I contact them. Your clients and referrals now behave in the same manner. In the world of the internet, your referrals now have something they had never had in the past- a fast an effective means to help validate, measure and compare the quality of a referral.

In today’s world, attorney referrals are commonly given out in numbers – thanks largely to a process fostered by your insurance companies in their malpractice avoidance procedures. Because of this, a referral to you may also include a referral to 1-2 other attorneys that the potential client must now consider and compare. In the past, they would simply call you and the others and make decisions from the phone call. Today, referral clients look online and make judgments about you BEFORE THEY CALL YOU based on such items as how your website, blog, news and online reviews are in comparison to the other attorneys referred to them. Still think online review management is not important? What do you think happens when they see at least one negative review online about your practice? Your chances of converting that referral business just went down and that negative review is costing you money!

4 Steps To Building a Successful Online Review Strategy

1. Start by creating a proactive review strategy for your practice. In this case, create a preformed email that includes a link directly to the reviews section of your Google + Local Page and Your Yelp Page. Send out these emails to all of your clients who had a successful outcome with you IMMEDIATELY AFTER that outcome – this is the best time to ask them to create a positive review for you online. Follow-up with them as needed in order to get a steady flow of reviews in Google. 
2. Ever wondered why some Google Local and Yelp listings have those 5 gold review stars listed and others do not? That is because the listings with the stars have more reviews – typically 7 or more to display prominently in the search results. Set a goal to have at least 7 positive reviews to help improve your conversions and performance from your Google Places Listings
3. Check your reviews on a regular basis. There are at least 20 places to check: Google Places, Yelp, Ask, CityVoter, CitySearch, iBegin, Bing, Dogpile, NoMoreClipboard, Yahoo, Blogs, Demandforce, SuperPages, Mojopages, Manta, Local, Yellowpages, Lycos, Avvo, and FindLaw.com.
4. If you have negative reviews written about you, try to track back who the client is and request that they remove the review. If you are unsuccessful, write a response to the review (in your Google + admin screen) or simply be proactive and push the negative review down the list with more recent positive reviews. Remember, the more positive reviews you have listed at the top, the least likely the negative review will impact you.

If you need help in setting up and executing your online review strategy, contact us today for more help…