The Question:

Should I put keywords in my Google My Business name? All of my competitors do it.

My Answer:

If you’ve ever Googled yourself or if you’ve ever Googled the main practice area for the geographical area that you’re located in, you’ve probably seen the three-pack – the maps.

How to Score Well On Google

So if you know what I’m talking about when you search “Baltimore personal injury lawyer,” there’s that pack of three listings, sometimes there are four. Sometimes, they sneak in an ad at the top of that and then there are the three listings. It has the maps above it. It’s typically at the top of the search results.

Now, this is coveted space; this is the place where I believe the most phone calls come from when you’re doing Google searches, especially where it’s basically a buyer intent keyword: city – practice area – attorney.

Los Angeles DUI attorney, Chicago divorce lawyer, Phoenix bankruptcy attorney, anything like that. Those are really important keywords to appear in the actual maps for.

The Importance of NAP

Now, traditionally, with search engine optimization there’s something called NAP. That’s an acronym that stands for Name, Address, Phone Number, and what that means is that you want to have consistency across all of your business listing with your Nap. So your name, your address, and your phone number should appear in the exact same way across all of your citations.

Citations are business listings like Yext and Yellow Pages and YP.com and Foursquare and… there’s a million of them; FindLaw, Justin, Martindale-Hubbell, all those you can think of.

And what you typically want to do, what Google wants you to do is they want to see your name written in the exact same way everywhere on every single listing.

So that’s Nap: its name, address, phone number. You want your name, your address, and your phone number to appear in the exact same format, looking the exact same way on all of your business listings.

Should You Use a Keyword In Your Google My Business Name?

That should also carry through to the Google My Business profile. But if you look at Google and you do searches for certain keywords, such as DUI lawyer or personal injury attorney, Chicago personal injury attorney or whatever it may be, a lot of times you will see law firms that basically stuff keywords in the title of their Google My Business profile.

So you’ll see Mike Smith & Associates, Orange County DUI attorney and that is not what Google wants you to do. However, Google is ranking for it. And a lot of times when you’re talking – I was on the phone with an attorney yesterday – and every single search that they had, all the law firms that were ranking in the maps, had keywords inserted into their Google My Business profile.

Google Says It’s Spammy…

So here, Google is saying, “Do not do this; it’s spammy. We don’t want you doing this. We don’t want you stuffing it.”

Now if it’s actually in your name that’s fine, but Google is saying they don’t want you to do it. However, they are ranking businesses left and right that actually uses this spammy tactic. So what does that mean?

…But It Helps Businesses Rank

Well, it means that sometimes you have to do something and this is what we do a lot too. There’s this concept of grey hat – black hat. I don’t really wear hats, but I do what I have to do to get the phone to ring for my clients because at the end of the day, that’s what they care about.

Somebody once told me that if you go completely white hat, meaning you don’t break any of Google’s rules, you lose out. We’re not breaking any laws here. This is basically what Google says they want you to do. If you don’t go black hat or at least grey hat, which is a mixture of white hat and black hat, then you would always get beaten by the people that are breaking the rules.

How To Decide How Far To Go?

This is just how it is, and we see it all the time with search engine optimization. The question is how far do you push it, and the reality is that search engine optimization is kind of really about risk tolerance. How risky do you want to get? But it’s really easy to change your business name back.

So lately we have been inserting some keywords into our clients’ business listings if they needed it. We do a lot of Google searches and look to check if the other businesses that are showing up for this search result are doing it. Because the easiest way to figure out what Google wants us to do is to look at what Google is already returning.

What You Should Do

If Google is saying we do not want to reward businesses that stuff keywords in the name of their Google My Business profile but then clearly every single business that’s ranking has the keyword in there, then you’ve got to look at what’s actually happening and not at what they say.

So my answer in terms of the question of whether you should put keywords in your Google My Business profile? First of all, you have to figure out your level of risk tolerance. Do you want to risk some sort of penalty, although I personally have never seen a penalty from keyword stuffing or anything like that?

But the biggest thing you need to look at is what is already happening. If the other businesses in your area are inserting keywords and they’re ranking number one, then that’s probably what you have to do to at least catch up to them. There are other things you can do as well, but that’s on a case-by-case basis.

So yes, Google says do not do it but it absolutely does work in many cases so it’s one of those things where Google will tell you one thing and then you kind of have to read between the lines.

Why Many Ads Are Ineffective And How To Fix Them

Not too long ago, I saw a billboard for an attorney, and it’s a perfect example of marketing gone wrong. This attorney completely forgot who their target audience is, along with the basic fundamentals of marketing.

An Example Of Bad Marketing

We know that billboards are expensive. I know a lot of attorneys might see this and possibly be using billboard advertising. In fact, some of you might be committing this particular error.

show you in this screenshot right here. Here’s what this guy did that was so wrong, and what he could have and should have done differently.

We were driving by this billboard at about 40 miles an hour and I asked my wife to take a picture of it real quick. It’s a billboard for a guy named Kent Lilly of Lilly and Brown, so he’s a partner of a law firm. “Named a Florida Super Lawyer,” Super Lawyer Magazine, 2007 through 2018.

What Does This Lawyer Even Do?

I have some questions though.

What kind of law do you practice, Kent Lilly?

Are you a personal injury attorney?

Are you in estate planning attorney?

Are you a criminal defense attorney? Are you a business lawyer?

Nobody knows what you do.

How These Kinds Of Billboards Come About

Basically, this is just a giant ad where the attorney is bragging about himself, and this happens all the time. Lawyers are typically making these decisions where they think, “I’ve got this super lawyer designation in front of my name and I won this award, so let’s advertise that. It’s going to get us cases and clients, and it’s going to make the phone ring.”

Then, they go to a marketer. They go to a billboard company, or a radio personality, or a radio ad exec, or a television ad exec, and they say, “Hey, listen. We want to run a billboard highlighting that we’re a Florida Super Lawyer. We won Super Lawyers magazine from 2007 through 2018.” The billboard company says, “Great. Let’s just throw that on a billboard.”

The reality is that nobody’s considering the marketing strategy. No one is thinking, “Wait a second. Should we tell people that are driving by what kind of law Kent Lilly practices? Maybe we should tell them how to get in touch with him. Maybe we can put a phone number on that.”

This is the problem with most law firm marketing. Most of the time, there’s no thought behind it. It’s basically just a giant cash grab.

People and lawyers get these awards, and then they throw a billboard up. Or they throw up some sort of ad where they are talking about themselves, and then they wonder why the phone doesn’t ring.

Let this billboard be a lesson. I don’t know Kent Lilly. I’m sure he’s a really nice guy and an awesome attorney. But the problem is that kind of advertising is counterproductive and not at all what a marketing campaign should be.

Why These Campaigns Are Counterproductive

A marketing campaign should be completely about what you can do for the person that you want to hire you. Maybe the fact that you’re a super lawyer shows that you do a great job in the courtroom and that you’re willing to take cases to trial. Also, that you’ve earned big settlements and verdicts.

But how does that affect me? How does that affect the person that’s sitting there, driving by, looking at the billboard, and has no idea what you do? You have to remember to really spell things out for most people.

You’re putting all the work on the consumer here. First, they’ve got to figure out what type of law you practice, and then they’ve got to figure out how to contact you.

You expect them to do that while driving past your billboard at 40 miles an hour. It’s not going to happen. It’s a waste of money.

Yet, it’s such a common thing. I see this happen all the time. As I said, the primary goal of billboard companies is to cash that check. It’s not to figure out how to make this billboard actually convert, and this is a perfect example of that.

Another Bad Example

Of course, this is not limited to just attorneys; this happens constantly. There’s a company called Gator Coffee, and I just happened to see their ad on my phone not too long ago, so I took a screenshot. Their ad says, “Join the Gator VIP, get your free ebook and discover More Smiles Per Cup.”

What does that mean? Nothing. It doesn’t make any sense.

If I’m drinking coffee, why do I want a free ebook? And what does discover More Smiles Per Cup mean? Some of these marketing messages just don’t make any sense.

There’s a reason that people run Facebook ads and create billboards, and then say, “Oh, it doesn’t work.” Well, the reason it doesn’t work is that their message is not clear and concise.

How Bad Ads Can Be Fixed

Marketing does not have to be difficult.  All you have to think about is how does what I’m offering benefit the consumer? How does it benefit the client?

You have to lead with that. You’ll have so much more success than with this billboard that talks about Kent Lilly and all of his accomplishments.

Next time you’re doing any sort of advertising, whether it’s a Facebook post, a billboard, a television commercial, a radio commercial, or whatever it is, always think about the client first.

How will the client benefit from hiring you? After all, the client doesn’t want to hire a lawyer. The client wants the benefit that hiring a lawyer will bring them.

The only way to get that benefit is to hire a lawyer. They don’t care that you’re a super lawyer. They only care that you’re going to be able to accomplish a certain task for them, and that’s what you have to remember.

I do not use Fiverr or Upwork people for website copy. Instead, I go to a Facebook group called the Cult of Copy Job Board. There, I put up a posting that says, Hey, I’m looking for a legal writer or somebody who’s experienced with legal writing.

Results From Cult of Copy Job Board

You can get decent people and a ton of messages. And then you can even give a test assignment or something like that. I’ve never found a good writer on Fiverr.

We Have Different Tiers of Content

In my company, we have different tiers of content. We’ve got ‘A’ content which would go on your actual website. And that is the lawyer speaking. That type of content has to be top notch and I have not found anyone on Upwork or Fiverr that has produced that type of copy that’s good enough.

I’ve used Fiverr for content that is not on my website. Maybe for content for web 20 websites or different things like that, but never for anything that can be directly linked as coming from the brain of the attorney.

Cult of Copy Job Board Vs. Craigslist

I use the Cult of Copy Job Board. I used to get writers from Craigslist all the time, and I stopped. I haven’t done it for a while, but I’ve gotten a couple of good writers and we have a writer that’s been with us for six years that I found on Craigslist originally.

So you could try that also, although I haven’t done it for a long time, so I don’t know what it’s like. But Cult of Copy Job Board… You have to have an invite to get in there. But that’s where I get my writers.