You are working hard on your blog but nobody is reading it. You are beginning to wonder if you really do need to spend the big bucks that the “Google Expert” quoted you to get your website out there to potential clients.
Why doesn’t Google like you?
There are many potential reasons that your site is not getting any traffic, and is not coming up on the front page of Google. Most of the reasons actually aren’t as complex as you think. The thing about Google, like all parts of marketing, is you need to understand motivation. What motivates Google? Money.
How does Google make money? It makes money when people use Google. Why do people use Google? Because they want timely, authoritative and trustworthy content. You want recent content that is relevant. You don’t want Google to give you inaccurate information. You don’t want Google to give you links for businesses that no one likes or no one uses.
If Google did not give us recent, relevant, accurate and likable content then you would start using another search engine and Google loses money.
There are a number of ways that the Google algorithm measures this but the most important thing for you to know is that this algorithm is a closely guarded secret. If the Google algorithm was known then you would Google ‘Penrith solicitor’ and get a bunch of adds for Ray Ban sunglasses. Then you would stop using Google. Those people who want to charge you thousands of dollars a month because they “know” the Google algorithm, they don’t, please don’t pay them thousands of dollars.
There are a lot of things that you need to consider to make your content recent, relevant, accurate and likable content in your site, but once you the hang of it this is absolutely something that lawyers can mange.
Are you using the words that your potential customers would use, would your potential customer search for lawyer or solicitor? Would they search for family law or divorce? Would they search for conveyancing or property law?
If you are a local business is that plain and obvious, in more than one place, on your website?
Are your client and customers, the ones who love you, leaving any reviews for you on Google? Or worse still, are only the dissatisfied customers leaving you reviews. Is your information even accurate? Have you Googled yourself lately? (More on that here.)
Is your information considered trustworthy by Google?
Do you know why your really old Linked In Profile comes up so high in a search of your name? Because Linked In is a site trusted by Google.
If you aren’t Linked In then how do you get Google to trust you? Firstly you have to do all of the above steps. Then you need through traffic. You get traffic with a proper marketing plan, including an actual social media plan and a regular client newsletter, and content on your blog that your existing customers (who already trust you) will want to read and forward to their friends.
Edit - This site has since been taken down as the business sold, but it was still trending like this in 2020, a year after it sold.
(Don’t believe me? Then Google “Penrith solicitor”. Look for Coode & Corry, it comes up pretty high for a small legal firm with only two full time solicitors and no budget for Google ads right? Coode & Corry was bought by another business last year (it says so right there in the banner). So not a lot has happened with that site. Why does it come up so high?)
The site itself wasn’t particularly special, other law firms have clearly spent more on their ‘web design’ and professional photos, on the general look, so what was different?
What was different is I wrote the content, for many years I managed that site. I made it accurate, relevant and trustworthy. I reviewed the statistics (the Google analytics), found what people liked, and then I wrote more content that people liked. I haven’t had access to that site for nearly two years but I could still tell you which content is being regularly viewed because I curated it and used that, to leverage traffic, to get more new clients for the business. I put into place a social media plan and a client newsletter that drove more traffic to the site. Then I reviewed what was popular again. Then I wrote more good content.
I can do all of that for you too. You can write the content, you are a lawyer you are great at content, it is the reviewing and disseminating and reviewing that you probably don’t have time for, or the actual process of getting it up onto your blog.
The other thing the search engine optimisers won’t tell you is this, it won’t happen overnight. There is no way to quickly or even with certainty get yourself onto the front page of Google. What you need to do is keep revisiting what it is that Google likes, and shifting what you are doing to more closely match that. If you know who you want to market to I can help you to get the message out there.