In an interview yesterday with CNBC’s Bill Griffeth and New York Times reporter Andrew Ross, Google’s CEO said he’s bullish on mobile advertising–suggesting the medium can target consumers more easily. That’s really not surprising, considering Google’s December 8, 2008 announcement of a new option that allows AdWords advertisers to show desktop text and image ads on the iPhone, the T-Mobile G1, and other mobile devices with full (HTML) Internet browsers. With more powerful browsers on mobile devices such as iPhones and Blackberrys, people are using cell phones for more than voice communication and email these days, and the trend is certain to grow.
In the interview yesterday, Google’s CEO said of mobile ads, “They should be worth more, advertisers should be willing to pay more, and there should be greater conversions, which is ultimately what advertising is about,” he said.
I agree. That’s what led me some time ago to stock up on a variety of legal-related .mobi (for “mobile”) domain names. All of my .mobi names are suitable for mobile websites, but a few are perfect for development as iPhone apps. Google announced in December 2008 that users had already downloaded 3 million iPhone apps, and that number continues to grow.
If you’re a lawyer, legal marketer or iPhone application developer interested in developing iPhone apps or mobile sites targeted at lawyer advertising, feel free to contact me to discuss development and/or advertising possibilities.
Tagged as:
iPhone apps,
legal marketing,
mobile ads
Should lawyers Twitter? For those who haven’t been keeping up with what’s going on in the “social media,” Twitter is what some call a micro-blog service that lets you post 140-character messages any time you feel like it. The Wall Street Journal’s technology blog Digits reported that Google’s Eric Schmidt referred to Twitter Tuesday as “a poor man’s email system.”
I’ve never thought anybody cared to know what I do all through the day, so I’ve never bothered to Twitter. Nevertheless, some marketing experts are now pushing everyone to Twitter, including lawyers. [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Twitter
According to a February 16, 2009 LawyersUSAonline.com article, almost two-thirds of potential clients begin their search for a lawyer online. The article doesn’t cite the source for that statistic, but even without a source, I’m convinced that many (if not most) clients begin their search for a lawyer online. One subscription service that provides keyword information (and which shall remain nameless here) says that the top 300 searches for the terms “lawyer” or “attorney” generate over 46,000 searches per day. I’m convinced the number would be even higher if you could capture all attorney/lawyer searches (the subscription service I used stopped at 300 searches for “lawyer” and 300 searches for “attorney”). The point of all this is that lawyers, even sole practitioners, need websites. [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
attorneys,
lawyers,
legal marketing,
Search Engine Optimization (SEO),
SEO,
websites
I’ve just come across ChaCha.com, which has an interesting approach to searching for information. You can send a query via a text message from your cell phone, or you can post you question at ChaCha’s site. It has 55,000 registered “guides” who respond via SMS to all types of questions. You can ask the name of a good pizza restaurant in Toledo, or what movies two actors have appeared in, or virtually anything that comes to mind. Some users call ChaCha just to settle a bet. ChaCha claims to answer 300,000 questions a day, with the average ChaCha user asking 10 questions per month. It shouldn’t be surprising that 80% of the users are under the age of 25.
ChaCha displays both Google Adwords ads and Yahoo ads on its website, and it has started appending ads to its text message answers. Because ChaCha is a member of the Google Adwords network, I thought I would find some Google ads when I ran some queries using highly competitive legal search terms. But I was very surprised that I got neither an answer nor an advertisement when I asked the following question: “Who is a DUI lawyer in Austin, Texas?” ChaCha is not locked into Google or Yahoo ads, but also sells ads on its “Advertise with us” page. Looks as if they still have room if you’re an Austin DUI lawyer.
Tagged as:
ChaCha,
mobile search
