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They buy billboards and print ads.  They dominate the yellow pages with their huge ads.  Attorney marketing is big business.  When a given client can yield thousands of dollars in revenue, and more lucrative ones can yield tens or hundreds of thousands of dollar in revenue, if not millions via settlement, the acquisition of new clients is the key to an attorney’s success.  Let’s see what happens when an Internet Marketing specialist casts his eyes on the online strategies in Carrollton, Georgia.  I begin by inviting myself to become the searcher, and I welcome you to join me on the journey…

Scenario: Client Seeks Attorney Online

As if I had a legal need, I type into the Google search box “attorney Carrollton Georgia.”  In this case I type in attorney first, because that is all that my mind can focus on in the moment.  I add Carrollton because I know that I need to set the location, and I spell out Georgia to avoid all error because I am a bit afraid and overwhelmed by my legal situation.  I need help. (hypothetically)

I see a page full of results.  I skip over the three advertised listings on the top, because they are in yellow, and are clearly enough delineated to not be the “real” results (what we call in the business “organic”).  The first real result is for lawyers.com.  I don’t trust them, they are too far away, they are just a list (in my mind).   The next listing is for Tisinger Vance Law Firm est 1922.  It sounds reputable, but I know names don’t mean anything.  I can’t afford to choose the wrong one, or an expensive one.  I move on.

My eyes don’t even read the next names, instead I notice that one of them has reviews.  Yes, I want reviews.  I want to hear about other people’s experiences.  I can’t afford to make a mistake.  This is a big deal, and I don’t trust myself in choosing someone without a recommendation.

I skip ahead to result #4.  It has 3 reviews.  I want to read them.  But the title of the website is confusing.  It sounds generic.  It doesn’t sound like there is a real person there.  But the description does have a name, Candance Rader, and so does the domain name.  So, I click to read the reviews.  It is hard to find the reviews, but when I notice the link with the (3) on it, I click.  It takes me to a page with three horrible reviews.  All are just one of five stars.  And, two of the three are made on the same day, one a few days later.  I can see that it is likely the same person, but still, I am scared, and I can’t take a risk.  I decide that Candace is NOT my attorney.   I continue, with greater trust in my method of reading the reviews and ignoring the rest.

Then my eyes lock into two attorneys that each have 13 reviews.  I immediately notice that Diane M. Sternlieb has a five star rating from her 13 reviews, whereas Daniel M. Barnes has a three star rating.  I go straight to Diane’s ratings page (the Google “places” page).  I immediately connect to her picture with her horses.  They make her out to be a pretty, friendly gal.  Like someone I went to high school with way back.  I feel relaxed.  I know that it is marketing that she put the horse picture there, but I also know it was her choice to present her natural side, not her super-lawyer side.  I feel relaxed for it.

The first review reads “”She is a Knowledgable, Well Prepared GIANT in the Courtroom.”  So, she is sweet, and she can fight a battle.  I like that.  I read all of the reviews, see that they are spaced out over time, which makes me trust them more, and think “she is my lawyer.”  I forget that I was expecting for the attorney to be a man.  I go with what feels right, safe, and reliable.

Only then do I click to her website before calling her.  I don’t know why I click there, maybe just to confirm my notion.  Her website looks perfect.  She always looks friendly in her pictures.  Her story is compelling.  And, her young adult children all look healthy, attractive, and friendly.  I’m sold.  I pick up the phone and call her. (hypothetically)  As long as nothing goes wrong on the phone, the deal is done.

How Diane Sternlieb Won The Client’s Business in This Scenario

Here is what contributed to the choice of attorneys in this scenario:

1. Search results placement: My hypothetical searcher for attorney services never got past the first page of results.  Most people don’t.  In this case, my eyes only glanced down to the eighth position as it looked for reviews.  The eighth had one review so I overlooked him, sorry James, and the seventh was Daniel’s three star rating.  So, having gone to the eighth position, this searcher returned to the sixth, and the deal closed there.
2. Reviews: no reviews meant nothing to base trust on.  Few reviews meant too little to base trust on.  Poor reviews meant absolutely not!  The deal got closed with 13 positive reviews.
3. Transparency: When we don’t have a trustworthy friend who can give us a referral, we have fear.  So, we need a real human image online, looking at us, smiling, looking sincere.  Only then do we get the message that this stranger is just a friend that we have not yet met.  Photos are really important.  Diane’s story of loosing her husband make her seem so much more sincere and transparent.  And, the goodness in her kid’s eyes sends the final message that she is trustworthy on a personal level.  She is obviously a great, loving, dedicated mother.  However, if your searcher isn’t as trusting as me, and if they want to see a take-no-prisoner type of lawyer, then send them that signal in your pictures.  You know what you can offer, so make it clear to the public.
4. Professionalism: Half of this gets communicated in the reviews, as they transmit her successes.  The other half comes through on her website’s written content.  She did what was necessary, she shared her history and explained all of her experiences that prepared her for doing good work.  I especially like her history as a Registered Nurse.  This also makes her more trustworthy.

Diane’s Internet success story, in this case, was a result of many coordinated efforts.  And, there was most likely one person who brought this all together.  It takes marketing savvy to bring:

1. the website,
2. the Google Places page,
3. the review generation (whether natural, encouraged, or induced),
4. and the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that got her listing showing there on page one.

I don’t know who led this marketing effort, yet I applaud their work well done.  And, I applaud Diane’s intelligence and savvy to invest in the right Internet presence.  She only falls short by needing a little more SEO might to push her higher up on the first Google result page.

As for the rest of the attorneys in Carrollton, there are no other winners online.   Daniel Barnes presence was obviously the most compromised with those horrible reviews.  My hypothetical user never clicked through to read them, but I did.  He has a history of negative reviews over a long period of time (unless it is one malicious poster who has hit him with repeated negative reviews over the years, which is always possible).  And, Daniel’s website appears could use some serious freshening.  That is likely fine, as with those negative reviews he better hope that his billboards work.  (Note:  I don’t know Daniel or any other attorney in this town, have nothing against anyone, and am simply “reading” their online presence).  To his credit, his website appears in the top ten listings as does his Places page, so he has two spots in the top ten!

The Path to Success for the Others

As for the rest of Carrollton attorneys, there is much room for improvement.  If you don’t show up on page one of Google search results, you will not be found by 80% of the searchers.  If your reviews are lacking, trust won’t be established.  Your pictures need to be carefully selected to portray the image you want to market.  Are you the serious type?  Or, are you the friendly, supportive type?  Are you the no-nonsense, ex-marine, kick ass type of attorney who will go for blood?  Or what?  How you present yourself will result in who walks into your office.  Are you transparent enough online that there is room for someone to connect with you and feel like rapport is already being established?  And, is your website professional and informative?

Are Heavy Spenders of Advertising Dollars Also Succeeding in the Search Results?

Let’s look at those who focus on advertising, and see how they come up in the organic results…

These firms advertise on the Google search result page that our hypothetical user was looking at, and none show on that first page of Google organic (unpaid) search results:

1. sherrodandbernard.com
2. westgeorgiacriminaldefense.com
3. kimmeylaw.com
4. westgeorgiadefenselawyers.com

So we have four firms, I assume, that are paying for clicks but not investing in securing a top position.  Paid ads are a fine short-term solution, but in the long-run they are less than ideal as they cost per click, and they are not viewed by searchers as being naturally popular/credible.

NEXT STEP: I pick up the old-fashioned Yellow Pages (it just got delivered to my house and I haven’t recycled it yet- I never use it as a consumer), and see who is advertising the most and how they are doing in Google organic search results.

• Front page, small ad, and full-page in Attorney section: Duffee.  Places on Google’s first page.
• Backpage, full page ad & 2-full page ad, a full page ad, and 4 smaller ads in attorney section: Van Pelt & Dufour: Does NOT place in Google.
• Attorney section, 2-full page ad and three half pages in attorney section: Perkins: Last place on Google’s first page.  Unattractive site title on Google made me not even notice the listing, and I would never click on it because of that as a consumer searcher,  but for this I did, and the site was overwhelming (and informative), sloppy (yet fresh and clean).
• Full-page ad: Timothy MacMillian: NO first page Google presence.
• Full-page ad: Stephen Bonanno: NO first page Google presence.
• Almost full-page ad: Candace Rader: on Google’s first page, but not one positive review.
• Almost full-page ad: T. Michael Flinn: NOT on Google’s first page.

Four of the leading advertisers in the AT&T Yellow Pages are not showing on page 1 of Google search results, and three of the leading advertisers are showing yet are not optimized for maximum conversion (website, Google “Places” page, reviews, and SEO).  For those willing to invest in their advertising efforts, it is surprising that they don’t also invest in their marketing efforts.  Marketing is typically a less expensive, more trustworthy way of increasing business.  It is an investment with long-term payoffs.

Interestingly Diane Sternlieb who did so well in the search scenario has just one, small ad in the yellow pages.  Yet, I connect to it, because rapport has already been established online.  Reviews have already told me she is trustworthy, so her ad sticks out.

It should be noted that all of the above is based on the assumption that the potential client is simply looking for an “attorney.”  In many cases he/she will be thinking about the type of attorney that is required, and will then type into the search box something like “DUI lawyer in Carrollton ga” or “Carrollton ga criminal attorney” or “best trial lawyer in Carrollton Georgia.”  The potential search terms are endless, yet I have the tools to determine which searches are actually happening and what the average month search volume is on each term or phrase.  That is part of my responsibility as an SEO.

Huge Search Numbers:

According to Google, tens of millions of searches are done every year in America for people seeking attorneys.  In Georgia there are several million searches for attorneys, in all variations of the keywords.  And, Google reports well over 13,ooo searches for Carrollton, GA, specific searches, including “attorney Carrollton ga” being search over 7000 times per year, as well as “attorneys in Carrollton ga” being searched almost 6000 times per year.  This doesn’t include what we estimate as another 10,000+ searches for non-geographic search terms like “dui attorney” that shows local results on the first page.  So, our estimate is that there are 23,000+ searches that could be fulfilled by a local Carrollton attorney.  And, how many attorneys are there in Carrollton?

Conclusion

As us non-attorneys need you attorneys for legal advice, non-Internet Marketing consultants needs us to help clarify the landscape.  If you need help with your Internet Marketing, contact us to discuss the possibilities.  The beauty of having the budget of your field is that we can have a pretty amazing online campaign and get an outstanding return on your investment (ROI).  The challenge, however, is that your competition has just as much to gain as you do from succeeding in the marketing game, and thus they also have dedicated time and resources in that direction.  Lucky for you all, first page real estate (placement) in Carrollton is much easier to achieve than in the big city.  So, a little effort goes a long way.  The chance of success is high, for he/she who stands up to the plate.

We hope you learned something from this report!

Ken Lewis is the principal of Kenneth Lewis & Associates. His primary responsibilities at the firm are being the Chief Strategist. He is personally the project manager for every client, and meticulous tends to the details that matter. Kenneth Lewis & Associates takes on clients who need total Internet presence creation, as well as clients who already have a sufficient website and who simply need an SEO and marketing boost. Contact Ken today to see how he can help your organization meet its objectives.

She really wanted to see more traffic to her website than it was offering.  Therefore, we developed a photo-style blog for her on a unique domain, that really showcases her skills and expertise as a designer.  To maximize the marketing reach of her budget, we used a WordPress theme that delivered advanced functionality.  Our designer made it all look pretty, whereas our SEOs made sure that we hit all relevant keywords, and that the site was SEO-friendly on every level.  In the end, the site succeeds in being on budget, being attractive, having a ton of fascinating information, and being easily found in the search engines.

That was the first step.  The second step, which is an ongoing endeavor, is to feed relevant traffic to the site.  The only way to do that is to have a long-term campaign of content creation both on-site (on her domain) and off-site (elsewhere on the Internet).  This ongoing campaign includes blog posts and social media, articles, press releases, videos, images, directory submissions, accurate information uploaded to review sites, and so much more.  Any Interior Design SEO or Interior Designer Internet Marketing campaign needs these main elements for success.

In the few short months of our working with this client her new site has already risen to the top page of search engine results for Carrollton, Ga, Interior Designer, and other major keywords.  We continue to push ahead with our work.  Our only benchmark of success is the success of our clients.  When we bring them new customers and their revenues and profits increase, we pat ourselves on the back for a job well done.

Keyword research is now a sub-speciality within SEO, and is the core of any intelligent SEO campaign. Any professional SEO knows how to do this research, at least they should know. And, the results typically number in the thousands or tens of thousands of keywords per website. This is because keywords are no longer words, rather they are strings of words that come together to make a greater whole.

I recently got the challenge of doing keyword research on an industry that I previously knew nothing about- that of bulk handling systems. Quickly I realized that people aren’t searching for that term as much as for bulk material handling. And, within that there are dozens of major keywords to describe the equipment that they use, the materials they process, and the names of the processes.

The more specific searchers are in their quires, the more likely that they are motivated buyers.  So, it is essential to find the appropriate long-tail keywords that reflect what the potential buyer is searching for.  For example, I would not target the very general “mixing tanks”  keyword for this client, when it would be much more relevant to target a long-tail like slurry mixing tanks for lime milk slurry, or dilution tank for activated carbon slurry preparation.

From these several dozen basic keywords my list expanded to several thousand keywords. I couldn’t just use conveyor, which is one of the pieces of equipment for that company. Rather, I had to see that they were flexible screw conveyors which could be searched for as bulk handling conveyors, spiral conveyors, conveying screws, and another couple hundred variations on the wording.

Our language is vast, and any successful SEO campaign needs to make the target website noticed by Google for all possible variations on the keywords. Keywords can be understood to serve like signs on the highway telling you what is available at each stop. If there is no sign, there is no way for anyone to know to exit. That is why keywords are so important, they tell Google to direct traffic to the website.

It is saddening to see search engine traffic so misunderstood, even by SEO “professionals.”  The art of SEO involves the careful selection of keywords, and these keywords are not just as the industry uses (as with the case of “real estate”) but also the keywords that searchers are likely to use.  In this case, we would have all types of varieties on real estate.

When someone is looking for an apartment in Carrollton, they are likely to type into Google: carrollton ga apartments.  Or, they might do Carrollton ga apartment for rent.  If they were buying a house, they might do Carrollton ga houses for sale, whereas if it were for rent they would specify that.

Studies have shown that the longer the keyword (and we do call it a keyword in the singular even if it is multiple words together in the search box), the more clear the searcher is on what he/she wants, and the greater the chance that they will land at a page that will fulfill their needs and deliver a conversion.

Let’s say someone types in Carrollton Ga real estate.  What exactly are they looking for?  Google doesn’t know, nor do we.  Is it residential or commercial?  Leasing or buying?  Are they looking for something within a certain budget, or do they want the best?  Are they looking for student rental apartments?  Or, are they looking to buy a warehouse for their company?

When we look at the traffic numbers for all of these different searches, we find that there is a ton of traffic for real estate in this relatively small town of Carrollton.  Try it for yourself.  Go to the Google Keyword tool and type in the keyword you want to see traffic numbers on.  For example, “Carrollton ga apartments” has 3600 searchers per month, or 40k+ per year.  “Carrollton ga homes” gets 1600 searchers per month, as does “homes in Carrollton GA.”  That is another 35k+ searchers per year.   Coupled with all of the other types of real estate searches, we have hundreds of thousands of searches for real estate in this town.  The numbers don’t lie- Internet Marketing is an essential strategy for new customer acquisition.

Despite that ideal in our heads, modern life is way too technical for anyone to be a master of all trades. Recently, an Ophthalmologist friend of mine said that he went into that speciality because he wanted to fully understand and master a part of the body. Only later did he realize he would be referring patients to a retina specialist, a sub-specialty within Ophthalmology. He was reduced to being a petty generalist!

This is the way of the world. Greater and greater specialties emerge. And, our modern success is to specialize ourselves, get the monetary rewards of specializing, and then pay others to do other specialized tasks for us. This brings us to marketing. Is marketing a viable do-it-yourself option. The answer is yes, and no. Like anything else, you most likely have the intelligence to learn it and do it by yourself. However, the question is whether you have the 5000 hours to establish competency in the task. This is an estimate by academicians on how much repeated exposure our mind needs on one task before we fully internalize it.

I remember my first years in Internet Marketing and SEO, and it was amazing how much time I wasted going off in the wrong direction. The learning curve was steep. I felt like I was constantly hit by new optimization elements that I had previously not known about. Just when I thought I understood keywords I was hit with long-tail keywords. I was once happy identifying a couple main keywords per website. Now I create spreadsheets with thousands of keywords. I once saw each site as having a given set of keywords. Now I work on each page’s keywords as separate, yet interrelated.

Early on in SEO I was happy simply having a visible sitemap. Now I realize the greater value of an invisible XML sitemap. If you are a do-it-yourself SEO type you can add that to your list of things to know. SEO is intricate, and I would never recommend that anyone entrust the success of their business to their part-time marketing attempts. We in the business have a hard time keeping on top of the industry. We are constantly testing our sites, comparing our results to other ones, setting up controlled experiments, and then getting together with our online professional community to share notes. We are endlessly engaged in education. Not one day goes by without us learning new things that make our activities more efficient.  How can a DIYSEO type have any chance to compete?

It was once that a programmer was an all-in-one website maker. He would write the code, design the site (remember those horrible days?!), and would write the meta-tags. Then the split happened between the website programmer and the web designer. All became so pretty, but so ineffective for marketing. The heydays of that movement was when everyone ran off to build Flash sites that were all show and no go (in the SEO sense). These beautiful sites were slow loading (then), and didn’t show in search engine results.

Then the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) speciality arouse. This came into being because people realized that these sites weren’t just show pieces for existing customers, but rather were opportunities to get new customers through what we now call “traffic.” SEO is all about traffic. However, as sites got traffic, they realized that without getting conversions from the traffic, that the traffic was worthless. So, then we got attention on conversion rate optimization. This was when we awoke to the need to have a wider sphere of Internet Marketing that could coordinate all of these existing, and newly emerging, specialities, into one cohesive campaign.

So, view your Internet Marketing guy as something akin to your general practitioner (in Medicine). Let him check out your health, give you some advice, get you heading in the right direction to health and wholeness, and when necessary, he’ll send you out to the specialist that you need.

To connect with my last post that began this discussion, as for the world of interior design, the do-it-yourself attitude has similar results. My parent’s house was completed designed by Nate Berkus, of Oprah fame. The results are stunning. We even usurped his power in the lighting arena, and hired a lighting consultant, who usually does high end restaurants and five star hotels, to create an optimal lighting landscape. The results are impeccable. Everyone walks into our home and it all just looks and feels right. We NEVER could have done that ourselves.  Do-it-yourself has its place, but there is always a price related to it.

Moral of the story: think carefully about what you can do yourself, and don’t let your inner cowboy surface just as a way to avoid paying a specialist. Specialists are often much cheaper than mistakes and missed opportunities.

In Google Places we were able to find a couple local interior designers, although there was not enough reviews on Places or any other site to get a feeling as to the quality of their offerings. We also searched specifically for Carrollton Interior Design firms, as well as for Villa Rica interior designers. What we found is that without using a very tight geographic search, such as with Google Places, that searchers revealed national results. Although the wealthiest among us could justify bringing in an interior designer from New York or Chicago, for most of us it is not a cost-effective, or even necessary, option.

We looked into traffic numbers on keywords related to the topic, and found interesting patterns. Of course, the term “interior designer” had a huge amount of national traffic. And, locally we even found a good amount of traffic for Atlanta interior designer and Atlanta interior designs. But, there was almost no traffic on state-wide searches, such as Georgia interior designs.

So what is a local interior design firm to do? They would have no chance of getting to the top of nationwide search results, and people aren’t searching for them in such great numbers locally. What strategy to implement?

We spoke with a West Georgia interior designer to hear her approach to marketing.   She is Karen Hartley, based in Villa Rica. She told us what we have heard from many business owners, that her advertising and marketing dollars have slowly shifted over the years from the old printed mediums to the new digital mediums. And that in the transition there has been an absence of solid support and guidance on how to put her time, energy, and monies to good use.

An SEO professional would help her to approach her situation with the widest possible view. Without much thought on our parts, two simple solutions for her and other local businesses would be implementing an online content creation campaign with a huge base of long-tail keywords, and engaging locally via social media. To be done right, both would best be guided by a professional.

SEO is one of those fields, like interior design, where many novices think that they can apply some do-it-yourself energy and get results as good as a professional. It all looks so simple on the surface, and no one has ever officially declared it a skill that takes advance education or competency. There are no board examines for either field. When we look at the online presence of local interior designers, amongst others, it is crystal clear in our professional eyes that the do-it-yourself energy is impeding these firms from meeting their sales goals.  Stay tuned for an article on do-it-yourself SEO, or DIYSEO, and how it is as effective as do-it-yourself surgery.

Blogging keeps websites fresh in the eyes of search engines and site visitors.  Social media keeps one visible in the community.  These are the modern day equivalents of keeping a storefront bright and clean with an “open for business sign.”  Collectively we know that websites and Internet presences are a huge and growing part of procuring new clients, customers, and sales.   It might be our hard-wiring, but we tend to feel like networking in person is a more productive use of our time than networking online through social media.  In person it feels more real, as the feedback is instant.  Online networking doesn’t provide such instant feedback.  You talk into a computer with your fingers, and no eyes or ears are on you.  You say something now, and no one responds until tomorrow, or next week, or possibly never.  Typing can feel like a lonely, isolating, unproductive process.  The only exception is for those with such huge Internet followings that the response is constant and strong.

There are several solutions to help make the whole blogging and social media process easier for you and your staff:

1)  If you are the one who is fully responsible for these tasks, then place your blogging and social media responsibilities on your calendar.   Give yourself 20 minutes at the end of your work day to blog about what was alive and meaningful for you that day.  Write every Friday morning at 9am.  Or, engage with social media Monday and Wednesday mornings at 9am, and blog on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.   Make it regular, and hold yourself accountable.  You might even find that you can set your writings to milestones.  For example, every time I launch a new website I could write about it and the process of creation.

2) If you have a peer who can help hold you accountable, ask them to do so.   After you make a post send them the link.  Ask them to read it, and give you private and public feedback.  This helps keep the posts at a high level of quality, and it gives it some authority in the eyes of search engines that someone is reading and commenting on what you are writing.   Plus, you will know that you need to deliver as someone is awaiting your final product.  As one Psychology researcher and professor once shared with me, “fear is a great motivator.”  Make your commitment to others, and then your fear of failure will help you deliver results.  If you keep your commitment private, no one will know if you fail, and you can easily overlook the failure yourself.

3) Ask your team for support.  Even small organizations can make great progress online by sharing the responsibilities.  For your team member who loves Facebook, assign her social media duty.   She might even find joy in those social media connections- including Facebook pages, Twitter tweets, and LinkedIn networking-  that you’d otherwise have to push yourself into engaging with.  Ask colleagues to guest write on the company blog.  A team of five whom write just once per month each, yields a weekly blog post for the company.  Schedule it, suggest some themes, and send a friendly reminder if the posts are not submitted on time.  Once structured and managed, it can be a fun part of the whole process of work!  And, customers and other visitors to your site will appreciate the multiple voices and perspectives.

The more you discuss the inner workings of your business, the more the world will understand your expertise.  I can tell you that I am an expert in making croissants and you’ll just hear that on the surface.  However when I describe the challenges of making the perfect croissant in my blog and discuss the many types of wheat flour- that you have likely never heard of- couple with my experience of how finely ground they need to be to make the optimal batter, you will quickly realize how much you don’t know about the topic and how much I do know.

4) For those who simply don’t want to be bothered with blogging and social media, we have a team member who is happy to do the writing, posting, and engaging for you.   She is a social butterfly and an intelligent thinker, and she can masterfully weave marketing, public relations, and networking into one complete package for you.

You have invested in your business and in your website.  Now you need to fuel it with blogging and social media energy.  The more fuel in your tank, the further you can drive.

End note: we are still busy working on our State of Search report for West Georgia businesses, when we have time between working on our client’s Internet presence.  We still expect to publish it in April, 2011.

Spanish speaking Americans search in English and in Spanish, likely switching between the two depending upon what they search for.  Although we have yet to read a reports on the subject, it wouldn’t be  a surprise if they search for culture-specific things- like their ethnic grocery stores, holiday or church information, and concerts- in Spanish.

English is likely the language they would choose to use when looking to buy a new car, get local news, and access their local government’s resources.

Hoteles en Chicago

One a recent keyword search for our client, Carlton Inn Midway hotel in Chicago, we found these interesting results:

These are results within the United States.  What this Google-provided information tells us is that just as many people are searching for Hoteles en Chicago, Hoteles Chicago, and Hotel en Chicago, as in their English versions, like Chicago hotels.  Each of these keywords receives approximately 550,000 searches per month.

Interestingly while we were researching this topic a new client of ours, a Dialysis Center in Chicago for which we are now creating a new Internet presence, contacted us about a different topic.  We shared the above keyword results with him, and he requested that we look into Spanish search in his industry.   We will share with you this short and simple process.

Spanish Relevancy for your Business

Start at the online application Google Translate.  Type in your main keyword, and set the tool to convert from English to Spanish.  We chose to type in: Dialysis Center.

The translation is Centro de Diálisis.   Then open up Google Adword’s Keyword Tool.  And, type this keyword into the keyword box.  Make sure the advanced settings are set to the U.S. and Spanish language, before you push the Search button.

Google kindly offers us similar keywords, so we know which ones to target with an SEO campaign.  This is always helpful, but is especially so when we are dealing with a language that we don’t have fluency in.  Here we can see the search traffic per equivalent keyword is 3600-9900 searches per month, or about 50,000 searches total per month of Spanish speakers in the U.S. looking for Dialysis Centers.

Dialysis Centers get less Spanish searches, than Chicago hotels, as a percent of total searches.  Reasons for this discrepancy could include the number of Spanish speaking travelers in America that are more likely to search for hotels than dialysis centers, the lower average age of Spanish speakers vs English speakers, and thus their greater likelihood of being healthy, and, the propensity of Spanish speaking communities to follow the advice of their primary care physicians versus doing independent research on medical issues.

Given the infrequency of Dialysis patients looking for new Dialysis Centers- most patients tend to find the best one closest to their home and stick with it for years- that is a huge amount of search traffic.  For this client, we would refine the search by focusing on Chicago Dialysis Center, and the Spanish equivalent Centro de Diálisis en Chicago.  This would help us see the size of the Spanish search market, and would help us determine the potential ROI for developing a Spanish website or Spanish translation of the existing site.  Another option would be simply adding the keywords to a small “Spanish-friendly” text box.

Final thought: if you want to begin to track your keywords, you can use the “download” button on the Google Adwords page.  This will allow you to save an Excel file to your computer, and better plan your optimization efforts.

(We will include Spanish search in our State of Search for West Georgia report.  Therefore, we will most likely blog about our research while in process.  Check back, or subscribe to our RSS feed or email, to stay informed of the latest research findings).

]]> http://www.kennethlewis.com/2011/seo-para-espanoles/feed/ 0 http://www.kennethlewis.com/2011/state-of-search-for-carroll-county-west-georgia/ http://www.kennethlewis.com/2011/state-of-search-for-carroll-county-west-georgia/#comments Thu, 03 Feb 2011 01:56:11 +0000 Ken Lewis http://www.kennethlewis.com/?p=1597 Are our local businesses showing up well in the search engines?

As an long-standing Internet Marketing team who just recently banded together to form a proper Internet Marketing firm (press release), we decided that one of our first steps would be researching the current State of Search of our local businesses in the major “search engines,” including Google and Bing.  We have decided to make our research public, as we know it will inform and educate, and thus it will benefit businesses and organizations throughout Carroll County.  We will post our findings  here as we go along.  Eventually, we will provide a meta-analysis in one easy-to-read document, and we will distribute it free of cost.

West Georgia is blessed with its small-town comforts, and located so close to Atlanta’s big city opportunities.  However, as our national and international economies shift into the digital age, West Georgia has been a few steps behind the pace of technological change.  While our businesses are creating websites, big city businesses are using advanced Search Engine Optimization campaigns to bring their sites to the top of the search results and to get more conversions, which yields increased revenue and profitability.

We invite you to see the landscape of Carroll County Internet Marketing through the eyes of our expert staff.  We sincerely hope that our findings will benefit you, and motivate you, to make the commitment to upping your game, and making your online presence stellar.  Individually it will make you more prosperous.  Collectively, it will help our create jobs, expand our tax base, and bring back the carefree days of a healthier economy.

Our Process

We analyzed top ten categories for advertised listings in the local phone book, and then began the process of studying their online presence.  The intention here is to see which businesses most advertised in the traditional environment of the phone book and how they are adapting to the Internet age.  We will count-down from the 10th to the 1st most heavily advertised local business category.

This process does not examine the best strategies to optimize these businesses’ online presence.  That type of analysis is reserved for clients.  Instead, this simply shows you how these businesses are doing in their online efforts.  It is their “State of Search” today, not a game-plan for them to implement.  We’ve intentionally not mentioned the businesses that we see need the most help, as it could be embarrassing for them to be singled-out.  Finally, we are wordy.  We apologize for that.  We want to provide good stuff for the community to chew on, and accept that we will lose many reader’s attention because of our verbosity.

The 10th most advertised industry: Auto Dealers

While the presence of auto dealers bottoms out the top 10 in the phone book’s advertising, it does dominate many other advertising venues like the newspaper and the Internet.  In fact, the average auto consumer does online research before he or she engages with any sales people.  People use the Internet to determine which make and model to pursue, and where to make the purchase.  Therefore, automotive websites influence the spending of billions of dollars every year.

Searching for car dealers in Carrollton, Georgia

Let’s first look at a Google search for “car dealer.”  Although this is a really broad search, and doesn’t include whether the searcher seeks a new or used car, nor which car make the searcher desires, it is still a good starting point.

We’ll begin with the anatomy of the search result page:

The first three results on the page, with the pinkish background color, are advertisements through Google Adwords.   They are for used Mercedes in Atlanta, a general Ford website that shows you the nearest dealers to you, and the site for CarMax used vehicle dealers.

Of these three advertised sites, the Ford one is the only one directing traffic to a Carroll County, Georgia business- to Pugmire Ford.   It also informs the visitor as to the Ford Dealers in Bremen and in Villa Rica, as well as in Newnan. While Ford is doing it’s job of making it’s dealers visible, this site also is providing Carrollton shoppers with the knowledge of other Ford dealers to price shop at, without having to drive too far.  This is a mixed bag for the dealer, but good for consumers and the manufacturer.

In addition to those top three results,  all of the results on the right column are the paid results.  That means that the advertiser pays Google every time someone clicks on their ad.

The “natural”, or “”organic results, are the ones starting, in this case, with the “News for car dealer.”  Here Google decided that it was relevant to put news articles in front of the other listings.

Under the three news articles on “car dealer” is the website for national used car dealer CarMax. Although they happen to have a location not too far from Carrollton, in Lithia Springs, they are the number one position for the same search anywhere in the country, including in Hawaii where there is no CarMax.

The next listing is for autotrader.  It is a site that offers a plethora of information on the car buying process, including new car dealer and used cars listings.  They have used cars posted in Carrollton, but would be primarily driving Carroll County eyes to Lithia Springs, Atlanta, Norcross, and beyond.

Google Places

The results continue with “Places for car dealer near Carrollton, GA.”   “Places” is a “company directory” listing on Google.  It typically includes the company name, address, and phone number.  The company can claim the page and add useful information to the listing including adding their website’s url, email, images, hours, and other relevant information.  This is all free.  This page also has reviews on this business from around the web (Google lifts these from other sites) and offers reviews from Google users.  It makes great sense to claim and optimize your page with keyword-rich text and images with proper alt attributes (a basic service that any Internet Marketer could provide, and which is included in all of our packages).

“Places” includes reviews.  Reviews are a tricky subject to approach.   The Internet is full of reviews that either destroy a businesses reputation because of one or a few customer’s poor experiences (or unreasonable expectations), and it is full of reviews that are written anonymously by the business itself that toots its own horn. If you read a review making a used car dealer sound as inviting as a destination spa, it might be a review to take with a grain of salt.  Likewise, if the review claims that the cars are embedded with evil, again think twice before accepting such claims.   As a practice, we  get our clients real reviews from their most appreciative customers.  This sets the proper, authentic tone.  Without an adequate base of reviews, all you need is one person in a bad mood to make your whole business look like a treacherous enterprise.

You can click on “Places for car dealer near Carrollton, GA” to get the full results of all local dealers. That would be a great place to start a car search, as it provides a bird’s eye view to the local landscape.

The first listing is for Walker Cadillac Pontiac Buick. The business added their website link, which gives them traffic, without any expense. In fact, the top 5 dealerships have their website url (domain name) connected to their listing.  The next 5, however, don’t.  With all of the Internet searching for cars these days, these dealers are doing themselves a disservice by not getting searchers into their inventory online.   Endless sites are trying to buy these searcher’s traffic, and it is available for free to anyone who positions his/her site correctly.

Going back to the search above (two images up), nothing else on the first page of results is related to Carrollton.  The rest of the results are national or international websites.

Searching with the words “Carrollton, Georgia”

Next thing to look at is how dealers show up in searches that include the words Carrollton, Georgia. These searches will deliver very different results.  It looks like “Places,” but it is not.

This next search is for “carrollton georgia car dealers.”  Gone are the ads on top of the search listings.  And, instead of the news and the CarMax and AutoTrader results at the top, we’ve got local from the beginning.

Interestingly, the first position does not match the first position of the Places page.  This time it goes to a used card dealer on Bankhead Hwy.  Walker is listed in the number two position.  Another used dealer on Bankhead is in the third slot, followed by Scott Evans at four and Mike Bell at five.

Why are Walker and Mike Bell not at the top?

That question is at the heart of Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.  The art of SEO is bringing a client’s site up higher in search results.  Google uses advanced, secret algorithms to determine the positioning of websites.  Google does its best to determine what is the best result for the searcher, not for the businesses that are vying for traffic.  Your SEO is your advocate.   We have your interests in mind, and get you the position that you deserve.   Search Engine Marketing brings your site to the top of Google and Bing, and gives yours sales team more opportunities to close deals.  Google doesn’t care about your site ranking high or low, creating many sales or no sales.

If you want to see some of the major factors involved in creating a winning SEO campaign, feel free to visit our Internet Marketing Plans-Pricing page.   Here you can see the long list of the category of activities that we do to make a site rise to the top of the results. All SEO firms have their own version of this list.  One’s success at implementing these activities intelligently and skillfully is what makes for search engine dominance.   Just as all surgeons, lawyers, and accountants, are not equally qualified, talented, and skillful, the same applies to Internet Marketers.  Find one whom you trust, and treat them as the team-mate that they are.   Together, great work is done.

Carrollton dealers are not showing online outside of Carrollton

Finally, we look at the position of Carrollton auto dealers outside of Carrollton.  We’ll ran searches as if we were actual users  in Villa Rica, Douglasville, and Atlanta.

From Villa Rica, when we searched for car dealers there was no mention of any Carrollton dealers on the first pages.  If we went to Google Places, we could find the first Carrollton dealer at position 15.  From Douglasville, no dealer showed up in any of the first 100 listings.   Same from Atlanta.   This shows us that Carrollton dealers aren’t seeing much traffic from outside the county.  But, most of us have the experience of leaving the county at some point to purchase a vehicle.  This shows the potential is there for trans-geo traffic.   It just needs visibility, and compelling sites.

Let’s create another search scenario.  Searcher is in Douglasville, and they are looking for a “ford dealer.” No results show for Carrollton’s Ford dealer in the main Google results.  If the user is savvy, the next clicks  is onto the map image to see the ford dealers mapped out across the region.  Here is the map: the origin of the search is Douglasville and it is marked with the star, and the map is marked with letters for the Ford dealers in order of relevancy in Google’s algorithmic eyes.  The dealers are also listed in this same order on the side of the map, so it is important to be at the top of the alphabet.

You can see that A is in Lithia Springs, B is in Villa Rica, and C in Dallas. These make sense given their proximity to Douglasville.  But from there things fall out of place.

Dallas’ second Ford dealer list as I. Why not D? And, why does D belong to a dealer in Marietta which is much further away?

And, most important for this survey on West Georgia’s State of Search, why is Carrollton’s Pugmire listed as Q?  Q means that its placement on the page is 17 positions down.  It means that Google finds that the 30 minute (24 mile) ride from Douglasville to Carrollton for a Ford as less worthy of recommendation then the 51 minute (42 mile) ride to the Ford dealer in Alpharetta (listed as N, or position 14).   Why is Google sending its users on a 51 minute ride instead of a 30 minute ride?   The question doesn’t need to be answered (although when we run tests we can see why in the metrics).  The question that does need to be answered is: how much would all of this additional business be worth to your business?  An industry, like the auto industry, can realize a really high ROI on Internet Marketing.

It would help Carroll County to change this situation

Two obvious benefits of increasing the online presences of local auto dealers is that more local people would buy their vehicles within  Carroll County, and that the Carroll County car dealers would sell more cars to people residing outside the county.  Both ways would help our local employment, expand our tax base, and get more dollars circulating in our communities.

From the individual dealer’s side, he who acts most swiftly and most skillfully will gain a competitive edge.  More people turn to the Internet these days for their major purchases than to the traditional outlets of printed media.  The Internet is the go-to place for consumer information.  A newspaper “buy now” sales ad can catch the eye of many.  But, most shoppers turn to the Internet before they make any major purchases.  If you are not on-top of your Internet Marketing game, then you are missing out on a huge stream of business.  Consumers come on many levels, and a business is best off if it speaks to each type of consumer in their own language.

It is easy to change this situation: the “third wave”

The first wave of people who made websites for businesses were programmers.   We needed their geeky, technical minds to write the code necessary to make a website work.  That was the 1990s.  As website creation became easier, which was heavily influenced by the DreamWeaver web creation software, more artistic types began to make websites for businesses.  This was 2000-2006.   These sites were much more beautiful to look at, and were full of beautiful colors, images, and moving objects.

We are now in the third wave of this online movement.  The third wave utilizes programmers and designers, yet does not let them make the decisions.  The third wave is the wave of the practical, numbers-driven Internet Marketers.  Third wave Internet Marketers create a total online presence using every available tool.  We create sites that are optimized for the search engines.  And, we do what it takes to drive traffic to the site.  We make the site popular in the eyes of the search engines, so that they appear at the top of search results.  And, craft the content of the site to create sales funnels.  We use the Internet to create a second sales floor for our clients.  And, we deliver the results of greater exposure, more traffic, more conversions, increased revenues, and new levels of profitability. Third wave Internet Marketing includes all the wonders of Web 2.0: social media, social bookmarking, videos, and anything else that is light, fast, web-based, and personalizable.

Anywhere, including small-town Georgia, SEO delivers high ROIs.   Contact us if you’d like to enhance your revenues by dramatically expanding traffic to your site.  We’d be happy to assess your site and give you feedback and options.

Next on our list, the State of Search for Plumbers in West Georgia.  We use to find them in the phone book.  We all need them at times.  How are they doing in their online presence?  Are they easy to find?  Who is succeeding, and why?  That is to be covered in our next post.