So you're paying your law firm internet marketing consultants thousands of dollars per month to help you get found by your clients. But did it ever dawn on you that those same folks might be working for the law firm down the street as well? In fact, they may even be directly competing with you.
As lawyers, you know how ridiculous it would be if the same law firm represented both the plaintiff and the defendant in the same matter. In fact, it would be downright unethical and could cost you your license.
Unfortunately, when it comes to law firm internet marketing, there are companies that are doing just that.
Here's a simple test to find out if your law firm internet marketing consultant is competing against you:
1. First, go to the homepage of your firm's site. Look at the keywords in the title of your homepage (the words at the very top of your browser window). Let's say, for example, your site title is: Chicago Personal Injury Lawyers- Larry Lawyer Law Offices, PC.
2. Next, head on over to Google. Perform a search for your site's title keywords. In our example, we would search for: chicago personal injury lawyers.
3. Click on the first organic result and scroll down to the bottom of that firm's page. Look for a logo, or text link that says something like: "powered by:", "support by", "website by:", "or site support by:". Is this site "powered by" the same company handling your law firm internet marketing? If so, they're competing with you.
Keep going down the result list until you come to your site. For each site that is being "powered by" the same law firm internet marketing company as yours, make a note of it.
Call up your search engine marketing consultant and ask them why they are helping your competitor out-rank you on google. Feel free to post their responses as comments to this post. We'd love to hear them.
Chances are you'll get some sort of song and dance about how long their site has been up and running, or how your competition is more active with their site/blog than you are.
Our guess is that this is happening because those firms are paying more than you are for their services.
Ok, I know I'm going to be accused of "oversimplifying" the issue, but the bottom line is that this is completely true.
Then ask yourself how that sits with you. You pay them to help you get found online and they're helping your competition beat you.
The truth is, the only way to solve this problem is to make sure your law firm internet marketing company has an exclusive territory policy. That way, they agree not to work for other firms that work in the same practice areas and the same geographic region as you.
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