Here are some of the frequently asked questions that you will run into as a marketing manager. ***Some may not apply to healthcare clients***
What does my monthly payment go towards?
The monthly payment goes towards the hosting, maintenance and optimization of your website. "Hosting" means the storage of your website and domain on our servers. "Maintenance" includes such things as changes you request, along with any necessary system upgrades to ensure your site stays abreast of the latest technology. "Optimization" accounts for the largest portion of the $___ a month payment and includes things like directory additions, management of Google Places, routine "SEO" work like meta data & content updates/additions as well as my advisement & recommendations to further the marketing of the website. The $___ a month also gets you myself and an entire team of people at Scorpion who are available to help and assist you and answer your questions.
Why isn't my site ranking?
Google's ranking algorithm has many, many factors that it takes into account – not all are known. If your site is still not ranking, that means that there is some piece of the puzzle that we need to fill in. Depending upon the unique situation of the person who is asking the question, that might be adding blogs, content, articles, backlinks, more directories, fixing Google Places or simply waiting for the site to climb in the rankings.
What can I do to help on my end?
There are quite a few things that you can do. Some cost money and others just take a little bit of your time. They are as follows:
- Get reviews on your Google Places page. Places pages with more reviews look better to potential clients and they also show Google that you are a relevant search result since people are reviewing your listing.
- Blog at least once a week (at least 150 words).
- Purchase additional directory listings for back-links. The ones that are the best & recommended by us are:
- Hg.org - $195/yr.
- Business.com - $299/yr.
- Judysbook - $499/yr. or $49.95/mo.
- Yahoo Directory - $299/yr.
- Best of the Web - $299/yr.
- If you decide you want to go with any of these, we can set it up for you and just add the amount onto your next monthly bill.
- Join the BBB. It does cost money, but you get an online profile where you can list your website which is a beneficial back-link. Here's the link to BBB accreditation: http://www.bbb.org/us/bbb-accreditation-application
- If you have any time to write articles (think of it like a longer blog, 400 words or more) you can email that to us and we can post it to about 7 different article sources to help with back-linking.
Why should I use a call tracking number? What are the benefits?
When we can see exactly how many calls you are getting through the website on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, we can see how well the site is doing. We want to make sure that you are getting the amount of leads that you need, and part of the way we can judge that is based off of call volume. At the end of the day, we want potential clients to be calling you and if we can't see if that is happening, we're less able to accurately judge the performance of the campaign. You will not experience any change in call quality and the call tracking number will ONLY be for your internet marketing. That way we can be sure that the calls we are tracking are from new sources, rather than your existing clients or people who just happen to know your phone number.
The number works by simply forwarding to any number that you provide to us. We can have it ring to your cell phone, your office phone, a particular number, anything you want.
It is an extremely important tool that we use to ensure that you're doing well.
My site just isn't producing – I get no leads or business from it. What can you do about that?
There are several things that we can do. If the site is ranking well, there are two factors to consider. The first is that the terms for which your site is ranking are simply not competitive enough. In that case, we will have to broaden your site's range by adding geo pages that target specific other geographic areas to increase your lead volume. The second is that there are enough searches, but people aren't staying on the site. This will require us to revamp the way the site looks so that it converts better. Perhaps we need to highlight your accomplishments more or change how the graphic appears so that potential clients are more likely to stay on your site. We can do a much more in-depth analysis of your competitors and your geographic area to ensure that we do this properly.
How is it ethical for you to work with other attorneys who do the same thing as me in the same area?
There are anywhere from 10-15 spots on the first page of Google. There is business enough to go around and I am personally dedicated to ensuring that you have the best possible chance at success. I'm not concerned about anything that anyone else is doing – your competitors either if they have sites with Scorpion or with anyone else. The only thing I care about is you and your business and ensuring that you are doing well, no matter what.
Why should I blog?
Our blog system is unique in that it is integrated into your website, rather than an outside location. Because our system is set up this way, every time you write a blog it is actually adding a completely new page to your website. Google likes new content and Google likes to see that sites are updated regularly. In addition, it gives you the chance to link to other pages within your site, which will in turn give each of those pages a little boost.
Why should I try to get Google Places reviews?
The more reviews that you can get, the better your Google Places page will look - not only to potential clients, but also to Google itself. Google's whole purpose is to return the most relevant search result to its users. With more reviews and people saying "hey, you should go to this firm," the more relevant your Google Places page will be and, therefore, the higher Google should value it. Of course, we don't know everything that Google values, but we have seen attorneys have great success with getting reviews time and time again, so we recommend it to all of our clients.
I feel like it's taking too long for my site to rank on page 1 (it's been 1-3 months). What is the problem?
Sometimes it takes a little bit longer. Organic results do not appear overnight, especially for more difficult search terms. The more difficult the search term, the longer it can take. For example, there are some markets in which it could take 18 months to two years to get a site ranking on page one. This isn't necessarily the case with you, but it is true that you have to be willing to wait for Google to get the site ranking. As long as the search terms are moving up, this is good. As long as we see positive motion, we know that we're doing the right thing. We will continue to do what we're doing and
My sales person promised me [fill in the blank], but that's not what I'm seeing (in terms of ranking) or getting (in terms of calls). Why would they tell me that and now you're saying something different?
Depending upon what it is that the client feels that they were promised, we have to tell them the truth. For example, if the salesperson told the client that they would be ranking on the day that they launched (which the salesperson would never say, but still), then we have to tell them that is not the case and will never be the case, especially for a new site. If the salesperson promised them that they would get a certain link (HG.org, etc), we usually ask the salesperson and then give it to the client, even if it isn't in the contract. This is on a case by case basis and we can usually sort it out.
I think I want to change my optimization to this…or think I want to re-do this site so it targets another area (i.e. going from Burbank divorce to Los Angeles divorce). Can we do that?
In the scenario described above, the best thing to do would be to stick with Burbank because it is a much less competitive term. Trying to rank for anything Los Angeles is extremely difficult and will take years to rank if you ever get there. The same goes for some other larger areas in the country. You have to be willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars per month and not see a return from the organic side of things for at LEAST a year. This is a much better way to get business in the door quickly and affordably.
The only people who call me are current clients and solicitors. I don't get any real leads from potential clients. How can we change this? What are you doing about it?
In this case, you need to check their calls every single day and follow up with every single one to see if this is true. 80% of the time it isn't true and the client is just complaining. If it is true, you probably need to either get the site ranking better, expand the client's geographic reach or make sure that the site is converting better.
Should I use Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter?
Unless you're willing to put in the time that it takes to build a following on these sites, it will not help you to bring in business. Regardless of what you do on these sites, it won't help your organic rankings – so the question really is are you willing to take the time to get people to like your Facebook business page, are you willing to take the time to build a Twitter following and tweet every day, etc. Most attorneys don't have time for this – which is totally fine, we can get you business without using social media.
How long will it take to see results and first page ranking?
This totally depends upon the area. If the area is relatively uncompetitive, you can expect to see your rankings improve and approach the first page in the first three months. By 5-6 months, you should expect to see yourself on the first page. We request that our clients sign a 12 month contract for a reason – we never, ever expect to see rankings immediately, otherwise our contracts would be much shorter. It takes time to build a strong campaign that eventually ranks stably on page one. If the area is more competitive, you need to know that it could take the life of your contract to get you on page one. There is no question about whether we can get you there – the only variable is how quickly it can happen.
What are my competitors doing differently that has them on page 1?
There are so many different factors that go into a first page ranking and Google makes it difficult to "reverse engineer" what other people are doing, so we cannot speak to what your competitors are doing. What we can do is do what we know to be successful – continue to add good, relevant content to the websites, continue to add to your backlinks and ensure that the site is converting well. If you don't feel happy with what we're doing for you, I will take the time to research further what other things we can do to ensure that you're on the right track.
How valuable is video?
If the shoot goes well, video can be a very powerful conversion tool. That is to say, if you have a strong message that comes across well in the video, this can make people who come to your site believe in you and your message and then take that next step to call you or email you.
Video can also help to drive people to your site organically. We put your videos up on YouTube in your own YouTube channel and we write optimized descriptions and ensure that there is a link to your site in the description.
I have 300 visitors coming to my site every month, why am I only getting a few calls?
There are two numbers that we track for you using our own analytics – unique and total visitors. The total visitor number can include crawlers (not humans) that are coming to your site and reading it. This, of course, is a good thing that we want. It doesn't get you business though, as we know. One thing that we recommend is that you utilize Google Analytics when it comes to traffic, because they are able to give the most accurate snapshot of the actual traffic to your site. Since they're Google, they have the analytics numbers that we trust the most. Every system or program will give you different results.
That being said, if your unique number is high, yet you are not getting calls – we need to take action to change the site so that the user likes it better. That might include redoing some of the graphics, changing some of the buttons or even adding or removing a picture of you as one of the first things that the potential client sees. I will do some more in-depth research into the subject
My friend has a site with a million backlinks and he is ranking on page 1. Why don't I see this many links?
We can tell you the exact amount of your backlinks when we log in to Google WebMaster Tools. Looking on Google itself will not show you your total amount of backlinks (or your competitors total amount of backlinks, for that matter). You can only see them in Google WebMaster Tools. Google doesn't want people to simply be able to look at all of someone's links and duplicate exactly what they're doing for ranking reasons, so they set it up that way.
We are constantly working on improving the amount of backlinks to your site through articles, directory additions, outside blogs and more. I'll make sure to look into what we've done recently and see if there is something else we can do to help.
What is your opinion on link exchanging?
It can be beneficial to you depending upon the Page Rank of the page that your link will be on. If you have any people who want to share links with you, please send them over to me and I'll check and make sure that it's helpful before you agree to it.
Does PPC help my ranking?
PPC doesn't do anything for you organically, but it is the only way to get instant business. Every time someone clicks on your ad, you pay for that click. You don't pay if they don't click, so it is a good way to jumpstart your online marketing.
Why are we optimized for a specific city instead of a larger county or state?
Most people do not search by county. While you might be used to hearing someone mention counties because of courthouses, etc, usually people do not search by county. We do our research to ensure that your site is going for the terms that are going to get you the most possible business at the lowest possible cost. If you were to target an entire state, it might be difficult for you to achieve rankings quickly, which would mean that you would be paying for a campaign that might not produce results for years. We want to get you business as quickly as possible.
Why do I have to pay for additional directories?
We put you in a wide variety of free directories as part of your monthly fee to us. There are some additional directories that are expensive, but can provide a valuable backlink. Those are the ones that we ask you to pay for – the ones that are "above and beyond." We definitely recommend that you do this if you can, because it can really benefit your campaign.
How do I make changes if I want to change something?
There are two ways – I can help set you up with a CMS (content management system) login and I can give you a tour of our system and show you how to use it yourself so that you can post blogs, edit content, etc. Or, if it is easier for you, you can simply email me what you'd like me to put up for you.