Online Legal Directory Guide - Arizona Bankruptcy

Unfortunately bankruptcy is a hot topic right now. There are lots of consumers who are looking for qualified bankruptcy attorneys online. Advertising in online bankruptcy directories can be a great way of attracting qualified clients to your website. Buyer beware though! Not all legal directories are created equal. Many of these directories hardly warrant the investment based on dismal click thru rates. FindLaw has over 200 website clients in Arizona. Since each website has a third party traffic reporting tool associated with it, I can see how many clicks each directory produces. I can do this by using a referral url report.

Last year I wrote an article about evaluating directory traffic. The advice I gave then still applies today - Never succumb to sales pressure, demand click thru data and always check references before purchasing any online advertising. In this post I have provided "estimated" traffic information for the most common bankruptcy directories in Arizona. The missing part of this analysis, of course, is the cost of these directories. If you are an Arizona attorney and have been pitched any of these directories - I would be happy to include that info as well.

Nolo
The Nolo bankruptcy directory is definitely showing up more and more in Google searches - particularly in the suburbs and outlying areas. In the last six months, click thru rates from this directory are averaging 15-22 clicks a month for the one client I have that is featured in their bankruptcy directory. However, that client typically gets a 2x higher click thru rate thanks to the firm's name recognition - a byproduct of an extensive advertising campaign. In the past, I have had three clients advertise in other NOLO directories (Personal Injury, Estate Planning)and all cancelled after seeing their click thru numbers.

FindLaw Bankruptcy Spotlight $220/month
The Findlaw bankruptcy directory is by far the most visible bankruptcy directory in the Phoenix metro - both in terms of traffic and ranking. Each of the 5 top spots receive between 60-100 clicks a month, but they have been sold out for some time. Spotlights are the paid listings below the 5 top spots that rotate. As with any directory, name recognition, geographic location and tagline all play a role in click thru rates. At the low end a client is getting 17-25 click thrus a month. The leading Spotlight click getter, thanks to an impressive tagline, gets between 30-40 clicks a month.

YellowPages.com
Yellowpages.com has a first come first serve model. The top listings do great, 3rd slot is getting around 40 clicks a month and the 4th slot gets around 20 clicks a month with 80% of clicks coming from bankruptcy searches. The other clicks come from name searches or general attorney searches within the directory. However, there is a huge drop off as you go down the list. A Phoenix attorney who just joined a few months ago is in the tenth slot and is getting just 6-7 clicks a month from that listing. I don't know what they are charging for that - but you can get that same amount of traffic by doing a free listing in the Cornell directory or by updating your AVVO.com profile.

Dexknows
Partnering with localeze to build their new directory and backed by a national TV advertising campaign, DexKnows is trying to provide a much better local result. When you type in Tempe Bankruptcy Attorney in the DexKnows directory- you will likely get a Tempe attorney. In theory that should deliver a better result. However, the new concept is not translating into clicks. A client of mine has one of the top spots in Bankruptcy and has multiple office locations. However, the client is getting just 3-5 clicks a month. Most of their traffic is produced by pay per click.

Attorney4hire.com
I am VERY suspect of the traffic this "directory" generates. The referral domain report from a FindLaw bankruptcy client says they are getting 10 visitors a month from this directory. A Phoenix family lawyer who has the service is getting 8 clicks a month? This in my opinion is impossible and I strongly suspect these clicks are being manipulated. The directory contains zero content and is absolutely invisible in the search engines. How are people finding this directory? In addition the simple search function (looking for a zip code and a radius) takes forever. The owner of this directory gets away with this because he charges pennies for the listing and targets aggressive advertisers. You get what you pay for.

SuperPages.com
This has traditionally been one of the worst directories in terms of traffic for attorneys in Arizona. While I have no lawyers advertising in their bankruptcy directory, one of my client has the very top spot in their divorce directory and it gets him just 6 -12 click thrus a month - decent traffic, but small when you consider its their very best listing. The top sponsored criminal listing got just 4 click thrus last month.

Lawyers.com
One of the best known legal directories, Lawyers.com is a sister company to Martindale. They have a number of directories that supply a consistent stream of qualified traffic. However, it does not appear that bankruptcy is one of them though. They have rotating top spots as well but unlike every other directory, they break up their directory by metro - so you would have to buy a Phoenix listing along with a separate Scottsdale listing and a Mesa listing to get complete metro coverage. I have no clients who have a current listing in their bankruptcy directory. Jennings Haug Cunningham is a Findlaw client and occupies the 4th slot, but oddly, when you click on their "view website" link it links to another firm? I do have a client, Joseph McDaniel, who used to be a Martindale/Lawyers.com client. His feedback is instructive though;

"Martindale took a LOT of my dough, and I got essentially no new clients from the transaction. And that's being generous. Findlaw took a few nickels and pennies from me, and my poor Heidi now has trouble finding time to return potential client phone calls."

I hope you found this post valuable. In the near future I will be doing a similar analysis for family law, criminal defense and personal injury directories. If there is another directory you would like me to analyze please send to me. I would also welcome feedback from Arizona lawyers who can provide more supporting data from Google analytics or another website analytics program.

3000 Clicks!!

Congrats to Phoenix attorney Scott David Stewart for being the first Arizona FindLaw client to break 3,000 visitors in a month. The feat was reached in April and included the combined efforts of his 5 websites (main site, family law site, criminal law site, child custody site, and bankruptcy site). All of his sites can be accessed from his main site; www.sdslawaz.com Congrats Scott!

Did You Know??? A man on a mission - Scott graduated from college in just over 3 years.

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Arizona Motorcycle Helmet Law and Comparative Negligence

Arizona Injury Lawyers for Motorcycle Helmet Law

Arizona's current laws only require motorcycle helmets for riders under the age of 18. Adult riders in Arizona have the freedom to choose whether or not to wear a helmet. However, most motorcycle and safety experts strongly recommend the use of helmets. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), motorcycle helmets saved 1,784 lives in 2007. There is also another reason to wear a helmet at all times. If you are injured by a negligent driver, poor road conditions, or an equipment malfunction and attempt to seek compensation, not wearing a helmet can make it more difficult to receive proper compensation and may make a difference in the size of the award you receive.

Negative Jury Perceptions
It should again be emphasized that, in Arizona, adults have the right to choose whether or not to wear a helmet. In addition, if you are injured because of the negligence of someone else, you have the right to receive compensation, whether or not you were wearing a helmet at the time. However, seeking compensation often means convincing a jury that the defendant is responsible for your injuries. Many people have unfair prejudices against motorcycle riders to begin with, and if a rider was not wearing a helmet at the time of his or her injury, many jury members may think the rider was responsible for the injuries through his or her negligence.

Comparative Negligence
If a motorcycle rider was not wearing a helmet, the defense lawyers will set out to prove that the rider was at least partially responsible for his or her injuries. This is known as a comparative negligence defense. In comparative negligence, the jury can reduce the amount of damages a plaintiff can claim if it is proven that the plaintiff was partially responsible for his or her injuries through his or her own negligence. Arizona has a pure comparative fault rule, which means that a damaged party can collect damages even if he or she is 99% at fault. However, the damage amount is reduced by the percentage of the plaintiff's fault. In other words, if the jury believes you are 50% at fault for your injuries, the defendant will only be responsible for 50% of your damages.

Brain & Spinal Injuries
Comparative negligence reductions are especially damaging in motorcycle helmet cases because they often involve brain and spinal injuries, which are among the most devastating types of injuries a motorcycle rider may suffer. A jury may award damages for other injuries, but determine that a rider's brain or spinal injuries are their own fault due to the lack of a motorcycle helmet. For example, a rider with a broken arm and a severe brain injury may receive compensation for the broken arm, but not for the brain injury.

-This article was provided by the Arizona Motorcycle accident lawyers of Solomon & Relihan.

A Cautionary Tale - Phoenix Lawyer Website Gets Bumped From Google Search Results

In the past week an Arizona personal injury website has gone MIA from the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page). The site, which I will call "SiteX", had achieved amazing search engine ranking in a relatively short period of time. SiteX was on the first page of Google for a number of competitive keyword phrases and even had top position for the following; ("Phoenix personal Injury Attorney", "Arizona Accident Lawyer" "Phoenix Car Accident Attorney", etc...) The stunning early success contradicted what I had always preached to my clients - "patience"- that it takes time for a site to properly build trust and link authority, particularly with Google. In fact, SiteX was so successful that two of my clients, frustrated with the early lack of ranking progress, left me and went with the company who built and optimized SiteX.

So what happened to SiteX? A sudden and precipitous drop in google ranking is usually the result of a Google penalty - brought on by a violation of Google's webmaster's guidelines. I suspect that that the main reason for the penalty was an overly aggressive and spammy approach to link building. After just a few months, SiteX had over a thousand of inbound links. At one point Yahoo SiteExplorer counted over 6,000 inbound links. While some of these links were legitimate (legal directories, online business profiles, pages from website, etc..) many were not. Using site explorer I found BLOGs on various unrelated topics (Sports, Fashion, Finance) that were linking to SiteX. The BLOG postings were all stories copied directly from AP news stories. Each posting ended with a contextual link to SiteX with the words "Phoenix Personal Injury Lawyer" or some close variation. Each day multiple links were added in this way. This was clearly a scheme aimed at increasing the ranking of SiteX - a direct violation of the guidelines. Unfortunately for SiteX, Google employs a league of PHDs who tweak the algorithm so that it can detect this type of blatant abuse.

Building relevant inbound links to your site is an important part of ethical search engine optimization. If you have a great site with informative content, people will begin to link to your site "naturally". For example, in the above paragraph I linked to Google's webmaster guidelines. I certainly did not link to the article because I was trying to boost the Google rank of that page. Rather, I did so because I felt my readers would benefit from the information. This is an example of a natural link and the kind that Google values most. SiteX on the other hand built a huge amount of non-relevant and "unnatural" backlinks over a short period of time and it now appears it to have paid a huge price.

Another contributing factor may be "Over-Optimization" (link to a great video on the subject). In SEO there is such a thing as over doing it. "Over Optimization" happens when your website is considered "too good" by Google - either in terms of a sudden spike in the number of backlinks, or because of excessive on-page optimization, your website will be automatically restricted or penalized. So how does Google decide whether a site is over optimized? Since Google is completely automated, it relies on its algorithm to figure this out. Besides indexing a certain website, it also compares the website to its competitors. This may have also contributed to the disappearance of SiteX.

Even though the designer of SiteX is a competitor of mine, I take no joy in reporting this development.  I know more than anyone, the hard work that goes into building an optimized website and I feel sorry for the personal injury attorney faced with the prospect of starting over.  I do hope, though, that this story serves as a reminder that Internet "dominance" is not an attainable goal.  You can't out wit or beat Google.  At the end of the end of the day, Google is interested in only one thing: Creating the best user experience possible for their searchers.  Therefore, its imperative that you adhere to their webmaster guidelines, craft unique custom content and  above all...be patient.

Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest

This past Saturday, my wife Heather and I attended the annual fund raising event for the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest. Held at the Bentley Projects in downtown Phoenix, the event featured live entertainment, great food and a live and silent auction. Kudos to attorney Michelle Johnson of Adelman & German. Michelle did a marvelous job as the night's emcee, running a live auction that featured 2 African safaris and a week in Puerto Vallarta Mexico. A natural saleswoman, Michelle was able to incite a few healthy bidding wars.

The turnout was excellent, with well over 200 people in attendance. Steve German, Chris Zachar, Eugene Kadish, Michael J. Valder, Michael J. Zdancewicz, Richard Plattner, Thomas M. Ryan, and Ty Tabor are but a few of the legal luminaries I saw there. The highlight of the night was a rousing speach by outgoing Center President, Danny Adelman. Danny reminded everyone why we there, detailing the important work that the Center does everyday and stressing the need for continued financial support.

Arizona Construction Defect Verdict - $179, 880

Congrats to Richard C. Gramlich, from the law firm of Carmichael & Powell, on his recent large construction defect jury verdict he won for his client against Caliber and J-K Homes.

The lawsuit claimed that Caliber had breached their implied warranties of fitness, habitability, and good workmanship, by constructing a home with numerous defects and by failing to timely and properly remedy those defects. In an unanimous verdict, the jury awarded Richard's client $129,880 for the various defect and breach of contract claims.

Finally, Richard Gramlich also proved that the owner of Caliber Homes engaged in Fraud. As an inducement for the plaintiff to enter into a contract and then close upon their Caliber home, Caliber and the owner Mr. Lichtie represented that the house would be built by Caliber Holdings Company, LLC which had a valid Arizona contractors license and that the home would come with a "2/10 Home Warranty". At the time Caliber and Litchtie made the foregoing representations, they knew that they would be relied upon by the Plaintiff and that were false, as Caliber's contractor's license had been suspended/revoked and Caliber had been terminated as a 2/10 warranty provider. The jury agreed with Richard Gramlich's argument and awarded a seperate award of negligence for $50,000 against the owner, Mr. Lichtie.

Did You Know??? A take no prisoners litigator, Richard Gramlich, sports a personalized license plate that says "YOULOSE"

Art Trevino & Snyder Wenner win Arizona Design of the Month

Congrats to the Law Office of Art Trevino and Snyder & Wenner on winning Arizona Design of the Month for March. In an extremely tight contest - Ashley Marsh's http://www.azcrash.com/ beat out the Shannon Thompson designed; http://www.snyderwenner.com/. However, when you combine the vote totals from Snyder & Wenner's other entry; medical malpractice website, the firm actually received the most votes. Therefore both firms will be recognized with a link on the legal web design page of my website.

The winning designers, Ashley Marsh and Shannon Thompson are no strangers to this competition. Ashley has won the award a record 6 times. While Shannon has won 4 times.