When law firms evaluate whether to use a particular legal marketing program, such as, a legal directory or legal matching service, the law firm often looks closely at how high the lawyer marketing program appears in search results on Google and other search engines. While this is a smart common sense approach, it leaves out a very important consideration. What matters is not just how high the website comes up in search engines but what type of results appear. Generally, there are two broad categories of placement on Google and other search engines:
• Paid Advertising: This includes sponsored positions like pay per click or banner ads
• Organic or Natural Placement: This type of placement is free based on factors, such as, the age of a domain, number of relevant content and number of links to the law firm website among other factors.
Paid positions may be more prominent but less effective at generating client inquiries because organic placement is more trusted by consumers and typically generates a higher volume of traffic as well as more qualified traffic. It is better to choose online legal marketing programs that rank well in organic results. Below are a number of basic justifications for this conclusion.
Consumers Regard Sponsored Results as Advertising: Consumers searching the Internet are typically looking for substantive information. Prospective clients commonly dismiss pay per lead ads and sponsored results at the top of the page and down the side of the page as annoying advertising. Consumers have a tendency to ignore these ads entirely and may even have negative feelings toward such advertising cluttering up the page of organic search results.
Pay Per Lead and Sponsored Results Tend to Generate Unqualified Traffic: Many law firms complain that sponsored placement by a legal marketing website tends to generate sales calls because the law firm is identified as one that pays for legal marketing on the Internet. Clients that are more serious about obtaining legal advice tend to select organic search results for answers to basic questions then decide to contact an attorney. Those people overtly looking for advertised law firms in sponsored ads as opposed to legal information are often looking to conduct business with the law firm as opposed to seeking actual legal advice or representation.
Fluctuations in Legal Marketing Budget Negatively Impacts Sponsored Placement: Nothing is more frustrating for law firms than signing up for legal marketing with a legal advertising company only to discover shortly after the law firm has written a check that the marketing website is suddenly nowhere to be found in search results. This is common when legal marketing companies rely on paid placement on Google and other search engines because the marketing company’s placement is subject to business fluctuations. The amount of pay per click and banner advertising will vary based on the revenue generated by a marketing company in a given month. Organic placement is much more stable and less likely to fluctuate widely.
Cost Savings Associated with Organic Placement: Programs with organic placement tend to be less expensive because the online legal marketing company does not have to devote hundreds of thousands of dollars per month for paid advertising on Google and other search engines. Pay per click and banner advertising on Google is very expensive and generates far less traffic, which means this method of generating prospective clients requires massive online marketing expenditures. This enormous cost is passed on to law firms which means legal marketing programs that rely on paid placement on Google and other search engines tend to be far more expensive.
What this all means is that when evaluating potential online legal marketing programs the type of Google placement is as important as the position of that program’s online legal marketing website in search results. Organic results receive approximately 75% of all client clicks as well as more qualified traffic. Paying careful attention to this organic vs. paid placement distinction can mean a higher return on investment for your marketing expenditures.
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