Andrew Stickel

How can video create opportunities for attorneys? Can you use video to increase your Google ranking – along with your phone calls and leads? Keep reading – you’re about to learn how.

Video is powerful. Good videos get high Google rankings when you use the right keywords and take several other easy steps.

Our internet marketing agency helps attorneys take advantage of video in several ways, but this single example should be genuinely helpful to any lawyer. Anyone can do it easily, especially if you’re already making videos.

If you’re not making videos, your competition is, and they already have YouTube channels. We can help you get launched.

A Stunning Example Of The Power Of Video

Immediately after Hurricane Matthew struck Florida last year, one of our clients – an Orlando personal injury lawyer who also handles insurance claims – approached us about a marketing campaign seeking clients with hurricane-related claims.

We suggested a brief video – nothing with an “ambulance-chasing” feel – but something with a practical value like “Hurricane Matthew Insurance Claim Tips.” The client offered tips to help claimants prepare and be in the best possible position when making a claim.

When we Googled the phrase “hurricane Matthew insurance claim,” Google offered these search possibilities:

1. hurricane Matthew insurance claim tips
2. hurricane Matthew insurance claims
3. hurricane Matthew insurance claims denied
4. hurricane Matthew insurance claims deadline

“Hurricane Matthew insurance claim tips” was a phrase that people were already using in searches.

How Long Did It Take This Video To Rank High On Google?

Within only one hour of the upload to YouTube, our client’s video ranked almost at the top of the Google results, even outranking Fortune magazine’s “5 Tips on Dealing With Damage After Hurricane Matthew.”

High-quality, current videos on YouTube usually rank high, but we also took several small steps behind the scenes to ensure a high ranking for this video.

For example, it gave us the perfect opportunity to use the search term itself as the video’s title. Before you upload, make sure that your title is right and make sure it includes a current, popular search phrase.

Why Is Creating Your Own Video Transcript Important?

What also makes a huge difference is subtitles and closed captions. It’s easy to create your own after uploading your video. Click Video Manager, then Videos, then “Subtitles & CC,” and finally, click “add new subtitles or CC,” and then choose English.

When you are asked to “Select Method,” we recommend “Transcribe and auto-sync.” Otherwise, YouTube will create its own transcription, which will only be about 80 percent accurate.

Transcribe and auto-sync lets you listen to your video and pauses as you type – to help you concentrate. A short video can easily be transcribed this way in just minutes. But an accurate transcription isn’t the real point.

The point is to get all of the important keywords into the caption file so that Google reads and understands clearly what your topic and content is – and associates your video with the search terms you started with.

You Don’t Have To Wait – Act Now

YouTube videos will rank higher – and faster – than any blog post you write on the same topic, and it’s a quick way to respond to events like natural disasters (or tax season, or the aftermath of New Year’s Eve) when more people than usual are seeking lawyers.

Learn more from our internet marketing agency about video and about taking advantage of the opportunities that YouTube offers. Email us – info@socialfirestarter.com – or call us at 619-607-4300.

We’re always prepared to answer your marketing questions and discuss marketing ideas.

When you write a blog post, what’s the best way to pick a topic? And how can you know your work is worth the effort? Keep reading. We’ll briefly discuss:

1. identifying your competitors
2. choosing blog post topics
3. using keywords effectively

When our internet marketing company prepares blog posts for attorneys, we use a simple, proven method, so that we write only on traffic-generating topics that have a good chance of ranking high on Google.

To do this right – and on your own – subscribe to SEMrush.

What Is SEMrush?

SEMrush.com provides a number of tools. It can find your competitors’ top keywords and help you choose topics. Here’s how:

Log in to SEMrush and enter your website address into the search engine. Click the first option that appears – “Organic Search.”

Then click “Organic Research” in the left column, and then click “Competitors.” A list of your competitors’ sites will appear.

Click the first competitor, and you’ll see a list titled “Top Organic Keywords.” Below that list (you may have to scroll down), click “Export,” and export the data into Excel.

How Do You Find The Keywords That Top Lawyer Sites Are Using?

When you open the Excel file, don’t be stunned. There may be thousands of entries. Look for:

1. keywords that rank 1-through-10 in “Position” (that is, on the first Google results page)
2. keywords with high “Search Volume”
3. keywords used on your competitors’ blog pages – rather than their home pages

“Search Volume” may surprise you. We found that about 1,500 searches a month are conducted in Orange County, California, for the general topic of “divorce attorney fees.”

That and similar phrases are widely-searched, but those phrases appear on attorney websites far less commonly than basic terms like “Orange County divorce lawyer” or “family law attorney.”

How Do The Top Lawyer Sites Connect With Consumers?

By using as keywords the same phrases that consumers are using when they search, top-ranked sites connect with consumers like those in Orange County using “divorce lawyer fees” and similar phrases.

Stealing your top competitors’ search phrases (not really – it’s public) puts you in a position to compete aggressively with those competitors – not just in Orange County, but anywhere.

But what’s even more important than finding search phrases is identifying topics that consumers search for – and creating blog posts to address those topics.

Your own field of law will generate its own topics. And even in family law, the topics that generate searches will vary from month to month and location to location.

Can Your Writing Make The Difference?

When you identify a topic with a high search volume, then look at what the top-ranked sites are writing about that topic in their own posts.

What you’ll typically find on those top-ranked sites is accurate but basic content. This is where your own insights and expertise come in. Improve on that basic content.

When web pages are otherwise comparable, Google gives the higher ranking to the higher-quality content.

Longer pages tend to rank higher, so write at least 1,000 words – 1,500 is better – and be sure to write something at least slightly longer than what your top competitors are offering.

Length doesn’t guarantee quality, but you cannot offer quality, detailed content – or hope to be ranked high – with a blog post that’s too brief.

How Should You Choose – And Use – Keywords?

When you write, you can go to the “Keyword” column in the Excel file you downloaded, and include two or three of the terms with the highest positions and search volumes.

Also be sure – you can look at the “URL” column on the Excel file – that you are using keywords from your competitor’s blog pages rather than from any “Home” pages.

When you have a topic, enter it in Google, and you can also choose from the phrases Google provides at the bottom of each Google ranking page – the “Searches related to” phrases.

Those phrases have high search volumes, but not all will pertain to your topic.

You can get even more precise by using Google AdWords to identify the phrases that are currently getting the highest search volume.

Try not to crowd search phrases into the text. Write naturally, and try to use search phrases naturally – and not more than twice in a 1,000 or 1,500-word blog post.

How Can You Learn More About Topics And Content?

To learn more about how our internet marketing company chooses topics and creates content, email us – info@socialfirestarter.com – or call us at 619-607-4300.

We’re always ready to answer your questions and discuss marketing ideas.

If you have been struggling to get clients to leave a review for your law firm, then you aren’t alone.

One of the biggest problems law firms face when trying to improve their web presence is getting positive reviews from their clients.

It’s not because clients don’t want to leave you a review. It’s because it’s too complicated.

Here’s a quick tip to get clients to write your law firm a review.

The Tip That Gets Clients To Write Reviews

At my marketing company, we’ve found that this is one of the most effective ways to get a customer to leave a Google business review. We’ve been able to get multiple positive reviews for attorneys that were never able to get a review in the past.

We did it by making the process simple.

You need to make leaving a review quick and painless for your client, or they won’t do it. The less tech-savvy consumers out there have a tough time with all of the steps it takes to find the right place to leave you a review.

If you cut out these steps, you’re more likely to get a testimonial.

Make Leaving A Review Easier For Your Clients For The Best Results

To get a link to share with your client start by going to Google. Do a search for your law firm. You should find the knowledge graph to the right side of the page. Click on the option to write a review.

This will bring up a box that gives you the option to select how many stars you want to leave. It will also show your name if logged into Google and has an area to type in a review. When the review is written the person just has to click to post. It’s that easy.

When this review box comes up you need to select the entire url and copy it. Now that you have the link, you should shorten it to make it look nicer for your client.

Go to Goo.gl. It’s a url shortener that’s free to use. Paste the url you’ve copied and selected “shorten url.”
This will generate a nice and tidy url for you to share with your client. Simply email them the link.

The best part is if someone is already signed in their Google or Gmail account then they don’t have to do anything but type in the review when they follow your link.

Now Try This Tip For Your Law Firm And Start Getting Reviews

By providing your clients with a simple solution to give you a review you’ve removed the barriers that would have prevented them from following through.

Try this quick tip for yourself and see how it impacts your client reviews!

SEO companies with clients in every industry jump on board. The technique becomes overused and it ruins it for everyone.

Recently I learned that an SEO technique that had worked well for my clients in the past was no longer working. Google now penalizes websites that use it. I help law firms improve their search rankings so when one of the attorney websites I manage was penalized in January, I had to figure out why.

Google didn’t give a reason for the penalty other than there was an unnatural link. These links are common penalties for black hat SEO or aggressive and unethical techniques. I use white hat SEO techniques for my clients, an ethical method that focuses on the audience.

So, I had to find which link was now being flagged as an unnatural link or a black hat SEO link.

The answer was a scholarship link.

What Are Scholarship Links?

A few years ago scholarship links came on the scene as a way to get SEO juice for your website. Google assigned a high value to links from .edu websites, meaning colleges and universities.

SEO companies took advantage of this and had their clients offer small scholarships for students in their client’s field. For example, an attorney would offer a $500 scholarship for law students. They would send scholarship information to different schools. The school would add a link to the client’s website on their scholarship listings page.

This was a great way to boost search rankings. Until Google caught on.

Why Did Scholarship Links Stop Working For SEO?

So many websites started using this method that the list of links on scholarship pages went from a few to a wall of text to scroll through. And Google noticed.

Realizing that these scholarship links were being used for SEO, on Christmas Day, 2017, Google sent penalties to the companies that were doing this.

When I discovered this was the reason my client had received a penalty I went in and disavowed multiple .edu links. I sent a reconsideration request and was approved. The manual penalty was then removed.

Is The SEO Company You Hired Using Scholarship Links?

Good SEO companies understand that SEO techniques are constantly evolving. They stay on top of the changes. If the company you employed is still using scholarship links for your website, then it’s time to reevaluate.

While .edu links can still be helpful for SEO, scholarship links are not. Address your concerns with the SEO company. If they insist that you need to keep the scholarship links, then it might be best to look for a new SEO company that understands the changing world of SEO techniques.