SEM vs SEO - What's the difference and what does that mean for lawyer websites?
"If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it really make a sound?" If you build a website, and no one visits, how can you generate more business online? Okay, not quite the same comparison but still applicable for today's internet businesses. How do you promote your website once you've transitioned your law firm online? It might be time to consider investing in some form of "Search Engine Marketing", or SEM.Not to be confused with SEO "Search Engine Optimization", covered in a previous post on the Nolo Lawyers blog, SEM is the general practice of increasing a website's visibility in search engine results. Most commonly, SEM refers to greater search engine visibility through pay-per-click advertising and paid placement.
SEM can be part of a comprehensive overall online strategy to boost your website's visibility in search engine results, but other important factors include unique content, link building, social media marketing, and optimizing a website via SEO. The primary function of SEM is to affect your appearance in search engine results and know that consumers can find you.
There are agencies that can help you implement an SEM program, or you can go it alone with legal directories, Google AdWords, and other forms of paid advertising. When choosing an SEO consultant, make sure to follow some if not all of these best practices.
At the end of the day, it's all about results and the ability to measure them. Make sure that you have a historical baseline of metrics before implementing an online strategy and allow time for your efforts to take hold. For example, do you know how many unique site visitors you get each month, and what sites they most originate from? Using a month or two's worth of data might reflect exceptions in the marketplace, or peaks and valleys with times of year, rather than a true reflection of your return on investment. Metrics also allow you to understand what might be resonating most, or least, among potential clients, and how they're most likely to find you.
