An Easier Way for Local Professionals to Advertise Online

We recently launched a new subscription product called Standard Listing for lawyers, plastic surgeons, dentists, chiropractors, financial planners and accountants.  The subscription includes an online profile, a directory listing and article publishing - all for a low annual fee.

Our article publishing platform is designed to help local professionals reach new clients through published content in a cost-effective manner. An article on our legal sites receives, on average, 20 unique visitors each month.  5 articles would attract 100 unique visitors per month; 1,200 per year.

For lawyers, the current standard listing price is $300 per year, therefore the average cost per visitor is $0.25.  Since all our traffic comes from organic search, it is essentially the same as getting an effective cost per click (cpc) of $0.25. Compared that to Google's average cpc for legal-related keywords at $7 -12, you are saving at least 95%!
 

Subscribers who publish articles also receive premium brand exposure and lead generation opportunities.  Every contributed article has a prominent "About the Author" box in the top right corner that includes the professional’s photo, name and practice, plus links to the profile and other articles by this author.  It also allows consumers to submit a case inquiry directly to you.  But the real plus is the SEO benefits - each article provides one backlink with customizable anchor text to your site, blog, or any specified web page.
Our Standard Listing product is an easy way for local professionals to enhance their online marketing as well as for SEO firms to leverage our service for their clients.

To learn more, please visit our corporate site or contact us.

Value of a LawFirms.com Profile

Haven't posted in a while, been working on new product features that should significantly enrich the SEO benefits subscribers receive from our platform.  More on this later.

Today I wanted to update everyone on how your LawFirms.com profile is adding value to your subscription.  The following table summarizes the relevant data:

Entrances: number of visitors who entered lawfirms.com via the profile, meaning the profile is being found outside of lawfirms.com via search engines or other sites.

Page Views: number of times the profile is viewed by visitors.

Ranked Keywords: number of search keywords the profile page appears on in Google and Bing results.

There are a few takeaways.  First, a profile receives traffic from sources outside of lawfirms.com, close to 6 visitors a month.  The two main sources are from search engines and other sites in the ExpertHub network.

Second, an average profile is viewed 17 times a month.  There is a positive direct correlation between number of articles published and profile views.  The more you publish, the more visitors to your profile.

Third, a profile is getting ranked by Google on an average of 3 ~4 keywords.   Now most of the keywords are variations of the law firms and lawyers' names, but looking at the latest data, there are about 20% of the keywords that are generic local keywords such as:

• foreclosure lawyers in mesa az (ranked 3 in Google)
• law firms atlanta (ranked 11)
  
• palm desert california nursing homes (ranked 8)
• washington sc intellectual property law firms (ranked 10)
• workers comp attorneys 48383 (ranked 5)

There are profiles that get ranked on 25+ keywords.  These lawyers tend to have more complete profiles, meaning they filled out all the sections, added articles, case history, videos and etc.

Our profile pages are designed as advertorials to market your firm to consumers.  Leverage your profile page to help build brand awareness and generate more lead inquiries.

Consumers Research Legal Case Before Contacting Lawyers

According to a recent LawFirms.com user poll, 50% of the 1,824 consumers who responded spent more than 2 hours researching their legal issue before submitting a case inquiry.  16% of consumers spent 1~2 hours, 17% spent less than an hour, while only 18% did not research their legal issue before talking to a lawyer. 

Sorry guys, no pie chart this time. 

Making it Easier to Find a Lawyer Near You

We have upgraded our Lawyers Near You feature that is displayed on every page of all our legal websites.

Lawyers Near You displays a short list of attorneys based for your location (identified based on your computer’s IP address) making it easy for a consumer to quickly connect with a lawyer near them. For example, I live in San Francisco and when I land on US Immigration Lawyers, I am shown immigration lawyers located near me.  If you are in Miami and go to the same website, you will see immigration lawyers near Miami.

Now, consumers have the option to customize the Lawyers Near You practice area and location through a quick edit feature.  Simply click “change” and choose from a list of relevant practice areas (i.e., on DivorceLawFirms.com, relevant practice areas include Child Custody, Child Support, Divorce, and Family) and enter a desired zip code to display a new list of local lawyers.

In addition, Lawyers Near You  will display attorneys related to search queries made from any of the 50+ websites within our legal network. For example, if you searched for "green cards", "visa" or "immigration", you will see a list of immigration lawyers.  Whereas "divorce", "annulment", or "separation" returns a list of divorce attorneys.  This is true regardless of what site you are on.  Meaning if you are on USImmigrationLawyers.com, and search for "annulment", you will see a list of divorce lawyers.

With the Lawyers Near You feature, consumers gain the added convenience of an integrated user experience.  Our subscribers profit from an increased exposure to targeted consumers, which should result in more profile views and case inquiries.

Leveraging Search to Improve User Experience

We recently redesigned our legal sites with a new & improved look and feel, they include even more legal information and an easier process for consumers to connect with lawyers.

A key component of the redesign is the launch of our Search feature.

Consumers will be able to perform keyword searches from any of our network of 50+ legal websites and retrieve information about any legal topic. Information is broken out into categories and organized in a way that is useful to the consumer.

Try it out. Visit http://www.divorcelawfirms.com and in the Find Legal Information box, type in "divorce”. Here’s what you’ll see:

1. Keyword Introduction: Typically provides a definition or explanation of the search term


2. Lawyers: Highlights lawyers in your area that specialize in “divorce” so you can quickly connect without performing a second search.


3. Fast Facts: Conveys statistics and facts related to the search term that you may find interesting


4. Articles: Displays the top five articles that are most relevant to the search term, plus option to view more.
   


5. Q&A: Answers to commonly asked questions relevant to what you were searching for. So in this case, Q&A’s about “child custody.”


6. Around the Web: Additional information pulled in from other websites that will help the consumer with their legal question. Again, information is relevant to the search performed.

You will notice that the results for Articles, Q&A and Around the Web also include the author name (if written by a lawyer) with a link to their profile, the website the content is sourced from, and consumer feedback statistics (if there are any).

I also want to mention that the results are pulled in from all 50+ sites in our network, not just the specific website you are searching from.

A new version of the "Lawyers" category is in the works, scheduled for release mid September. We are changing the category name to "Lawyers Near You". The new features will include an enhanced keyword to practice area mapping and the ability for consumers to customize the practice area and location. The mapping provides the logic to associate keywords such as "annulment", "separation agreement", and "alimony" to "Divorce". With this capability, we are able to show consumers a list of "divorce" lawyers when they search for "annulment".

We are also planning to layer in more categories including state laws, case history, legal forms, and so forth in the coming months.

Our goal is to make it easier to for consumers to find information. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to contact us or post a comment. Thanks!

How Far are Consumers willing to Travel to see a Lawyer?

Office location is a major deciding factor for consumers when selecting a lawyer. 37% of consumers selected "Location" as one of the three most important factors in our previous poll. To gain further insight, we asked our consumers just how far they are willing to travel.

Based on a new Lawfirms.com user poll, 67% of 1,743 consumers who voted are willing to travel up to 1 hour to see a qualified lawyer. Interesting enough, 21% are willing to travel any distance, whereas only 12% are willing to travel between 1 to 2 hours.

Unless your local law practice is able to handle cases completely over the phone or has no direct competition, you should have a target geographic coverage radius of no more than 50~75 miles (roughly a 1 hr drive time in most metropolitan areas). This will increase the odds for a consumer to schedule a consult and actually show up at your office.

Lawyers Experience SEO success with Contributed Articles

In prior posts, I advocated that publishing articles is one of the best ways to capture a consumer’s attention and build rapport online. However, those articles are only valuable if they can be found by consumers.

Since we launched our publishing platform a few of months ago, we have seen very positive SEO results for the lawyer-contributed articles. Here are few of the successes we've seen:

MONTHLY SEARCH TRAFFIC	ARTICLE TITLE	RANKINGS	KEYWORD EXAMPLES
255	Beating a Speeding Ticket in Court	1st Page Result for 50+ keywords	• How to Beat a Speeding Ticket • beating a speeding ticket in court • speeding ticket visual estimate
194	Determining Eligibility for Making Home Affordable	1st Page Result for 50+ keywords	• mha guidelines • legal help with mha modification • rules home affordable modification
128	What Wage Benefits Are You Entitled to Under Florida Workers ...	1st Page Result for 50+ keywords	• workers compensation wages • florida worker compensation wages
110	Employee Restroom and Break Laws in Minnesota	1st Page Result for 40+ keywords	• minnesota break laws • mn break laws • mn employee break law
108	Rights of Injured Workers	1st Page Result for 40+ keywords	• rights of injured workers • injured workers rights
105	Public Defender vs. Private Attorney: Is it Worth It?	1st Page Result for 30+ keywords	• court attorney vs. private attorney • public lawyers v. private lawyers
99	How Child Support Payment Modification Works	1st Page Result for 20+ keywords	• child support payment modification • involuntary child support payment
86	Transfer on Death Deed | Avoid Probate for Real Estate	1st Page Result for 20+ keywords	• transfer on death deed • payable on death deed • probate transfer deed process • real estate transfer on death • probate transfer deed process
80	Advantages and Disadvantages to Filing for Bankruptcy	1st Page Result for 20+ keywords	• advantages of bankruptcy • advantages of filing bankruptcy • disadvantages of filing bankruptcy