Google is doing an increasingly good job of reaching out to agencies through its Google Engage Program. Recently, Skunkworks was even assigned an agency representative to assist us with our clients’ campaigns. We really appreciate this new point of contact for two reasons 1) Google suffers from a Wizard of Oz corporate structure where it can be unclear that there are actual humans existing behind the corporate veil and 2) our agency rep has already been quite helpful.
Although we enjoyed speaking with a living, breathing, member of Google’s team, it was one of our rep’s recommendations that triggered a flurry of campaign adjustments as well as this post. Specifically, Google recommends that AdWords users create separate campaigns for mobile devices. Whereas previously we might have had one campaign servicing mobile devices, laptops, computers, and tablets, we now have created separate campaigns that specifically target high-end smartphones. (While we already had separate campaigns for the display network, we had yet to split our AdWords campaigns by device.)
Benefits of Splitting an AdWords Campaign By Device
The benefits of splitting a campaign are numerous. Not only can we adapt the language and extensions included in our ads to more effectively target the mobile market segment, but we can also easily customize our bidding strategy to more efficiently target mobile customers. The latter benefit is important in the management of a mobile AdWords campaign, as Google’s search results are not the same across devices.
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Posted in Agency News, Google, SEM/SEO | Add a Comment »
The Economics of Online Ads
How much does it cost to run an ad for your law firm in The New York Times?
This question elicits a spectrum of responses. Most people that I query guess that an ad-buy in one of the most circulated and respected newspapers would cost – at the very least – thousands of dollars. We are, after all, living in an era of Super Bowl advertising. However, after crunching the numbers, we can tell you that the cost for 440 impressions (the number of times your ad appears) on the nytimes.com website is a shocking $1.63.
We were able to achieve these results by accessing the Google Display Network. Display advertising allows companies to place ads on any website that is a part of the Google Display Network. While websites like the nytimes.com or theglobeandmail.com tend to sell their own ad space, they often use Google’s Display Network to fill gaps.
Thus far, we’ve had tremendous success placing banner ads for our law firm clients – commonly accumulating hundreds of thousands of ad impressions per week. Initially, we focused our efforts on placing ads on websites belonging to local BC news publications such as the Georgia Straight or The Tyee. However, we quickly realized that we could extend our clients reach and branding capabilities by targeting international newspapers like The New York Times and The Guardian.
This new strategy of targeting behemoth publications is where the phenomenal capabilities of the Google Display network become clear. Within only a few weeks of adding The New York Times to one of our client’s list of managed placements, this client received 440 impressions from the popular website.
New York Times – West Vancouver Edition
It’s important to note that these impressions are not being wasted on surly cab drivers in Queens or heiresses in the Upper East Side, as the Google Display network is able to tell where the people reading a particular website are located. In short, the ads that we ran for our client on The New York Times’ website are seen by individuals living and working in Vancouver and the surrounding region. The ads can be geo-targeted at a very granular level (including by neighborhood).
Social Media Banner Ads
While we can register even more ad impressions through social media, we have found that social channels have not been as effective for law firms in terms of ad placements. We do recommend that firms maintain a visible presence on social media, but that ad revenues be allocated elsewhere.
No Magic Bullet
Although the cost of the nytimes.com ads appears to be very low, these costs are based entirely on impressions. These ads did not generate any traffic from the New York Times to our clients websites. Costs rise on a pay-per-click basis as soon as traffic flows in greater quantities. In addition, the quality of traffic that we’ve seen through the Display Network has been far lower quality than through the Search Network. Visitors spend less time on the client’s site and tend to bounce away more often than not. The Display Network is not a marketing end unto itself. It requires parallel traffic through conventional means (whether a search campaign or through referral networks).
Conclusion
Although 440 impressions is a relatively small number when compared to the impressions that our clients accumulate on local websites (where the ad-buys are less competitive), it is very valuable to know that we can tie our clients’ brands to some of the most storied and esteemed publications in the Western World. We are very excited to see that the Google Display Network is living up to its potential.
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Earlier today, Doug Jasinski and I gave a presentation on the topic of content marketing for law firms. The event was organized by Brian Mauch and his team at BMC Networks. Many thanks to BMC for the invite.
Content marketing is a fairly vast space and the presentation flew through some of the trends, platforms, and economics that have made “content” the hot topic in the marketing world. While law firms may adopt each emerging online platform, adoption itself does not answer the content question: “How can our firm find the time to produce high quality, timely, and relevant content?”
The demand for quality content relevant to the legal industry is one of the top requests from our clients. Considering that many lawyers lack the time to develop their own content, outsourced options are being considered. However, finding outsourced providers who can be trusted with nuanced practice-specific legal matters can be challenging.
For today’s presentation, we put together a Prezi that I have embedded below. While it lacks our witty banter and explanatory narrative, it does offer an overview of the topics covered.
Tags: linkedin
Posted in Agency News, Digital Marketing, Google, Law, Law firm websites, Marketing Strategy, Outsourcing, Technology | Add a Comment »
Skunkworks regularly hears from lawyers and law firms looking for search engine optimization (SEO) services. Typically, the request is articulated as some form of “I want to be first on Google.” Our clients clearly understand that a solid SEO plan can yield large dividends by placing their website higher in the organic search rankings. They are aware that better visibility means more traffic and more traffic means bigger profits
Search engine optimization tactics usually fall into two camps: white hat SEO strategies (endorsed by the major search engines) and black hat SEO strategies (actively opposed by the major search engines). This post describes why the legal community should only consider white hat methods.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.
The issue that many corporations interested in SEO face is that white hat strategies, though effective over the long term, take time to implement and require the development of high quality content, the nurturing of meaningful social media contacts, and good website design. Conversely, black hat SEO tactics offer a quick pay-off and require little more than your credit card number.
At Skunkworks we pursue white hat tactics on behalf of our clients. This is motivated not only by our belief that these methods create a better search experience for users, but also by the numerous corporate horror stories that have resulted from engaging in black hat SEO. For instance, just last year Google caught JC Penney using black hat tactics that included link farming (the placing of links to JC Penney on less than reliable websites) and punished them by manually dropping their page rank. There’s also the story of Vitaly Borker who harassed his customers with the hope that they would post negative reviews to various websites. While his strategy of “All News is Good News” was undeniably effective, he was subsequently arrested for fraud.
We believe that it is not in the best interest of legal professionals to be caught engaging in practices that could jeopardize their brand and their professional reputation. Furthermore, as Google’s search algorithm becomes increasingly sophisticated, the efficacy of pursuing black hat tactics will inevitably wax and wane. More and more companies will be at risk of facing the negative consequences of black hat SEO without ever reaping the benefits. In many ways, a bet on black hat SEO is a bet against the intelligence of the engineers at Google.
Unfortunately, many Canadian law firms appearing prominently on organic search results owe their visibility to black hat methods. Although it is likely that these law firms are not completely aware of the strategies being used by the companies they hire, there is a definite lack of due diligence.
I discovered the less than honorable SEO tactics of a few select law firms the other day when I decided to do some research on the inbound links of the most popular personal injury websites in Toronto. My goal was to better understand the factors that were affecting their page ranking. I use opensiteexplorer when performing tasks of this type and highly recommend this software for any company interested in reviewing the quality of their inbound links or the links of their competitors.
The sad fact is that some of the highest-ranking personal injury websites were engaging in the exact same link scheme that landed JC Penney in hot water. I found links placed on hundreds of websites that were only marginally connected to the practice of law and some instances of links being placed on websites that were completely irrelevant and featured shockingly poor content. One law firm had an inbound link coming from the comments section of a celebrity gossip blog and another had the majority of their links coming from websites that look like this.
It’s important to remember that effective SEO - like so many things in life – requires time, effort, and money. Black hat SEO is not unlike injecting your firm’s marketing strategy with steroids. It may work today, but the long term consequences will not be pretty.
Posted in Digital Marketing, Google, Law firm websites, Marketing Strategy, Microsoft, SEM/SEO, Sustainability | Add a Comment »
I’m a strong believer in alternative licensing mechanisms for digital works. In particular, I try to use material licensed under Creative Commons wherever possible. Full Disclosure: I volunteered and worked for Creative Commons organizations in the UK and Canada during my formative legal years. Without wading into the legal details of Creative Commons licenses, I’ve come to appreciate a much more pragmatic use: Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
CC Attribution Licence
All Creative Commons licenses require Attribution as a minimal requirement. This means that if you use someone’s work (whether audio, video, text, or images), you’ll need to credit them. Typically, this means something to the effect of “Photo credit to JeremyHL, Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike Canada 2.5.” If you’re using the work online, you’ll then add a link to the license terms. As part of attributing the work, you should also include a link back to the author wherever possible.
Through these link-backs, you’re being compensated for your work. Depending on your sources of income, high organic search rankings may prove much more lucrative than trying to license your work commercially. We often consult on SEO strategies. One such strategy is to create something of value (pretty/useful/clever/functional) and license it under Creative Commons.
Tags: linkedin
Posted in Digital Marketing, Google, Marketing Strategy, SEM/SEO | Add a Comment »
