Late last month, I had an opportunity to present a client development seminar (2nd year in a row!) for the Memphis Bar Association’s annual Bench Bar Conference at the Sandestin Hotel. If you’ve never been to the northwest Florida gulf coast, you’re missing out on the whitest, brightest sandy beaches you’ll ever see. The lunchtime presentation had light attendance, but the small group made up for it with the types of questions they asked.
After being introduced by Erin Melton Shea, an Associate with Rainey, Kizer in Memphis, I immediately fielded questions about SEO, social marketing, and reputation management. The comments were common:
- Do I need a blog?
- Should I be on LinkedIn?
- Do I need a listing on Lawyers.com?
Etc. (with a “yes” answer to all). We also talked at length about SEO, such as what factors play into your positioning on search engines, as well as how to measure success. My initial response about success measurement was a simple ranking report. But are these reports useful in today’s search landscape? We all know Google and other search engines serve up different results to each of us, based partly on our past search history, physical location and any given number of other factors. So if I check rankings for some keywords, you may do the same test and see very different placements.
In the SEO business, we tend to lean heavily on ranking reports as a measure of success, especially since most regular people looking for a lawyer online believe those listed first or amongst the first page are more important. But I think we need to look beyond these reports. Our objective with SEO is to ultimately drive conversions through great placements online. So placing too much value on a ranking report without looking at the overall traffic and conversion data is misleading and often causes frustration for your client.
I think we’re at or past the point where single purpose rankings reports are meaningful. I’m going to look at SEO campaigns more holistically, using rankings as a piece of the overall success, and lean more on results — leads, calls and inquiries. What do you think?
Brian Farrell coaches sales professionals to move from the sales pitch to social selling. His clients earn new referrals, attract better prospects and win more business. Get free updates on social selling @ findtheclient.com.
