When choosing a domain name for your website, most people prefer a dot com domains, as they’re the most common and memorable.  However, some people prefer using dot org domains because of their purported SEO value.  So, do dot org domains help with SEO and should you have your website on one? Read on to find out.

What is a dot org domain anyway?

Before getting into the pros and cons of dot org domains, let’s have a quick overview of what they are.  Dot orgs were created in 1985 along with the other original gTLDs (generic top-level domains).  Dot orgs were supposed to be used by nonprofit organizations, but no one ever enforced that requirement.  As a result, anyone can buy a dot org domain, whether they’re commercial or nonprofit.

Some data behind the issue

Many people have noticed that dot org domains tend to rank really well in search engines like Google.  Luckily, the folks at SEOmoz.org (conveniently enough, SEOmoz is a commercial site on a dot org domain) have put some data behind the issue.  They did a study that shows the correlation between domain extensions and high Google/Bing rankings.  Here is a chart of the results:

As you can see, at least in this data set, dot org domains are most strongly correlated with high Google and Bing rankings compared to every other domain extension.

So does this mean dot org domains are good for SEO?

No, not really. This is most likely a case correlation not implying causation.  First of all, Matt Cutts of Google has said that no type of domain gets any sort of automatic boost or penalty from Google, which makes sense, considering anyone can buy a dot org domain.  In fact, if anything, dot edu or dot gov domains would get an automatic boost because they’re highly regulated, but according to Matt Cutts no domain extension gets any sort of special treatment.

Then why might dot org domains tend to rank better than other types of domains?

My guess is that dot org domains tend to be owned by nonprofits, which tend to attract more and higher quality links than for profit websites, and it’s those links that cause higher rankings.  Put another way, a children’s charity is going to have a much easier time drawing in high quality links than a DUI lawyer, but it’s the content of the website that’s responsible, not its domain extension.   Of course, there could be some indirect causal relationship between dot org domains and high rankings, if somehow dot orgs inspire trust, which causes people to link to them more.  But I would imagine the effects of such a phenomenon are minimal for commercial sites.

So should you use a dot org for your website?

Probably not.  You’re not going to get an automatic SEO boost from choosing any particular domain extension, so you might as well use the most memorable  extension (dot com).  That said, you could always buy the dot org and the dot com together, and then redirect the dot com to the dot org in case anyone gets confused, but what’s the benefit there?  I think dot orgs only make sense if you have some sort of charitable angle to your website, in which case a dot org can reinforce the image you’re trying to project.

If you are the marketing director at Baker & McKenzie, please read the entire article before filing suit.  However, keep in mind that truth is an absolute defense.  Just joking . . . honest.

OK – now that I have everyone’s attention, let me begin:  I’ve been writing about Facebook a lot lately, partly because they have been making a lot of news, but also because I think they have the best chance of really changing the social networking game.

One recent development in the Facebook world that largely went unnoticed (but for this great article by the National Law Journal) was Facebook’s auto-generation of groups for all sorts of entities, including law firms, based on profile information of seemingly affiliated users.  So, people who include in their Facebook profiles, say, K&L Gates as their employer could be included in an auto-generated “K&L Gates” Facebook group.  The issue is that Facebook is naming these groups using descriptive words found in the affiliated users’ profiles.  So instead of just the “K&L Gates” group, it may be the “Saucy K&L Gates Lawyers” group.  Hmmmm . . . 

 
While there is some overlap with these Facebook groups and Avvo’s lawyer profiles (based on public information, Avvo creates profiles for lawyers whether they request them or not), I believe Facebook is taking things too far.  Rather than simply aggregating publicly available data, Facebook is attributing descriptive language to groups that affiliated users never intended to be attributed to a group.  For example, if a Baker & McKenzie lawyer decides to describe himself in his Facebook profile as “hairy and smelly and, thus, single,” those attributes may just be attributed to an auto-generated Baker & Mckenzie Facebook group – the “Hairy and Smelly and, thus, Single Baker & McKenzie lawyers.”  Uh . . . Facebook . . . we have a problem. 

In a very Avvo-like fashion, Facebook should simply build the groups using very basic data (name, address, affiliated users, etc.), and if an authorized person decides to claim the group they can describe it any way they wish.  Facebook’s strategy here is pretty simple.  Auto-generate a group with a provocative name and people will feel compelled to claim and maintain it.  Again, Avvo with its Avvo Rating has some similarities*, but like it or not we are going to see more and more of this on the Web.  All sorts of profiles and groups are sprouting up, and it is every marketer’s choice whether to interact with or ignore them.   But law firm marketers should not wring their collective hands over this.  I love Fenwick’s confident response to their auto-generated Facebook group in the NLJ article.  They describe their Facebook group as a “non-issue,” even though it may be confusing to some clients.  I’m guessing the Fenwick math goes like this:  We are confident in our brand + no one is going to take it seriously + we like the free marketing = nonissue.  Moreover, the Facebook generation is slowly becoming the general counsel generation, so you are going to need a firm Facebook firm presence at some point so you don’t look like a complete troglodyte.  Although with many older, less internet-savvy partners driving executive committees, this is not always an easy task for marketing directors.

In the end, Facebook points out that its auto-generated groups are in “beta,” or a trial phase.  I’m guessing with enough complaints (especially from lawyers), they will still auto-generate groups but without the dicey descriptive language.  This will not make all executive committees happy, but at least they will be talking about and interacting with social media. :-)

The Internet continues to roll.  Ignore it or sculpt it – it’s your choice.

Mark

* To be clear, Avvo does not assign a lawyer an Avvo Rating to be provocative but rather to actually rate the lawyer’s background in a way that is helpful to consumers.  Still, some lawyers find our ratings provocative enough to sue us or at least threaten to do so.  I can only imagine the uproar if we took the Facebook approach and named them a “sassy” 6.5, rather than just a 6.5.

Please join us this Thursday, June 10 at 1PM ET / 10AM PT for a webinar with nationally acclaimed ABA Authors,Carole Levitt and Mark Rosch.

As founders of Internet for Lawyers, they spend many weeks touring the country speaking with lawyers at their firms as well as conferences, so we are thrilled to have an hour of their time to hear about their new book:

Find Info Like a Pro – Mining the Internet’s Publicly Available Resources for Investigative Research

Instead of first turning to private investigators, skip tracers, experts, and consultants, learn how to become your own Cybersleuth. During this webinar, Mark and Carole will show you how to unearth factual and investigative information FREE on the Internet using advanced search techniques and exploring various investigative Web sites.

Lawyers will learn how to:

- Locate Missing People
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- Exploit the Latest & Greatest Investigative Tool–Social Network Sites
- Master Google and Beyond
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Many lawyers obsess about SEO, social media, advertising and other ways of getting more clients.  But many miss easy ways to drastically increase the number of clients they bring in.  Read on to see how making simple changes on your website, even just changing one word, can dramatically improve your business.

Little things can make a big difference

How can changing one word on your website drastically increase the number of potential clients who contact you? Over at the Clicktales blog, they tell the story of how they did it.

Their sign up form was originally like this:

After doing a little analysis, they discovered that a huge chunk of people abandoned their form when they reached the phone number field.  The Clicktales people speculated that although the phone number was optional (indicated by no purple asterisk), people didn’t realize it was optional and bailed because they felt the question was too invasive.  So Clicktales revised the form to make it clearer that the phone number field was optional:

The result was that the percentage of people who filled out the entire form nearly doubled. Other examples abound of simple changes in contact forms making a huge difference.  For example, when this Chicago web development firm reduced its contact form from 11 questions to 4, the number of contacts increased by 120%.  Another company changed its contact form to resemble “Mad Libs” and increased contacts by 40%.

How long are your contact forms?

What information are you asking for on your contact forms? If it’s more than is absolutely necessary, than you’re likely losing clients.  It’s impossible to know for sure without testing, but it’s likely that painfully long contact forms are turning potential clients off.

Beyond contact forms

One word, one color, one image…it’s amazing how tiny, seemingly-inconsequential changes can make a huge difference in how people react to your website.  Fortunately this does not have to be guesswork.  There are a variety of tools that you can use, like Google’s free Website Optimizer, to scientifically test the effect of small changes (Trevor Claiborne from Google did a presentation on this at the Avvocating conference).

Realistically, a time-strapped lawyer probably isn’t going to perform these tests himself, but if you’re paying people thousands of dollars for web design, SEO, social media, advertising or whatever else is hot these days, consider spending some money on people who will make  sure your website is optimized for conversions (potential clients contacting you).

If you’ve ever been frustrated with how fluffy and uncertain all of this social media and SEO stuff can be, AB testing your website or contact forms is just the opposite.  It’s as concrete and scientific as it gets, with a clear impact on your bottom line.

I recently sat in on yet another lawyer marketing seminar that regurgitated the same message delivered by legal marketers: “lawyers, if you just understood social media as well as I did, you could be as popular on [insert Twitter and/or Facebook] as I am.” The talk goes something like this:

“See all my twitter followers! When I tweet, people listen, they open up their offices to me, they meet me at airports for coffee, they bake me brownies. When I link to my latest blog post on my Facebook fan page, my vast network of friends pass on my witticisms to their vast network of people, all of whom are prospective clients. I’m even more popular than I was in 8th grade and my (ahem) marketing business is thriving!”

I watch the audience with mouths slightly agape, enraptured, scribbling furiously on hotel note pads trying to unlock the mystery of mastering this professional popularity contest. Twitter accounts are opened in real time, facebook fan pages are set up on iPhones. I can almost see the thoughts among the audience: if only I had 10,000 Twitter followers, I could buy that Porsche 911 C4 convertible in Arctic Silver Metallic.

Invariably during the Q/A session someone (usually a recently minted solo practitioner) asks, “how am I supposed to do all of this social media stuff and still bill clients?” The experts pause uncomfortably, say something to the extent of, “well, it’s really easy and it doesn’t take that much time” and then quickly move on to highlighting their number of twitter followers. There are two major mistakes with this line of thinking.

The first falsehood that marketers (or self-proclaimed social media experts, ninjas, gurus and mavens) would have you believe is that the social media popularity contest doesn’t entail a significant investment of time.

How do I know this? I’m a legal marketer and if I’ve learned anything in the past four years its this: social media doesn’t circumvent the fact that building relationships with people takes time. To wit. . . we have a team of people who have full time jobs marketing the largest and most popular legal website in the world. Avvo’s charismatic CEO and a wise General Counsel are both social media savvy and we have no fewer than 10 individual twitter accounts, LinkedIn Groups, Facebook Fan Pages and even two Foursquare accounts. Through our investment in social media we’ve built relationships with numerous key influencers (Ambrogi, Elefant), consultants (Merenda), surly curmudgeons (Greenfield), and industry innovators (Port). Social Media has been good to us and we use it effectively, but lets not pretend that we’ve been successful by simply tweeting 5 minutes a day between bites of cereal and at halftime during the Seattle Sounders game.

The second falsehood that marketers would have lawyers believe is that building a legal business is just like building a marketing business. It’s simply not true. Prospective legal clients behave very differently than most marketers, especially when it comes to social media. How many people want to fan their DUI lawyer on Facebook? How many people retweet the 140 character quips from their Divorce attorney? I’m not suggesting that social media can’t work for lawyers, in fact I’ve spoken with many practicing lawyers who are successful with it – but keep in mind the golden rule of marketing that seems to have been forgotten by the marketing experts themselves – know your customer.

If you want to learn how to use social media to build your client list stop listening to self-proclaimed marketing experts who suggest you need to be more like them with legions of twitter followers and jealousy-inspiring Facebook fan pages. Instead, learn from those practicing lawyers (who bill legal clients not lawyers) to see how they connect with their prospects.

Update: Nancy Myrland (social media marketing consultant) responds with a good balance here: Yes, this Takes Time.

Update 2: Still thinking about hiring a social media company? Check out 52 Questions to ask when Hiring a Social Media Company from Outspoken Media.