Integrity Marketing

My Blog Should Be Doing What …Where??

“Where should I be sharing my estate planning blog?”

So you have this amazing blog, and you post to it every day. That is wonderful! Blogging every day is a big deal to us at IMS. It increases your website’s total number of pages, which increases your Google Rank and general searchability.  

However, you can give your blog a major boost by making sure it shows up on other websites, like Social Media! Your blog posts should automatically share to these three places …

1. Facebook Page or Profile
2. LinkedIn Profile Page / Public Feed
3. Twitter

What does sharing to these places do for my marketing?

• Blog will show up once in a friends feed; establishes awareness of your brand.
• Shows the search engines you are serious about this content; provides Inbound Links (helps SEO).
• Encourages likes, clicks, or shares from friends; they count as “votes” in the eye of search engines.

Automatic sharing makes it easy for you and saves you time out of your day. Integrity Marketing has discovered a great tool called www.IFTTT.com. This is a great site to check out if your blogs are not already sharing automatically to these three websites.

If you need help, contact your Account Manager (dana@estateplanningpartners.com) today!

Five “Acceptable” Ways to Build Inbound Links to Your Website

When it comes to SEO, Integrity Marketing has got your back; however, there is only so much we can do when it comes to managing your website’s “inbound linking.” I’m sure you have heard the term before …it’s a BIG word in SEO and can really improve your website ranking when used properly.

Inbound links are links on other websites or blogs that point to your website or blog. Yellow Page listings, Google Listings, local online directories, other websites, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are all examples of websites that can provide “inbound linking” perks.

Building great inbound links is hard work, but not that hard. A lot of “black hat” techniques and spamming has come about in the pursuit of gaining inbound links. Follow this guide, and you’ll gain reputable links from high quality websites in no time.

1.  Partner with companies in your industry.

You should have some sort of “resources” page on your website. If you have a business acquaintance, friend, or family member in a local business in their city, contact them and ask if you can “swap" links. They will link to your website, and you will link to their website via your resources page.

2. Maintain a steady blog.

Offering helpful and useful content will allow others to link to your content as a reference. ALSO, if you find a great estate planning blog, don’t be afraid to use it as a reference for your own blog. Leave a comment on their blog letting them know you have linked to them. They might one day return the favor. 

3. Leverage Social Media.

Every blog going to your Twitter profile counts as an inbound link. So does each blog post on Facebook and LinkedIn. Take the next step and share pages from your website weekly on all your social media platforms.

4. Ask for Feedback!

Don’t be afraid to verbally ask clients to mention you on Facebook or Twitter. If they just post your website link to their Social Media page and write a short mention, this will be FANTASTIC.

5.  Require “Check-in’s” for workshops and events.

Ok, they don’t need to be required – but when you are at a speaking engagement, make sure you have your attendees “check-in” to your business. You can even create Check-in Deals and offer incentives for checking in, such as coffee, snacks, 30 min consultations, etc.

Here are more tips on inbound linking!

What Your Estate Planning Law Firm Must Do to Win at SEO

By Dana Alley, Personal Account Manager
SEO Specialist

There are two aspects to your estate planning website S.E.O. There is the professional aspect (what IMS provides) and the consumer side (what YOU provide).

We do a lot of behind-the-scenes editing and formatting to help your organic search traffic, but that is only about 60 percent of the power of SEO. The rest comes from your own online involvement. When you boil it down, it’s actually not that much of a shocker… Google’s goal is to provide the best, most accurate, most updated, most improved, most human results possible. Therefore, human involvement on your part is a MUST. Coding, text, and website Meta data can only go so far. It’s meant to supplement what really matters – human activity. Google puts a lot of stock in blogging, social media activity, content and articles, and reviews.

What Your Law Firm Can Do

Get involved with...

Content Creation. Write reports, articles, blogs, stories etc. Post them to your website, blog, and social media site.

Social Media. Blog daily, post status updates, share popular and relative articles. Communicate with your follows! Respond to Likes and Shares (example: Becky, thank you for liking this post!)

Relationship Building. Take part in the community, and talk about it on your website, blog, and social media platforms.

Reviews. Ask clients (old and new) to leave a review on your Google places.

More information about each of these points can be found in my past blogs. If you have any questions, or wish to receive additional coaching, please email dana @ estate planning partners . com (without the spaces).  

And – be sure to attend our Fast Track workshop March 13-15 for hands-on training and Instant Implementation!

Educational Template Videos Can Improve Your Google Rank

by Michael Campbell,
Videographer

Maybe you’ve heard about our Educational Template Videos (ETVs), but you still aren’t sure about how they work or what they do. These education videos can be used in so many different ways, but what I'm most happy about is the instant gratification clients get with this investment.

Typically a website that is started from scratch and done right with a blog and fresh content may take up to three months to rank on Google's page one local key search terms like "Hanover MA Estate Planning Attorney." An educational video hosted on the appropriate page of your website almost instantly boosts your website's credibility with Google. Not only does the video rank well, but the website will rank well and, depending upon your local market competition, frequently ranks well within a matter of days instead of months.

I am very proud of these videos and the way they have performed for our clients. They definitely are a quick-payback marketing investment. Here are some search terms I suggest you type into Google so you can see for yourself ...

"Hanover MA Estate Planning Attorney" Pat Kelleher is our client in this area. His ETV shows up on page one.

"Little Rock AR Estate Planning Attorney" Wayne Ball is our client in this area. His educational video is on page one.

"Dallas TX Estate Planning Attorney" ... This is a huge market, with lots of competition, so it's quite an accomplishment to get on Google's page one. You will see Richard Johnson's ETV on page one here.

We offer a lot more topics than just the Estate Planning ETV. I used the key word searches above as examples because they are some of the most competitive terms on Google. Just to show you our versatility, I suggest you also do searches for these terms:

"Quincy MA Business Succession" Paul Tierney is our client in this area.

"Murrieta CA Asset Protection" Carey Pickford is our client in this area.

"Orlando FL Special Needs Planning" Linda Solash-Reed is our client in this area.

"Omaha NE Long Term Care Attorney" Rod Halstead is our client in this area.

The list goes on and on. Many of these clients I've listed are on page one for multiple search terms in their local market. Some of them have recorded voice-overs themselves, and others have used IMS President Kyle Krull's voice-over because they simply could not come into the office and record their own voice. Both approaches have worked wonderfully.

If you have more questions about this marketing concept and how it could be used to market your firm, then I urge you to contact James at 877-352-2021 x.0.

Learn more about our Educational Template Videos by viewing the video below.

 

Estate Planning Marketing and High-Impact Video

By Michael Campbell,
Videographer

Some of you may remember when your family's first television was delivered, maybe even the first one on your block (my mom says she remembers, but I'm not supposed to tell anyone!). Obviously, the video-viewing experience has changed dramatically since those first days with Uncle Miltie!

Well, the video viewing experience continues to change, driven today by the internet and mobile internet. Mobile devices are becoming an all-in-one experience, forcing the cable TV industry to adjust to the many options viewers now have.

NPR recently covered this topic, suggesting that we're witnessing a cultural change in the viewing experience. Families no longer gather in the living to watch one program on a big screen. Now everyone is watching their own thing, on their own device in their own little world.

http://kcur.org/post/so-many-screens-and-so-little-time-watch

So how does this effect your estate planning marketing? 

The point is that to be effective with video you no longer have to buy expensive television air time to reach your target audience(s). You represent a niche market, so when people actually start to look for estate planning or elder law services you need to be positioned to accommodate their search in every way.

The rise of the smartphone, the tablet computer, Netflix and other on-demand services has changed the screen/viewer relationship forever.  -- NPR Oct. 21, 2012

Video is one of the most effective ways for you to commuicate compelling messages about estate planning and elder law. Combine video with local search, mobile search and social media -- and you have a powerful marketing strategy!

If you make social media a priority, and start growing your "likes" and "friends" you could have a more effective viewing audience than your local tv station could ever provide. If you are blogging on a regular basis about estate planning, you are becoming a credible source to all who see your posts on their news feeds. If you share a video (that is done right), people will watch it.

What better way to educate your audience than with video? What better audience to share that video with than one that you've built of family, friends, past and current clients?

Even more importantly, video gives you a huge competitive advantage on Google, and even more so for for mobile search. While a mobile-optimized site is an important foundation, video works so well for mobile search that you really cannot afford to be without it. 

If integrating high-quality, targeted video into your online marketing seems overwhelming, don't despair. We offer one-stop service, and we do it every day. In fact, here's a great video of one of our clients, Lizette Sundvick, discussing her experience shooting video with us.

What Gets Measured Gets Done!

It's 3:30 in the afternoon and I have only logged a measly 2,542 steps.Which means I have 7,458 to go to reach my daily goal of 10,000. Which means I'm going to have to get a "move on" to make it.

By this time yesterday, I had already logged nearly 12,000 steps.

Of course, yesterday looked a LOT different. Yesterday started out with a 2-mile run, followed by a 20-minute walk. 7,000 steps before 10 a.m.

Today, on the other hand, is a Monday. I stumbled out of bed, poured some coffee, showered and dressed then hopped in the car and drove into the office ... where I fired up my computer and sat down ... and have been sitting ever since.

Not much different than the 100 Monday work days before.

Except ...

Except today I am wearing a little gadget called a fitbit, which tracks my steps. Think of it as a pedometer on steroids. Because of fitbit, I now KNOW that I am sedentary (as in, not "stepping") for more than 8 hours most days; that I typically fall woefully short of the recommended 10,000 daily steps for good health; and that I can change all of this with approximately an hour's worth of exercise daily.

As a result, I took 72,459 steps last week, exceeding my weekly goal by four percent. I climbed 88 flights of stairs and traveled a self-propelled 31.27 miles!

Sadly, however, when I stepped on the scale this morning, I still had not achieved my goal weight.

Now -- you may be snickering at that comment, since we all know that one week of good behavior does not undo the damage of years of a sedentary lifestyle. No one REALLY expects to lose a pound a day, or 25 lbs in a week (unless you're on reality TV). Intellectually, we all know that it takes TIME to lose weight, lower your blood pressure, and reap the other good health benefits of a healthy lifestyle. The most important thing is that I am now tracking my diet and exercise in real, measurable ways that impact my behavior.

So it is with The Essential Solution®. We track every aspect of your Essential marketing system and deliver a monthly performance report, full of valuable feedback. We track things like number of blog postings, your website's rank on Google, unique visitors, and email distribution. We know that by watching these (and more) statistics, we can accurately predict results, even before they materialize.

Just as I know that increasing my activity level while decreasing my caloric intake WILL result in weight loss ... even when the scale refuses to budge.

The trick is to focus on the behaviors that lead to success. Measuring those behaviors is proven to be one of the most effective ways of changing them; as the adage goes: "What gets measured gets done."

Don't let yourself fall into a panic if your results are not as rapid or astounding as you had hoped. Watch the numbers, keep doing the right things right and you will achieve success.

As for me, I'm going to shut down my computer, lace up my running shoes, and get started on those 7,458 steps!

Google Semantic Search

Posted by Roslyn Drotar, Strategic Planning / Personal Account Manager
INTEGRITY MARKETING SOLUTIONS

Google’s up to it again!  Changing things to keep us on our toes.  They've made an announcement that within the next few months, they'll be implementing “semantic search” into their algorithms.  What is semantic search?  According to an article in The Wall Street Journal:

“Semantic search refers to the process of understanding the actual meaning of words that people type into a Web-search box. That would enable the search engine to differentiate between the car brand 'Jaguar' and the animal 'jaguar' on a Web page that it may want to provide a link to in search results.”

Rumor has it that Google began branching into semantic search to keep up with Apple’s semantic helper Siri.  And they’re hoping to keep people on their search engine site and compete with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for internet minutes.    

So what does all this mean for your SEO?  Well, while Google search results are reported to change drastically the things that drive SEO (URL structure, META tags, content, links) will remain the same.  Google says they aren’t going to be replacing that.  They will only be adding one thing, the human element, and try to understand the meaning of the words.   

This could be a good thing.  It could help make your SEO more powerful . Our Essential Solution clients have sites rich in content.  And so is their  blog content.  That’s the organic search results that you see in your Marketing Reports.   So not only are we using traditional SEO practice to optimize your site, it’s also content rich, not just keyword rich.

We will continue to keep our eye on Google search, algorithms and SEO over the next couple of months and learn as much as we can about their roll out of semantic search.  And we will strive to do our absolute best to keep up and monitor SEO changes.  And we will figure out what needs to be done to execute an effective SEO strategy.

Social Media Cheat Sheet

Posted by, Roslyn Drotar, Strategic Planning / Personal Account Manager
INTEGRITY MARKETING SOLUTIONS

The professional legal community is expanding more and more into online marketing and engaging in social media.  To give insight to some of the different social media platforms, along with their pros and cons, I wanted to share a cheat sheet I came across from Flowtown.  Unfortunately it's general and doesn’t include Linked In for professional marketers, which is crucial, so I included my own Pros and Cons.

The top three medias include Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.  If you're an Essentials Solution client, your Twitter and Facebook are integrated into your online marketing program (as well as the valuable Linked In).  And as you also know we offer video and YouTube integration with custom channels. Your also (hopefully) know how successful video + YouTube is for those clients who utilize these services.  Make sure you check out our latest blog from James Campbell about video blogging.

The Pros and Cons:

Twitter:  A microblogging service that enables users to send text based posts.  Pros – ability to provide clients with valuable information about your knowledge and the services you provide.  Cons – Must provide valuable content (no spam).  Has a large follower drop off.

Facebook:  The largest social network.  Pros – Great for brand exposure and customer relations.  Cons – Not SEO friendly (however, Google Plus is so stay tuned for more information from us about Google Plus).

You Tube:  A video sharing website most popular for user generated content, video clips and video blogging.  Pros – Google loves (and owns) YouTube. A properly optimized video is the best way to reach Google's Page One in your market. YouTube also is the best venue to build your brand through video blogging and educational tutorials.  Cons – Traffic is difficult to redirect back to primary site.

I also included the following for Linked In:

Linked In:  The largest online professional services network.  Pros – Excellent for professional networking and generating referral relationships.  Cons – An outdated profile can be as bad as sending an outdated resume.  You need to consistently update your online profile.

Get familiar with the different lingo for each social media too (retweets, likes, views, sharing).

We can’t wait to talk to you all more about your online marketing at our Spring Workshop in March.  For the first time ever online marketing dollars are projected to beat the combined newspaper and magazine print ads.  We have a lot to share with you and hope you can make it there to get the latest and greatest and make 2012 your best year ever!

Your Perfect Blend of Blog Content

Posted by Roslyn Drotar, Personal Account Manager / Strategic Planning
INTEGRITY MARKETING SOLUTIONS

When it comes to your blog content there are so many complexities that we use to blend it and make it work for your Google ranking.   If fact, feel free to call us your blog content sommelier!  We’re trained and knowledgeable professionals that specialize in matching your content with your law practice.  Much like your sommelier matches your wine with your food. 

There are many factors we consider when coming up with the perfect blend.  We put thought into the text and the links contained within the text to help manipulate and increase your rankings.   When it comes to your links, it’s not necessarily that they are there and that the more you have the better your ranking.  Those links are more than that.  They can’t just lead anywhere.  It's anchor text that sends a very strong signal to the search engines but it needs to be precise wording and that’s more challenging than it appears.  For you to benefit from it, it must be “natural.”  Having natural links in your content is difficult and important to your search engine optimization.  They should also come from different domains as well as be diverse for the best benefit.  And did you know that link placement also is taken into consideration by Google and Bing?

All the text contained within your blog content is strategically placed as well.  The search engines are crawling along, evaluating your text as to whether its rank-worthy or not. 

So you're ranking well because of the variables and dynamic content.  So it’s not just that you're posting, but it’s also WHAT you're posting.  This content is also right in line with your branding and relevant to your practice area.  It’s why we constantly check in and bring it to your attention in your marketing reports.  We look at your blog and social media.

So much like a sommelier chooses the perfectly blended wine for your meal, Integrity Marketing Solutions chooses the perfectly blended blog content for your law practice!        

 

What Went Wrong at WebVisible?

WebVisible, a local search marketing firm, was shut down by its bank last month. According to an email circulated by CEO Ron Burr, the firm simply was overcome by its debt load, the bank foreclosed, and they shut down effective Dec. 27th.

Though Burr called it a "shock," few of those watching the company could hardly be surprised. The company has struggled, downsized, and re-focused management over the past two years.

According to their own blog, dated Oct. 17, 2011 -- just two months before foreclosure -- they served more than 100,000 customers in 14 countries. And yet, they apparently could not service their debt. Why? What went wrong?

There are plenty of financial pundits who will be more than ready to analyze the rise and fall of this pay-per-click advertising (aka search engine marketing) company. But from the pure common-sense observation of a professional marketer, it's not hard to see what went wrong.

WebVisible did not work for the customer.

At the end of the day, it's the CUSTOMER who pays the bills. Ignore customer success at your own peril. Oh, you can probably fake it for awhile with talented, smooth-talking sales and infusions of venture capital, but if your customers are not satisfied ... well, we have another saying here in the Midwest --  those chickens will eventually come home to roost.

The churn rate at WebVisible has been reported on blogs across the web to be as high as 300 percent. Now, I don't know if that number is even close to reality, but I do know a few things about search engine marketing, local search, and pay-per-click, so I would not be even mildly surprised to learn those numbers are accurate. Every day, we talk to clients who are coming off of an expensive PPC campaign. They are universally frustrated and disappointed, not to mention frequently broke.

Pay-per-click advertising works to drive traffic to a website. Period. It can be a reasonable adjunct to a comprehensive marketing plan, as long as costs are contained, the campaign is expertly crafted, and results meticulously tracked.

But PPC can be, and frequently is, a disaster for small businesses. Here's why:

• The cost to run a PPC campaign, especially through an agency that siphons off a big percentage (as much as 60 percent) of your budget to pay their fee, will likely eat up the entire marketing budget of most small businesses.
  
  
• It is not enough to merely deliver leads. Yes, an effective PPC will drive traffic to a website. But, if the entire budget is blown on driving traffic, what is left to build an effective website that actually converts that traffic to new business?  There simply is no point in driving traffic, at a cost per visitor, to a website that doesn't work.
  
  
• What about follow-up? The social media component or other relationship marketing to nurture leads into buying customers? The PPC campaign doesn't include a follow-up strategy, and seldom leaves any money in the budget to develop one.

When we talk about an integrated marketing approach, it's because in today's environment -- which is increasingly challenging for the small business enterprise -- integration is key to success. Marketing initiatives must be scaled to fit the tight budgets of small business and appropriately allocated to achieve a reasonable ROI within a reasonable timeframe. The budget simply cannot be blown on one initiative, no matter how flashy.

At the end of the day, flash does not matter.

Results matter.