Beginner’s Guide to Cost Per Impression Advertising

General Information on CPM Advertising

CPM stands for “cost per thousand impressions, and advertisers that use CPM advertisements will set their desired price for all 1000 advertisements served and pay each time their advertisement appears on a display network. 

The advantage to CPM (cost per impression) is that the publisher can receive revenue every time the advertisement is viewed on their webpage.  A CPM advertisement has the largest benefit to law firms because it encourages a strong brand, and some important information on cost per thousand impressions falls below.

Payouts from CPM (Cost per Impression)

In cost per impression advertising, an advertising agency will recruit firms and other businesses for a campaign.  The agency will coordinate different websites together to run the advertisements, and the agency will look at different demographics and see how the advertisement is relevant to the website. 

More importantly, a firm has the right to accept or deny websites that will run their advertisements in cost per thousand impressions advertising.  The firm will have to pay the agency a percentage for CPM (cost per impression), and the other percentage will be paid to the website hosting the advertisement. 

How much does a website make from Cost per Impression?

There is no definite answer to how much a website can make off cost per thousand impressions advertising.  Agencies can charge prices anywhere from20 cents to amounts of $15 or more.  Most agencies will provide you with updated information on how much you’re making off of CPM (cost per impression), and you can find more information on recommended articles about CPM calculators.

Why will a website drop certain Cost per Impression ads?

A mentioned above, most agencies will let a legal website accept or reject cost per thousand impressions ads.  Some publishers may dislike certain kinds of CPM (cost per impression) ads such as pop ups or video ads.  Additionally, a legal website may feel that the cost per impression ad is actually competing with their website. 

Does a publisher profit the most from CPM advertising?

Legal websites and blogs do not typically make a large percentage of their profits from cost per thousand impressions.  Most legal websites make the majority of revenue from subscriptions and indirect profits after providing counsel to clients. 

Instead, most legal websites and blogs rely on CPM (cost per impression) advertising to bring in traffic because the profits from CPM advertising will usually fluctuate from month to month. 

Can a website use more than one Cost per Impression Agency?

There is no direct answer to this question either.  Some agencies will make a firm sign a contract that states they are the sole holder of the advertisements and only they can handle the cost per thousand impressions. 

Some legal websites do in fact embrace several different agencies for CPM (cost per impression) advertising, but the majority of legal websites and blogs will only use one CPM advertiser to keep operations and logistics of the website simple. 

How long with a Cost per Impression contract last?

Again, there is no direct answer for this question.  Contracts for cost per thousand impressions can last anywhere from a trial period to a month or even a year.  However, most agencies are willing to end your contract for CPM (cost per impression) at any time to keep clients satisfied. 

If an agency offers a contract for CPM, a website—even if the website is run by a group of attorneys—should usually have an attorney who specializes in advertising contracts review the document. 

Potential Disadvantages for an Attorney and Cost per Impression Advertising

If an attorney or a law firm is running a website and decides to include cost per thousand impressions advertising on the margins of their website, readers and other attorneys may view the advertisements as unprofessional in some cases.  Also, you don’t want the CPM (cost per impression) ads taking readers away from your website if the advertisement offers similar legal advice.  

Potential Advantages to CPM Advertising

There are several possible advantages to cost per impression advertising.  For one, a firm who advertises their services can bring in customers to their  legal website that may not have been brought to the website from PPC advertising for example. 

Additionally, a firm or attorney who runs cost per thousand impressions on their website may be able to make a significant amount of money every month.  The biggest strategy to making money off of CPM (cost per impression) advertising is delivering useful content, a strong SEO strategy, and running CPM ads that relate to your business and even offer services that your firm cannot offer. 

When to Consider Running Cost Per Impression Ads

·         your CPM campaign will only target a display network, not a search network

·         your cost per thousand impressions ads are there to increase awareness, not necessarily clicks to your actual website

·         you need to target specific placements on a website with CPM (cost per impression), and you can target cost per impression ads if the agency offers bidding

·         try to increase brand awareness with cost per impression advertising by considering images and other multimedia

While considering cost per thousand impressions, you need to consider what type of advertising campaign is best for your budget, intended audience, and more.  You should always consider other types of advertising apart from CPM (cost per impression) such as PPC and CPA advertising.  In order to know what type of advertising is best for your services, you should consider using tools under large providers like Google AdWords, SEOmoz, Yahoo,  or other providers on the internet. 

Comprehensive Guide to CPM Rates, SEO, and Social Media

What is a CPM Rate?

CPM rates can work in two different ways.  For one, a website that hosts advertisements for other websites can calculate an average CPM to see how much revenue the entire website is making from advertisements compared to the amount of visitors to the website. 

Additionally, an attorney or firm can conduct an average CPM (cost per 100 impressions) for the amount they spent on the advertisement compared to how many customers the advertisements have brought in and added profit to the firm. 

Clickthroughs and a CPM Rate

An attorney or firm can use two different equations to figure out an average CPM.  A website that posts advertisements for the attorney or firm only needs to use one equation because they do not need to adjust their ROI (return on investment) before figuring out a CPM rates.  If an attorney or firm wants to figure out a CPM rate, they first need to figure out the ROI for the advertising campaign.  This is simply done by subtracting the costs from the revenue generated by the website. 

Then, the firm can calculate their own CPM rates using the following equation:

Total site revenue / total site page views X 1,000= Average CPM

Just like a website that provides advertisements, a firm will also want a low CPM rate so they can spend a low amount on advertising but yield a high profit margin from the advertisements.  There are certain ways that a firm can lower their average CPM, and suggestions are provided in the following sections:

Ways to Decrease a CPM Rate

A CPM advertisement is usually used for brand exposure, but there are ways to use a CPM advertisement and increase web traffic to an attorney’s website.  The most important factors include the structure marketing of the advertisement and the information located on the website as well as other SEO techniques.  According to a survey performed by MarketingSherpa in April of 2011, the following initiatives were proven effective or ineffective for SEO:

As indicated from the graph above, the best way to decrease your average CPM and bring more consumers to  your website through a CPM advertisement is by offering great content, title tags, landing pages, and the URL structure.  The graph also indicates that CPM rates can be reduced through social media, but a large percentage of the social media category only states the initiative can somewhat decrease a CPM rate. 

The rest of this article will argue how the right advertisement on social networking websites like Facebook can increase SEO and reduce your average CPM over a period of time. 

Lowering your CPM Rates with Social Media

By using the right types of advertisements on Facebook and social media, your CPM rate can drop and you can bring more traffic to your website.  The following considerations can help with your average CPM:

1.       Ad copy: test how consumers are responding to your ad by asking them to “Like” the ad if they believe it is working well.

2.       Image: try out several different images to see which advertisement will work the best.  You might find that different images work better

for certain demographics that could potentially improve your CPM rate.

3.       Interest groups: see what types of interest groups are liking your advertisement and thus helping your CPM rates.  You shouldn’t try to target interest groups that do not respond regularly.

4.       Groups within groups: once you’ve found which types of interest groups like the advertisement and helping your average CPM, try splitting the group up into different categories so you can adjust your ad or create several ads.

Select the Option for the CPM Campaign

Facebook allows you to select a CPC or a CPM for your advertising campaign, and you can indicate how much you’re willing to pay per 1000 impressions.  After you’ve set up your campaign, you’ll have to monitor your click through rates and adjust your advertisement for the best CPM rates. 

Your CTR will undoubtedly decrease over time, and you’ll be required to adjust your advertisement to help your CPM rate. 

Calculate a Cost per Fan Figure

In order to calculate a cost per fan rate, you’ll calculate like you do for your average CPM.  Once you see how the cost per fan number compares to your actual CPM rate, it’s likely that you have more fans that actual customers so the number for the cost per fan will likely be lower than the your actual CPM rates.  If this is the case, you should take steps to close the gap between the fan number and your average CPM. 

Bidding Higher will Get your Ads Approved Faster

The technique may seem obvious to help your average CPM, but Facebook knows which attorneys are willing to pay more for an advertisement.  The trick to getting your advertisement approved more quickly is setting your bidding rate high at first.  Once your advertisement is approved, you can lower your bidding rate to a lower price.  The faster you have an advertisement up, the faster you can check your CPM rate and make any necessary changes to help your average CPM. 

Conclusion for CPM Rates

Many of the tips provided in this article for CPM rates apply to advertisements outside of social networking as well.  The trick is getting your advertisement to appear as a useful piece of information that relates to a large group of the public.  If you need more information on your CPM rate, you should consider the article on this website titled, “Essential Information on Cost per Impression Rates.” 

Tips, Formats, and Statistics on Mobile Display Advertising

Statistics Relating to Mobile Display Advertising

According to Yahoo, advertising displays on mobile phones is expected to increase by 25% in 2012 alone.  Additionally, the following statistics released by Google reflect the increasing need for attorneys to adjust their advertising display for mobile devices:

·         81% of smartphone users use the internet on their mobile device

·         59% of smartphone users access the internet when they are waiting

·         72% use their smartphones while using other types of media such as television, music, books, etc.

Law Firms and Local Content

Local content is extremely important in mobile display advertising.  For example, the following graph shows actions that consumers took after looking up a local content on their smartphone:

Different Types of Advertising Display Advertisements for Mobile Devices

The following types of mobile display advertising are offered by Google Mobile Ads:

1. Interactive Video Ads

This type of mobile display advertising is displayed to users when they launch apps and click on certain banners.  Google recommends using this type of advertising display because you can mix video and audio content in order to draw in more clients.  Legal interactive video ads appear mainly on Android and iOS apps.

2. Interstitials Ads

These types of ads appear within an app and occur when there are breaks within the app.  Google recommends using this type of advertising display for the following reasons:

·         this type of mobile display advertising attract more customers than text or image ads

·         the places are eye-catching and offer great results to for websites

3. Canvas and Expandable Ads

This type of mobile display advertising is started by the user, and once they click on the ad, it expands to cover the entire screen.  Google recommends using this type of advertising display because rich media displays like this type are much attractive to potential clients.

4. Tablet Image Banners

This type of mobile display advertising is used exclusively on tablets.  Google recommends this type of advertising display for the following reasons:

·         those using tablets engage more in graphical and image ads rather than text ads

·         research shows that in 2010, twice as many users clicked on image ads on an iPad than on standard ads

5. Static and Multi-Panel Banners

These types of mobile display advertising are available on smartphones, simple phones, tablets, and more.  Google recommends using these types of advertising display platforms because banners are cost effective and can often increase brand awareness for your firm. 

6. Click-to-Download App Ads

This type of mobile display advertising is a text or banner ad that provides a link to the app store for your app.  Google recommends using this type of advertising display because it provides consumers an easy way to travel to the App Store and download the app for your legal services.

7. InStream Video Ads (YouTube)

Google recommends this type of mobile display advertising for Android users.  The InStream video will run when the Android users play a video.  Google recommends this type of advertising display because it can increase brand awareness. 

8. Brand Channels (YouTube)

Google recommends this type of mobile display advertising for both Android and iOS users.  You can run your advertisements on a certain channel, and Google recommends this type of advertising display to increase brand awareness to consumers on varying degrees of mobile devices. 

Tips for your Mobile Display Advertising Campaign

Google recommends a several tips that can increase sales, improve results, make keyword lists more relevant to your services, and get you more leads.  Consider the following tips for your advertising display:

Tip # 1 Build a Mobile Site to Increase Business through Mobile Devices

If clients arrive at your firm’s website and it’s adapted for mobile devices, they are much more likely to engage with the website on their phone.  According to research release by Google, 57% of consumers wouldn’t recommend a business that had a poor mobile site. 

A good mobile website for mobile display advertising allows users to navigate without pinching or zooming, and the text should be visible at arm’s length.  Google recommends that you visit www.howtogomo.com to test your firm’s website and advertising display.  You will receive recommendations on how to improve the site, and you can find developers to build the website and the advertising display. 

Tip #2 Create Separate Mobile Campaigns

Google recommends that you create several different mobile display advertising campaigns that will only target mobile devices.  Google also recommends that you create an AdWords campaign along with your mobile display advertising campaign.  Google states that a mobile display advertising campaign can do the following:

·         create a mobile call-to-action that can help your services appeal to more mobile users

·         find the keywords that work best on mobile devices compared to those on desktop computers

Tip #3 Build User Friendly Keyword Lists

Google recommends that you create keyword lists that are shorter than normal for your mobile display advertising campaign.  For example, while searching on a smart phone, clients may be much more likely to type in a short keyword phrase like “divorce attorney Vegas NV” instead of “divorce attorneys in Las Vegas Nevada”. 

Tip #4 Use Click-to-Call Ads

Perhaps one of the most important recommendations for your mobile display advertising campaign from Google is to use Click-to-call ads in order to receive more leads.  If a consumer can speak with someone before receiving services, they are much more likely to use your services.  Google offers the following benefits of using click-to-call ads in mobile advertising:

·         click-to-call advertising display is responsible in a 6-8% increase in click through rates

·         a click-to-call costs the same a click ad to the website

·         these ads allow the firm to see how many calls they’ve received from each keyword

Conclusion

By using the tips and different types of mobile display advertising listed above, you can begin to launch a successful campaign.  You should also consider combining different types of search ads into your campaign. 

Everything About SEO Blog

Today, only about 12 percent of lawyers in small firms are using the single best tool for getting your firm's name into search engine results: SEO blogs.  If you're not yet doing blog SEO for your firm, you are missing out on new business and a way to really make your firm stand out from your competition.

How is Blog SEO Changing?

When search engines were first developed, they looked largely at how often a keyword was repeated in a web page to decide where to put a page in search rankings, leading to the rise of SEO blogs.  However, after some time, SEO blog spam—often computer generated—was coming up in search results ahead of genuine, interesting material.  

So the engineers working for Google, Yahoo, and other search engines had to figure out a way to separate legitimate SEO blogs and other websites from the content-less spam sites.

With every move Google made, spammers got cleverer with spam blog SEO.  When Google started lowering the search result rank of articles with excessive keyword density, spammers lowered their density too.  In 2012, Google has released new changes (called Google Penguin) to their search indexer.

With Penguin, blog SEO depends more than ever on the quality of your content and how often other people are linking to it.  This means that SEO blogs today need to focus maintaining quality, original content while also interacting with other websites.  If what used to work for your SEO blog doesn't seem to be bringing in clients any more, you may need to change how you think of your blog SEO.

Can SEO Blogs Help My Practice?

The answer to this question is an unequivocal yes.  If you're not already using an SEO blog to help drive traffic to your website, you need to start as soon as you can.  Over half of small firm attorneys have gotten new business as a direct result of their blog SEO.

SEO blogs can also help any social media initiatives that your firm has begun.  If you're not quite sure what to post on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter to keep your audience interested, an SEO blog is a great place to begin.  You can include a short piece of your blog SEO post, as well as the headline, and wait for your social media connections to start reading.

What Kind of SEO Blog Should I Start?

The answer to this question, of course, depends on what you're good at and what your practice focuses on.  In all likelihood, it's not a good idea for a criminal defense attorney to have blog SEO about divorces or bankruptcy.

Don't make your SEO blog topic too general.  Remember that there are already many other SEO blogs, and you want yours to stand out. You should pick some specific aspect of your practice area you know a great deal about, and keep your blog focused on developments in that area.

Even more important is your audience.  Who do you want reading your SEO blog?  Some lawyers start SEO blogs that are designed to attract clients who are searching for terms related to their legal case online.  Other attorneys prefer to make their blog SEO more attractive to other attorneys, who can then see the content and send referrals on to your law office or link your blog in their blogs.

Considerations about your audience can affect the topic of your SEO blog.  SEO blogs that are about more consumer-friendly topics may get a little traffic from other attorneys, especially if they want to link your content.  On the other hand, blog SEO designed for other lawyers will probably be over the heads of most clients.

How Often Should I Post to My SEO Blog?

There's a tricky line that SEO blogs need to walk when it comes to posting frequency.  If you post too many times, people won't have time to read all of your blog SEO content and may even stop reading.  Even if they don't stop reading, the time and effort you spent making SEO blog entries will have been wasted if people don't have time to read it all.

At the same time, you don't want to post too infrequently.  SEO blogs with no entries written for a month or more can look abandoned, and will have a much harder time bringing in new business.

Your SEO blog should shoot for a happy medium—which will also give you enough time to make sure that you can produce quality blog SEO content.  Try posting once or twice a week to start, and then see whether you feel comfortable with producing a third (possibly short) article per week.

Before you start any SEO blogs, it's a good idea to have a reserve stockpile of articles.  That way, if you get busy, your SEO blog doesn't suffer from a lack of content: just take an article out of the stockpile and post whenever you need to.

What Should My SEO Blog Entries Look Like?

The key to great blog SEO is having great titles that capture the attention of your audience.  When SEO blogs have confusing titles—or titles that don't really capture what the article is about—they are often indexed incorrectly or ranked much lower.

If you still want to have clever or cute headlines instead of descriptive ones, include them as sub-headlines within your article.  This will allow your voice to shine through but won't result in your blog SEO being misread by search spiders.

Don't flood your blog entries with too many repetitive keywords.  You should be making sure your keywords appear several times in your entries, but in the best case scenario, they should flow seamlessly as part of your prose.  Usually, just 2 or 3 repetitions of keywords will be plenty for a 400 word article.

You should also make sure that your blog entries link back to landing pages on your own website at least once or twice.  Don't just link to a firm homepage, but instead make sure that you're using targeted landing pages designed to generate conversions.

Everything About SEM Blog

Lawyers make up just one percent of the population of the United States, but they maintain a full six percent of the blogs.  Having a search engine marketing/SEM blog has brought in new business for over half of solo practitioners and small firms that try it.  So how can you get on board?  Search engine marketing with blogs means more than just making sure you have the right keyword count in your articles.  If you want to get the most out of SEM blogs for lawyers, you'll need the right tips.  Here are five to get you started.

SEM Blog Tip #1: Make Your Headlines Count

While making your law blog entries creative is a great idea, you may be surprised to find that it's usually in your best interest to make your headlines more straightforward.  When SEM blogs are indexed by Google and other search engines, the headline is what they take the most notice of.  A headline that doesn't include the keyword phrases you're search engine optimizing for won't lead nearly as many people to your SEM blog.

Try coming up with punchy but descriptive headlines for SEM blogs that give a great idea of what's to come.  Numbered lists are sometimes a great way to come up with a good headline.  “7 Ideas For Keeping Your Divorce Amicable” could be a workable headline for a divorce attorney, and “What's Next in Mobile Marketing for Lawyers?  6 Possibilities” would be a great headline for an SEM blog focusing on marketing topics.

SEM Blog Tip #2: Don't Ignore Social Media

Most web users today share content of some type or another with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.  While LinkedIn has gotten the most attention from lawyers with SEM blogs, you can no longer afford to leave Facebook and Twitter out of your web marketing strategy.

Facebook, the single most popular social media platform in the United States and the world, is a great place to share SEM blog entries or video blogging.  You don't have to stop there, though.  Ask your Facebook fans some open-ended questions.  If you're already maintaining SEM blogs, ask your Facebook friends or fans to give you more blogging ideas or ask questions about the law for you to answer in blog form.

Twitter is a little harder for some attorneys to learn to use for their SEM blogs, but its number of users has doubled for two years in a row and may double once again this year.  That means you're going to need to get used to Twitter's 140 character limit, and link your most mobile-friendly SEM blog entries with a short headline as “tweets.”  Why mobile friendly?  Twitter users are notoriously early adopters of technology, and more of them access the web with mobile devices than users of other mainstream social media sites. 

SEM Blog Tip #3: Open the Floor For Comments

Most SEM blogs have a comments section by default, but some attorneys decide to close comments in order to maintain more control over their blog.  This is a huge mistake: comments are one of the places where you can really set your SEM blog apart from the competition.  An active comments section will generate more links back to your blog entries and will engage your readers more.

If someone asks a question in your comments section, you may want to answer it with another comment, or you may want to shake it up by making a whole new blog entry about the question.  Making a new blog entry is an especially good idea if you've heard the same question repeated by several different people over the last few weeks, months or years.

When comments are particularly interesting, or if a good discussion has started in your comment section, you may want to link the comments instead of your entry using social media sites.  SEM blogs that can show an active, intelligent comments section are more likely to be seen as authoritative.

SEM Blog Tip #4: Moderate Your Comment Section

Not all comments on SEM blogs are helpful to discussion.  You should set up notifications about new blog comments, and make sure that any comments made on your SEM blog appear to be relevant.  Too often, otherwise good SEM blogs end up littered with spam comments from other websites trying to piggyback on your hard work and get an extra inbound link.

Delete right away any comments that appear to be littering your SEM blog with keyword spam.  SEM blogs with a great deal of this comment spam may be caught by Google's spam filters and find their search engine results pages declining fast.

The same can be said for any comments on SEM blogs that are clearly “trolling”: made just to get a rise out of you.  Comments that involve extensive name-calling or clearly deliberate misinterpretations of the law (especially very strange ones) are likely to be made by people who just want to make trouble for your SEM blog.  It's usually best to ignore and delete these comments rather than giving the commenters the satisfaction of your angry reply.

Please note: this doesn't mean that you should immediately delete a comment if it disagrees with your article.  Disagreement and discussion can actually be good for your SEM blog, as long as you keep it civil and try to inform and educate.  Deleting any comment that you think isn't positive enough will make other people much less likely to comment or discuss your articles.

SEM Blog Tip #6: Check Your ROI

The point of SEM blogs is to generate buzz and get more clients working with your law firm.  Even if you're having a blast writing SEM blog entries, you need to verify that what you're doing has actually been effective.

Using analytics tools is important so that you can see exactly where your web traffic is coming from and how much of it is attributable to your SEM blog.  If you're seeing certain topics or keywords that keep bringing clients in and generating conversions, you may want to keep your blog focused on those topics or keywords.  If something isn't working, analytics lets you know so that you don't keep making the same mistakes over and over.

Everything About Local SEO Blog

According to Google, over 20 percent of searches today are for local services.  This number is even higher when it comes to attorneys.  Most clients want a lawyer who is local, so when you start your blog, you should make sure it's a local search engine optimization blog.

Local search results act a little bit differently from other types of search results, and your blogging strategies for a local SEO blog should change accordingly.  Keep reading to find out ways that you can make sure you're creating a true local search engine optimization blog.

How Local SEO Is Different

Let's face it: results for a fantastic law firm in New York City aren't going to be all that useful for most people who just need basic legal services in Albany.  To combat the problem of non-local search results appearing in people's search queries, a number of search engines have now made it possible to search by location.  The most popular of these is Google Places.

Google Places results now appear as the top page of results when you make a local search.  Since most search users pick a link from the first page, it's very important to have your firm represented on Google Places.  It's very easy to set up your Google Places page, and to buy additional tags for your website if you want for more searches to be directed to your firm.

How does Google Places tie in with a local search engine optimization blog?  Well, your local SEO blog should at least sometimes link back to your Google Places page.  This kind of inbound linking from your local search engine optimization blog can elevate your Google Places results in searches.

Picking a Topic for Your Local SEO Blog

Once you've decided to specialize your blog as a local search engine optimization blog, you can start to think about the specific topic areas you're interested in writing about.  The topics for your local SEO blog should always play to your firm's greatest strengths.  If your firm handles several very different types of cases, you may consider developing a different local search engine optimization blog for each of the main categories you practice in.

When you've decided on your topic, start to think of some real questions you've gotten, or common misconceptions you'd like to clear up, about that area of law.  If it's something that is interesting to clients you've had in the past, odds are it will be interesting to others as well when you include it on your local SEO blog.

Because you're trying to maintain a local search engine optimization blog, you'll want to keep your topics locally focused.  If a national issue is critical, your local SEO blog can still talk about it, but try to confine the vast majority of your discussions to issues with local and state laws or notable figures in law.

Linking and Comments

If you're talking about something in your local search engine optimization blog that you'd already referenced in an earlier post, you should link to the old post in your new one.  The more links and connections that are in your blog, the more likely it will be to appear early in search results.

Don't just link to yourself, though.  Who wants to be the person at the party who can only talk about himself?  Open up the conversation by linking to other blogs or websites with your local SEO blog.  A good local search engine optimization blog will link to local resources and help for people who are having legal issues.  

For instance, if you're a divorce lawyer, you may want to include a blog entry on your local SEO blog about domestic violence shelters and resources for abuse victims.  Someone who works a lot with landlord and tenant law can link to the state's Uniform Landlord and Tenant Act or similar law on their local search engine optimization blog.

Headlines: First Impressions Mean Everything

When you write your local SEO blog, it may be tempting to give some of your articles a headline that makes your readers scratch their heads and keep reading.  That kind of headline, though, won't play well with Google's search algorithms, which look at headlines to figure out what your article is about.

If you want your local search engine optimization blog to show up early in search results, you'll need to make your headlines crystal clear and very direct.  A subtitle or later section titles can be more creative, but your title needs to include an exact phrase match for the keywords you want to search engine optimize for.

Link Building For Lawyers

Making your local search engine optimization blog appear relevant to search indexers requires building inbound links on other websites.  You can start by posting some of the best articles from your local SEO blog to an online article submission site, including links to several of your blog entries.  Press release websites can also be a great way to get more inbound links.

What If It Doesn't Work?

There's always the chance that even if you work very hard on your local search engine optimization blog, you won't get the visitors you want.  Or you'll get visitors, but you won't see an uptick in your actual new business.  These are two different problems, and they need two different solutions.

If your local SEO blog just isn't getting any web traffic, you need to work harder on your search engine optimization skills.  Figure out better keywords and link to your blog from social media websites in order to get more eyes on your content.

When plenty of people are seeing what you have to say, but they're not responding the way you had hoped, you need to change your content.  This can often be an indicator that people find your local SEO blog to be too generic or not relevant enough to the keywords they were searching for.  With a few conversion-friendly modifications, you should be able to increase your conversion rate.

Everything About Facebook Advertising Revenue

Facebook advertising revenues have been steadily increasing ever since the website began implementing ads in 2006.  Today Facebook has over 845 million users, and those users have created an advertising behemoth: currently, Facebook advertising revenue figures are around $3.15 billion per year.  Keep reading to find out more staggering figures about Facebook advertising revenues and how you can make your ads work for you without costing an arm and a leg.

Recent Controversies and Their Effect on Facebook Advertising Revenue

Earlier in 2012, Facebook advertising revenues suffered something of a setback when the company settled a class action civil suit.  The suit pertained to “sponsored stories” appearing in people's news feeds and using photographs of people who had not given explicit permission for their photo to be commercialized in this way.

In spite of having to pay millions of dollars because of the class action suit, overall Facebook advertising revenues are up.  The site currently takes in about $10 of Facebook advertising revenue per user in the United States and Canada, and slightly less than that in other regions globally.

Although some big players have withdrawn their support for Facebook advertising after seeing less than ideal results, this has had little impact on overall Facebook advertising revenues.  Overall, Facebook advertising revenue has actually gone up even as click through rates (CTRs) have declined by about 8 percent over the last year.

Is Facebook Advertising Revenue Really Worth the Time?

Since you now have to pay more to get less, are the Facebook advertising revenues your firm could get really worth it?  You have to ask yourself these questions more and more, particularly if you're not able to see a direct stream of Facebook advertising revenue for your company in the current economy.

Remember that your Facebook advertising revenues may not all be obvious.  Not every client who researches your firm using your Facebook page or by looking at who “likes” you will let you know during their consultation visit.  

The effects of Facebook can be very subtle, and it's best to try to track Facebook advertising revenue from all sources, even if some of that revenue comes from clients who didn't click your direct ads.  Visibility and reach are key to expanding your practice, and you can't necessarily put an easy price tag on building an engaging web presence.

What Law Firms Will See the Biggest Facebook Advertising Revenues?

Before you decide on an advertising budget for your new campaign, you need to ask yourself how much Facebook is really worth to your law firm.  For some types of firms that market primarily to other professionals, Facebook advertising revenues may be minimal compared to what you could bring in using LinkedIn for more professional networking.

If, on the other hand, your law firm's advertising strategies usually rely on B2C marketing, you'll be much more at home on Facebook.  Firms that fulfill the needs of very specific demographics and know what their niche markets look like can do better on Facebook than general practitioners.  If you think that you do most of your business with a particular age group or people with some shared interest, you can make that work for effective, targeted ads that will deliver the best value per click and make your Facebook advertising revenues grow steadily.

How Can I Increase My Facebook Advertising Revenue?

Facebook advertising revenue is likely to be highest for firms that can leverage sponsored stories to their advantage and use landing pages.  Just making these two changes can vastly increase your conversions and overall Facebook advertising revenues.

Landing pages work for any kind of direct pay per click ad, but if you want to have real Facebook advertising revenue with your campaigns, you'll definitely need them to grab social media traffic.  People today want to be able to get through websites and find the information they want quickly.  

If you don't direct visitors to a relevant landing page, you'll be losing out on a lot of traffic and it won't matter what you bid for your clicks—people won't stay long enough to find out that you're a great law firm with great things to offer.  People decide whether they want to talk to you within the first ten seconds of reading the first page they're directed to on your website.  Without landing pages, that first ten seconds will be confusing and potentially frustrating.

The Future of Facebook Advertising Revenues: Mobile Advertising

As of summer 2012, only about half of advertisers are adding to their Facebook advertising revenue by running sponsored stories.  These stories appear in a person's news feed, in the same place where a status update from a friend or a link shared by a colleague might be.  This high-visibility placement is especially effective for generating higher Facebook advertising revenues when you're posting frequently to a blog and can turn those entries into a constant stream of fresh sponsored stories.

If you're not currently optimizing your Facebook ads for mobile marketing, you're missing out on the most lucrative source of Facebook advertising revenue.  Studies have shown that these ads can be up to 11 times more likely to generate click throughs than ads in a desktop browser.

How Can I Tell If I'm Getting a Good Return on Investment?

One of the best ways to tell if your Facebook marketing efforts have really been turning into Facebook advertising revenues is to ask clients to fill out comment cards.  On these comment cards, you can ask where someone researched your firm before deciding to use you as a lawyer.  This way, you'll find out about clients who saw your professional presence on Facebook and used it in their decision-making process.

You may want to ask an outside analytics company to analyze your results if you want to maximize your return on investment and have already tried all of these strategies to increase your Facebook advertising revenues.  The problem with your Facebook advertising revenue stream may be something unusual, and a professional web traffic analyst can help you get your revenues back where you want them from your Facebook pages.