My ten-year-old son came to me recently asking for a pair of Converse sneakers. “Everyone’s getting them. They’re the hot new thing. They’ll make me cool! They’ll make me run faster!” This came roughly six months after he HAD to have a new pair of Vans. After my son got his Vans he proceeded to wear them a grand total of one time. So it should come as no surprise that since getting his Converse All-Stars for his birthday in September, he has worn them twice as often.
There’s something about the “new” thing that seems to offer promises of a sudden spike in public awareness and increased performance, whether it be our friends in school or potential clients. Whether you’re a thirteen-year-old middle school student or a growing law firm, a lot of effort and hard work goes into building and marketing your brand. Therefore, to be on the cutting edge has an undeniable allure.
Take for example the new .law domains. I’m sure you’ve thought, “It’s like it was MADE for me! Imagine, myfirm.law!” and “Surely this is the holy grail that will skyrocket me to the top of the search engines!” Only time will tell, but short term, the answer is likely “no.”
Consider: You’ve built a brand. That’s what we continually see as the strongest driving force of your marketing. People know your name, search your name, see your name, find your name, and react based on their knowledge of your name. We see it time and time again through organic search with people specifically looking up your firm name.
Consider: If you’re pointing a .law address to your .com, Google will still be indexing your site and its pages through the .com, not the .law. Therefore, the positives related to rankings aren’t going to be significant. This is true of both your firm name or if you purchased mystateinjuryattorney.law.
Consider: If you WERE to make .law your primary, just think of the time, the effort and money you’ve put into your .com. Also think about how many places you’d have to change the link to your URL listing and how much ground you’d lose starting over with a new URL. Will all of that effort for something that we don’t even know will do as well as a .com in the first place be worth it? “But Bill, my competitor is going to purchase it if I don’t, and they’ll put up doctored photos of me and say bad things.” Um, no. Copyright issues and legal ramifications are just two of the reasons this isn’t going to happen. There’s also .attorney, .legal, .lawyer, etc., but I’ve yet to find them at the top of any searches.
“So you’re saying I’m crazy to buy it?” No. If you find value and it helps you sleep better, by all means, knock yourself out. We’re simply not encouraging everyone to jump on the bandwagon. Our focus continues to be building a responsive site that contains SEO friendly copy, creates a killer user experience, and focuses on working with all elements of your marketing, converting and getting you leads.
