Law Firm Internet Marketing - Get Into Your Prospects" Heads With the Right Keywords
In other articles, in my books, and constantly in my blog, I harp over the necessity of performing keyword research before you do anything.
Generally, my reasoning is based on one of the core principles of search engine marketing, which is that you should optimize and promote your web site for specific keywords.
What those keywords are will be uncovered in your keyword research and will be based on data rather than speculation.
However, there is another reason for doing keyword research, and that is to match the reasoning, or thinking patterns, of the people who read your web pages.
By matching their language, you will put your readers into a receptive mindset for receiving your marketing message.
We'll use a hypothetical example to get our point across.
Let's say you operate a law firm in Houston, and your main area of practice is personal injury.
You do some research and compile the following data related to keyword search volume for your market: Houston personal injury attorney: 12 estimated monthly searches Houston injury lawyer: 89 estimated monthly searches Houston Texas injury attorney: 29 estimated monthly searches Houston accident attorney: 17 estimated monthly searches Houston accident lawyer: 61 estimated monthly searches Houston personal injury lawyer: 19 estimated monthly searches Again, this is completely hypothetical data.
Our purpose is only to show how you might go about analyzing this situation.
Competition aside, the top two keywords from the above list are "Houston injury lawyer" and "Houston accident lawyer.
" A couple of observations that are apparent are: 1.
that your target market prefers the word "lawyer" to "attorney;" and 2.
that your target market does not make heavy use of the words "personal injury.
" So by emphasizing the words "Houston injury lawyer" and "Houston accident lawyer," you are writing in a way that best matches the thinking of your prospects.
And, of course, you also optimize your site for the best keywords by default; the keywords that will draw the most traffic to your site if you rank for them.
There is another variable that plays into the equation, which is the amount of competition for each keyword.
In our law firm example above, there is probably not going to be a significant enough competition differential between keywords to affect our decision.
This is because the example illustrates geographically-targeted keywords, which will be less competitive than more generic or geographically broad keywords.
There is also a difference in how carefully you should scrutinize keywords for use on your main web pages as compared to your blog.
If you publish a regularly updated blog, you will need to create so much content that you can cover lots more keywords over time.
However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't do keyword research for your blogs.
You should.
Getting people to your web site is only half of the Internet marketing equation.
Once you get them there, you still have to convince them to take some kind of action.
By using the words that are most often searched for in your industry, you will put your visitors into a more receptive mindset and improve your chances of getting a conversion.
Generally, my reasoning is based on one of the core principles of search engine marketing, which is that you should optimize and promote your web site for specific keywords.
What those keywords are will be uncovered in your keyword research and will be based on data rather than speculation.
However, there is another reason for doing keyword research, and that is to match the reasoning, or thinking patterns, of the people who read your web pages.
By matching their language, you will put your readers into a receptive mindset for receiving your marketing message.
We'll use a hypothetical example to get our point across.
Let's say you operate a law firm in Houston, and your main area of practice is personal injury.
You do some research and compile the following data related to keyword search volume for your market: Houston personal injury attorney: 12 estimated monthly searches Houston injury lawyer: 89 estimated monthly searches Houston Texas injury attorney: 29 estimated monthly searches Houston accident attorney: 17 estimated monthly searches Houston accident lawyer: 61 estimated monthly searches Houston personal injury lawyer: 19 estimated monthly searches Again, this is completely hypothetical data.
Our purpose is only to show how you might go about analyzing this situation.
Competition aside, the top two keywords from the above list are "Houston injury lawyer" and "Houston accident lawyer.
" A couple of observations that are apparent are: 1.
that your target market prefers the word "lawyer" to "attorney;" and 2.
that your target market does not make heavy use of the words "personal injury.
" So by emphasizing the words "Houston injury lawyer" and "Houston accident lawyer," you are writing in a way that best matches the thinking of your prospects.
And, of course, you also optimize your site for the best keywords by default; the keywords that will draw the most traffic to your site if you rank for them.
There is another variable that plays into the equation, which is the amount of competition for each keyword.
In our law firm example above, there is probably not going to be a significant enough competition differential between keywords to affect our decision.
This is because the example illustrates geographically-targeted keywords, which will be less competitive than more generic or geographically broad keywords.
There is also a difference in how carefully you should scrutinize keywords for use on your main web pages as compared to your blog.
If you publish a regularly updated blog, you will need to create so much content that you can cover lots more keywords over time.
However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't do keyword research for your blogs.
You should.
Getting people to your web site is only half of the Internet marketing equation.
Once you get them there, you still have to convince them to take some kind of action.
By using the words that are most often searched for in your industry, you will put your visitors into a more receptive mindset and improve your chances of getting a conversion.
