Rocky Balboa is a champion. I think it's safe to say we can learn a lot about law firm SEO from Rocky Balboa....so here goes:
1. Know Your Opponent and Prepare Accordingly - Understanding who you are up against can make all the difference. Rocky made this fatal error in his first fight with Clubber Lang in Rocky III and Apollo Creed did the same in Rocky IV. In both of these instances, Apollo and Rocky did not understand their opponent before stepping into the ring. They underestimated their opponents' abilities and the difficulty of the respective fights. The result was a loss of the championship belt for Rocky and **spoiler alert** Apollo was killed in the ring by the Russian. Obviously not the result each was looking for. The same thing can happen with your law firm SEO if you don't understand the competition and prepare accordingly. Performing proper keyword research and knowing the landscape of what terms to go after is crucial. A big part of this is understanding what you would need to do to leapfrog your competition in the search results. This takes careful, strategic planning to accomplish. Sure, it would be great if your law firm would rank for the word "attorney" with 20 million+ searches a month. However, not only would this yield huge amounts of untargeted traffic, but you would also get killed by the competition. In other words, chances are slim you would ever out-rank the competing, powerhouse sites. Without understanding the competitive landscape and setting reasonable goals with regards to your law firm SEO efforts, you will find yourself losing the fight.
2. Stay Hungry - It's easy to get complacent once you're on top. Again I refer to Rocky III as a classic example of losing your edge. Rocky was a nobody at the beginning of the story. Apollo gave him a title shot and Rocky's only hope was to go the distance. He didn't even dream of winning the first fight with Apollo, he just wanted to go the distance.....and he did. That led to fame and another shot at the title. This time he won. Along came the accolades, the attention, the riches, endorsements, statues, and more victories. Rocky was on top of the world, but he lost his edge. He got complacent and thought he was unbeatable. You know what happened from there, he ran into a hungrier opponent, Clubber Lang, and he lost the belt. The same thing can happen to your law firm SEO. Many lawyers may not understand that SEO is an evolving process that needs to be worked on all the time. You don't simply "get to the top" and then stay there by default. If you stop your SEO activities, a hungrier law firm will overtake you along with a lot of potential business. This is why you need to constantly produce more content, build more links, study your analytics, and constantly be trying new things to gain more visibility with your online marketing. Sitting fat and happy at the top of the rankings will be short-lived if you stop your SEO activities.
3. Consistency Is Key - As we saw in every Rocky montage, consistency was the key to his success. Every time he was down and out or coming off of a loss, Rocky went back to his roots. He ran the steps, he did ridiculous situps, he swam, he raced on the beach, he punched meat, he did all the things necessary to win the next fight. We knew a loss was coming when Rocky would pose for photos while training when he dressed a little too "upscale" or did anything that seemed outside of his "montage routine". With your SEO, it's easy to lose sight of the little tasks you need to accomplish in order to be consistent and have success. You need to do a little each day for success. If you find yourself inconsistent in writing blog posts or building links, you will see your results suffer. Get a routine together, set small goals each day, and stick to it for success.
Rocky I
Rocky IV
Rocky III
Rocky II
Rocky Balboa
Rocky V
Please comment to agree, disagree, or tell me you can't believe I just wrote an entire article comparing Law Firm SEO to the Rocky movie series.
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