Diary of a Bull$hit Explainer

By Gina F. Rubel

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How often do you have to explain something to a client, family member, colleague or friend that you know is bullshit? Please forgive the language, but there really is no other term for it. It is what it is, as they say!

Today, I actually thought to add “bullshit explainer” to my bio. It disgusts me that there are so many marketing scams and schemes out there, run by people and companies who are just trolling for victims. In fact, Snopes.com has dedicated a whole section of its website to Marketing 101 urban legends.

As a result, I’ve decided to keep a diary this week of bullshit that we come across regularly, that otherwise would victimize the unsuspecting.

Those “fake” Yellow Page listings: Every few months, we receive a letter in the mail that says it’s time to renew our Yellow Page listings. If you get one of these, be suspicious.

The big dogs in Yellow Page advertising, both print and online, have thousands of well-trained sales representatives who call on their clients annually for renewal. Sales reps often are compensated based on new or increased sales and renewals, so they don’t simply rely on snail mail. If you get one of those letters, question it. Don’t just put it in your bookkeeper’s “to pay” file. That is exactly what bullshit companies are hoping you’ll do.

Google’s latest unsolicited analytics, “Your personalized Analytics report”: This week, we received an unsolicited email from “Google” which provided us with analytics for our blog, ThePRLawyer.com. The analytics were so nebulous that we couldn’t help but deduct that they are being distributed simply to increase ad word sales.

There is no time frame for the analytics. They use terms like “bounce rate” in bold as a scare tactic. In fact, when you read the fine print, “bounce rate” means “how many people leave your site without visiting any other pages on your site.” For a blog, that’s not necessarily bad. If you are driving traffic to a particular story that interests the reader and they read it and move on, you have accomplished your goal.

Here, bounce rate is not synonymous with the “bounce rate” of electronic newsletters. Couldn’t they come up with a better descriptive phrase? They came up with the name “Google,” didn’t they?

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Bogus online listing about to expire: Almost weekly, our clients get emails stating that their “listing is about to expire.” When you investigate further, there was never any listing to begin with.

The most recent notice received by one of our clients was from a low-quality website where our client had not been listed in the first place. Scamming companies such as these hope that people, such as our clients, will click on those listings which will, in turn, boost the flow of internet traffic to their website. If the visitor then creates an actual listing for her company on that website, the scammer has benefitted in two ways.

Feel free to add your bullshit marketing stories here, too. I’m sure there’s more where these came from.

Do Google AdWords Work for Law Firm Marketing?

By Gina Rubel

We were asked recently about the efficacy of Google AdWords campaigns in marketing law firms, specifically to other businesses.

AdWords is Google’s paid advertising platform which can help drive traffic to your website. It takes advantage of Google searches, which people perform each day, and serves up advertisements for related products on the top and right hand side of the search results pages. It is called Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, a name which speaks for itself.



Running an AdWords campaign may or may not work for your law firm marketing efforts. It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. This form of paid advertising has both advantages and disadvantages; it’s more complicated than just telling Google that you want an ad to appear, since more than 1 billion searches are conducted on the site daily.

It is also important to understand that there are various types of AdWords campaigns. For example, a “Search Network – Standard” targets your ads to high-potential customers searching for your services but does not allow for use of AdWords’ advance settings. More specific details about the features available for each campaign type are available on Google’s AdWords > Help > Setup and basics page.


Advantages of Google AdWords for Law Firm Marketing:

• AdWords ads give visibility to businesses whose sites are buried behind other companies’ pages on Google search results. This provides businesses with the opportunity to attract new customers.

• As with most Google products, AdWords is user-friendly and offers step-by-step instructions to create an advertisement with options tailored to your needs.

• The quick set up process and ability to set a maximum budget can be financially beneficial if the marketing budget is tight and the business does not have enough content (yet!) to appear on the first page of Google search results without paid help.

• Your advertisement has the potential to appear on thousands of other sites across the web, depending on how you set up visibility options. Remember that this may increase the expense of ads, but knowing your audience and anticipating how they conduct their web searches will allow a higher return on your investment.

• In a short amount of time, AdWords will help you identify the keyword phrases that are most effective for your firm, which can then be used in your organic search engine optimization efforts. No other keyword research tool compares with the data you will get from running an AdWords campaign.

Disadvantages of Google AdWords for Law Firm Marketing:

• Not all clicks are good clicks, so there is a chance of wasting money. For example, if you are a personal injury lawyer, a broad keyword search can rack up a hefty cost-per-click bill in a short amount of time.

• There are no competitors to Google AdWords; therefore, there is no other company with which to compare data. Google has a monopoly on this one.

• You have 70 characters to sell your business. This line would be it.

• Since AdWords is a money maker for Google, the company is interested in resolving issues. Still, Google is an enormous company, and customer support may be spotty; you may have to “google” for help instead of calling someone directly.

AdWords for Law Firms Considerations

Ask yourself what type of return you want to get from your investment. Determine how much money you would need to invest in AdWords to accomplish that return. Tailor your AdWords campaign to reach a very specific target audience (assuming that target audience is finding legal services through advertising and the web).

As far as its efficacy for B2B marketing, it depends on the purchaser of your services. For example, if your law firm handles government contracting, the likelihood of AdWords being advantageous to your business development efforts may be very slim. On the other hand, if you are a person injury, workers’ compensation, family law or criminal defense law firm, AdWords may prove valuable.

In any event, it may be more advantageous to launch an organic search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. Leveraging your law firm news, press releases and blog posts; creating content-rich videos that appeal to your target audience; engaging in media relations; building relationships; sharing valuable content via social media networks such as LinkedIn; and presenting online CLEs are just a few tactics we execute for our clients to boost their visibility in online search.

Remember, it is the organic, well-placed, relevant content that will remain on the Internet long after an AdWords campaign has ended.

LinkedIn Skills Endorsements for Lawyers

If you use LinkedIn, then you are probably familiar with the Recommendation function. It’s the one where you can write up a glowing report about someone with whom you have worked or vice versa. The idea, of course, is that your positive opinion of them enhances their credibility.

Well, LinkedIn has introduced a new feature called Endorsements. With just one click, you can now endorse your connections for a skill they have listed on their profile or recommend one they have not added. The upshot is that now when you look at a connection’s profile, you not only see the skills he or she claims to possess, you see what others agree are the skills that he or she actually has.

Here’s how it works:

On the top of your connections’ profiles, you will now see a box titled recommended endorsements. You just click the ones with which you agree.

Or, if you scroll down to the new Skills and Expertise section, you can see which skills were endorsed and by whom. The skill that has been endorsed by the most people appears at the top of the list with the rest appearing in descending order of popularity.

The great thing about this feature is that it creates an easy way to scan for a specific skill set. It’s also faster to create than writing a recommendation. After all, it can take some time and forethought to write up a good one.

My own experience as a PR person tells me that you’re going to want to keep asking colleagues for written recommendations as well as endorsements. Endorsements focus on skills while recommendations focus on your qualities as a co-worker or strategic partner - they should be complimentary.

Also, you’re going to want to give some thought to the skills that you want endorsed. You need to manage how you are perceived and act accordingly. While you can’t control which skills people choose to endorse, you can let your connections know which ones you want featured. Or, at the very least, check your endorsements periodically to make sure that the picture being painted of you reflects your best talents.

For more on One Click Endorsements, check out Dave Berger’s write-up  on the LinkedIn Blog.