1) Alan Brinkmeier of Chicago, Illinois

2) Norman Victorino of Lake Zurich, Illinois

(no photo)

3) Sorrell Trope of Los Angeles, California (Divorce lawyer hired by Tiger Woods’ wife)

4) Shawn B. Alexander of Olga, Washington

5) Gary C. Furlong of Seattle, Washington

(no photo)

6) Blair Frederick Paul of Seattle, Washington

(no photo)

7) Carlos Gonzalez of New York, New York

8. Steven Alan Fink of Newport Beach, California

9) Michael Reiss of Seattle, Washington

10) Thomas W. Nawalany of Portland, Oregon

(no photo)

Frustrated with how competitive Google has become for lawyers?  Local SEO offers the opportunity to overtake national and local competitors alike, but most lawyers are unaware of it.  Read this blog post to learn how you can use local SEO to get an edge over the competition.

Local SEO 101

When people type in local queries into Google, a local search box often appears on top of all the other results.  As you can imagine, being on top of the normal “organic” results gets a lot of attention.

As you can see in the example above, when you type in “Dallas foreclosure lawyer” Avvo may come up first in the green organic section, but it’s still below the box of 3 (sometimes 7) red local results.  To get into the local results, you must have a local physical office, verified by Google, in the city queried.  So this is an extremely valuable piece of real estate that’s off limits to national websites.

Use Local SEO to your advantage

Using local SEO can get you on the top of Google, ahead of all the normal results.  And, as it turns out, optimizing for local SEO is a different, lesser-known animal for traditional SEO.  So not only is there an opportunity to get an edge over national websites, you can also get an edge over other local lawyers who don’t know what they’re doing.   Many marketing consultants are also unfamiliar with the nuances of local SEO, so even if your competitors hire SEO specialists, there’s still a good chance they’re not doing local SEO properly.

The secrets to optimizing for local SEO

Just like all SEO, Google isn’t giving up its secret sauce any time soon.  However, there is a free gem of a local SEO guide that can be found here.   The beauty of this guide is that it surveys a bunch of local SEO mavens on all the factors that affect local SEO and aggregates them by importance and consensus. Take a good look at all these local factors, and whether you do your own SEO or hire someone else, make sure local SEO is a priority.  This could be a great way to stand out in an increasingly crowded, competitive market.

New Year’s Resolutions – Add “update my Avvo profile” to the list. Not only can it help your Avvo Rating, but its a nice time to reflect on your achievements over the past year. As Mark mentioned a few days ago, we’re taking this time to make changes and updates as well. With that in mind, I’ve created a new How-to video to remind you how to update your profile, just in case it’s been awhile.

As we continue to highlight our outstanding line up of speakers at the Avvocating Conference, we’d like to next introduce Kathy Gill, Senior Lecturer in University of Washington’s Department of Communication, Digital Media Program.  At UW, Kathy broke ground by offering the very first Twitter course – a class devoted to understanding Twitter, and the power of the real-time Web.

Kathy has more than 20 years experience in industry, government and non-profit communications, including 10 years experience in digital media — both development and instruction.  She began teaching web-related courses in 1998; from spring 2001 – summer 2003 she taught interface design, web design, and other web courses at Seattle Central Community College.  In 2001, she developed a one-day workshop on web usability for eLearning, which she conducts as a contract to MediaPro several times each year.

Her consulting work includes writing an online column for About.com, one of the top 10 visited Web content sites on the Internet.  Her web design consultant work includes sites for the Burke Museum, The Gallatin Group, and Plumcreek Timber, and she has worked with Boeing, AT&T Wireless, SAFECO, and Microsoft on intranet projects.  Kathy also blogs at WiredPen and can be found on Twitter.

At the Avvocating Conference on January 21 from 2:00-2:50pm, Kathy will be presenting “Beyond The Fail Whale: Twitter Best Practices”. She will discuss how Twitter has transformed the legal industry through knowledge sharing, content creation and new methods of conversational marketing.  Attendees will learn best practices for listening, participating and building relationships, and hear real examples of organizations that have implemented successful Twitter strategies.

Sign up for Avvocating today!

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, and Justia to help you take your online marketing and reputation management to the next level.

When: January 21 and 22
Where: Bell Harbor Conference Center, Seattle WA
Who: Lawyers and in-house marketers
Cost: $249 – if you are a current Avvo Advertising client, call your Account Executive for free tickets. 800 441-3596.

AVVOCATING CONFERENCE DETAILS

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

Attorneys from these 18 states are attending:

The 2010 Avvo Webinar schedule is posted!  Please join us for any number of presentations covering online marketing and social media for lawyers.  The first webinar will be on Website Analytics, set for this Thursday, January 7 at 10:00AM PT.   Take a look at the full line-up here and remember to check back as we continue to add new dates and invite more guests to present on the latest topics driving the legal industry.

This year we’re also kicking off a weekly Avvo Advertising webinar series.  If you are considering advertising and want to know more about Avvo’s solutions – including the new Avvo Pro – please join us for an overview and bring your questions for the sales team.  Webinars will be held every Wednesday at 10:00AM PT.

Finally, we are only a few weeks away from the Avvocating Conference!

Hear from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and more.  Have you signed up yet?  We hope to see you there!

As we look forward into 2010, I see the pace of change for the legal world accelerating driven by the economy, technological improvements and lawyers becoming more entrepreneurial in response. My list below may sound very self-serving, but in reality it explains exactly why we’re doing what we’re doing. Innovation can be particularly daunting for risk-averse, issue-spotting lawyers, so strap yourself in, put on your helmet and get ready for a roller coaster in the next 12 months.

1. Growth in Some Consumer-specific Sectors – Trend data from Avvo show the economy has caused major growth in specific legal practice areas, including Bankruptcy, Foreclosure, Real Estate and even Divorce. Anecdotally, I have talked to many attorneys in these areas reporting record years.
2. Growth in Solo Ranks – 2009 saw the worst employment year for BigLaw which culled their ranks at a rate of 4.5%. Cuts were widespread and deep – seven of the largest 50 law firms let more than 200 attorneys go. Following guidance from solo practioner fairy godmother, Carolyn Elefant, many enterprising laid off attorneys have struck out on their own. Expect this growth in the solo community to continue as lay-offs trend into 2010.
3. Price for Online Marketing Products Drops – The number of lawyers paying thousands of dollars annually for basic online products like blogs, websites and directory listings will drop precipitously. Cost conscious attorneys will continue to seek alternatives to the dominant industry vendors who have overcharged lawyers for rudimentary solutions over the past decade. Additionally, the ranks of do-it-yourself lawyers embracing easy-to-use (and often free) platforms will increase.
4. Price for Marketing Consulting Services Drops – 2009 saw an explosion of social media gurus, mavens, ninjas, and self-proclaimed experts providing Social Media Strategy Consultations. These ranks will swell in 2010 as more laid off and bar-sanctioned attorneys turn to a career in marketing consulting. However, the fabricated mystery of social media will disappear as attorneys discover a twitter account can be set up in 10 minutes by anyone who finished 3 years of law school. (Those with congenital social issues may still require a consultant to let them know that online social interaction can be just as challenging as in-person interaction.)
5. Personalized Search Strengthens Large Entrenched Sites – Google recently made a massive shift to search that seems to have gone almost unnoticed by the legal community – personalized search results as a default setting. This means that searches are influenced by the individual searcher – and one of the parameters considered in rankings is previous browsing history. For example, if I’ve visited Nike 4 times this month, that site is more likely to rank higher when I do a search for “sneaker”. The result? Established sites and strong brands will get even more representation in the search results. A side note – SEO’s will respond by experimenting to see if PPC advertising can be used to influence natural search placement.
6. Bar Regulation Catches Up To the Web – Ludicrous ethical requirements enacted this December by the Florida Bar will be challenged and overturned in a very public and expensive process. This will serve as a wake-up call to all state bars regarding how they deal with the Internet. South Carolina will quietly consider how the Constitution applies to their regulations regarding a “hypothetical company X” where lawyers can claim and manage their online profiles.
7. Major SPAM Scandal – In 2008 we had the Findlaw linkselling scandal, in 2009 we had the Lawyers.com comment SPAM scandal. 2010 will be no different as more and more consultants, agencies and attorneys get involved in the online marketing gold-rush. Someone is going to push the ethical limits and get burned. Unfortunately, the ultimate loser may be those attorneys who unwittingly (through sheer ignorance) get swept up in it.
8. Yellow Pages Advertising Continues to Crater – when we researched the concept for Avvo, lawyers were spending $1.4 billion annually on yellow pages advertising. Last year (2008), that dropped to $1 billion. 2009 saw RR Donnelley (the largest Yellow Pages provider) stock hit rock bottom – 88% off its high just two years earlier. As attorneys approach advertising with a more analytical eye, they will continue to pull back from this channel.