Want to see something funny about attorney advertising?
Try Googling this phrase:
Our commitment to you is to go the extra mile to win your case, and we take that pledge very seriously.
The result, pages and pages of lawyer websites using the exact same quote, can be seen here.
A big old hat tip to Mark Bennett of Houston who was taking a look at the advertising skills of a company called Yodle that sells websites to lawyers.
Are you using Yodle? And do you think you are getting what you paid for by having the same content as so many others?
Yodle’s slogan is “Get Found.” OK, I found you. Do you think I’m impressed?
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See also: Yodle Lawyer Marketing Sucks (Bennett @ Defending People)
Related:
- Martindale-Hubbell Fires Spam Company; Explains Comment Spam Episode; Problems Remain (December 6, 2009)
- FindLaw Uses Dead Child To Advertise Attorney Services (January 22, 2010)
That is reprehensible.
That is reprehensible.
I think you’re being too kind.
I wonder what the contracts say about the quality and uniqueness of the websites that Yodle was supposed to deliver?
They are also using lawyers to rank higher for the term “law marketing” – notice the link in the footer that goes to their website.
Unfortunately, this is *very* common within the law marketing arena. Common language, common site design, ridiculous price tags for garbage work that wouldn’t fly in any other market segment. I’m not going to give other offenders the publicity here, but has anyone noticed how similar most law websites are? As a consumer, how can I tell if you’re *different* from the stereotype or not?
As a former Yodle victim, who was running his own google analytics, CMS, and adwords campaign prior to switching to them, I can tell you that their approach is pretty much disastrous for anyone looking to achieve a legit online presence. So how did I make such a huge mistake? Simple, when trials come up, I can’t manage the campaigns and marketing, ergo outsource to Yodle.
They will waste thousands of dollars a week trying key word combs and doing anything and everything to get you clicks. One problem… they aren’t the kinds of clicks you want or can even use. Ex: Say your a divorce lawyer, well yodle doesn’t care… they’re gonna set up keyword search for whatever is popular. Congratulations divorce lawyer, you know have 11 bankruptcy lawyer clicks… AWESOME! Here is the other kicker: redundancy! In addition to repeated content, they repeat submissions, which lower your quality index.
So now that yodle has wrecked thousands and thousands of companies and firms, they are buying smaller competitors like “GETRANKED.com” who have a semi-legitimate approach. They’ll get you listed on the first page of a major search engine like ask jeeves or lycos…. AWESOME. The frustrating part is that I’m sure all of us made the same decision: I can either focus on my practice, or focus on suing Yodle, thereby continuing to slow me down.
There’s no obvious way to stop them. I heard from their cold-call sales critter today, and he says he is going through the [state] bar listings and seeing who needs cases.
He did not agree with my assessmeht that cold calling should be a felony.