SEO: Sometimes it Takes a Hat Trick

Search engine optimization for estate planning and elder law firms is heating up. As more firms realize the value of a Page One listing on Google, they are working hard to get those listings. I've always said that SEO is a bit like a game of King of the Hill. There are only ten listings on Google's Page One. If you get one of them, you will get it by knocking someone else off. Once you're there, you have a big target on your back, too. Everyone else will be trying to knock you off.

The more competitive your market area, the more difficult it is to get those page one results from organic search. In competitive metro markets, absolutely every little detail has to be perfect in order to get ranked.

Here is a case-inpoint of an attorney whose on-site SEO coding looks perfect, but he's still not getting ranked in his competitive market. Let's call him Rex, and take a look at some of the problems / hurdles Rex is facing:

1. Rex seldom blogs. He has a nice blog site, but he only has a total of 24 blog posts. A quick check this morning showed his last blog posting dated Sept. 10, 2010.
   
   
2. No Newsletters. When I click on the "newsletter" link on his site, I see a smattering of links to outdated PDF files. There is no publication schedule, and no subscribe link. These are not "newsletters." They don't fit the definition of a newsletter -- which would have subscribers, a distribution process, and a publication frequency that is not "every now and then."
   
   
3. Unclaimed Google Places Listing. If I search very long and very hard, I can find Rex's Places Page on Google maps, but it is not owner verified. This is killing him,  because Google does not give him much "authority" for being real when his local listing has not been verified. Google's Places Directory (formerly called Local Business Directory) is extremely important to your LOCAL search success. First, you must claim your listing. Then, you must create your business profile PROPERLY. Doing it wrong can mean you still won't show up on that nice little map Google is showing for local search.

Now, let's talk about how these things impact Rex's SEO

1. Site Crawling -- Rex's site is not being crawled frequently because he does not add fresh content regularly. If you don't add fresh content to your site, and submit a new site map telling Google you did so, your website will not get crawled and re-indexed as often. Adding fresh content and submitting new site maps gets the site "looked at" more frequently by Google, and can boost your rank. (This is one reason why we put e-newsletters up for our Essentials clients every month, and index them on the site. When we do this, we add the content, and we make and submit a new sitemap. This helps a lot.)
   
   
2. Indexed Pages. This is where Rex is getting clobbered in his market. All things being equal, the more indexed pages you have on your website, the higher it will rank. Rex's website has 89 indexed pages -- this includes every page of his website and each page of his blog. The firm that is ranking #1 on Google's Page One in his market? They have 1,440 indexed pages! Most of them from the firm's blog! Rex cannot compete against them with 89 indexed pages. The most talented SEO wizard on earth cannot complete against them with 89 indexed pages. Don't whine about whether your Twitter account is connected to your Facebook Page, or whether you need to choose new key words. Until Rex gets more pages indexed on Google, his website is going to fall into oblivion in his competitive market.

So -- how do we get more indexed pages? There are several ways to do this, but here are two of the ways we solve this problem for our Essentials clients:

1. Properly Deployed eNewsletters. Essentials clients get a big boost every month with their e-newsletter program. Every month, we provide four new, optimized pages of content that reside right on the website. We update the index and archives pages. We also create and submit a new sitemap every month. This all works in the background, automatically and Rex need never worry about it.
   
   
2. Properly Deployed Blog -- If your blog is set up properly, posting to it every week day will add an average of 20 indexed pages to the website monthly. This may seem like a huge task, but we provide our Essentials clients with the content they need for daily weekday blogs. We even teach them, or someone on their staff, to pre-schedule these blogs, edit them for their own practice, and get them posted with a minimum amount of effort. Most of our Essentials clients spend about an hour a week on their blogs.
   

I have one more suggestion to help Rex leap-frog over the competition and land on Google's Page One quickly -- video.

We are having tremendous success with SEO-enabled video. We are able to break through to Google's Page One when we add optimized, indexed video to our client's websites. Rex's top competitor has more than 1,000 indexed pages, and he is so far behind in that race, that even our best efforts are unlikely to overtake the competition soon.

In this case, I suggest SEO-enabled video to even the score. Why? Because Rex's top competitor does not have a SINGLE indexed video on their site! Not one. If Rex deployed a strategic, properly seo-enabled video to his website, he could probably zoom right to page one. There are no guarantees here, but based on past experience, I strongly suspect that is the result he would get.

We have been getting these kinds of results -- and clients are now flying in to Kansas City for a one-day video shoot to get these done. Here is how it works -- client flies into MCI airport in the morning. We pick them up and take them to the Marriott next to the airport, where we have set up a video studio. We work with the client on the script ahead of time, and our videographers coach the client through the shoot. It takes approximately one to two hours -- depending on how many videos we shoot. Then, we take the client back to the airport and they fly home. If they can't catch a late flight, they can stay at the Marriott overnight and take the shuttle back to the airport.

Some people say they will find a local firm to shoot their video -- but so far, we have not seen this pan out. Most people just drop the ball and they never get it done. They say they will, but they just won't. They can book a flight, but they cannot research and find a videographer, negotiate fees, set an appointment, write a script, storyboard the video, follow-up to get the editing done and then send us the file. That is just too much for them. So, if they can book a round-trip flight, we will do the rest.

This is how I would approach Rex's website-in-oblivion dilemma. I would fix everything that's broken, get systems in place to optimize his Google indexing opportunities, and then I would try to pull a rabbit out of my hat with strategically deployed video.