While we regularly point out the issues, problems and limitations of rank tracking, lawyers love to spot-check their search engine rankings.
By now, you probably know that search engine rankings fluctuate a lot. Here's an example for rankings for a popular legal directory's rankings for the keyword 'attorney' between 10/31 and 11/2:
You also probably know that they search engines serve localized and personalized results. This means that the location from which a search is performed, as well as, the searchers previous behavior can greatly influence the results.
But here's something you might not have considered: Search engines can also serve vastly different results based on the type of device the searcher is using.
In other words, searches performed on desktop computers can be much, much different from the same search performed by the same user, in the same location on a mobile device.
Here's an example of a site's positions in Google for the same keywords, in the same location, but on a desktop vs a smartphone:
As you can see, this particular site holds the #3 position on a desktop search, but the #12 position, for the same keyword in the same location on a smartphone.
This has been known in SEO circles for a long time. Bryson Meunier pointed out 14 differences between mobile search and desktop search results at Search Engine Land back in 2011. He added 16 differences between mobile and desktop in 2012 too.
And Google has confirmed updates to their system to address sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users.
So, if this is news to you, you have some catching up to do.
One possible reason for such a disparity between desktop and smartphone rankings is whether the site has mobile optimization issues. In the instant case, the site uses a mobile sub-domain to serve up mobile pages. This is usually a sub-optimal implementation and the site should probably switch to a responsive web design that serves up the same URLs regardless of what device the user is searching on.
If you're going to spot-check rankings, and I suggest that you don't, don't forget to compare them on multiple devices. A better approach is to follow search engine technical guidelines to make sure that your pages are accurately communicating as much information to search engines as possible.
Technical SEO is an are that is often overlooked but can have a very significant impact on your visibility in search results.
To many lawyers, marketers and their webmasters seem to think that all you have to do is "use compelling headlines" and the rest of SEO will somehow sort itself out. It's just not true.
We see countless examples of sites that contain basic technical SEO mistakes that are greatly impacting the site's visibility within SERPs.
Some of these relate to mobile optimization issues. And as we discussed above, these issues can make sites that appear in top positions in desktop results, be relegated to the second pages of SERPs on smartphones. Hopefully you recognized just how serious such mistakes can be in terms earning attention from organic search results on mobile devices (you know, the devices that are exploding in usage).
Over the years, law firm prospects have sent us reports from just about all of our competitors. Unfortunately, even today, some law firm marketing agencies still mislead their clients via "reporting." One particularly egregious example comes in the form of ranking reports. Which prompted this LinkedIn post. To my surprise, I received a lot of […]
John Wanamaker supposedly said "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." In an an effort to figure out "what half is working," attribution was born. Coupled with a transition from traditional, offline ads to digital media, attribution became the holy grail for analyzing advertising spends. But […]
I recently asked ChatGPT, "What are some of the top personal injury law firms in Chicago?? Actually, first I ask "who are some of the top personal injury lawyers in Chicago?" ChatGPT couldn't handle that one, so I modified the prompt. ChatGPT listed five very well-known firms downtown. Can you guess the other four? That's […]
If you're like me, you have some degree of AI, ChatGBT, Bard, exhaustion. Now don't get me wrong, this is stuff is remarkable and is changing, well, a lot. But before you hook up the ChatGPT API to your WordPress API and crank out 10,000 pages, here are a few things to think about. Let's […]
If you know me, you know my opinions about links and SEO advice from Google. If you don't, here's the TL;DR: Meh, links! Meaning, all things being equal, links still remain a competitive difference maker for ranking. Take Google's SEO advice with several grains of salt. Google has no economic incentive to help your site […]
The best marketing advice I can give you is to be authentic. Of course, you don't find that very helpful in terms of meeting your growth goals. So, you might decide to game the system. As I'm writing this, one of the more popular ways to gain the system is to pay for engagement. This […]
The following post was written by ChatGPT. ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is a state-of-the-art language model that can generate human-like text based on a given prompt or context. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the way that businesses, including law firms, market themselves to potential clients. One way that a law firm could use […]
How long does SEO take? When can I expect to see results? What results should I expect to see? These are all reasonable questions that we field from lawyers every day. And, like many legal answers, the answer is: It depends. Yes, I know that's not the answer you wanted. But it's the most honest […]
And how much time should they spend doing it? I recently had the privilege of chatting with Tyson, Jim, and Conrad for an upcoming episode of The Maximum Lawyer Podcast. If you're not familiar with The Maximum Lawyer community, you should definitely check it out. Jim asked a really great question about who should do […]
