One of the things I picked up from reading Greg’s blog was his desire to dominate the real estate market not in Phoenix, but in particular neighborhoods. Chris Gilgian’s, a 1950s development where I used to live, the Willo Historic District, and other neighborhoods in downtown Phoenix.
As a criminal lawyer, it’s a bit different because, at least in North Carolina, the court system is countywide, meaning that anyone arrested for a crime in Wake County will be handled at the same courthouse or go to the same jail, regardless of whether they live in Knightdale or in Apex. It doesn’t much matter whether they’re a North Raleigh resident or a Cary resident from a lawyer’s perspective. The case will be handled at the same place.
But for search and ranking purposes, it does matter. That’s because most people I want as clients have never committed a crime before or have only had traffic or minor misdemeanors. And because they’re new to the system, they may not realize, when they’re searching for a lawyer, that the system is county wide. As a consequence they will search for a lawyer in their neighborhood.
That insight – that potential clients will search for an Apex criminal lawyer or a Cary criminal lawyer – has focused my web and marketing approach. In the first few weeks, I would mention every neighborhood in the community in my posts. The scattershot approach wasn’t incredibly effective in terms of ranking.
Now I focus my attention on three communities: Cary, Apex, and Raleigh. Why those communities? Raleigh is obvious: if I can dominate Raleigh, there’s a lot of business to be had. But I picked Cary and Apex for four reasons. These are the wealthiest parts of the county, so people can pay for legal representation. These are places where a lot of northerners live – the joke about Cary is that it stands for “Containment Area for Relocated Yankees.” The fact that I also am a northerner is certainly not a negative when interacting with them, and may also be a plus.
In addition, it was clear to me from a search of Google that lawyers in my area were not making a concerted effort to dominate those rankings. I realized that it would be much easier for me to move up the rankings for Cary or Apex, than Raleigh. And by dominating those areas, I could dominate Raleigh eventually.
Finally, I live near these areas, so it’s no problem for me to schedule a home visit, which comes across as a real service, especially if someone has had a recent DWI and had his or her license revoked.
My other insight is that while it’s nice to win for “Apex criminal lawyer” or “Cary Criminal Lawyer” (I’m top 10 for both), it’s also good to dominate for specific phrases that people accused of a crime would search for: “Cary DWI Lawyer” and “Apex DWI Lawyer” and also “expungements Apex” and “sex offenses Apex“. I’m top 10 for them.
For example, one of my first blog posts was about Roman Polanski and tying him into North Carolina’s statutory rape cases. Another early post was about North Carolina expungement law because Mel Gibson had sought a California expungement.
Almost immediately, I started getting calls for expungements, and picked up a client charged with a sex offense. I realized that if someone is accused of a crime, and they’re savvy, they’re going to Google to find out what the crime is. Or if they’re reading a warrant or citation and want to find out what the abbreviations mean, they’ll google those words as well. For instance, PWISD (Possession with Intent to Sell and Deliver, I’m top ten for that.)
It’s good to dominate those obscure phrases, or crime names, because then you come up for people who actually have been accused of a crime. These are people who need a lawyer!
So I’ve since written fairly detailed pages defining different crimes, translating the legalese into English, and using a lot of specific phrases that someone would google for if they were accused or had a family member who was accused of a crime.
In addition to getting clients who can pay, I also get clients who are well educated, self-sufficient, and also basically sold on me before I answer the phone. They know about me, have done websearches on me, have read my website. One client actually referred to a blog post I had written earlier that day.
Finally, I don’t care much about “traffic”. Traffic is meaningless because I don’t advertise on my website. I make no money from traffic. I make money from people who are looking for specific services I provide. If my website gets 100 visitors this month, but 20 of them hire me at $1,000 to $2,000 a case, you do the math.
The returns on these web marketing efforts have been good.
I opened the doors on my office on October 5. I’ve spent less than $1500 on marketing (by which I mean Google AdWords, purchasing domains, and two WordPress themes). I spend $500 a month on an office. I decorated my office for under $350. My major expenses are the $350 ScanSnap scannner that is awesome, my cell phone bill, and $150 a quarter in atty malpractice insurance.
My first three weeks were slow. But since late October I’ve received $8,000 cash money in the bank, have another $8,000 booked (pretty confident it’ll be paid) but not paid. I conservatively expect to clear $20,000 in gross revenue by the end of the year, not including several thousand the State will owe me for taking indigent clients. That may not seem like a fortune to some of you, but for someone who was considering taking a legal position with a prosecutor or a public defender that would’ve paid me $42,000/year before taxes, let me say that I’m pleased so far with my progress. I had prepared my wife for me to earn a fraction of that.
I’ve done it by working 80 to 100 hours a week building out websites that are going to pay dividends well into the future.
Greg Swann says:
Oh, wow. Good on ya, Damon.
I know you know this, but I want to emphasize for others that it’s the two together that kill:
1. Keyword-targeted posts get the Google rankings.
2. But it’s the tightly-focused content that keeps future clients glued on to you site.
You’re not giving away the store by sharing clear, detailed information, you’re proving to buyers that you’ve got the goods.
November 22, 2009 — 3:05 pm
Damon Chetson says:
Thanks Greg. Yes, the pages are not just written from the standpoint of getting keywords. The pages are written from the standpoint of explaining the law, explaining how I practice, and explaining clearly what services I can offer.
November 22, 2009 — 3:12 pm
Ashlee says:
I sometimes find it hard to get all the keywords I want on a page and still make it sound business-like. If is def. hard but well worth it in the end when you start getting business!
November 22, 2009 — 6:45 pm
James Boyer says:
Nice Post Damon, and on target. As you progress you may find as I did that your competition will all of the sudden be trying to buddy up to you. You will be getting questions like “whats your secret” “let me on how your doing it” these will be from the people who really don’t want to work for what they get, but will pay for it.
Work hard, and keep building your website. More and more people are turning to the web for almost everything. In the real estate biz it is said over and over that 85+% of the buyers are spending 6 months or more doing research online before contacting a Realtor. In your business, they don’t have that kind of time, so even better for you.
November 24, 2009 — 8:22 am
Eric Blackwell says:
Congrats Damon.
Let’s hope that folks don’t miss the money quote.
“I’ve done it by working 80 to 100 hours a week building out websites that are going to pay dividends well into the future.”
Too many that aspire to bring traffic in and then convert those good people to clients with great content that proves your worth are under the illusion that less effort will still yield the results.
Congrats.
Eric
November 25, 2009 — 12:12 pm