If you’re “the guy” that has a routine similar to mine, I applaud you. Wake up in the morning, cup of coffee (I’ve switched to Keurig Starbucks. Save’s lots of time), open up the Mac and there goes the day.
Everyone has a few favorites they like to follow so typing in a search phrase or two first thing in the morning is very common. You have two things you search for when typing in these search phrases. 1. Are my top 5 rankings still stable? and 2. Are the guys behind me, moving up?
Choking on my coffee: When I realize one of your favorites to follow either drops in rankings or increases in rankings. This is typical as it’s still very early morning and you don’t have full control of your senses yet.
When you take over an SEO project from another provider, the pressure on your team is multiplied. You have proven results, proven conversions and happy clients already BUT making an additional client happy really makes our day. Structuring, positioning a solution and strategy in advance. Basically, we must know what we will be doing for the client and new concept before we actually go live. Not after, not in between but before we actually go live. I’m not talking about articles, blogs and social media. I am talking about an actual strategy that will push our new client forward.
Do search phrases and rankings mean everything? Yes and No. The more phrases you rank for in the top ten and top five, the higher traffic volume and conversions you will experience. The no is not actually a “no”. It just represents other search phrases and content your typical and traditional SEO company does not focus on. Search phrases that speak to the average users language (This will lead me to write about voice search soon). So the “no” is an actual “yes” but in a totally different realm of SEO.
Aside from all of this, let’s get back to choking on my coffee. Rankings drop and increase. The battle for top positions is consistent and watching your clients fluctuate is a daily routine if you’re involved with your projects as much as I am.
The goal is to provide the cleanest version of organic SEO. The only time organic SEO gets messy is if you accidentally associate your attorney client website with a link that is not relevant. Fixing these mistakes are key even if the irrelevant links have great DA’s and PA’s.
Simple answer, your client has entrusted you with their law firm business. They depend on you to provide the best and cleanest service so that they’re not affected one or three years from now.
So why do I choke on my coffee at times in the morning? I watch Google provide an advantage to our competitors for the worst SEO practices. I won’t name any law firms but let’s just say, they are the most competitive firms in some of the most competitive areas like Los Angeles.
And guess what? I have examples for you to view below. Just imagine what will happen to your business when Google adjusts their algorithm and finds your websites linked to this garbage.
*I’ve blurred and or removed the law firm name associated with these links for you to review. Afterall, I don’t know if the law firm approved these links or not.*
This must be clean SEO, right? Wrong!
Because “Penis Size” is relevant to car accidents in Los Angeles, right? Wrong! You hope it stops here but it does not. See more below.
I provide these few examples to help you understand what has me choking on my coffee when I see our client rankings fluctuate. They fluctuate due to these extremely unhealthy SEO practices. This is what we, as a marketing agency, are forced to compete with.
I’ve had attorneys ask me, “Why don’t we just do the same thing”? My response: “You worry about misspellings on your homepage or blog BUT you’re ok with linking your law firm business and website to Penis Enlargement spam sites?”
Next time you ask, “why are these guys in front of me?”, these examples are why. We will not allow for our team or our clients to experience the later effects of these Black Hat SEO concepts. In fact, I’m not even sure the owners operating these marketing companies realize what their SEO team is really doing.
Fluctuation will happen. You will jump up and down on competitive keyword phrases in some of the most competitive markets.
Here’s a link to an article by Rand https://moz.com/blog/ranking-fluctuations He’s a little nervous in the video but he does a great job explaining ranking fluctuations.
Don’t think you’re doomed because your rankings are jumping around, give it some time and please try to not choke on your coffee.
Denis Zilberberg
AKA- Night Ninja (I will call you out)
