Saw this ad on TV the other day:
Bold claim. Based on what? If you watch to the end, you'll catch this disclaimer:
Based on June-September 2020 website traffic metrics from Google Analytics and data acquired through SEMRush.
- The Sam Bernstein Law Firm, PLLC
And looking at the SEMRush data for those months, the claim appears accurate:
Kudos to their marketing people.
The Bernstein Law Firm is an institution in Michigan. In fact, their brand is so well-recognized that they can pull-off billboards like this:
Of course, brand building like this isn't cheap.
In any event, when I first saw the commercial, I was a bit skeptical. For many of the queries we track, Bernstein is not an organic share of voice leader. For example:
In fact, when you look at a Local Falcon scan report for "personal injury attorney" in southeast Michigan, you can see they don't appear in the top six:
But, when you take organic brand traffic into account, it's really not surprising at all they're the leader. In fact, take a look at their top organic keywords from SEMRush:
Brand-heavy to say the least.
In any event, if you filter-out keywords containing "bernstein" you get a sense of their share of voice for non-brand queries:
So, while they might just be Michigan's most visited personal injury website, they're unlikely the share of voice leader for non-brand queries.
Great opportunity for improvement!
Here's a recent Google SERP for "𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗿 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗹𝗮𝘄𝘆𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗮." Ads? ❌LSAs? ❌Local Pack? ❌Links? ❌ 🔷 AI Overview? ✅ 6 firms listed. Only one tiny 🔗. Click the 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 button? 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗲𝘁: Here's a more detailed look at some of these firms: THE PEARCE LAW FIRM, P.C.Edith Pearce, […]
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Meh, links! All things being equal, links still tend to move the dial more than any other factor in legal SERPs. Maybe links are having a diminishing impact internet-wide. But in my experience, quality links, especially relevant links (both topically and geographically), tend to improve law firm visibility in search more than most everything else. […]
