This July, Google’s algorithm team destroyed the marketing strategies of hundreds of small businesses with just a few clicks. The updates they made constituted just another day at the office for them. But for business owners, those clicks were disastrous! Overnight, their companies disappeared from Google’s front page and were buried deep in the search results — exactly where they had paid thousands of dollars not to be.
What happened? Well, those unlucky businesses bet on the SEO game and lost. Law firms big and small often pour a huge share of their marketing dollars into SEO rankings, paying third-party marketing companies to get them to the top. But what they usually don’t consider is that Google doesn’t profit from SEO. They don’t care who ranks high and who ranks low. They just care that people are using Google.
If you play the SEO game, Google’s team can and will screw you over with every algorithm update. It will be Russian roulette every time whether the change is in your favor. You’ll never know when it’s coming and neither will your third-party marketing team. If you asked Google, I imagine they’d say, “It’s not personal, it’s just business.”
This Google insanity is just one reason you shouldn’t rely on SEO marketing. Here at Spotlight Branding, we view SEO as basically one big scam. It usually hurts businesses more than it helps them — and here are three more reasons why.
1. Your odds of winning are almost nonexistent
Think about how many law firms there are in your state with the same practice areas you have. Now think about how many there are in the country. Can you beat out all of them — on a purely financial basis — for one of the 10 spots on Google’s first page of search results?
You might have a chance against the other firms your size, but the big guys will eat your marketing budget for lunch. It makes no sense to try to compete with them, especially because SEO leads are probably only price shopping in the first place. They will leave you at the drop of a hat when something cheaper comes along.
2. SEO creates a terrible user experience
If you cater your online content to the algorithm overlords, you’ll alienate another group of people: your potential clients. Blogs stuffed with keywords and backlinks that rehash current news stories don’t make for very good reading. At best, leads will discount your blog posts. At worst, they might think you’re a robot that doesn’t know much about your industry or can’t write coherently.
3. Content succeeds where SEO fails
There’s no reason to pay through the nose for SEO when there’s a much better, more cost effective, more reliable option out there: content marketing. Content that caters to people, not algorithms, will position you as the expert, remind readers of what you do, and keep your firm top of mind. And it’s a safe bet! We have used our signature content marketing strategy, The Content Loop™, to help hundreds of solo and small law firms attract the right clients and increase referrals. And we did it without relying on Google.
Content should be the foundation of your marketing strategy. I’m not saying you can’t use SEO at all — if you want to, go ahead! — but it’s too fickle to be your starting point or get the majority of your budget. To learn more about marketing that actually works, contact us today.
Spotlight Branding
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