Integrity Marketing

Another Estate Planning Website on Google Page One

We're getting a little giddy over here about our website optimization (SEO) results. You might recall that we recently finished a project to optimize estate planning attorney Jerry Reif's website for local search. Jerry's site had a complete overhaul, including a new domain name. However, we wisely kept his old domain name as well, at least in part because Google's search algorithm gives greater weight to domains that have been on the internet longer. This makes sense as they try to weed out the fly-by-nights and upstarts.

 

I believe it has been less than a month, perhaps three weeks, since we published Jerry's newly-optimized estate planning website. We had nowhere to go but "up" with his site, as it previously did not show up at all on local searches for a Saginaw Michigan Estate Planning Attorney.

 

We checked today and Jerry's optimized site is now listed on Google's page one for the local search. It is the older domain (www.legaladvizor.com) that made it to page one first, but you will find the same site replicated at both www.legaladvizor.com and the new domain: www.jerryreiflawyer.com

 

Check it out for yourself. Go to Google and type in Saginaw Michigan Estate Planning Attorney, or just click the direct link: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Saginaw+Michigan+Estate+Planning+Attorney&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g3

 

Also note that Jerry's site appears near the top of the page on the local business map.

 

Remember that if your website does not appear on the first page of a local search, you are missing out on 70 to 80 percent of all search traffic. If your website is not driving new traffic to your office, the most likely cause is that people searching for you in your local market simply cannot find you.

 

If you'd like to know how your website ranks, or how to make it rank higher, call James at 1-877-352-2021 and ask for a free SEO Analysis.

Looking Under the Hood Of Your Estate Planning Website

We have started the process of updating & optimizing Kyle Krull's estate planning website. Like many of you, Kyle's site was designed several years ago, back when most people still used the Yellow Pages to conduct a local search. Times have changed, and it's time for Kyle's website to change, too.

 

Last week we outlined the questions to consider before optimizing an estate planning or elder law website. Those questions covered topics like content area, keywords and localization. As we began the process, Kyle naturally started taking a keen interest in learning more about websites, SEO, blogs, online video and optimization. Whereas previously most of these were just terms that he casually ignored, Kyle seems now to be on a mission of self-education.

 

This is good. It is part of the process. If we start to work on your website, you quite likely will do the same thing. And this is one of the first things you (and Kyle) will notice: many of the websites that you think are just beautiful, that you even think we should perhaps emulate in your website optimization process ... a GREAT many of those websites totally suck. There, I said it. They just plain suck.

 

When we evaluate a website in terms of effectiveness, we have to consider more than just the beauty of the site, more than the "bells and whistles." We have to look at the technical coding of the site and how it ranks with the major search engines for keywords and phrases, in your local area.

 

Hence, optimization becomes a delicate balancing act between pleasing design and effective coding. Much of the optimization process does go on in the "background" of the site, in the hard-coding that no one but web crawlers, spiders and web geeks (like us) ever sees. Take a look "under the hood" of many "beautiful" sites and you find sloppy or even clue-less coding. Run some analytics and we frequently find these "beautiful" sites are not ranking among even the top 100 websites for key searches. In other words, they are not "working."

 

It's like owning a sleek Corvette with no engine, or with an engine that isn't connected to anything. It looks pretty and shiney in the driveway, but it's not going to take you anywhere!

 

By the same token, the really hard-working websites, the ones that deliver results, may not be nearly as pretty or flashy. They shouldn't be ugly or amateurish, that's not what I'm saying. It is a balancing act. We need to include lots of copy, we need to exclude extraneous code, we need to minimize features that take a long time to download or eat up bandwidth, we need to follow certain mathematical protocols that are defined by the search engine algorithms. Hey, we don't make up the rules, we just learn to play by them!

 

Over the weekend, Kyle learned that one of his favorite websites is not optimized -- at all. We dissected the site and discovered that the pages were named with titles like "home," "contact us," "howitworks" and "stories." These kinds of page titles clearly do nothing for search engine ranking. We further found that key meta tags were either empty or non-existent, such as the tags for the page descriptions and keywords! On one of the pages, we even found a tell-tale sign of amateur design: the meta tag for the page description read "insert your page description here" !

 

We ran a few quick analytics, and the site did not show up within the first 10 pages of Google, MSN or Yahoo! After ten pages, we quit looking.

 

Whether your website is a beauty or an ugly duckling, if you want to take a look "under the hood" and find out how well it's working, call James at 1-877-352-2021, ext. 0. He can show you have to lift the latch and see for yourself.

Out with the Old!

Here was Kyle's old web banner:

After getting the go-ahead from Kyle, we had a new banner designed and approved within 24-hours. The new banner will be incorporated into Kyle's website, his e-newsletter, his hard-copy client newsletter, and to his law firm brochures. It now serves as the "anchor" for all his integrated marketing materials:

Questions to Answer Before Optimizing an Estate Planning Website

We are FINALLY getting started with the update / redesign /optimization process for Kyle Krull's website. Kyle is a full-time estate planning attorney in Overland Park, and the president of Integrity Marketing Solutions. His site, as we explained yesterday, was originally designed several years ago before iPhone, Facebook, Twitter, and the ubiquitous nature of Google search. But, as we worked diligently updating client websites, Kyle's kept falling to the back of the line. Well, we can no longer ignore Kyle's site. He needs an updated website and internet marketing strategy for his law practice as badly as everyone else!

 

Soooo ... we are getting started with the website optimization process for Kyle Krull's estate planning law firm. Here are some of the questions Kyle needed to answer before we could begin (Kyle's basic answers are in blue):

 

1. What content areas do we need to include on your site? Estate planning, obviously -- but to include estate administration, probate, and an estate tax calculator as well? There is an additional fee for the calculator, but calculators are very popular to drive traffic, so we recommend adding that. What about asset protection, business law and business succession, elder law, charitable planning, advanced strategies? Any other areas of law, such as real estate, family law, etc? Estate Planning, estate administration, probate and the estate tax calculator, plus business law and business sucession, elder law, charitable planning

 

2. Local Search -- what local areas do you want to target for optimization? We need to narrow it down to one primary city and state, then we can expand to others that would be secondary. Overland Park, KS, Leawood, Kansas City, Olathe, Prairie Village, Johnson County, Kansas, Missouri

 

3. Social Media -- Do you want us to set up your Twitter account, Facebook page, and your blog account? Then, do you want us to integrate those three so that postings to one show up on the others? Would you like to have your posts published on your website? Yes

 

4. Conversion & Follow Up -- What strategies do you want to implement to capture leads on your website? Shall we include an e-newsletter and an online subscription form? What about workshop schedules and registration forms? Do you have any other materials you would want to offer for download? We'll use an enewsletter and on-site subscription form

 

5. Is there anything else we haven't covered that you particularly want or need on your site? (There may be additional fees to incorporate these "other" items, but now is the best time to do it) Keep the link to my profile on Martindale.com, and keep the estate organizer download

 

6. Finally -- what about the overall design? Do you have any specific ideas about color scheme, layout, logos, etc? I really trust you guys to come up with something great for me -- but I would like to keep the "blue" in the color scheme because I have boxes and boxes of navy blue presentation folders, embossed with gold and I'd like for everything to continue to coordinate.

 

No problem! We can easily accomplish everything on Kyle's list, including keepin his "blue" color scheme in an updated, modern design. We know those presentation folders are spendy, so we sure don't want to make them obsolete! AND -- it's a great idea to make sure that all of your marketing materials present a cohesive, integrated and professional image.

 

Kyle's new banner was designed and approved within 24 hours. We will now incorporate that new design into his printed newsletter, his e-newsletter, his website, all of his brochures and his Twitter, Facebook and blog accounts. Terrific!

 

Stay tuned ... there's a LOT more to come!

Diary of a Website Optimization

You have heard the expression, "the cobbler's children have no shoes." Well, this would aptly describe the current situation with Kyle Krull's website. Kyle is a full-time practicing estate planning attorney in prestigious Overland Park, KS, and president of Integrity Marketing Solutions. His website, while very effective at doing the job for which it was designed, has become outdated. Unfortunately, as our workload on website updating and optimization has heated up, Kyle's website has languished.

 

Like many attorneys, Kyle's site was designed several years ago, before iPhones, Facebook, or Twitter even existed. The main purpose of his site was to reassure those who had met him through personal networking or direct marketing, to educate and inform them, and basically to prepare them for their initial consultation. Kyle's site has performed very well at that task. His site consistently ranks among the highest in terms of "visibility" with Martindale-Hubbel, he is always within the top few in his market for click-throughs to review his M-H profile. But, his site is not (yet) optimized for local search, does not (yet) incorporate social media, and does not (yet) drive new traffic to his office.

 

However, there is a rainbow here! We have STARTED the updating and optimizing process, and we invite you to join us on the journey! We will be recounting and documenting the process here. For starters, you may want to take a look at Kyle's site as it exists today: www.kekpa.com

 

Tune in for the transformation process and eventually the Big Reveal.

 

Next we will outline the process we went through to get Kyle started on the road Optimization.

 

P.S. -- If you think it might be time to revamp, update and optimize your website, call James for a free SEO Analysis: 1-877-352-2021, ext. 0. He will show you exactly what to look for, how your site currently ranks, and how it could be improved!