There has been a rash of domain brokers and individuals, buying crap-tastic domains with keyword phrases in them and trying to profit from unwitting lawyers.   I recently received an unsolicited email from a company wanting me to buy washingtondcattorney.net.  They wanted $10,000 for the domain.  That was just ridiculous, so I offered $200 and a bag of Doritos.

But keyword phrases are good for SEO!!

The theory is that the keyword phrases in the domain help with your rankings.  This is true, to some extent.  You want keyword phrases in your domain for SEO purposes, as you tend to rank high on those direct matches.  But your domain must be backed up with content, incoming links and an overall real, live site.  If that is not in place, then you are just buying an empty shell of a site and then you have to invest in its development.

What should I spend my money on?

To spend $10,000 on a domain, or even a few thousand dollars does not make sense. With that money you could produce a whole new site, with lots of content pages, and pick up washingtondcattorney.info for 89 cents as the domain!  It will have the same overall value.  It just makes more fiscal sense to put your money into content development and the design, versus the domain.

How to Evaluate a domain?

If someone is trying to sell you a thousand dollar plus domain, be wary.  Before you offer ANYTHING, check to see if:

1. It has any inbound links – siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/mysites
   This is a critical check.  If the domain has zero links, then it’s just easier to get your own domain and build your own links.  If it has lots of inbound links, from great sources, then Muy Bueno!
2. A site is actually live.
   Google only indexes live sites.  Visit the site and see what is there. You want a site that is live that you can take over instantly and rebrand.  The longer the site has been up, the better.
3. If it is a real site vs. a link ad page.
   Link sites that just have ads on them are a dime-a-dozen.  You want a site that has real traffic and real content.  Don’t fall for a single placeholder link page, it’s not worth that much.
4. If it has any history – www.archive.org.
   I love seeing a site that has been online for 5+ years, or at least a few years.  Also check out the overall domain age via www.whois.net. Shorter registrations and sites without history are worth less.
5. It has any brand value
   Some domains are just good picks and worth their money.  Lawyers.com, Attorneys.com, and others are just worth money by their name alone.  Names with cities and attorneys or lawyers are valuable, too.  Typically you know a good domain name when you see it.  They are short, .com, and descriptive of what you do.  If the domain has a ton of phrases in it, is a .net, .org or other domains, discount that.
6. If it has any actual rankings and traffic
   Does the site actually have any real traffic or rankings?  This increases the price because they have already developed the site.  If it has neither, then just pick up your own domain and spend the money on development of the property yourself.

Conclusions

Think of a domain name just like a piece of land.  If that land is developed or has a good location it is worth something.  In the domain realm, if it has neither, or if the domain is easily replicated with a different extension (i.e. .org, .net, .info), then it’s really not worth anything.

1. Speed Matters, Make your Site Fast: Getting rid of 500KB of info yesterday lowered the bounce by 10% in one day.  Make sure your web site loads quickly on the home page and any extraneous data is not included.
2. Make Non-Javascript Friendly Pages Too : 12% of our users don’t have JS.  Since JS is used a lot these days, make sure your pages degrade nicely; meaning that JavaScript elements also have a non-JS version too.
3. Big Monitors Rule, so Design Large: Only 1.5% of our users have 800 x 600. It is old news that you should not design for an 800 x 600 layout.  However, what is new is that everyone has a large monitor.  In fact, most have bigger than 1280px!  Glad we are not going blind. Unfortunately, 19% still have a 1024px monitor, so we will still need a 960px layout.  However, in the future, I can easily see going to a 1100+ px layout.
4. Mobile, Perhaps Not Needed for Small Biz Sites . . . Yet: I know mobile is the future.  I love mobile sites when I am on my iPhone.  But based on our stats, I can’t justify spending a lot of time designing an iPhone version and mobile version for our own site.  Why?  Only 138 visits come in from mobile.  When compared with 14,388 visits that is less than a percent of our total visits.  Almost all our mobile visits are iPhone and iPad users too, which display PaperStreet.com very nicely.  Now, I know this will increase in the future, but for 2010 redesign, we will focus on our core site.  Instead, focus on creating a light weight site that loads quickly on all platforms.
5. Dial-Up, Who?: Only 1% are on dial-up connection.  Not sure who those people are?  I just thought it was interesting that 1% were still on dial-up.  I do believe some mobile speeds are like dial-up, so you should design light weight apps.
6. Browsers, Firefox Dominates, but Chrome is catching on too:  Firefox is at 45%, IE at 35%, Chrome at 9%, Safari at 7%.  Nice job Mozilla.

Want more analysis on your site?  Give us a comment or contact and we would be happy to assist in running some analysis on your site.

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What is Accident Spam News?

Good question, I think these types of posts qualify:

• Three Injured in Washington DUI Auto Accident
• Woman Fatally Injured in Seattle Area Pedestrian Accident
• I-90 Drunk Driving Accident | Lawyer Bellevue
• Fall City Motorcycle Accident Kills One | Attorneys, Seattle

They are taking someone’s misfortune and attempting to use that “news” to gain an edge on search rankings.  I found these examples in a 30 second search for “Seattle accident lawyer” and they were the top two web sites. I am sure if I searched other cities, then the results would be the same.

Yes, I know this is a popular trend now, but it seems to be a bit troubling.  Let’s discuss.

Educate your Readers – Don’t Spam

Blogs are informational resources.  They can educate and be used for social commentary.  If well written, blogs can inspire ideas. They can create a following and bring in business.

For the past year the trend on some lawyers “blogs” is to post pure crap about unrelated accidents.  The goal is SEO rankings.  The method to obtain those rankings is uninformative news content.

The post usually breaks down as such:

1. News Event of some tragic or minor accident
2. Some Statistic, Geographic Information or Practice Info paragraph
3. Call to Action saying “Call us if you have been hurt in a similar fashion.”

What Others Think?

Kevin O’Keefe of LexBlog, has nicely summed up the posting of accidents on web sites here and here.  Yes, these are old posts and I am chiming in late.  However, the topic seems to be coming up more and more lately, especially in twitter, facebook and on more blogs.

I agree, these types of posts need to stop.  Since Google seems to be rewarding this behavior, then perhaps public shame or actual Bar Association rules need to be called into action.

Testimonials and Awards are Helpful; These “News” Posts Are Not

I hate Bar rules on advertising, but perhaps we need a review of these types of posts.  Right now the Florida Bar regulates testimonials and awards, but at least those are helpful.  They let clients know the quality of the lawyer who they are dealing with.  In this case, the accidents are completely unrelated to the law firm.  Perhaps the Bar Associations should make rules about these news posts instead.

Real World Example: Would you Do this?

Imagine if a lawyer took out an advertisement that listed various unrelated accidents of your family and friends, and then at the end said “call us if you have been hurt similarly”.  Imagine if a lawyer stood up at a lunch convention to speak about various unrelated accidents, then said call us if you are injured in these types of cases.

This is a bit over the top and attempting to profit from others misfortune.  So why is it fine to post this on your web site, when no one would consider doing it in a speech, brochure or advertisement?

Moreover, does any other industry do something similar?  Would doctors publish random surgeries of other patients on their blogs?  Would architects publish random building collapses on their blogs?  This seems unlikely to happen.

What Blogs Should Do

Blog articles should be more professional.  They should be commentary on legal topics.  The goal is to offer your potential readers a solid, well-thought out article and analysis.

Yes, this is harder.  Yes, this requires thought.  Yes, this requires time.

If you educate your readers though, they will want to come back for more.  No one is going to want to come back to read on various “accident news”.  Even if they did, would you want that type of morbid person as a client?

Final Thoughts

Let us know your thoughts?  If you have come across some spam posts, feel free to drop them into the comments to shame these lawyers to stop this practice.  I am sure we can find a lot.

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