Entries from July 2010 ↓

In my role as a product manager for SEM products at the Yellow Pages Group, I often get pointed towards articles online that offer advice to SMB’s about how to market their businesses. Recently, a colleague pointed me towards one article that stated that online Yellow Pages (YP) directories could be harmful to the organic ranking of a lawyer’s website.  The article stated that advertisers could see harm done to their website’s SEO rankings because of a) duplicate content gleaned from the site; and b) because of unique URL’s that are similar to the advertiser’s URL.

The first point could have some merit, because duplicate content on multiple sites is a big no-no in search engine algorithms. However, the duplication of a couple of sentences, or a short promo text will not negatively impact one’s rankings.  If that were the case, no one would ever use a quote online for fear of being penalized by Google.  Search engines don’t like the wholesale copying of one site’s content to another.  As best as I know, online YP publishers don’t copy/paste your entire site.

The second point, that online YP directories provide customers with URLs similar to that of their main site and that that negatively affects their organic rankings, is plain nonsense.  If your website is MontrealLawyers.com, Google will not penalize you because someone else registered MtlLawyers.com.  I can’t even think of how that could possibly make sense from a search relevancy perspective.

My goal here is not to defend online YP directories.  I have heard the arguments against them, and I’m willing to admit some of their weaknesses.  Rather, my goal is to point out that quasi-expert advice like the above is doled out on the internet with non-chalance and passed off as trustworthy. After all, “Law Firm Marketing Dude” (seriously, that’s the name of his site) claims to have “20 years of experience” (I hope I didn’t negatively impact his SEO rankings by copying those words from his site). I should be able to trust his advice, shouldn’t I?

While I want to believe that most people can see through these ruses, I don’t think it’s as easy as it seems.  Once upon a time, I went to law school and practiced law (very briefly).  As a result, I know a thing or two about the legal profession.

The differences between law and marketing are vast, but one of the most important differences is that in law, there are a lot more trustworthy sources of information.  The legal profession is heavily regulated, and rightfully so.  We can’t have just anyone calling themselves lawyers and handing out legal advice.  Marketing, on the other hand, is not so regulated, and as such, anyone can call himself a marketing expert and just start handing out advice, a lot of which is nonsense.

Now, imagine a lawyer who is running a law practice.  He comes from a world where his opinions are informed by peer reviewed law journals, academic text books, and judge-written court cases.  He can trust his sources.  That same lawyer is now trying to figure out how to market his law practice online, and the option readily available to him is…  the internet?

Lawyers and other business owners are a smart lot, so I have faith that most will see through the BS, but there’s a lot of bogus information out there, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing it. Especially when your entire experience is based around having easy access to trustworthy information.

In the age of the internet, having trustworthy sources is a valuable asset and increasingly rare.  So, business owners, I would advise you that your most important task in learning about how to market your business is to first find a trusted source. Once you’ve found the trust, then you can begin to learn.