Hello Conscious followers! Russell Gregory here - recently joined the mighty Conscious team as Search Marketing Manager, overseeing all things SEO, Social Media & Search Marketing related for all of our lovely clients.
SEO isn’t dead. Automation is!
Gone are the days of buying in links in bulk. There have been a lot of horror stories of sites being penalized, blacklisted from Google and a severe drop in business due to poor quality, cheap and automated SEO techniques that have no doubt come from a rogue agency.
Avoid like the plague:
Guaranteed first page rankings! Number one in Google! 100 links a month for £5! Sound familiar? Yep, thought so. Automated sites and software are on the out, with networks like My Blog Guest are being penalised and blacklisted due to being outside of Google’s published guidelines.
Many of the clients we speak to, existing and prospective, have had bad experiences with shelling out a lot of their hard earned money to “Sam’s suave super slick SEO service” type agencies, seeing little and often no results. This makes my day-to-day conversations more difficult in having to justify investing in SEO.
It doesn’t happen over night:
SEO is a form of marketing and it doesn’t happen overnight. Google Adwords can work as more of a quick fix, yet having a well-rounded online marketing strategy will get the best results in the long term.
SEO is an ever-evolving industry with Google’s guidelines becoming more and more militant, so it is vital that any respectable agency keep up with these standards, educate their clients and focusing quality over quantity. Too much of one thing will do more harm than good, so avoid agencies and proposals that are lacking a good mix of SEO, Local SEO, Social Media and Online PR. Mix it up a bit!
Con or Content?
Content has to be one of the most important elements of Search Engine Optimisation. Thin, low quality and lacking content is one of the most common issues I come across on a weekly basis when discussing strategies with potential clients over the years.
It wasn’t that long ago that we could implement content on a site to grab the attention of the search engine, with over-stuffing keywords on the page via dull, un-engaging wording.
Relevance & Target Market - are the 2 elements to bear in mind. Target Market - you want to appeal to these people, so write the content for them to read, with information that will be beneficial for them.
Relevance - the content, site and general offering has to be relevant to what you’re aiming your site to be found for. (Extreme analogy alert) A Bristolian based flip-flop salesman can’t be optimised for “divorce lawyer London” as there is zero relevance.
Integrate Local SEO:
You’re sat at home all alone on a Saturday night, watching Bridget Jones and want to chow down on a feast. You reach for you iPad and Google “Pizza Delivery” (the loners food of choice) Hey Presto! you get localised results for pizza restaurants that are close to your home (or wherever it is you decide to be billy no mates)
This is because Google tracks your IP address and where you are, so us at Conscious being in Bristol, only see results for local restaurants - the same rule of thumb applies for law firms. Try it yourself - Google “Divorce Lawyer” and you’ll see the localised results, hopefully a map also.
My fellow geeks and I refer to this as “Local SEO” - an important factor in any search marketing campaign as the major search engines are making the search results ever more personal, which is what we all want.
Bang on the money for relevance also - you’re more likely to convert this “local” search into business due to the personable touch and being, well, local!
For additional information on how your law firm’s Search Marketing strategy is performing, get in touch with the Conscious team.