If you think about it, it really should come as no surprise that canned and one-size fits all seo solutions don't work. Search engine positions depend primarily on links. If you are getting the same links that everyone else is getting, your link profile will be the same as everyone else's and there will be no reason for a search engine to position your website ahead of others.
Most canned search engine optimization strategies involve acquiring links from directories and various other social networking, social media, and social bookmarking sites. They sell their consumers on building links, getting rankings for certain keywords, and various other "seoy" marketing ploys.
If you perform a competitive back link analysis of your competitors' websites, chances are that they are getting links that are difficult for the masses to obtain. That is why they are ranking well for their target keywords. While competitive analysis linking is a good strategy for obtaining quality links that you may have otherwise not considered, merely copying canned and one sized fits all back link profiles will have very little effect on your online visibility (and in fact may hinder it).
The truth is, that in order to be successful, you need to employ a strategy that is customized for your target keywords and competitive landscape. For example, if you are targeting extremely competitive "head search phrases" that have high search volumes on a national level, your search marketing strategy needs to be built, as well as, invested into, accordingly. On the other hand, if you are targeting less competitive keywords in a very localized market and practice area, your law firm seo strategy will likely take an entirely different shape.
Ultimately, any investments you make into Internet marketing for your law firm must produce new business. While the effectiveness of some strategies is more difficult than others, it is very important to set goals, work to meet those goals, and then re-evaluate your progress and methodology. In a sentence, don't waste your time or money on canned, one sized fits all, search engine optimization solutions.
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 […]
