Lawyers: All Ranking Reports Are Lies
If your marketing agency tells you that your legal practice now ranks #1 for “divorce lawyer in Austin, TX,” should you believe them?
No, and here’s why.
Technically speaking, all ranking reports are lies. What does that mean? It means that results vary from user to user depending on things like stored cookies, search history, and search phrases. Keep reading to find out how these factors can affect your real ranking.
Search Engines Personalize Results
Major search engines like Google and Bing customize results for each user based on past interests. These services track a user’s search history and clicks related to each search to make more accurate suggestions in future searches.
So your marketing agency searches for the keywords you purchased to see where you rank for terms such as “estate planning attorney in New Jersey.” But they get results personalized on the basis of their prior searches. If you have worked with this agency for any length of time, your site will rank higher in results when your agency searches for that term than when a prospective client searches for it.
Your marketing agency may use best practices and generate ranking reports from a clean computer where they regularly clear caches, delete cookies, and clear browser history. In that case, the ranking report will be more accurate. But it’s quite likely that your agency account manager searches your keywords on their laptop at home after dinner while browsing Amazon or listening to podcasts.
Keywords and Key Phrases Can Vary Between Prospective Clients
Search terms vary between users. What keywords do you want to rank highly for? “Divorce lawyer near me”? “Orlando patent attorney”? “Workers comp law firm in Seattle”?
If your content only ever uses the word “attorney,” how often do you miss out on ranking for users searching the term “lawyer” or “law firm”? While you may want to purchase digital ad content for a certain keyword, don’t forget that ranking highly for similar keywords is also important to growing your brand.
How Do You Really Track Your Ranking Data?
So if all ranking reports are lies, how do you track your internet ranking? Not surprisingly, you gauge your success by the same measure you’d use for any other form of advertising: your results.
Are you getting good leads? Do your prospective clients know what areas of law you practice? Do you have a full caseload?
If your phone still isn’t ringing, or if you get calls for legal services outside your practice area, you need to reassess your online marketing strategy. What keyword strategies are you using, and how can you fix your website content, keyword advertising, and social media pages to rank for the keywords you want?
Contact Us at La Grande Marketing for Help Ranking at the Top of Page One on Google
At La Grande Marketing, we provide comprehensive digital marketing strategies for law firms. We integrate services that include website design, search engine optimization (SEO), keyword advertising, social media marketing, and more to get real results for our clients. Contact us to learn what we could do for you.