Why small businesses have a tough time in Google

The basic idea behind Google is to treat the Web as one big democracy where “votes” determine which websites rank highest.  But instead of voting by showing up to the ballot box, people vote by linking out to other websites from their websites.  The website with the most links wins (it’s not nearly that simple, but that’s the idea).   In theory, this works wonderfully. In reality, it often doesn’t work for small businesses like law firms.

Ranking websites based on links works well for, say, websites about celebrities and politics, because countless people are willing and eager to link to those types of websites.  Small business websites don’t usually enjoy the same treatment– you could run an excellent small law firm, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into people linking to your law firm website.  People naturally link to great gossip about Lindsay Lohan and politics.  They don’t naturally link to great small law firms, even if they think they’re great.

In this way, linking for small businesses is often completely unnatural and contrary Google’s idealistic vision of the Web.  Or, to continue the democracy metaphor, when it comes to electing small businesses, the Google democracy has a voter turnout problem.

The tabloid or publicity stunt option

Some marketers try to get around this problem by telling lawyers to make the unsexy sexy.  They advocate writing articles aimed at the general public about celebrity law or even pulling publicity stunts.   And while anything is possible, this awkward approach often fails because it’s not enough to make law interesting; you also have to market your interesting content to people willing to link to it, which is no easy task.  Besides, even if you could succeed in Google by turning your website into a tabloid or by pushing the limits of good taste, would you?

So what is a lawyer to do to get links?

Faced with the reality that getting links to a small law firm websites is hard, many lawyers turn to perfunctory or risky link building tactics— they do link exchanges, they submit their websites to directories that human readers ignore, or they buy links despite Google’s admonitions.

The non-profit sponsorship solution

There are several ways of solving this problem, but one that is particularly effective and simple is to sponsor local non-profit websites that link to you as a sponsor.   This link building tactic stands out among many others because it works from a traditional and online marketing perspective.  By sponsoring local non-profit websites, you help good causes, build awareness and goodwill among people in your community, and, incidentally, build powerful links to your website.  Not a bad deal.

But isn’t this buying links? Isn’t that bad?

Google doesn’t like when people directly buy links for the sole purpose of manipulating Google; that much is clear.  However, there are certain gray areas that Google has not addressed.  Non-profit sponsorship is one of them.  Does this mean Google approves of the practice? Who knows…Google is deliberately vague about these sorts of things.

As far as I know the practice of charity sponsorship involving links has not raised the ire of Google, which makes sense.  After all, a legitimate charity wouldn’t allow someone with a bad reputation to be a public sponsor, so there is a built-in quality control mechanism.  Besides, Google’s “don’t be evil” mantra doesn’t exactly mesh with forbidding charity sponsorship.  So as long as your intent is to help solid local organizations and any SEO benefits are just a bonus, then there’s no theoretical or practical reason for Google to be upset.

There’s no better time to get started with non-profit sponsorship

The economy is in the dumps, and many non-profits are struggling.  This means there is no time like the present to reach out and become a sponsor.   If you need help finding non-profits to sponsor, try VolunteerMatch or Charity Navigator.  This is one great way to do well by doing good.

At Avvo, the vast majority of the tens of thousands of client reviews we receive are positive (over 80%). Still, some attorneys have recently begun commenting on the fact that we allow “anonymous” reviews. “Anonymous” is in quotes because it can mean a number of different things. At Avvo, “anonymous” means that we require reviewers to register with the site; but we do not require them to disclose their identities to the general public. We also do not disclose the reviewers’ names upon request. The latest commentary calls for an end to such anonymity. Different lawyers have also suggested that Avvo independently verify all reviews, or that reviewers waive their attorney-client privilege as a condition of leaving a review.

We believe this commentary has merit, but ultimately misses the mark.

Online communities place enormous value on sharing experiences. The tremendous growth of Yelp, Amazon, Twitter and other aggregators of public opinion (including, indeed, Avvo) points to the value individuals place on being able to share their experiences and learn from the experiences of others. And the more robust the community, the more efficient the information and the better experience for all users.

Are there issues with client reviews? Of course – and in this way reviews are no different than any other form of communication, on- or off-line. But the fact that a review system isn’t “perfect” from a lawyer’s point of view doesn’t mean it doesn’t offer significant value in the aggregate. As with any other community, the goal is to balance competing factors in order to make the information as useful as possible.

At Avvo, we start that balancing process by policing the community. A human looks at every review before it is posted, to ensure it meets our community guidelines. We also offer attorneys a mechanism by which reviews can be escalated; in this process Avvo verifies that the reviewer wants the review to remain posted.

But while our community guidelines, human review and escalation process make Avvo’s the most responsible system for client feedback out there, we need to ensure that clients remain comfortable leaving reviews. This is why offering anonymity is a must.

Ultimately, people are going to talk about lawyers and their practices, and they’re going to do so online. Many will rave about how wonderful their lawyers are; others will bemoan attorneys who failed to return their many phone calls. Still others will attempt to falsely inflate or deflate reputations, or blame attorneys unfairly for losing unwinnable cases.

The answer to these marginal abuses isn’t to try to curtail all speech in this forum – it’s to meet it with more speech. Look at Amazon, where reviews abound, positive and negative; credited and anonymous. Even products universally lauded as wonderful will feature a number of negative reviews, but the aggregate “voice” these reviewers offer potential customers is powerful and compelling. As more and more reviews come online, a reputational ecosystem will develop where the pattern of multiple reviews will help reveal the real character of what it’s really like to work with that attorney. This has already happened with most major categories of consumer products and services, and is happening in Avvo’s biggest markets. The sooner we attorneys disabuse ourselves of the notion that our services are less amenable to review than those of a hotel or a roofer, the better off we’ll be.

At Avvo, we spend a lot of time on the Web, and more specifically in the blogosphere. We even offer our own blogging product designed to get more lawyers blogging. However, as more lawyers blog, some interesting personality types have evolved. I have tried to catch these blogging personalities below, at least the 10 most common; but feel free to suggest some of your own.

Keep in mind that some bloggers combine types – like the Bloprah and the Moser or the Bludgeon and the Puncher. And, for the record, I see myself as a combination between the Moser and the Bloater, while always pursuing the noble goal of being the Hitter. Whatever your type, you are already ahead of the game if you are blogging.

Top 10 Blogging Personalities

1. Bloprah – These are bloggers that want to be the Oprah of social media. They offer all sorts of thoughts on work/life balance, neat trends and their favorite products. Video montages of themselves are never hard to find. I had a prominent lawyer tell me once that, if a lawyer is looking for work/life balance, they probably shouldn’t be a lawyer. While correct, this lawyer would be shunned by Bloprahs world over.

2. Hitter – The hitter knocks the blogging ball out of the park. The hitter often offers new ideas and unique commentary. Sometimes the hitter will criticize things they see; but not without offering productive suggestions and sometimes even innovative solutions. The Hitter is the antithesis of the Bludgeon (see below).

3. Bludgeon – Bludgeons are blogging curmudgeons. They see blogging as their personal and never-ending critical peanut gallery. Seldom do Bludgeons create. Seldom do Bludgeons offer solutions. Bludgeons simply complain. Don’t be a Bludgeon.

4. Puncher – Punchers are some of the best bloggers. They write punchy, concise posts (which doesn’t always mean short) that boil big issues down to their simplest form. Punchers also typically hammer out blog posts in a matter of minutes. They grasp issues so quickly and precisely that they don’t get hung up when writing. They have already done the pre-production in their heads.

5. Hogger – This blogger has to speak on every issue. No issue is relevant if they have not blessed it with their prose. If someone challenges the Hogger, the challenger is met with a reply that is never less than 400 words.

6. DiDer – These bloggers find the devil in details – in fact they live for the details. DiDers tend to be the intellectual upper crust of the legal profession with a genuine love for legal theory. Law professors and highly specialized attorneys are most often DiDers. They are simply posting throwaway footnotes from their latest Law Review article.

7. Cloaker – Cloakers claim to be objective voices and often see themselves as a digital-age reporter. The problem with Cloakers is that they have a reporter’s objectivity until their real job is threatened – then the cloaked smear campaign begins. Over time Cloakers will be rooted out of the blogosphere but they are some of the more dangerous commentators on the web. If you see a Cloaker, please call them on it.

8. Bloater – Bloaters are bloggers who are shameless self-promoters. Admittedly, the Avvo Blog too often falls into this camp. But we’re pretty transparent about it, as we never want to be the Cloaker. I actually find self-promotion to be necessary in getting any business off the ground. If you don’t find yourself great, who else will?

9. Moser – Like Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt, Mosers blog to help other lawyers find a better place. They share some of the Bloprah characteristics, but they are much more focused on practical issues and execution. They might blog on how to become a solo or how to better market one online. It is all very instructional, but seldom professorial. The devil is in the practical execution rather than the academic details.

10. Punter – The Punter never takes a stand. They love to observe but hate to opine, which may be the worst of all blogging form. Blogging (and most other social media) is about sharing your opinions – being an influencer. If you don’t take a stand in your blogging, you are littering not blogging.

Did we miss any? Also, if you are interested in blogging but aren’t currently doing it because of time, expense and/or irrational fear, please give us a call. Here is all of the info regarding Avvo Blogs.

Mark

1) ALAN JAMES BRINKMEIER of Chicago, IL

2) NORMAN VICTORINO of Lake Zurich, IL

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3) TAMARA MICHELLE CROSS of San Diego, CA

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4) PAMELA KOSLYN of Hollywood, CA

5) BLAIR FREDERICK PAUL of Seattle, WA

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6) GARY C. FURLONG of Seattle, WA

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7) THOMAS W NAWALANY of Portland, OR

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8 ) MATTHEW EDWARD WILLIAMSON of Monterey, CA

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9) WILLIAM C. HEAD of Atlanta, GA

10) HOWARD ROBERT ROITMAN of Las Vegas, NV

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Avvocating Conference – Advanced Online Marketing Training for Lawyers

When: January 21 and 22
Where: Bell Harbor Conference Center, Seattle WA
Who: Lawyers and in-house marketers

Get the inside scoop from the tech industry leaders themselves, up close and in person. Avvo’s first-ever Advanced Online Marketing Training for Lawyers brings together top executives from Avvo, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Justia and The Rainmaker Institute to help you take your online marketing and reputation management to the next level.

If you’re a lawyer or an in-house law firm marketer, then join us January 21-22, 2010 in Seattle, Washington, for a first-hand look at how new trends in technology are changing the face of the legal industry.

Online event registration

Day One: Get the Most Out of Social Networking
• Welcome & Core Web Presence – Mark Britton, Avvo
• Tactical Online Marketing – Stephen Fairley, The Rainmaker Institute
• Under the Hood at LinkedIn – Doug Mandell, LinkedIn
• Maximizing your Avvo Profile – Mark Britton, Avvo
• Going deep with Facebook – Tim Kendall, Facebook
• Social Media Panel – Facebook, LinkedIn and Avvo
• Networking Cocktail Reception

Day Two Agenda: Search, Websites, Blogs and the Analytics Supporting Your Web Presence
• Ethics of Online Marketing (1 MCLE hour in WA, CA, NY) – Josh King, Avvo
• Website Analytics and Website Optimizer – Sandra Cheng, Google
• Advanced Pay-per-click Marketing – Conrad Saam, Avvo
• Cost-effective and tech-effective Blogs and Websites – Tim Stanley, Justia
• SEO and the Future of Search – Microsoft

Read detailed session information here.

Don’t miss out! Avvo’s Advanced Online Marketing Training is a rare opportunity to get to know the top technology industry leaders and gain valuable insights specific to legal professionals.

Cost is only $249 and seating is limited to just 300 people, so sign up early to reserve your spot. Plus, if you sign up before October 15, 2009, you’ll get $50 off the cost of the seminar. Use the discount code: AVVO1015.

Online event registration

Avvo on Tour in Florida. Join us for a 3 1/2 hour session exploring advances in online marketing. Learn how to establish a core web presence, track your success with Google Analytics and understand the fundamentals of how Google ranks websites. Earn one hour of ethics CLE credit through a class on Ethical Implications of Online Marketing. Listen to a panel of Florida attorneys who have learned to use the web to their advantage.

The Cost? 3 1/2 hours of your time. We’ll make sure it’s worth it.

10/27 Miami
1:00-4:30, Hilton-Miami
Sign Up!

10/28 West Palm Beach
1:00-4:30, Crowne Plaza
Sign Up!

10/29 Tampa
1:00-4:30, Tampa Marriott Westshore
Sign Up!

10/30 Orlando
1:00-4:30, Sheraton Orlando, Downtown
Sign Up!

At the end of last week, Martindale announced that they had revamped their age-old “AV®” rating system . According to Martindale’s Ralph Calistri, “The needs of people, both lawyers and consumers, who evaluate legal services, have evolved, and the demand for more comprehensive and detailed lawyer ratings has emerged.”

What Ralph didn’t mention is that Martindale’s new ratings look just like Avvo’s. Well, not exactly, which I will discuss in a moment; but Martindale has decided that it is a good time to offer these very Avvo-like elements to its ratings:

• Ratings based on a 40-point scale, from 1.0 to 5.0. Avvo rates on a 90 point scale from 1.0 to 10.0.

• Subratings based on “Legal Knowledge,” “Analytical Capabilities,” etc. Avvo does the same, citing a lawyer’s experience, industry recognition and professional conduct.

• Discloses whether lawyer “Meets Very High Criteria of General Ethical Standards.” Avvo discloses all disciplinary history (and sometimes gets sued because of it).

I think this is a very big and welcome step forward for Martindale. They have had a closed, “old-boys” rating system for so long that more transparency is always better. And, the fact that they are trying to follow Avvo so closely is admirable; however, is it too much for me to ask for a bit more?

My biggest criticism of the new Martindale rating system is that it is still not transparent enough. First, while they say they will rate lawyers as low as 1.0, they also say that lawyers who are currently in their lowest category (“C/V”) will start at a 2.9 rating. Huh? So, in reality, the new Martindale rating system only goes from 2.9 to 5.0. Better than their former three-point scale, but not by much.

Second, while Martindale has started talking about “ethical standards,” they are not disclosing the elements of any lawyer discipline; and misconduct does not appear to affect the Martindale rating. For their rating to be truly legitimate, Martindale needs to detail discipline and have it affect the rating.

Third, it appears that Martindale is still only rating those lawyers that pay them money. Can Martindale really offer legitimate ratings if they are only displaying paying lawyers? No wonder the scale starts at 2.9. Who is going to pay to be a 1.0? This is consistent with Martindale’s Avvo-like move of last year where they started displaying client reviews in their directory. The rub was that they let the lawyer *hand-pick* whether reviews were displayed, thus gutting the objective value of their client reviews.

Finally, Martindale announced that they will roll-out their new rating system over the next 10 years. That seems like *ahem* a long time. Ten years ago, Google was an edgy alternative to Alta Vista, “The West Wing” debuted on television and Boris Yeltsin was still the President of Russia. Ten Years? Really?

Dear Martindale, as a 17-year lawyer, I respect so much of what you do. We even include the Martindale ratings as a factor in the Avvo Rating. But the transparency of Web 2.0 is here and wading in up to your ankles over a ten year period is not going to get you far. Now is the time to get into the deep-end – won’t you join us?

Mark

It turns out tire kickers aren’t usually a problem

Google’s Chief Economist recently released a study that found little difference in conversion rate (the percentage of visitors who do something, like buy or sign up) caused by the ad rank of Adwords ads.

In plain English, this means that whether your ad shows up in first place or tenth place, it probably won’t have much impact on the likelihood of the clicker turning into a client.

Why is this news?

Okay, admittedly this is kind of an academic revelation, most interesting to people who spend too much time thinking about online marketing.  However, many average Joes running PPC (pay per click) campaigns hear theories about PPC ad rank, which they try to follow, and which this study addresses.  For example,

- People who click on the highest ranking ads are “tire kickers,” and so you’re better off having your ads rank in the middle or bottom.

- People who browse down to low ranking ads are odd/crazy because it’s usually unnecessary to browse that far, so you’re better off having your ads rank in the middle or top.

- People trust ads that appear in the top slots, so you should always make sure your ads appear at the top.

Although anyone who tracks PPC ads can answer these questions themselves, most people don’t, so they pick a theory, follow it,  and try to keep their ads ranking accordingly.

What Google found

Google found that, on average, conversion rate only varies by 5% for the same ad in different positions.  This means that, on average, the “tire kicker” problem or other theories aren’t worth worrying about.

It’s important to note that outside experimental conditions where you’re comparing the exact same ad and landing page in different positions, there probably is a larger difference in conversion rate.  Why? Because of Google’s Quality Score — if the score works as it should, Google will automatically bump up ads of higher quality and relevance to what the user is searching for.  Naturally, a higher quality and more relevant ad/landing page will convert better.  So don’t take this to mean when you look at a given page of results, people are buying at the same rate across all the ads.

Further caveats

This study concluded that the difference in conversion is small (5%), not that there is no difference at all.  For a lot of marketers, a 5% increase in conversion could be well worth the effort, especially if it costs less per click.  Secondly, the 5% difference in conversion rates was on average, which means in some cases the difference was larger.  In your particular case, the difference could translate into a significant amount of money.

Final take away

The bottom line for this study is that your ad rank probably won’t make a big difference in conversion rate.  But a larger, and perhaps more important, point is that the only way to know for sure is to test and track your own PPC ad performance.

When it comes to PPC, the beauty of it is that you’re able to precisely track everything, down to a very granular level, unlike with other forms of online marketing– and if you setup your tracking correctly, you can arrive at the cost per phone call or even cost per client.  That’s the statistic that really matters, right?

Do you have tracking?

Most lawyers who run their own PPC campaigns aren’t tracking at all.  If you’re in that camp, this blog post should be a wake up call, because you can improve your ROI by tracking a variety of variables in your PPC campaigns, including ad copy, landing pages, audience targeting, geo targeting, etc.  Ad rank and its effect on conversion rates is just one variable among many that can impact your PPC ads’ effectiveness.  If you’re not optimizing for these variables, which you control, then you’re wasting money.

Reporter Tom Taulli put together a great article in the New York Times entitled, “How to Start a Business.” In it, he makes a number of observations, including that Avvo is the place to find a “qualified attorney” to help you get your business started.

Thanks Tom for thinking of Avvo!

If anyone reading this post is thinking of starting a business, please check out Avvo Answers for thousands (over 16,000 to be exact) questions and answers on starting a business – and even running one too. We also have roughly 500 Legal Guides related to starting a business.

And . . . drum roll please . . . here’s our list of the top-rated business lawyers in the U.S.

Start your business by starting with Avvo . . .

Mark