In today’s episode we’re sharing a presentation from MaxLawCon 2020. Our originally scheduled MaxLawCon 2020 speaker Seth Price and Nalini Prasad presented LIVE to the Maximum Lawyer Guild community and today we share their discussion on SEO.
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Transcript: “SEO” with Seth Price and Nalini Prasad
Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.
Becca Eberhart
In today’s episode, we’re sharing a presentation from Max block con 2020 are originally scheduled and AXA con speakers, Seth price and Delaney Prasad, were live in the maximum lawyer guild community. Here’s the question and answer session on SEO. Let’s get to it.
Seth Price and Nalini Prasad
Yeah. So from blue shark digital sets, as you guys know, he’s also a member of The Guild, right? It’s kind of built his firm from two to 40, lawyers, DC, Maryland and Virginia. And so he kind of did a lot of that with with digital marketing, you know, said, Well, if I could do this for myself, probably help other firms across the country. And so blue shark digital was born, I’ve been on with blue shark since we became blue shark digital, and have kind of helped in all the different departments. I’m really passionate about learning about Google’s new updates. And so we kind of try to keep ahead of the curve with with the four fundamentals of technical content, link building local SEO, and we focus in legal specifically, did I miss anything there, so
Seth Price
that was about as good as it gets. And Max law has been sort of our home and community, you know, not only were we able to build price, better words, but I feel like this has been the place where we can test ideas, get feedback from people. And as well as I’ve really enjoyed the guild process on Monday and Friday mornings, getting sort of virtual accountability has been awesome, and thankful to be here today.
Becca Eberhart
That’s perfect. All right. So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna hop into a few questions that we’ve had from before starting this, but there’s a few people watching us live right now, if you guys have any questions or anything comes up while we’re talking, just drop it in the comments in the group and then I will ask those to Stefan Malini. So first we have Tyson asked how does GMB affect SEO and vice versa?
Seth Price
The irony is that GMB doesn’t affect the SEO, the SEO is what allows your Google My Business. So your Google My Business is the interface that we all have for our businesses to give Google all this information. Google wants us to spend as much time on Google products as possible, we see that with flights, we see it with hotel reservations. And we’re now seeing it with law where if that you could put your videos and your pictures and all these things, the SEO, the fun that we have that Malini died, we Gatto, what brings us joy, is using SEO using links and all the SEO signals to take your Google My Business and put it into the three pack. That’s the key. So SEO itself is the art of the four fundamentals that Lillian just talked about, of getting you higher up in the search rankings for organic. But then, if we do if we work our magic, and we are able to get local signals as well, we can then get the Google My Business ranked in that all important three pack which actually comes before the organic for many searches. And that is the sort of one two punch that we love.
Seth Price and Nalini Prasad
And I also always like to use kind of the conditional formatting and go back to LSAT, right? So not everything that you do for local SEO is going to help you with organic but everything that you do for organic can help you with local, right, it’s it’s a one to one reference, oh, we’re talking to lawyers, right? So but it’s a one way arrow basically. So your foundation, you always want to focus on that organic, the four fundamentals that Seth was mentioning there.
Becca Eberhart
Awesome. All right. From Jacob, for a saturated market, would you recommend law longtail focused on pre need prospects with retargeting or focus words like such an such lawyer city or a combination?
Seth Price
You know, it’s a very difficult question. If you’re in a truly there’s two people who say it’s saturated and like it’s not that saturated. So that’s the first thing. But if you’re sort of trying to do Pei in Tampa expanded market on digitally, really, really tough. And the answer is there is no great magical answer. First, I figure out is there a niche Can you niche down and find essentially long term keywords that will monetize for you? But I liked the idea that you could go and use retargeting that that’s that’s a very powerful thing. The question is, how do you find media that gets you to clicks in the first place at an affordable price? And that, I think is either looking to seek a new niche. For example, if you’re in a hyper competitive market, and you’d be the become the king of dog bites or slip and falls or something, you can very often differentiate yourself from all the people going for car accidents. But there’s not an easy magic fairy dust formula. It’s competitive, the cost of clicks are going to be very high. I think that the retargeting point is you better do everything you can to monetize whatever clicks and contacts you get, rather than just in a less competitive market. You might be like, Okay, well, I’ll follow up with most things, you really need to squeeze everything you can out of that orange and the competitive market. Because if you don’t, you’re just you’re not going to find the ROI.
Seth Price and Nalini Prasad
And on the specific no to a lot of the times when we talk about retargeting, sometimes that can be done really cheap. You know, if you’re going to put a little pixel on your website, if somebody has visited one of your pages, because they are researching, let’s say, you’re, you’re not pi. And it’s not that someone already has an injury and is looking for you right now to actually convert but hey, I might be getting a divorce in a couple months and looking into this right? If I come to your website, and then you just want to follow me on Facebook for the rest of the month. You can do a spend of what $500 A month set around that for for the Facebook another 500 for Yeah, I know it depends on where you’re on your traffic, right? So that’s not very high traffic. You’re looking at that but you know, there’s one thing to be said that it is very separate. When you’re talking about retargeting ads. There’s the Facebook retargeting ads, which when somebody visits they’ll see that on the side of their Facebook. But there’s also Google retargeting ads, which are a whole network of Google Sites. It’s only very specific sites. But if people go and visit those sites on Google, they may see your graphic ad as well on the side and that’s that’s another spent right
Seth Price
and I think you just got to be careful because if you’re in an area let’s say criminal defense and to a lesser extent PII, there’s a shelf life while yes, there could maybe maybe there was always back in the day, the the there was a big lot of people proselytize the drip campaigns, which is the today’s click funnel or the retargeting which can be done even more efficiently. But bottom line is, if there’s a short window on signing something up, and somebody has raised their hand said, Hey, I need help. It may be make you feel better to say yes, I’m going to try to squeeze that extra orange juice out of that orange. But if it’s a really criminal offense, where they’re going to sign up for somebody in the near future, waiting for a shock and awe package to come in the mail, my attitude is you want them signed up right away, which is one of the reasons I was talking to Tyson about, you know, our Intake Center price benefits is that you need to get people immediately, again, family law, trusts and estates much longer sales cycle that might have a better chance of working. But I’d be very cautious about putting eggs in a basket of retargeting in one of those areas where there’s a shorter sales cycle, like thinking, hey, it’s competitive, I’m going to do that. Yes, you should do it. But I’m less optimistic that you’re going to see positive ROI. Even with that, as the one two punch. I completely agree
Becca Eberhart
with that. Right. Jacob also asked, How do you keep SEO content readable by humans?
Seth Price
Great. Yeah. So like, I can give you a little history. When we started before millenia, which is hard to believe there was life before and aleni, we would write content that was crap. It was my very first website, if you want to DC criminal defense lawyer in Washington, DC after committing a crime in Washington, DC, then you need a criminal defense. It was nonsense. And basically, you’re keyword stuffing, you’re keeping your density as high as 5%. Today, that really isn’t needed. If you write great content, it will resonate. That said, I believe, even though in theory, Google knows what you’re talking about. I believe the keywords you want should be once per paragraph. It’s not needed. We’re beyond that. In theory, it’s not. But every time and I’ve had some mentors in the space, say, Hey, why is this page ranking, it’s like, Hey, you don’t even have the keyword once. So while you want it clean, so that it is readable, and it isn’t gobbly gook so to speak, I still believe that there needs to be a fundamental thought that once in each paragraph, you’re saying to Google, this is what I want to be found for, you can change the words up lawyer to attorney, you can change singular to plural, etc. But if you’re not giving Google that even as a discipline within your office, because you want to be saying, This is what the page is about, and that your title tags, your descriptions, everything is rowing in the same direction to say the Google bot, hey, this is where we are. Please show me for this.
Seth Price and Nalini Prasad
And the other thing you’re asking me that question, right is how do I keep the people engaged on my site? Right? How do I get them to actually be able to understand what I’m giving. And so it’s not just words, but think about if you’ve done a FAQ video making sure that that’s there something they can click and listen to right, making sure you transcribe those because those words are going to be more conversational. And then you can also add in these keywords that are really important that such as mentioned, putting in charts and tables, lots of those items that people can actually break up the content and be more engaged with. And as we go in to Google getting more sophisticated, they’re constantly coming up with all sorts of ways to tell the Google bot what those charts are, what those images are, and so it’s also feeding the bot more information about you and why you’re smart.
Becca Eberhart
Awesome. Next question is from Jay And he says, once I have my directory nap listings built out, should I focus more on local links or higher DEA links but without the local connection?
Seth Price
And I’d say, both Jay, we want both right, we definitely want the high domain authority links. We also love local links. If you had to choose you put a gun to your head, yes, you need the high domain authority links, national links, as you may refer to them, that’s what’s going to move the needle. So first and foremost, that’s what you want to fight for. That said, not all of us can get a link from CNN. So I think that depending on your budget, the market, you’re in the competitiveness, if you’re in a low competitive market, for a non PII search term, you may be able to use local links that are a lot easier to secure, and make that move the needle. But at the end of the day, if you’re able to get those high domain authority links, laying the groundwork, nothing better, that’s going to get you authority in the eyes of Google, Malini laid out the four pillars, this is one of them. Nothing better than getting those mack daddy links coming in. That said, whether you once you’ve gotten those or after you’ve exhausted those resources, if you don’t have the resources to go after them in the first place. Local links very valuable. That said they’re secondary, after the mack daddy high domain authority links.
Seth Price and Nalini Prasad
Yeah, that’s kind of full circle to the first question, right? Because you got to do one before you do the other. And I think the other thing is, if you have, you know, very limited resources, you only have an hour to figure out what you’re going to do. Think about your low hanging fruit to write Are you known in the community? Do you have a whole bunch of people that are willing to just link for you right away? Do you have a lot of press out there that can be on national publications? Think about what you have already offline. And that’s, that’s why you should prioritize?
Seth Price
We’ll talk about this a lot. But the first thing we do with new clients as loose, sharp because we triage what’s going on, we look at their existing content. But more than that, from the link point of view, we’re looking at what it what are the freebies? What are the associations, you remember? Where have you spoken? What are the things you charities already have you on the board that are listed? Basically, Google yourself, put your name in quotes, if you have a unique name, that’ll be easy. If it’s not, you might have to put some sort of modifier to your location. But do something to see what does the web know about your just put your name in quotes and go several pages deep, and find those places, and then make the ask there’s like when I started, we talked about this the other day, you know, I just sat there finding legal directories, you don’t need to do as much of that now with many of the third party companies that will that will place you on directories, but you still can Google your name, go 1012 pages deep 120 Different look places that you may have your name or your firm name, and then go make those asks, there’s nothing better than that. Because if you’re already in a place that the easiest low hanging fruit as Malini just said, again, I still want you on CNN if we can get it. But if you can’t get CNN, let’s find the places that are local, that love you. And something that we’ve been pushing a lot recently has been, hey, during this time, everybody looked at COVID Everybody’s looked at their expenses and where they’re spending money. You know, when you have that list, make an extra checkbox, can you get that company to put it at you to put an endorsement of them you love these companies are sent betting money month after month? Can you get an endorsement with a link back to you? It may not be the highest value link, but at least there is value to it. And it’s local, and it’s a start. So that’s the best answer I can give for that.
Becca Eberhart
Hey, guys, it’s Becca here. I’m sure you’ve heard Jim Tyson mentioned the guild on the podcast and in the Facebook group. That’s because we’re seeing some really exciting things happening with guild members and their businesses. The Guild is this perfect mix of a community group coaching and a mastermind. Inside you’ll gain support, tap into a network of connections, and continue learning a common theme among successful entrepreneurs. There are so many benefits inside the guild, including weekly live events and discounts to all maximum lawyer events, head over to maximum lawyer.com forward slash the guild to check out all of the benefits and watch a few testimonials from current members. Investing in a community is like the self care of business ownership. Being in a community with other people who get it is crucial when you’re creating a rock solid foundation to build your business on one that’s strong enough to withstand setbacks, transitions and growth. So head to maximum lawyer.com and click on the guild page to join us. Now let’s get back to the episode. All right, the next question is what is structured data and schema and why is it important?
Seth Price and Nalini Prasad
This is one of those four fundamentals and I like to say that it is the foundation of your home if you are building your website to build your presence to build your firm. You have to be able to communicate with the Googlebot what is on your website. You can have 1000 pages of the most beautifully written content. It can have all of the important things Automation. But at the end of the day, if the goal bot doesn’t understand what that information says, How is it related to other content on the website, then it’s not able to understand why you are organized and smart and able to have an answer for that searcher, right. So for example, if you have one page of content on car accident, and it can tell that there’s one page there, it’s able to identify, you only have one page of content, maybe you’re not the smartest person, if you have 13 pages of content about car accidents in a specific location. And it’s able to understand the structure, the actual outline of your website, because of the link that you the keywords you use in the pages like or the side menus, things like that, then it’s able to understand that compared to other people, other firms that are your competitors, you have more good content in them. So it’s all about just that behind the scenes coding that Google tells you, here’s what you need to put there. They actually spell it out for you. It’s not stuff that’s fun and sexy, but it is very important to the foundation of SEO.
Becca Eberhart
Awesome. All right. So that is it for the pre questions that we had. Is there anything else you guys can touch on? I was wondering too, maybe with the recent push of more people in more businesses online, has that changed anything that you guys are doing, you know, for clients,
Seth Price
it’s made it more essential to have to be there, the fact that more eyeballs are there for longer? I think we peaked already, whenever we was stuck inside there was, you know, we saw incredible traffic, you know, we hosted a webinar and 2000 lawyers appeared, the so I think that if anything is in strengthen the need and importance of online search. And that was fascinating. And we talked a lot about this, and Jay and I have talked about this on our webinar, is that we have seen a drop in referrals to the law firm, meaning that the web has become not that there’s more revenue, there’s definitely been a dip in revenue for most of the fee for service people. But and even less accidents out there. But that I believe what I have seen is that the referral business has dipped, making the web that much more important. So I think that if you were to do anything, obviously continue to push SEO, but doubling down on your Google My Business, making sure if hours have changed that you’re reflecting those. And that understanding that that is one of those places that it’s been a love hate relationship for years with Google. And the last few months have been infuriating with not a lot of customer support for Google, my business reviews weren’t showing, there’s still problem with reviews showing in certain instances, what I would I would say is, this is the time, you know, not that you shouldn’t have been dealing with digital before. But if you’re not dealing with it now, it’s just a missed opportunity because more and more eyeballs are there. And that things are changing rapidly. Google is doing a land grab and trying to get more and more eyeballs to Google My Business, making sure that you have a process to get posts up, making sure that your pictures are there video as possible. Making sure you’re curating reviews, all of those things really important, because if you do all the things we’ve talked about with the four fundamentals, then your your your likelihood of being in the three pack is that much greater. And to go back to sort of come full circle to Tyson’s first piece that those pieces combined with the traditional SEO components that are fundamentals will give you the best fighting chance at this time when there’s more eyeballs than ever looking online.
Seth Price and Nalini Prasad
I think some of the things that because there’s so many more eyeballs on the internet says mentioning right people have come out with new things that they’re doing. So they’re doing Facebook Live Events. I’ve seen more people come out with podcasts, but they’re actually focused on the visual and they’re focused on social, making sure that when you take the time to create that to storyboard and to come up with content for it, that you’re actually using that information and putting it on your website, or maybe even taking those recordings and putting it on a YouTube channel that you’re trying to establish. So taking all the content that is new right now, all this time, you’ve had to be creative and making sure that you’re optimizing that and using it in in as many places as possible, right. A lot of people are doing community events right now whether they’re helping first responders or or even, you know, health care workers, things like that. putting that out there. Just like Seth said, you can do these Google My Business posts. There’s a lot of attention on Google My Business right now, making sure to take that and put it in front of the audience that’s looking into you as a brand.
Becca Eberhart
Perfect. All right, I’m just gonna check the group. See if we have any more questions in there. The other thing?
Seth Price
Yeah, I was gonna say, regular in this in this Guild, and I know that sometimes. What’s your question? What’s your question? Those questions pop up at any given time as you can see, millenia. I live with geek out on this stuff. I’m on vacation. I’m sitting here talking about SEO because I love it so much. So my two cents is you know, keep it a conversation within the guild, the guild ism awesome opportunity. I’ve learned, you know, I’ve seen that people doing webinars. And we’ve now internalized that and brought that to a number of our practice groups make this a learning opportunity. There are a lot of threshold questions like what is this mean? We talk very often fast using different nomenclature. You know, we’re both on Facebook, our emails are both Seth and aleni. At blue shark digital.com. Feel free to make this a conversation because nothing helps. Nothing is better satisfaction. When somebody comes back to us, Hey, I did what you said, and my revenue was up X percent. So you know, keep it coming. And make sure that this is not a one way conversation but a dialog. And we’ve
Seth Price and Nalini Prasad
personally been getting, you know, questions from all sorts of these different webinars that we’re doing. And what we’ve done is taken some time to actually create little one pagers or think about the things that people care about the most and try to figure out how can we create resources? And in answers to this, because we’re answering the same question over and over, right. So I do have a number of those things that I can share that you know, that link to all of our guides that we’ve made in the recent past month and a half, lots of good stuff in terms of like how to find new offices, how to get your ABA rating up to a 10.0, just little things that you can be doing and that make a difference. So we’re happy to share that with everybody too. So
Seth Price
we’ve struggled with for years getting your Yelp reviews to stick. So yeah, again, it’s if you look at it as a game, and you sort of enjoy the ride, it’s a much more enjoyable process. And it’s a lot less daunting. There’s so much that each of us, including present company can do to move the needle, that if you’re willing to sort of each day just make an incremental dent in that, even if you don’t have the resources to hire an outside group, making sure that you’re thinking about, Hey, how can I add content to my site? How can I find links? You know, it’s not like there’s not like a link fairy. It’s just normal interface. We wish but then again, you’ll see a lot of says, Oh, do this for you know, in the next five minutes, and you’re gonna have 30 viable clients? No, it’s there’s a lot of Yeah, but they’re entertaining. But it’s fundamentals that work. And if you do the fundamentals over time, all of a sudden, you’re like, oh, shit, this has moved the needle. And I find that, that it’s paying your dues, and that if you do a little bit at a time, it’s a lot more manageable than sort of say, oh my god, I have all this to do
Seth Price and Nalini Prasad
stuff. play the long game.
