Being on the bleeding edge of a cultural trend isn’t usually the most stress-free place to be. Witness Yelp, the leading site for online reviews of restaurants, bars and other small businesses, which has found itself on the receiving end of a class action lawsuit over user reviews.

Once largely limited to products, reputational ecosystems are now developing around other businesses, services and (as is the case with Avvo) professionals. Think of it as the aggregation and dissemination of what people once merely told one another; the move of “word-of-mouth” into the online world. This adjustment is difficult for some, as online comments will be felt more viscerally by a small business than by a global consumer products manufacturer.

Smart business owners, however, know how to move past this disappointment and effectively deal with, learn from and even capitalize on negative user reviews:

As we’ve pointed out before, the most effective ways to respond to negative online comments are obtaining more positive reviews, posting a professional response, or simply ignoring them. Filing a lawsuit is very rarely the right response, if for no other reason than the Streisand Effect. And filing a lawsuit against the internet service that hosts the reviews? An even uglier path, as the defamation plaintiff gets to experience both the Streisand Effect AND the unceremonious smackdown of their lawsuit colliding with provider immunity under 47 USC 230.

But the plaintiff here (Cats and Dogs Animal Hospital in Long Beach, CA) has taken a novel tack, attempting an end-run around CDA 230 immunity by alleging that Yelp is running an “extortion scheme” by offering to take down negative reviews in exchange for cash.

It’s a creative effort by the plaintiff’s lawyers, Jared Beck (who has two client reviews on Avvo – hey, Jared; wanna pay to take those down? Just kidding!) and Gregory Weston, but here’s a prediction: The suit is going to get booted, and quick.

You see, Yelp sells advertising. One of the benefits of advertising is that an advertiser can choose a “favorite” review to highlight at the top of all user reviews; after that, the reviews are sorted by an algorithm that takes into account the age of the review, how helpful other users found it, etc. It’s a nice balance between the promotion inherent in advertising and consumer transparency (Avvo offers a similar client review-featuring benefit to advertisers and Avvo Pro subscribers).

It’s a safe bet that what really happened here is that the plaintiff confused Yelp’s advertising sales pitch (“become an advertiser and choose the most glowingly positive review to move to the top of the stack”) with extortion, ignoring the fact that Yelp, like Avvo, has a firm policy against deleting most reviews and internal processes that separate advertising sales from the site’s editorial function.

Isn’t this a whole lot likelier than the theory that Yelp is operating an extortion racket? What’s more, if Yelp were extorting businesses, wouldn’t you expect to find few, if any, negative reviews amongst advertisers? Take a look at any random sponsored listing on Yelp (say, for example, Seattle’s Stellar Pizza & Ale). You’ll see lots of reviews, some of them quite negative. The beauty of a healthy reputational ecosystem is that these reviews – positive, negative and in between – paint a composite picture that gives potential customers a wealth of information. They also illustrate that if Yelp is taking payments to delete negative reviews, its advertisers are getting phenomenally poor value.

As Yelp pointed out in its initial response, “running a good business is hard; filing a lawsuit is easy.” Don’t be surprised if the ultimate lesson Dogs and Cats learns here is that it’s even easier – and a lot more effective – to ignore or learn from your bad reviews and focus on delighting your customers. Their word-of-mouth will move online, too.

Online ad prices and search volume data reveal vastly different types of legal practices – from those involving few cases worth millions, to those involving numerous cases worth little.  We crunched the numbers to found four distinct types of practice areas.  Read on to find out what they are, along with which types of lawyers are most in demand.

Most in demand practice areas

Diving into one month of Avvo’s search data made it clear that demand for legal services is not evenly distributed across all practice areas.  In fact, it’s not even close, with demand for nearly 80% of lawyers confined to only 20% of practice areas.

Here’s a picture illustrating the legal “practice area long tail“:

Click to enlarge

Here is a closer look at the top 10 practice areas:

Click to enlarge

Some interesting notes about practice area demand:

-    Criminal law is the number 1 searched for practice area, with roughly 70% more searches more than the number two most searched practice area, immigration, and over 100% more searches than the number three searched practice area, divorce.
-    People were roughly 10x more likely to search for a divorce lawyer than a prenuptial lawyer.
-    People were 17% more likely to contact a child support lawyer than an auto accident lawyer.

The cost of online advertising

Google has a cost-per-click, auction-based advertising system called Adwords.  When many lawyers all want to their ads to show up for the same keyword (like “DUI lawyer”), they bid up the cost per click of that keyword.  Sometimes bids are driven so high that being number one becomes a Pyrrhic victory at a cost of $100/click.   Here is a sample of practice areas and their average cost per click in Adwords.

Click to enlarge

Consider these four practice area buckets based on the data:

1) The big leagues (top 25% volume, $20+ cost/click)

Top 7: criminal defense, DUI, personal injury, auto accidents, tax, medical malpractice and appeals

2) Volume practices (top 25% volume, $8 or less cost/click)

Top 7: divorce, employment, landlord/tenant, litigation, real estate, speeding tickets and debt collection

3) Waiting for a big payday (bottom 25% volume, $20+ cost/click)

Top 7: birth injury, brain injury, trucking accident, motorcycle accident, tax fraud/evasion, aviation and wrongful death

4) Hyper niches (bottom 25% volume, $8 or less cost/click)

Top 7: equipment finance/leasing, computer fraud, animal law, biotechnology, copyright application, agriculture, election law

Researching your own opportunities

Keeping in mind these four general types of practice areas, conduct your own research into volume and ad prices.  By using the Google Adwords tool, you can find out the cost/click of any keyword and find out how many searches per month occur.  Meshing your experience with online data, you might be able to find niches where you can cost-effectively reach a large number of clients without getting into a bidding war.

Avvo CEO, Mark Britton, was interviewed by ABC’s 7 On Your Side consumer reporter, Michael Finney, about the financial risks involved with owning a company credit card.

I had the pleasure of visiting my motherland (aka “Montana” and/or “Big Sky Country”) last week. It was a family ski vacation in the Rocky Mountains where I figured the world of social media would be held at bay by the tactile pleasures of the trees, snow and rocks.

Wednesday night was my wife’s and my “date night” where we got a babysitter dined alone at one of our favorite Big Sky eateries, Bucks T-4. Long ago Bucks T-4 was a roadside bar that was known for its burgers, beers and raging parties. Today, it is a gourmet restaurant serving “Duck Two Ways” and “Pheasant – Hunter’s Style.” My how much Montana has changed in the last 30 years – but I digress.

At the end of this enjoyable meal of local Montana fare, I got the check and surveyed the damage. Right under the total, there was the following paragraph, “Did you enjoy your meal? Please review us at TripAdvisor.com or Yelp.com. Let others know about our great food and service.”

Wow.

I go all over the country prosthelytizing about how social media is permeating every element of local search – a category encompassing restaurants, lawyers and anything else you buy at a local level. But this simple restaurant receipt in the oxygen-depleted mountains of Montana says it all: Every – and I mean every – business is being touched by social media. You can ignore it at your peril, or you can learn to harness it like Bucks T-4 and many other web-savvy businesses. The reality is that client ratings and other user-generated content are in their infancy and to ignore them today is to cede your client base tomorrow. While it sounds dramatic, it is also reality.

The good news is that Avvo is here to help. This Thursday, I will be holding a seminar on social media marketing and blogging. You can register here. We already have 50+ people signed up and I would love to see you there. It’s a new world out there; but it can be your world.

Be Rated!

Mark

Lawyers interested in transforming their law practice into a consistent, sustainable business are invited to attend a free teleseminar this Thursday, February 25 at 5:00pm ET / 2:00pm PT, hosted by the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys:

“7 Deadly Law Firm Mistakes That Can Kill Your Estate Planning Practice”

During this 75-minute, free, content-rich call, Academy founders Robert Armstrong and Sanford M. Fisch will cover the most common mistakes attorneys make in their attempts to grow an estate planning law practice, and offer tips and tactics to avoid them in the future.

Sign up today: http://www.7deadlylawfirmmistakes.com/a

I’m not sure if this has been influenced by Valentine’s Day, but there is a veritable love fest for Avvo going on in the blogosphere over the past month. Thanks to all of you who have written:

How to Improve your Avvo Rating - by Gabriel Cheong, a widely read Massachusetts based blogger. Gabe gave a very practical (and accurate) accounting of how to optimize your Avvo Rating, covering things that do (and do not) impact it.

The Legal Profession Needs a Ranking System – Pittsburgh attorney, Brendan Lupetin, recognizes the need for Avvo to improve the quality of services provided by the industry. (Hey Brendan, add a picture to your Avvo Profile.)

Social Networking Better With Age - covers 65 year old Jeffrey Crown, who early on figured out how to get the most out of Avvo.

Rainmaking Club: Legal Marketing & Litigation Support Marketing - Legal marketing consultant, Margaret Grisdela, calls on attorneys to take advantage of free or low cost ways to manage online reputation.

Confused About Hiring an Attorney? Avvo Can Help. – In a series on how technology is impacting the law, this blogger writes: “Most of us . . . believe that Avvo will continue to grow and become an even more reliable source than it already is.” Music to my marketing ears.

How to Verify an Expert’s Credentials - a general consumer focused guide, calls out Avvo as a great place to review attorneys’ profiles.

Tweet Me Up Scotty - Jennifer Price covers tackling social media one bite at a time – including Avvo.

Directory Listings for Law Firms – Cool Research Data - spotlights Avvo as the fastest growing legal directory.

Internet Marketing Tips for Lawyers and Legal Professionals - master legal marketer and tax attorney, Roni Deutch, calls out Avvo as a great free way to “strut your stuff.”

AVVO Is Now Rating Lawyers in Mississippi

And on the off chance you thought this was just marketing puffery, it’s not all beer and skittles:

Attorney, Charles Krugel, really wishes we would just go away.

Policing the intersection of online testimonials and ethics - covers the South Carolina bar’s unenforceable and unconstitutional regulation of a “Company X” that looks very much like Avvo.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Avvo. For those of you who are still single with aspirations of mixing love and lawyers, (or for those of you already dating an attorney), check out our Legal Guide: How to Date a Lawyer.

Last summer, the ABA kicked off its “Commission on Ethics 20/20″ to review ethics rules across the country in the context of technological change. Given its role in promulgating model rules for state bars, the work of the commission can have far-ranging implications. It could even hold out hope of ushering in a paradigm shift that would benefit both attorneys and consumers via streamlined, easy-to-understand licensing, practice and advertising rules. Unfortunately, early indications aren’t promising.

The starting point is the Commission’s Preliminary Issues Outline, a curious document, covering areas both broad and specific, and quite obviously representing the pet issues of those involved with the Commission. Given the composition of the Commission (lots of academics, established lawyers and little-to-no active users of social media or advanced technology), this points to a process that is unlikely to move the profession toward greater transparency and consumer responsiveness. Here’s a sampling of some of the issues being pursued by the Commission:

The Pros and Cons of State-Based National Licensure – From the call of this question and early comments, look for a heavy focus on the “Cons.” That’s a shame, because there are a lot of ways consumers and lawyers could benefit from more “borderless” practices.

Whether the Model Rules Unnecessarily Impede a Lawyer or Law Firm’s Ability to Employ New Technologies in Representing Clients - Expect to see lots of handwringing over cloud computing, social media and the like. We saw it with email, cell phones and IM, and it gets repeated with every new technological iteration. Sigh.

Virtual Law Firms – It would be great to have a real discussion about virtual law offices and how multi-jurisdictional practice rules could accommodate them. However, the Commission is focused on client protection, which current rules can easily address.

Social Media Use By Lawyers – The Commission has framed this issue as whether existing ethics rules adequately address social media use by lawyers. As I pointed out in Avvo’s Comments to the Commission, the problem isn’t that the existing rules need to be expanded to cover social media. The existing rules are, all too often, too expansive and inflexible, and many state bars have shown that they love nothing more than to over-regulate attorney communications. Why not just scale back – as at least one bar (DC) has done – and simply draw the line at any advertising that is false or misleading? Billboards or tweets; the medium doesn’t matter as long as the message is transparent and honest.

Unbundling & Opensourcing Legal Work – Another area where the Commission has immediately focused on “client protection” rather than the ways the ABA might embrace these opportunities to make legal services more affordable and widely available. Sure, clients need to be protected from shady practices, but the history of bar regulation has shown that it is a very quick step from “client protection” to “preserving the monopoly of lawyers over delivery of all legal services.”

Online Access to Attorney Disciplinary Records – This should be a very simple discussion, especially given the sorry state of public access to attorney disciplinary records. If I were a doctor, I’d be outraged that all of my licensing information was so openly available (as it is, online, in every state) while lawyers escape this scrutiny due to the historical oddities of attorney licensing. While states like California, Florida, Texas and Washington do a good job of making this information available, others – like Alabama, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah – are shamefully bad. Does the Commission call out this lack of transparency and ask for ideas on how to solve it as quickly as humanly possible? Uh, no – they lead with the hand-wringing, wondering whether the online disclosure of public disciplinary records would lead to litigation against the recordkeepers. No, seriously.

Does Existing Law Protect the Public When Accessing Lawyer Rating Sites? – Finally, my favorite, obviously kicked in by someone who doesn’t like attorney ratings. The answer to this inane question is, of course, yes – existing law is more than adequate to “protect the public” as they cut through the opacity of the legal industry. What existing law won’t do is protect lawyers from being rated and scrutinized as “word of mouth” moves online via client reviews and ratings like Avvo’s.

Athough the Commission has raised a few non-issues, many of the items on its plate are things that should be explored. It’s just that they need to be viewed with an eye toward enhancing consumer access to justice. Whether that means more information about attorneys or removing the shackles from innovation in legal practice, there’s a lot of progress that could be made. While we remain likely to see little more than a process of worrying and regulatory fist-pounding, there remains opportunity to remind the Commission of how its mandate could lead to meaningful change. The Commission is still taking comments – make your voice heard.

After my last post, “6 Questions to Ask a Potential SEO Firm,” someone asked for elaboration on link building.  Specifically, when you ask a potential SEO firm for details about their link building practices, how do you know whether it’s a good or bad answer? Read on to learn how to tell good links from bad.

When interviewing potential SEO firms, one important thing to ask them is how they build links, because proper link building is both crucial and difficult.  To evaluate this, a great way is to ask for a sample link report showing the links they’ve built for another client.  This will allow you to see the actual links they’ve built instead of speaking hypothetically.  Once you’ve got the links in hand, evaluate them based on these factors:

1)    Do any humans visit the web pages that link out?

Many web pages exist only to host links.  Sometimes these are called “link farms.”  These pages can appear as page full of links; other times they can appear as blogs or articles written in broken English.  Regardless, if common sense tells you the page is something no human would visit, then there’s a pretty good chance it only exists to manipulate Google.  That said, pages only containing links aren’t all bad.  For example, established directories like DMOZ or Yahoo can be helpful, but these should not be the only types of websites you get links from.

2)    Are the links do follow?

Because Google counts links as votes, it had to come up with a way for people to link to websites without it counting as an endorsement.  For example, let’s say you link to a website because it’s a scam.  Your link could actually help its Google rankings.  To prevent this, Google came up with the “no follow” tag.  This is a piece of code that tells Google not to count the link as an endorsement.  The code for no follow links is not normally visible.  However, plugins like Search Status for Firefox will highlight all links on a page that are no follow, allowing you to easily see them.   No follow links will not help your SEO.

3)    What is the PR (PageRank) of the pages with the links?

Google gives every page a PR score of 0-10.  You can see this in your browser if you download the Google Toolbar.  This score has been widely criticized as inaccurate or even meaningless, but it’s one of the only ways to know how important Google thinks a page is.  The higher the PR of pages, the better.  Keep in mind that every page of a website has its own PageRank.  Sometimes unscrupulous link builders will claim to get you “PR 5 links,” when it’s really the homepage of the site that is PR 5, and the page that links to you is a PR 0.  Also keep in mind that links from low PR pages aren’t harmful; they’re just not as valuable as higher PR links.

4)    Are the websites/pages that link out relevant?

If you’re a law firm and all your links come from sites about cooking and polar bears, that could cause Google to devalue the links.  Google is very adamant about relevancy.  In practice, links from less-than-relevant sites can still help you, but striving for links from relevant sites is a good goal.

5)    Are the links violating any of Google’s guidelines?

If you violate Google’s guidelines, you risk being penalized or even kicked out of Google completely.  There are many ways to build links that violate Google’s guidelines, but here are three big ones:

-    Comment spam: this is posting nonsense or irrelevant comments with a link into the comment field of blogs or forums.
-    Buying links: this is paying someone to link to you instead of it happening naturally.
-    Excessive reciprocal linking: this is “link to me and I’ll link to you” type arrangements.  There is nothing wrong with two related sites linking to each other if it’s helpful to visitors, but Google frowns on link trading solely for the purpose of manipulating rankings.

6) How risky are the link building tactics?

Some variations of the above activities may fall into gray areas.  For example, is sponsoring a charity that links to you buying a link? Or what about reciprocal links from websites that are sort of related to you, but not really? For this reason Google’s rules are anything but black and white.  It’s more a continuum of risk (for details, check out this great video).

This is why an SEO firm should be prepared to discuss different link building tactics and the level of risk each entails.  Some firms take big risks, others play in the gray area, and some are risk free.  Find out what you’re comfortable with and where the SEO firm stands.

1) Norman Victorino of Lake Zurich, Illinois

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2) Alan Brinkmeier of Chicago, Illinois

3) Kenneth B Kramer of Wichita Falls, Texas

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4) Shah Iqbal Nawaaz Peerally of Newark, California

5) Gary C Furlong of Seattle, Washington

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6) Blair Frederick Paul of Seattle, Washington

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7) Shawn B Alexander of Olga, Washington

8. Pamela Koslyn of Hollywood, California

9) Theodore W Robinson of Hempstead, New York

10) Theodore Lyons Araujo of Syracuse, New York