Which Phone Number Do Your Law Firm’s Google Ads Actually Use?

Your law firm may use a main phone number, a separate website number, and a number for tracking advertising calls. You might reasonably expect every Google ad to use the number your marketing provider entered in the advertising account.

That assumption deserves a closer look.

Google allows a separate advertising phone number within your Google Business Profile settings. Depending on the ad and its setup, a prospective client may also see a Google forwarding number. These numbers can serve different purposes while ultimately connecting a caller to the same office.

For lawyers, understanding that arrangement matters for two reasons: making sure prospective clients reach the right intake team and understanding which advertising activity generated a call.

The number on your public profile is only part of the setup

Your Google Business Profile is the business listing that shows details such as your address, phone number, and reviews. Google Ads can use information from that profile through a location asset, an advertising feature that adds business-location information to an ad.

Google’s advanced profile settings documentation identifies a separate field called “Google Ads phone number.” It allows the location asset to use a different number from the one displayed on the public Business Profile.

There is another important detail. Google’s call asset guidance explains that ads featuring specific business locations may direct calls to the numbers associated with those locations rather than the numbers set in call assets. A call asset is the phone-number feature attached to an ad.

Checking one phone-number field therefore may not explain every call route your campaign uses.

Why this can confuse a law firm’s call reports

In an October 16 Sterling Sky video, the speakers describe a problem they encountered when comparing Google Maps advertising calls with third-party call-tracking reports. A call associated with an ad could arrive through a number the tracking system had labeled as a regular Business Profile source.

That is a reason to inspect the configuration, not proof that every disagreement between reports has the same cause.

Consider a fictional criminal defense firm. Its marketing provider uses one tracking number for the public profile and another for advertising. The owner sees a call labeled “Google Business Profile” and assumes the caller came through an unpaid listing.

Before accepting that conclusion, the provider should check which number the relevant ad actually used and how that number was labeled in the tracking service. A label is useful only when it describes the number’s actual use.

The firm should also check whether the call reached the intended intake line. A neatly labeled report is little comfort if the destination belongs to an old office or a former answering service.

An unfamiliar number is not automatically a mistake

Google’s call reporting documentation explains that enabling call reporting assigns a Google forwarding number to an ad. Calls route through that number to the business, allowing Google to record details about the call.

That means a number you do not recognize may be part of the measurement setup rather than an incorrect destination. Ask the person managing the account to identify its purpose and verify where it forwards.

Do not copy a Google forwarding number onto your website or business cards. Google notes in its call reporting guidance that these numbers may change and should not be used outside the supported tracking features.

Ask for a simple map of the phone numbers

You do not need to learn the advertising interface to request a clear explanation. Ask your provider to document:

• The number shown on your public Business Profile.
• The number entered in the profile’s Google Ads phone-number field, if used.
• The numbers associated with relevant location and call assets.
• Any third-party tracking numbers, their source labels, and their forwarding destinations.
• The final office, intake team, or answering service receiving each route.

For a firm with multiple offices, that explanation should identify the specific location connected to each number. Do not assume a working number reaches the correct office.

Have the provider plan a controlled verification rather than repeatedly clicking your own live ads. Keep existing numbers and routing intact until the current setup is understood and any proposed change has been reviewed.

Make sure the call reaches the right place and gets the right credit

A prospective client should be able to call your firm without understanding any of this. Your team, however, should know which number the ad uses, where the call goes, and what the resulting report actually represents.

If those answers are unclear, schedule a detailed review with BSPE Legal Marketing. We can review how your website, Google Business Profile, and advertising phone numbers fit together, helping you identify routing questions and reporting gaps before using those reports to judge your marketing.

via BSPE Legal Marketing https://bsplegalmarketing.com/law-firm-google-ads-phone-numbers/

Domain History of staroflouisville.com

In 1997, The Star of Louisville started this site. The website was designed and developed by KA.net Internet Services. 

The Star of Louisville was a yacht-style dinner cruise ship that offered relaxation and enjoyment. The launch of the website was to attract customers. On its site landing page were several options you can find, such as the ship details, calendar of events, celebrations and special occasions, corporate engagements and conventions, dockside banquets, cruise rates and schedules, reservations, and gift certificates. 

Homepage

About Star of Louisville

The Star of Louisville was a cruise ship with three main decks, the main deck, the upper deck, and the Aloha deck. In the upper deck, you can sing along with the piano while viewing the historical markings along the Ohio River from inside the climate-controlled cabin. Meanwhile, in the upper deck, you will enjoy the live band or the DJ’s music. You can also order beverages from the bar while stepping outdoors and relaxing on the ship’s bow. The Aloha deck is a place on the ship where you can enjoy the summer’s sultry breezes. You can also see the banks of the Ohio River and you can even visit the Pilot House. The yacht-style dinner cruise ship docked at the wharf in the Port of Louisville, Kentucky. Marine Builders of Utica, built the Star and Starship Landing. On August 9, 1988, the Star was christened and its website was staroflouisville.com. It was constructed of welded steel and was 130 feet long with a 35-foot beam and 6.5-foot draft. The ship was powered by 350 horsepower 6 cylinder Twin Cummins Diesel Engines. With a cruising speed of 9.5 knots and three 166 horsepower generators producing 100 kW each. 

The Star of Louisville had three observation decks and two enclosed dining decks. It was perfectly crafted to provide fine dining and entertainment in a festive cruise ship atmosphere, with an open-air promenade. The Star cruises approximately 12 miles round trip on the Ohio River for lunch cruises, and approximately 25 miles for dinner cruises. It had a maximum passenger capacity of 400 for standing cocktail cruises. The Star had 17 regular scheduled cruises each, all year round. The Star of Louisville was a place of relaxation and entertainment.

Sinking of the Star of Louisville

People have enjoyed and made a lot of memories with the Star of Louisville, so when it sank nine years ago, many were heartbroken.

When the Star of Louisville sank, many had witnessed it. A crowd of onlookers gathered to watch the ship submerged below the surface of the Ohio River. An open valve flooded the interior of the vessel’s room which caused it to submerge. It was said that a man intentionally harmed the ship. However, the accused firmly denied the accusation. 

For years, The Star of Louisville had impacted many people’s lives. It is part of history. People will never forget the experiences and memories and it will always be remembered as a place of relaxation, fun, and entertainment.  Due to the sinking the website staroflouisville.com is no longer active.

source https://bsplegalmarketing.com/staroflouisville.com-domain-history/

Cityofmcalester.org Domain History

The website cityofmcalester.org was first put online in 2001. The web author of cityofmcalester.org was James Stanford. The purpose of the website was to serve as an information board or directory about the city of McAlester.

History of cityofmcalester.org

The cityofmcalester.org was a website that contained various information about the City of McAlester. On the cityofmcalester.org landing page, you can find different details. The details include where is McAlester, area attractions, travel, city hall information, calendar events, local phone numbers, utility payments, landfill information, cardboard recycling, emergency phone numbers, McAlester public school listings, industrial, hotel listings, and guest book. You can explore the website if you want to learn more about cityofmcalester.org. You can click the different links on the homepage, and it will lead you to a different page that contained other details. There was also an option to click on some other links. 

Homepage

The City of McAlester and its history

The City of McAlester is located in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, United States. McAlester is the trade center for Southeastern Oklahoma, served by a rural population base of more than 130,000. McAlester is linked north to south by U.S. 69 and the Indian Nation Turnpike and linked east to west by U.S. 270 and Oklahoma State Highway 31.

The towns, McAlester and South McAlester were incorporated in 1899. The two towns were merged in 1906 and were then called McAlester. The older town’s name was then named North McAlester. The city government of the former South McAlester became the one that controlled it. Since 1893 when the Baptist Watchman was first published, newspapers had served the town. This event led to the merging of three of the most important newspapers in the area, McAlester Capital, McAlester Democrat, and McAlester News. The Democrats joined the others as they created McAlester News-Capital.

The federal twin programs Urban Renewal (and Model Cities) transformed the downtown area in the 1960s and 1970s. Modern steel and brick buildings replaced many of the original stone buildings. In addition, the reconstruction of streets, utilities, and low-rent housing also happened. In 1960, the population was 17,419; this number remained constant in 1980 when it reached 17,255. McAlester’s Regional Health and Cancer Center continue to expand its services as it serves the community. The Wanda Bass Higher Education Center is another McAlester facility, which is a branch of Eastern Oklahoma State College.

Over time, the City of McAlester has changed. McAlester is now a diverse city. It is home to people from different cultures. You can enjoy a lot of fun activities, such as festivals, summer concerts, bucket list programs, dog shows, outdoor parties, and many more. In addition, several different musical artists like Estella Kirk will perform in the city. McAlester is far from what it was before. Through the years, the city evolved and has well adapted to modern society. But people, especially the locals, will forever remember the history. 

source https://bsplegalmarketing.com/cityofmcalester.org-domain-history/

Toernmeon.info Domain History

Toernmeon.info launched its online business directory in September of 2001. Toernmeon was published for advertising purposes and as an online shop for different products. The website is in the German language, but there is an option for you to translate it into English. On the landing page, you will find information on various topics. You can explore the different options on the website by clicking on whichever subject or details you want to know.

The History of Toernmeon

Toernmeon was a marketplace where you can find boats, boat rides, or sailing. The owner created the site for those who want to advertise and sell their vessels online. Also, Toernmeon offered boat rentals and equipment where you can purchase online. In addition, Toernmeon was also a site for boat enthusiasts who want to read interesting articles from well-known boat manufacturers. Not only that, on Toernmeon’s landing pages, you can find different information, such as news, forum, marketplace, archives, and many more. One of the many things Toermeon advertised was Usedom apartments in which you can book directly from the website. In Toernmeon.info, you can also find many different links that will lead to various websites that the website owner advertises, from second-hand boats, boat accessories, auctions, charters, forums, and travel reports.

Sailing and Toernmeon.info

Over the years, Toernmeon.info became a blog site where the articles were about sailing in distinct places in Europe. The site also had a shop that was mainly about sailing as well. Later on, Toernmeon became an attraction in Usedom, an island divided between Germany and Poland in the Baltic Sea. Toernmeon’s landing page offered sailing trips in the Usedom area to visitors or tourists. The sailing trips were best suited for newbies in sailing. There were several options you can try depending on the number of people in a group. The choices included a trial trip, day trip, or water and land party. For trial-trip which was approximately three hours for 3 euros, the maximum number of guests in the boat was five people. The day trip was around six hours for 60 euros. There was no limit to the number of people as long as they can all fit in the boat. But if you want a private trip, you can avail of it for 50 euros an hour, limited to only three hours. People can also enjoy the water and land party. The ride was from and to harbor Krummin, and there was no minimum number of participants. However, only a maximum of 10 was allowed.

Toernmeon evolved as years passed, from being a marketplace at first to a blog site, and now a website where you can book yacht trips in Usedom. It may have changed over time, but it was mainly about boats and sailing.

Homepage

source https://bsplegalmarketing.com/toernmeon.info-domain-history/

Lawyers: What Makes Your Competitors Websites a Success?

Hey guys, my name is Viktoria. I’m the lead legal SEO at BSP Legal Marketing. It is my job to get lawyers to the top of Google.

Today I’d like to continue this series that I started last time, which is to look at websites that are ranking really well and some websites that are ranking, maybe not so well. We’re going to take a look at what they’re doing right, what they’re doing wrong, and give you some ideas and tips for how you can improve your own internet marketing presence and how you can get more clients, which is basically why we’re all here right? Okay. Let’s get started.

So today I’d like to take you to Texas. I already did a search for a criminal lawyer, and I found a couple of good websites for you. This is going to be our case study, and this is another attorney and his website actually does pretty good. But the reason why I wanted to bring this one up is because, with a few small changes, he actually could make a huge difference for himself.

Clear Title Description

So let’s start with this website that’s ranking number one for this area. And obviously, he will do pretty much everything correct. So let’s take a look at his description at his title. His title is very clear “Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer” and then we have his brand. Very clear. You can’t get any more clear than that.

Now let’s take a look at our website that’s doing okay, but could be doing better. “Dunbar Home”, “Rick Dunbar”, “Attorney At Law”. Doesn’t really tell Google anything. “Abilene, Texas”. Okay. “Criminal Law”. No, he’s saying “Criminal Law”, not “Criminal Lawyer”. Why does that matter? Because if we go to Google and we look for “Criminal Law”, what is Google gonna give us? It’s going to give us a bunch of information about criminal law. If on the other hand we use “Criminal Lawyer”, it’s going to give us criminal lawyer. So you have to use the terms you want to rank for right? So in this particular case, it’s “Criminal Defense Lawyer”, you could use “Criminal Defense Attorney” as well. “Criminal Law” doesn’t work as well. It’s okay, but it could be better.

Headers and Pictures

Let’s take a look next at the header. When we create a header, it is very important to use as much personality as possible within limits of professionalism of course. Uh, you want to use a picture of yourself if you can at all, if it’s at all feasible. Why? Because you don’t want your website to look generic. You want people to feel like they can trust you. They have some knowledge of you.

When we look at this website here, we don’t have a picture and a header. I’m not sure why. When I start scrolling, I actually see this wonderful image of this guy who looks like James Bond. I don’t know why they put it all the way down. I would have put it all the way up because he looks friendly. He looks polite. And you know, he looks like somebody you would work with as a lawyer.

Great picture here. We got the Texas flag. So he’s showing some relatability. Great picture.

Proper H Tags

Next thing that they’re doing, let’s take a look at their H tags. I always talk about H tags. It is basically a way of communicating to Google, who you are, what you do. Usually, an H tag would be something, you know, like “Criminal Lawyer in Texas”, “Criminal Attorney”. They’re using a few more keywords here, but that’s okay because they’re still using “Criminal lawyer”, which is the main keyword. It’s a little bit interesting. A little bit unusual. It’s fine.

Now if we take a look at this gentleman’s H1 tag, he doesn’t have one. So what is he telling Google? What is he? I don’t know. He’s not telling Google anything. His H2 tag, which is like the south category of H1, like the subheading of H1 is “24/7”. 24/7 limo service? 24/7 gambling slots? Who knows, right? Not a good H2 tag. Easy to fix. Put in a good H1, get a couple of good H2. And look at his H2 tags “Criminal Defense Practice Areas”, “Recent Criminal Case Results”, “Why Hire Our Houston Criminal Defense Lawyers?”. I mean, this guy is feeding Google information.

Youtube Videos

Now let’s take a look here. He is doing a YouTube video at the top. By the way, a lot of people don’t realize YouTube is owned by Google. So does it help you to put a YouTube video? Probably. I’ve tested this. It does. I don’t know if you would want to put it this close to the top, but it’s fine.

Social Credibility

Again, we have a picture. We are using some brands here that’s he’s listed on. This is good for social credibility. So he’s establishing credibility by using other brands. Unfortunately, the gentleman here is not doing it, although I’m sure he has them. It makes for a more elegant website, but in this particular case, maybe elegance is as much as I like a beautiful website. It’s not what’s necessarily needed.

Disclosure

I always like to check to see if they have disclosure. They do have a disclosure. Because it’s so funny, you will be surprised how many websites I find with no disclosure. So this gentleman right here does not have disclosure. This has nothing to do with Google, but you know, you’re a lawyer. You should have disclosure that this is not legal advice.

Sometimes I find a text where clearly the SEO or whoever the writer said, “We’re an expert in something”. Those are also very iffy.

Money Pages

Let’s look at a money page. A money page is anything that is designed to convert, otherwise known as a practice page. So let’s just compare their Criminal Defense pages. So this is interesting. It’s only “Criminal Defense”, not “Criminal Defense Lawyer”. I would say “Criminal Defense Lawyer”, but it’s okay.

And let’s take a look at this criminal defense page here. I think this website is a little bit slower too. “ Criminal Law Services” I don’t know anybody who Googles for “Criminal Law Services”, probably “Criminal Defense Lawyer” would be better here.

Sticky Menu

Let me just check something really quickly. Okay, good. So you notice when I am scrolling, this is called a sticky menu, right? The menu never goes away and it’s going to be the same thing on mobile. This makes it easier for me to convert if I’m okay.
Fine. I’m convinced I’m sold. I can basically just click on here and call these guys, email these guys.

When we scroll here on the other hand, as you can see my menu, which does have our phone number and everything, goes away. So it makes it a little bit more difficult for me to convert. Is it going to negate my conversions? Probably not, but it doesn’t help. Also when I hover over here, it’s giving me the option of just click to call, which is good. It’s programmed correctly. Let’s take a look here. Okay. That also gives me an option of click to call. Perfect.

Word Count

So, let’s take a look at the amount of words. Now remember, this guy is ranking number one for the entire Houston area. And the other guy’s kind of on page two, page three, something like that. We have 1,964 words, right? And we have 570 words here. Now, why does it matter? Google is a machine designed to present the most relevant content to its readers. For some reason, Google has determined that a criminal defense lawyer must have approximately 2000 words on the page in order to rank in this area.

If you are only offering 500 words, Google is not going to rank you as highly. So what’s the solution? You have to create words. It has to be the right words with the right subheadings. They have to mention the right things. It’s not just random words. Because Google understands what you’re writing about. It can read, it can interpret. But these are clearly good words.

Client Reviews

This is one thing they’re doing really well. I like it when we use client reviews like this. I don’t see this as a conversion element on this page at all. We don’t have any reviews. I think if you don’t have reviews on your page, you’re really leaving money on the table. It’s so much easier to call a lawyer when there’s so much social proof, right? When somebody says “Oh, they were great”. So it’s an easy, easy aspect to convert.

Another thing that’s very interesting. When we look here, we have all of these different money pages. We have 10. On here, on the other hand, we only have one money page, “Criminal Defense”. He might have more, but he just mentions all the other charges, these are not pages. So it’s going to be hard for you to rank for anything if you don’t have a page about it. So for my clients, we constantly have new pages coming out for them. I think I have one criminal client with like 30 pages at this point. And as you could see, they’re doing something right. They are linking from their category page, which is “Criminal Defense Attorney” to their other sub-category pages. So if we look at this, they’re doing this correctly. We have a URL of criminal defense and then we have white-collar crimes. So they’re really explaining to Google in a way that Google understands who they are and what they do.

Need Help?

That’s my time. That’s 10 minutes already. I hope you guys have enjoyed this presentation. If you are a lawyer and you need a little help with your website, your marketing. You’re not growing as fast as you would like to be. Reach out to me. You can get a free analysis. There’s no pressure, no big sales pitch. We’ll just have a chat. I’ll show you what your competitors are doing wrong. What you can fix. My name is Viktoria. My website is BSP Legal Marketing. Chat with you soon.

source https://bsplegalmarketing.com/lawyers-what-makes-your-competitors-websites-a-success/

Marketing Tips For Lawyers: Small Mistakes That Can Tank Your Site

Hey guys, my name is Viktoria. I am a legal SEO and marketing expert and it is my job to get my clients, mostly lawyers, to the top of Google.

I have been doing these videos and I get a lot of questions from potential clients of “Can you look at my competitor?” “Can you tell me what they’re doing right/ what they’re doing wrong?”. And I actually love these kinds of questions because I always love digging into people’s work and learning from other people’s experiences. So, I thought I’d start a little series where I look at successful websites of larger companies, and we can kind of take a look together at what they’re doing and what they’re not doing, and maybe give you some ideas for what you can do better with your own online marketing.

Website Desciption

So what I like to do is I like to look not at page one, but I like to look at the bottom of page two. Because I always feel like you can learn the most from people who are kind of almost there, but not quite because you can see what they’re doing right but you can also kind of spot some of the bigger mistakes, and maybe I could show you guys how they could fix it.

So one of the big things that any person should do when they design a website is tell Google what the website is about. It’s very, very important. If I look here at this website and I’m just hovering over the tab, and this is my website description. Right now, my website description is “Iyer law”. Now that might tell a lot to the people who actually work there, but unless you specifically are looking for the brand, it’s not going to say anything to a potential client.

Let’s take a look at a top site and let’s see how they use that tag. So let’s take a look at these guys. And again, I’m doing this off the cuff, but just because they’re at the top, I already pretty much know what the result is gonna be. So you could see right away, these guys say “Chicago divorce attorneys”, “divorce lawyer Chicago”. They are using excellent keywords. They are using keywords that generate listings for lawyers. Right? When I put in “divorce lawyer”, I’m getting, these kinds of directories. It’s called Google My Business listings.

When I put in “Iyer law”, it’s really just a brand. So if I was working with these guys, the very first thing I would do before I did anything else, I would change the description of their website to something like “Chicago lawyer”, “divorce law attorney”, “family lawyer” is another good one, because that’s actually a category that Google uses.

H Tags

Next, let’s take a look at some of their other on-page. Okay. I see a big problem here. Now, Google is a machine. Its artificial intelligence is the most sophisticated piece of artificial intelligence in the world. But as smart as Google is, it can’t read your mind. You have to communicate to Google in a way that it understands.

So I’m looking at this website and these guys have 5 H1 tags. An H1 tag is a tag that we use to communicate to Google what this website is about. It is the most important tag on the pages. It is sort of like the header to the table of contents. And so these guys are using one good tag, “Family Law and Domestic Relations Practice”. It’s not a great tag, but then they’re saying things like “Contact”, “Areas of Practice”, “Let’s Chat”. Those are obviously not the clearest things, not the most important things to communicate to Google.

Let’s take a look at these guys. Again, I’m doing this completely off the cuff. So hopefully they have the right tags. So these guys’ H1 tag is “Chicago Divorce” and “Family Law Attorneys”. They’re using good keywords. They’re using what people are actually searching for. Now, their H2 tag is “Challenges”. Does “Challenges” tell you anything? Probably not. So if I was working with these guys, I would change their H2 tag to maybe “Contested Divorce”, “Uncontested Divorce”, “Child Custody and Support”. So are they doing it perfect? No, they’re not. There are some issues on here for sure. “Divorce Process” is a good H2 tag. “Know you’re not alone” is a terrible H2 tag because it could be a hospital. It could be a dating profile. You could literally be anything, right? So your H tags have to communicate something important, something crucial to Google. And these guys do some of the straights, right? We have “Divorce”, “Family law”, “Child Custody”, but you can rearrange it to make it even more prominent.

Word Count

Let’s take a look. Now we have a thousand words here. So that’s actually probably about right. I would have to refer to some other tools to see how many words we should have in a homepage. But to make a quick shortcut, we can actually just take a look at it. So the top guy here has a thousand words. So if you don’t have the right tools, I use Page Optimizer Pro, Labrika, and other tools. You can actually just look at how many words your key competitor has on their homepage. And then you should do about the same. And this plugin is called SEO Minion, it’s free. You can just download it.

Font Size

Okay, let’s see what else. We’ve got a bunch of H1 tags here. One thing I’m seeing, and this is very important, not so much for Google, but for user experience. It is very, very small font that they’re using here. It is very important to use a nice size font because it’s hard to read it, right? And remember Google measures, how long the person stays in a page before they decide to present you to their clients. If you’re using a small font, people will stay less on your website. Now, I don’t know what the mobile version of this site looks like, but based on the design so far, I’m guessing the mobile is going to be even smaller. The less somebody stays on your site, the less likely they are to actually contact you. And also the algorithm for Google that calculates how valuable you are, looks at how long somebody stays.

In contrast, we have nice big font here. By the way, I love it when we use proper pictures for lawyers. A lot of times I struggle with it a little bit because my clients say “I don’t want to take pictures”, “I don’t like pictures”. But pictures are very, very, very important. People want to see who they talk to. They want to see whom they interest in their life. So, this gentleman here has some great pictures with very unique outfits. People are going to remember him, probably results in very good amounts of conversions. Whereas here we see a little bit more of a generic site. You know, it’s all, it’s a very pretty picture, but it’s more generic. It’s always good to have a person, you know, who you’re going to trust your life to be able to see them, to talk to them. You know, even if just kind of to picture them on the website.

Let’s Chat

That’s my time I wanted to do about eight minutes. I’m going to come back to this and I’m going to do these more. If you enjoy them, please let me know in the comments. By the way, if you are interested in my services, my website is BSP Legal Marketing. I will talk to you. I will help you analyze your competitors. I will help you analyze your site. No big sales pitch. We just have a chat and you can learn a lot more about me and working with me if you’re interested. Thank you so much. And see you soon.

source https://bsplegalmarketing.com/marketing-tips-for-lawyers-small-mistakes-that-can-tank-your-site/

Lawyer Marketing – 3 Tips to Skyrocket Your Online Leads

Hey guys, my name is Victoria. I’m a legal SEO and marketing expert and I work primarily with attorneys. My job is to get you to the top of Google.

Today, I’m going to give you three very simple tips that pretty much everybody I know, who is not currently working with marketing specialists, needs.

These are things you can implement very quickly, and these are the things that will actually make a big difference for your online presence and for how many new clients you will have contact you in the next few months.

Tip #1: Correct Google My Business Category

So tip number one, pretty much everybody I know that I begin to work with, does not have a correct GMB category. And GMB stands for Google My Business listing and it is a very important directory. And here’s why.

If I search for a car accident lawyer (and right now I’m searching from Chicago) I’m going to get several different sets of results.

The first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to get some ads up here. And the next thing I’m going to do is I’m going to get a map and the three GMB (Google My Business listings) that Google considers to be the most relevant to my search.

Now, if you notice here, it will give me a name of a company and it will give me a category. In order for me to have a chance, any chance at all, to be seen in this listing, I have to have the correct category set up.

Most people, if they are not working with a marketer, their categories are set up as law office, attorney, or it could even be something like legal services, which actually is a very. Which is a very broad category that could even encompass other services like notarization.

So if you’re a lawyer, if you are a personal injury or criminal or divorce, make sure to set up a correct category for your Google My Business listing. If you do not, you will have no chance of being seen. So this is very, very simple but it’s just one of those really important things.

Tip #2: Social Media

The next thing that I see a lot of people do not do is social media. Now I know what you’re going to say. I’m busy. I don’t have time for this. And I hear you. I barely have time for it myself, certainly not for my own businesses, but I do take care of it for my clients. So, there are a lot of different software out there that can help you by creating several posts that you can recycle over and over again. And why is this important? Two things.

First, Google is a machine designed to understand how important you are in the real world. If you do not have any social media, Google is going to assume you are not prominent. So by having at least a few posts a week on your Facebook, and maybe a couple of posts on your Google My Business listing, what you’re going to do is you’re going to show Google that you are prominent enough to be active on social media. The second thing is if a potential client finds you and they see no posts, the chances of getting a call through are actually getting much slimmer.

So, what kind of software is there? Well, there are many different kinds. I like Promo Republic, personally, myself. It’s inexpensive. It’s easy to use. But if you Google social media management, you can literally have a receptionist in your office. You can have like anybody, somebody who’s just doing kind of small work in your office. You can have them do this. And what you would do is get a tool and use it to repost. You can repost other people’s articles that might be relevant to you. It makes a big difference, both in terms of how humans view you and how computer views you as well.

Tip #3: Updated Website

So the other mistake I see a lot of people make is they have extremely outdated websites. Now a website is essentially your face to the world, right? It’s almost like your virtual office. And you might feel that having an older website doesn’t really hurt you, doesn’t affect you. And that could be true if most of your business comes from referrals, even though, even when it comes to referrals, your clients will almost certainly Google you.

But when you have a site that is this outdated Google will simply not show it to anybody. Right now in this site, for instance, is optimized probably for, you know, 20 years ago. You simply cannot proceed in today’s world if you want to attract people online using a site like this, why? For one thing, Google can barely read it.

If we look at our own page here, our title is indexed at HTML, the title is supposed to be something that describes what your website is. For instance, in this particular case, it’s injury attorneys, Chicago nursing home, or in this case, it’s legal services, not a great title, landlord and tenant lawyers.

And so indexed at HTML doesn’t tell anything right to Google. You don’t have a description, you don’t have any instructions for the robots. So you’re really not communicating to Google who you are at all. You might as well not have a website. If you’re going to do this, it’s honestly just a little bit of a waste of money.

And so what do you say? What if you don’t want to spend money on a site, that’s okay. You can create a site yourself using something like Wix or WordPress.com. There are other things you could do, but if you have a very old HTML site, chances are your turning clients away.

Consider The Help Of An Expert

So consider doing the work if you want to start getting your clients online. You can either do it yourself, or you can hire somebody like me. We do have a range of price points from very white-glove service to I’m-just-getting-started-and-I-need-some-help. So feel free to reach out to me. If you have questions, thank you so much for watching, and have a great rest of your day.

source https://bsplegalmarketing.com/lawyer-marketing-3-tips-to-skyrocket-your-online-leads/