The Lure of the Seductive Mistress

• Author: David V. Lorenzo
• Pages: 33-34

The Lure of the Seductive Mistress §18.

33

§18.

THE LUR E O F T HE SE DU CT IV E MIS TR ES S

There is a cunning and seductive mistress looking to captivate you and lure you into her lair.

She will romance you and entice you to invest in her, financially and emotionally. And for a time

things will be good. For a time you will be rewarded with a blissful relationship.

But she is a fickle mistress. And one day, without warning, it will all be over. No more

romance. No more happiness. Just emptiness left where once a beautiful and productive relation-

ship thrived.

In law firm marketing this cunning and seductive mistress is the Internet. Many lawyers are

doing well, some very well, by sourcing clients exclusively through the Internet. They use Pay Per

Click advertising (if they have a substantial budget) and Search Engine Optimization techniques.

Both of these strategies are designed to deliver their webpage to the person who is searching for

their services at exactly the right time. And they work… until…

Well let’s start at the beginning:

The Internet has replaced the Yellow Pages as the medium many people use when they need help

resolving a legal issue. People looking for a lawyer go to a search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing) and

they type in what they are looking for. The phrase they type is called a Keyword. They may type in:

Criminal Lawyer Chicago or Probate Attorney Memphis or Marijuana Possession Chicago or New

York Lawyer Who Writes Wills.

After they hit enter on the search engine screen, millions of pages will pop up with content

that matches the keyword phrase the prospective client typed in. The results show up 10 to a page.

They appear in the order of the best match to the keyword phrase (as determined by a sophisticated

formula that varies by search engine). Also appearing on each page (on the top and on the right

side) are listings that are paid advertisements. These appear in order based upon the dollar amount

people have invested in an auction. The more the attorney bids, the more favorable the placement

of the advertisement.

Search Engine Optimization is the process that people use to attempt to control the natural

(also called organic) listings. Pay Per Click Advertising is the term used to describe the auction

process.

Many attorneys have become hooked on this new, sophisticated, interactive version of the

Yellow Pages. They spend huge amounts of money with consultants, advertising companies and

engineers working on getting their website on to the first page of the search engine results for the

most popular keywords used to describe their services.