San Jose attorneys & lawyers directory
Injured people with lawyers receive 3.7 times more than injured people without lawyers.
Insurance Research Council National Survey of auto injury claims
San Jose attorney webmaster article:
Pay-per-click fact and fiction
By Bob Schwartz, CRS, GRI ©2007 Promotions Unlimited All rights reserved.
This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorized use, copying or mirroring is prohibited.
A Pay Per Click (also known as Pay Per Ranking, Pay Per Placement or Pay Per Position) search engine lets you to list your firm’s site at the top of the search engine results. You pay only when a web searcher clicks on your listing and connects to your site. You don’t pay to list; you only pay for click throughs.
You list your website by selecting keywords that refer to your practice area. For each keyword you determine how much you are willing to spend. The higher you bid, the higher you will appear in the search results.
PPC search engines usually combine paid listings with unpaid listings to ensure any given search produces sufficient results. In an effort to provide proper disclosure, all PPC search engines differentiate their paid listings from the ‘real’ non-pay listings by calling the PPC listing such terms as: featured listings, sponsored listings, partners etc. Some smaller PPC engines do not have this differentiation because 100% of their results are paid.
Many people perceive PPC search engines to be a great way to drive targeted traffic to your site. After all you are only paying for actual clicks to your site, and it seems to be risk free and less expensive than a search engine optimization firm to boost your rankings.
But be careful . . . all may not be, as it seems!
As firms believe more and more that it is the 'magic bullet' to increased Internet business, the Bid prices … (cost per click) are going up and up. Some recent examples of how much it would cost per click to be in the top position are below.
Los Angeles criminal defense attorney - $15.14
Los Angeles DUI attorney - $42.25
Los Angeles accident attorney - $10.00
San Francisco accident attorney - $26.00
San Francisco personal injury attorney - $20.00
Houston personal injury attorney - $8.00
Houston accident attorney - $6.10
Las Vegas defense lawyer - $5.00
At these rates, and a typical high click-through conversion rate, a firm could really put a major dent in new client acquisition costs.
CLICK TRAFFIC … You may notice that ad click traffic is on the rise, but do you notice that at the same time fewer and fewer visitors are actually creating more business. In fact, clicks are increasing and conversion percentages are decreasing.
RIP-OFFS … The consensus among knowledge webmasters is that the PPC affiliate programs are to blame for this: PPC search engines pay webmasters for hosting their paid ads and/or providing search results that link through their PPC network. It seems some affiliates may be artificially boosting their PPC hits in order to increase their share of the paid click-through revenue.
Major PPC engines try to detect this type of fraud, but it is nearly impossible with some of the methods that are out there. There are been more and more Internet ads for recruiting people to surf the Web and click on ads using their own computer. With such a network of scammers all with their own IP address, there is no technology to catch this scam.
CONVERSION RATES … For legal firms it has always taken a large number of click-troughs to actually convert into a paying client. Now combine this with the above trend in scam click-troughs and the cost effectiveness of the PPC model for legal firms may not be the panacea once believed.
Copyright 2007 Promotions Unlimited. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bob Schwartz, is the founder of Promotions Unlimited, an Internet legal directory (CA, TX & Las Vegas ) publisher and search engine placement technology analyst. You can contact Bob via e-mail at bob@websitetrafficbuilders.com or visit his San Diego legal directory at: http://www.sandiegolawyerforyou.com/special.htm
Legal Disclaimers
The information provided on this website is not intended to be legal advice, but merely conveys general information related to legal issues commonly encountered. Your access to and use of this website is subject to additional Terms and Conditions.
Click the link below to return to:
San Jose attorneys & lawyers directory