Michael J. Evans: Law + Technology
How lawyers can use technology to attract clients, be more effective, make more money, and have more fun.
From the category archives:
An Online Media Daily article reports that Google’s top-priced AdWord in 2008 was “mesothelioma” costing $99.44 per click. The article cites AdGooroo’s Search Engine Advertising Update: Q309. According to the same report, “mesothelioma” was also Yahoo’s top-priced word, at $60.68 per click. Rich Stokes, founder and CEO of AdGooroo, couldn’t say how many times the top keywords were clicked on each month.
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I’ve written before that attorneys who market over the Internet can gain a huge advantage from the use of well-optimized video. As I mentioned in a post on the “Easiest way to a First Page Rank on Google“, Forrester Research has performed tests that show a video is 50 times more likely to be found on the first page of Google than a text page.
This has been consistently borne out in my own use of video in online legal marketing. I’m involved in a project with other lawyers to represent victims of Yamaha Rhino rollovers. We’ve posted two videos in connection with the project. According to recent Wordtracker reports, the search term “Yamaha Rhino recall” is by far the most frequently searched term associated with Yamaha Rhinos. I ran a Google search for “Yamaha Rhino recall” on October 7, 2009, and our two videos appeared in the top five results on Google’s first page.
Here’s a screenshot:
First page of a 10-7-09 Google search for "Yamaha Rhino recall"
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SearchEngineWatch.com is reporting that Google is sponsoring a contest with a grand prize of $25,000 of cable television advertising. Contestants create a 30 second or 60 second spot and upload it to the YouTube channel “TV for all contest.” You can even make the ad for free using SpotMixer.com. The deadline for submission is October 5, 2009. Viewers will vote, and 3 winners will be announced October 30, 2009.
This appears to be a good way for Google to call attention to the TV ad service it now offers through its AdWords program. A MediaPost article reports that Google has teamed with SpotMixer to allow advertisers to create video ads to be displayed on the Google Content Network. SpotMixer’s platform automatically converts an advertiser’s existing AdWords text ad into a tailored video ad within the advertiser’s AdWords account. Earlier this year, SpotMixer launched a self-serve video ad creation service for Google AdWords customers to produce and distribute cable TV ads via Google TV Ads.
Lawyers who have been tempted to dip their toes into the TV advertising pool now have a way of giving it a try on a limited budget. But the chance of a lawyer ad winning the $25,000 grand prize? I’m pretty skeptical about that.
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Years ago when pay-per-click ads were new, the first tests showed that searchers preferred to click on the links that appeared on the search page (”organic results”) rather clicking on than the pay-per-click ads. I saw a recent comparison yesterday, when Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro published an article saying results have remained remarkably steady over the past six years: for commercial searches, about 70% of searchers click on organic results, while only 30% click on the pay-per-click ads.
This is important information for firms trying to decide how to allocate resources between pay-per-click campaigns and search engine optimization.
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We have been experimenting with online video since last year in our Yamaha Rhino project, with very good results. So I was not surprised to see a Forrester Research blog post saying that an online video is 50 times more likely than a text page to appear on Google’s first page. A big part of that is simply the huge disparity in the number of text pages and the number of videos. Now that Google is including videos in its “blended search results,” a well-optimized video has a much better shot at a first-page ranking than a text page. Forrester’s research meshes with our own experience. Although we have many more text pages dealing with the Yamaha Rhino recall, a Google search for “Yamaha Rhino recall” on July 2, 2009, placed our two Rhino videos in the top 4 search results. Message to consumer lawyers, include online video in your marketing plan.
Yamaha Rhino recall Google search results 7-2-09
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Mediapost reports that Google will launch AdSense for mobile on Wednesday. Mobile content developers will be able to insert a small snippet of code into their pages; this will tell Google where to display an ad. The ad targeting is contextual, similar to targeting that exists for AdSense partners.
A Google spokesperson said Google is also experimenting on ways to allow advertisers to bid for ad placement on specific applications. Anybody want to buy an ad when an iPhone user Googles the location of the local jail?
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The law firm of Susman Godfey LLP said Friday it had received preliminary approval of a proposed $20 million class action settlement filed on behalf of AdWords advertisers who were allegedly tricked by Google into paying for ads they didn’t intend to buy. This news comes from a Sacramento Business Journal article.
The class action lawsuit is pending in the Federal District Court of the Northern District of California, San Jose Division. Final approval of the settlement will be considered on Sept. 14.
As any AdWords user knows, Google charges advertisers when users “click” on one of their ads. When the advertiser creates an ad, he or she tells Google the maximum they are willing to pay per click. But according to lawyers for the class, advertisers can find themselves paying for ads they didn’t intend to buy. According to Susman Godfrey:
“During this process, users encounter two adjacent boxes. Into the first, customers enter the amount they wish to pay per click of an ad displayed on Google.com. The second box is marked ‘optional.’ Into this box, a user can enter the amount they would be willing to pay per click of an ad appearing on a third-party Web page. But leaving the box blank does not prevent ads from appearing on third-party sites,” the law firm said.
Google “places the ads on third-party sites anyway. And users are automatically charged per click based on the amount they entered into the first box. This suit arises from the fact that both actions occur without the user being informed,” the firm added.
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One of the reservations I’ve heard some lawyers express about pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is that you don’t know who is clicking on your ads. If you’re paying $85 for someone to click on your mesothelioma ad to visit your site, is that person a mesothelioma victim or a competitor? Now comes a study from U.S. based Click Forensics that says the average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 28.2%, up from 27.1% in the previous quarter. See article here.
Note that this figure applies to the “content” networks, such as ads that appear on blogs and news sites using Google’s AdSense program. There is a built-in incentive for the publishers of the sites to engage in fraudulent clicking, as they share in the revenues from each click. The article does not give an estimate of the number of fraudulent clicks on Google’s and Yahoo!’s search engines.
One user of PPC ads suggests that you factor the fraud rate into your calculations. Tony Jewell , chief technical officer of job search engine Workcircle, advises factoring in a degree of risk and focusing on return on investment. “If 20% of clicks are invalid, are the other 80% good enough for it not to matter?” he said. “If the traffic sends customers who convert, and hence is profitable, then we’re happy.”
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After sitting there for a year without much use, Google Profiles are today getting a push from Google, according to TechCrunch.com and a number of other sources. Beginning today, all Google search queries for a person’s name will now feature a section on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) dedicated to Google Profile results at the bottom of every page. These profiles allow people to fill out their basic information, like current employer and links to various web presences, without having to maintain a personal website. Google is allocating four thumbnail spots to these profiles at the bottom of search engine results page - anyone who doesn’t appear in those four spots can be found by clicking a link to show more results. Getting one of these four thumbnail spots is going to very desirable to some people. According to Google, the four top spots will be chosen by an algorithm that favors “complete” profiles, but Google wasn’t very specific about how the algorithm will work.
The folks at Google say, “[a] Google profile is simply how you present yourself on Google products to other Google users. It allows you to control how you appear on Google and tell others a bit more about who you are. With a Google profile, you can easily share your web content on one central location. You can include, for example, links to your blog, online photos, and other profiles such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. You have control over what others see. Your profile won’t display any private information unless you’ve explicitly added it.”
You can go to the Google Profile Creation Page to create your profile.
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The Wisconsin Bar recently published an interesting article with 10 Internet marketing tips for new, small law firms. While the article is sometimes short on specifics about implementing its suggestions, it is a very good beginning point for lawyers without experience in online legal marketing. I’m just going to list the 10 headings here without the full text of the article; you can read the full article here. I’m going to add some explanations/suggestions based on my own experience.
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