BluShark Digital
Welcome to the SEO insider with your host, Seth Price, founder of BluShark, taking you inside the world of legal marketing and all things digital.
Seth Price
Welcome, everybody, to another edition of our podcast here. We are thrilled to have Joy Hawkins from Sterling Sky, one of my favorite people in local search, and great to have you here, Joy.
Joy Hawkins
Thanks for having me, Seth.
Seth Price
So I've been a big fan of yours even before you had your current company. Tell, tell our listeners here a little bit about you and your journey to becoming the sort of, one of the rock stars of local search.
Joy Hawkins
Yeah, so I started way back in 2006 actually selling PPC ads at a, if you want to call it a marketing agency. And then just kind of self-taught myself SEO and that morphed into local SEO. And I worked at a few different agencies for I think a total of about 11 years, and then decided to start my own company called Sterling Sky back in 2017.
Seth Price
You know, the world of local has changed so much over the years, but for people who are sort of tuning in now, you know, we've had, we've had the, the the sort of tumultuous LSA added to the, the world, we have PPC expanding, and that local or let's say the map pack has become so incredibly important because the odds of people getting down to organic, a lot of searches just keeps getting less and less. What are your, what's sort of right now your sort of state of local search? What are sort of the things that you think people should be most focused on when they're sort of trying to put that package together for their firms?
Joy Hawkins
Yeah, so I mean, I would say the jury's out on local service ads, like how much they're going to perform well. So far, it looks like, you know, that the cost per lead is really high compared to other verticals that we've seen. So I think Google is definitely charging a premium for those in the legal field. When it comes to like how much traffic those are going to steal from Google My Business, they are going to steal some traffic. So I think it's kind of good to have realistic expectations. We've seen this with other industries we work in, when local service ads are rolled out, we do see a bit of a dip in how much activity comes from Google My Business because Google has done a very good job of making them not look like ads. So I would say, you know, something to be aware of. And I would, I would suggest, you know, going through the headache of getting into local services, and seeing how well it performs. We're seeing a pretty drastic difference in the cost per lead depending on what type of law you're in. For the, your comment about like Google My Business replacing organic or stealing traffic from organic, I would agree, like, we're seeing more and more traffic coming from Google My Business. That being said, there are a lot of queries that still don't even generate a local pack. So if that's the case, obviously, organic is the way to go. And we see a good amount of that for, you know, state terms, like people googling certain laws in different states and things like that. So there's lots, lots of opportunity all over.
Seth Price
You know, for a long time, we always talked about reviews being a conversion factor, and there was a post, I don't know if it was your post or one of Rob's post, was talking about the fact that Google has now slipped in that reviews are actually a factor for three pack visibility. Can you speak a little bit to that that change? And is that something that was already there and they're just formally announcing it? You know, how does that play?
Joy Hawkins
Yeah, it's definitely always been there, like reviews have always been a ranking factor, but they are one that are, I would say, have diminishing returns. So we see, you know, when businesses get a certain number of reviews, there is, you know, a difference. But I would say like, if you jump from a, let's say, 10 reviews to 100 reviews, you might see a difference. But if you jump from 100 to 200, you might not. So something to keep in mind. We've seen that same thing true with with other ranking factors. But I have a study that I did do on it a couple of years ago, where there was a day where Google got rid of millions of reviews. So they got rid of anything that was anonymous. That's kind of one of those transitions.
Seth Price
Remember that well.
Joy Hawkins
Yeah. And so when they got rid of them, we actually closely watched a few businesses that lost a lot of reviews because of that. And just to see what happened with the ranking over a few days, like directly after this happened, and a few of them that did lose a ton of reviews had a drop, like a day or two after the loss of the reviews. So I would say that review volume is a ranking signal as well as likely the text in reviews. But I would say that's always been the case not like...
Seth Price
Well, now we know I going back to that New York Times article years ago about the eyeglass store. I always got the impression that Google was not, that the number itself, they were very cautious because they didn't want to see that game, and that's something finally I think they sort of threw their hands up and said, You know what, we can't not use this because you know if somebody has no reviews, that it seems that they've in recent months, that that is twisted. And again, they're also putting additional touch points as a criminal defense firm, at least partially, the fact that anonymous reviews were knocked out, that it was heartbreaking because you really don't want your clients disclosing who they are. That's why they come to you is for confidentiality. But I digress. One of the things that in sort of, the sort of the, the bunch of stuff, so many things I want to talk to you about, but there was discussion of sort of gateway pages back, as, you know, the idea of people sort of sifting through review wise. Have you seen, there was sort of pretty strong language about not doing it with big threats? If people did, have you seen any of that carried out? Or was that sort of just, people got the message and didn't push that?
Joy Hawkins
So recently, no, I haven't seen them do anything about review gating. When it first came out that review gating wasn't allowed, and they updated the guidelines, there was a major review company that got hit quite hard by it. And since then, I've literally never heard one of those stories. So I still advise people not to do it, but as far as enforcing that policy, Google is horrendous at finding fake reviews, like, or any reviews that violate their guidelines. Like, it's, you know, they've got light years to go to figure out how to do that.
Seth Price
Well, that's my, dovetails to my next question, which is the million-dollar question, right? Google's a gazillion-dollar company. They're really, really smart. How does spam still show up in the three-pack? And why is there you know, look, you have as much insight into what's going on there. Do they not care? Do they want to keep people out because it sells more ads? Or, you know, what, are they working towards it? What's going on here?
Joy Hawkins
So it's a resource problem, in my opinion. Google My Business is not a moneymaker for Google the way that ads are. So you know, the team is limited. And whenever you have that, you have limited resources. And I don't think that Google has devoted the amount of time and effort that it needs to, to make that product as good as it should be. So the spammers are just, I mean, they're always like three or four steps ahead of Google. Google comes out with something to try and stop them, but they've already figured out the newest and best way to create fake listings, so..
Seth Price
But the part that bothers me is I get that, but that I don't feel like Google is taking the basic. But if they said, hey, you need three reviews to be in a competitive market shown. But on any given day, you'll see two spammers who just pop in. Now, they don't stay long. But the idea that there's not some sort of filter, you know, it takes so much to get yourself they have, you know, for legitimate websites, Google visited, so hard to get stuck there. You know, it's, we hear resources, and I buy that. But you would think that there are basic fundamental things that if they wanted to stop this, they could, it just seems that it's too tempting right now. The spammers don't have to work that hard to persevere.
Joy Hawkins
Yeah. And if Google changed the ranking algorithm that would solve this. I think one of the disconnects, is there's all these teams that Google and I don't know what team is responsible for the algorithm. But it's not the team that takes all the support calls and like calls from businesses, and I feel like they're disconnected from what's going on in the real world. That's my opinion. But I think the main thing that they need to solve for spam to become less of a problem is the business name not being such a ranking factor. Because if these listings didn't rank, they wouldn't have as much incentive to create them. So I think the algorithm is just flawed, and they have a hard time understanding what's a real business and what's not a real business. And I think they need to change some signals around to make it so that these new listings don't rank.
Seth Price
You know, it's funny. I'll bring an analogy from a number of years ago if you remember, but they, they made a proclamation that exact match URLs were not going to be rewarded. And overnight, because I have a bunch of them there, and I was too cheap to buy the actual ones so I just had hyphens in them. But for some of my law firms, they would, they fell and then said, Oh, well, it's not necessarily because if it's an exact match, it still could be good. But it shouldn't be because it's an exact match. So if you don't have exact match with one page of content, that's not your best answer. I just wish that there are so many other ranking factors, that to use name... We're in 2020, that, we should be beyond that. What do you say to people, because getting through and fighting this, it feels like you're fighting the ocean sometimes, you know, you can get a couple gone. But you know, we see stuff all the time that it's so clear. They don't have the resources. They're not automating it. Do you you know, do you keep fighting it or is do, just you know, what's your advice to people?
Joy Hawkins
You have to keep fighting it. If you don't, you're just gonna get suffocated, there's no real option there. I mean, we've we've done as much as we can to try and raise awareness about the issue. So I think there's a good amount of awareness out there like in the press, and you know, on social media and stuff, but if you do nothing, then basically, you're gonna have all these lead gen listings that are pushing you out. So it is frustrating. And it is, it's frustrating as an SEO company too, because if I have, you know, 10 new lead gen listings that are pushing my client out of a three pack, I can report that, that person, but I'm not actually gaining anything for my client, I'm technically just keeping them where they're at, which can be hard. So it's kind of like one of those things that has to be pitched as like, Listen, if we weren't to do this, then you would actually see a drop. So we're really trying to maintain the presence that you've got. So setting realistic expectations is important.
Seth Price
And it's also, I know, I'll give you the other heartbreaking areas. Let's say that you're sixth. So even if you removed a spam listing, it's not like you're back. So now you're sort of doing work that's not even going to pay immediate dividends, and that, that becomes again, I digress. Let me on this, this, this is something that both hits legitimate lawyers as well as spam lawyers. Regis offices. Hot Topic. What is, so some people, it was, literally came on the Max Law listserv today, somebody has their one and only legitimate office at a Regis. You know, for people who geek out on this, like you and me, we'd be like, hey, never go there in the first place. You're there. Is this something where if it's your primary office, not a hyper competitive market, you'll probably be okay until some point where you get prominent enough? Or is, you know, where are you seeing, we've seen a number of things where Google has wiped out these these pieces. It's not 100%. They're people with seven Regises that we've been, you know, telling them about for years, and they don't care. You know, what, what's your take on where we are with the satellite office issue?
Joy Hawkins
So the thing is some Regis spaces have actual staffed offices, like you can rent an office from a Regis location and have an actual office there and that you work out of. So that's totally fine. But I would say it's like, how is Google going to know if you're using the virtual service or like, that's the tricky part. So if you are actually renting a space and an office, like just making sure that you have proper photos on your GMB listing that clearly show like, Hey, we're here. And we're here all the time. And you know, it's a little more believable too if you aren't claiming to have five staffed offices at Regis locations.
Seth Price
Have you seen, I just thought of this, have you seen those 360 tours? Or so, let's say you do, you're at a shared office space, Regis or otherwise, and you pay the 3, 4 hundred dollars, and somebody comes through and takes those photos? Is there anything like that, that you've seen? Obviously, that's intuitively, it would be, but are there any sort of touch points that people should use if they do actually have an office there?
Joy Hawkins
Yeah, 360 tours, great. Get one of those done, couple or a few hundred dollars. And that will really help to prove that you actually have an office there. But again, like, the problem here is people, they'll take this, and then they kind of twist it right? So then there'll be like, Oh, I'm just gonna get 360 tours and stage an office. And there are ways for Google to tell, you know, who's telling the truth and who's not.
Seth Price
So that part's actually pretty tough, because how do you know if it's a per-hour contract, or if it's actually, you know, you bring your bring your stuff out for the day. So there's no, you know, we see, like, most things, what I tell people is just being very careful that you're not abusive. If you have one place, you're gonna get it back up. Google's not trying to harm you. But if you have seven Regises, and they're all at Regises, using that as just sort of the largest name out there, that they're going to eventually get to you whether it's today or six months from now.
Joy Hawkins
Yeah, honestly, my suggestion would be to people that don't have like a physical office that they rent, I would use your home address and hide it. Like you, there's a term for it, it's called a service area business. But Google has a clear your address field in the Google My Business dashboard, so you can click on Clear your address, your address is gone. Nobody's going to like show up at your house. So that's the option I would go with if you're an attorney that works from home.
Seth Price
And you could always on the website itself, use, like, the mailing address so that it's not like you, because part of it is there's the pull and tug. You need the courts or whoever to be able to find you. That's really great advice, I think. And, you know, again, if you're playing hardcore SEO, you shouldn't be there in the first place. You know, if you're sitting there saying you're starting out, you can always move. So one of the good things, we talked about a lot of bad things Google's doing, one of the good things seems to be that when I started out with my law firm, and I switched offices, because when you're starting a business, you very often make jumps as you're trying to figure out the size and getting deals and getting sublets, you're bouncing around for the early years, that it used to be almost impossible to move an office. And I talked to Mike Bloomingfield back in the day, you know, we you know, there were strategy sessions of what do you do to move an office. Should you just get a lease at the old place so that you could get your mail there? You know, that seems to be one of the, one of the things you could check a box and say at this point, what is your take on the risk when somebody moves office to office of their GMB?
Joy Hawkins
Yeah, like, nor risk. I mean, I take that back, there is some risk. So basically, like, if you have, you know, an office downtown New York City, you're going to rank in that area. So if you move to Bronx, yes, your, your ranking is now going to be in the Bronx, not in Manhattan anymore. So just know that wherever your office is is where your listing is going to rank for a radius, but you don't see like this penalisation or like, drop for moving, you're just ranking somewhere else now. So it's, it's improved a lot. What, what I would be really weary of and careful, is that there's this thing called the filter, that I feel like is very commonly misunderstood, like a lot of people don't get how it works. So I've written this blog article that details it out, I think, as best as I can. But essentially, if you are in a building, or you're across the street from other lawyers that practice the same type of law as you do, you can get filtered. And that's a big problem.
Seth Price
My next question.
Joy Hawkins
I'd like, sometimes tell people to move because the building they're in is like cluttered with tons of other lawyers that do the same type of law, and they're suffering as a result.
Seth Price
I think I can literally have any consulting business just on that issue. Because it's like, it's not, it's not, other than geeks like you and me, nobody talks about it. This filter, one type of law per building, people like, it's the building. I literally had a call from Jim Hacking, who's trying to get a place. And he has an office that he was looking at across the street from the immigration office. And like, that's great. Except there's seven guys in that building already. And it sucks. I know, there are a lot of methods to this madness. Have you seen any, you know, we've had a little bit of luck of putting the pin on the edge of the building. Have you seen any luck at breaking into a building that has somebody doing the same type of law? So there is somebody upstream of you marketing wise, is there a solution other than moving?
Joy Hawkins
Not a good one. So like the one case that I'm really working on right now, there's, there's a guy, he's in the same building as like, I don't know, six or seven other personal injury lawyers, and he was doing good. And then one of his competitors decided to start keyword stuffing in his listing. And it basically knocked this guy down like 10 positions. So we're trying to get the other guy's, you know, keyword stuffing removed. But while that's going on, it's, like, crappy. So I did tell him, you know, it wouldn't be a horrible idea to look at other offices, because he was already, his lease was coming up anyways. Because it's just an ongoing battle. And it's irritating.
Seth Price
I think, we could do it by hand, but I always feel like the next piece of software is going to be like, Am I safe? You know, can I sign a lease? I literally, I get at least three calls a month from people, clients, non-clients, I'm just known for this now, because the filter is so frustrating. And if it's wrong, it's just, it's bad. Along, do you see that? That's one of those things where again, I don't have any inner knowledge. But I know there was a method to their madness. Is that something that you see loosening up at any point? Have you heard any chatter?
Joy Hawkins
I don't. Because I think the reason why it's such a problem for lawyers, it's like a very specific industry, right. So when Google makes these changes, they don't do it by industry. So for most industries, it actually makes sense. You know, if I'm looking for a chiropractor, and I'm searching in a given area, I don't necessarily want like three chiropractors in the same building, like maybe I want one that's like closer to my house, or, you know, in another part of town, or it's the same with the restaurant, right? Like, you don't necessarily want all three clustered together, that's what Google's mentality is.
Seth Price
It was. But if you're looking for Italian, and this happens to be the Little Italy, like, you know, I, again, in the same gun, usually restaurants aren't in the same building. So it doesn't hit you the same way. But a chiropractor. If this is the medical office, in my, my immediate area, each area has one or two medical buildings that are the go to places because you can knock out your appointments at once. It just, it's not like there's one of that type in that complex. Again, we're sort of discussing this utter frustration that, are there any things, if you if you were a gambling woman, what do you think for 2021, what tweaks of this local algorithm would you expect? We could talk about bells and whistles, but specifically dealing with spam and filtering? Are there any things that you know, for the people playing this game of local search in the legal space, are there any things that we should expect to see in 2021? Or, you know, more likely than not?
Joy Hawkins
Yeah, so if I did think any changes are needed, or, you know, in talks, I'd say the keyword thing, definitely, Google's aware of it for sure. So what they're doing, you know, it's up to them, but they're definitely aware of it. So that's hopefully something, you know, we will see get downplayed, and I say hopefully because it's been a while since you know, it was first brought up so I'm not really sure how long these things take. And then the second thing I would say, I think, given the, the landscape of things right now with COVID, I could see them dialing back proximity a bit. So like, you know, how close are businesses to your physical location right now is pretty, pretty big. It's a big factor. I can see them scaling that back a bit, especially with like a lot of businesses working from home and like, the lack of traveling and stuff like that. I could see that making sense, so, we'll see.
Seth Price
So you know, and I will give you the irony of, of the whack a mole game they play with, with setup with, with Regis offices is that in the major markets, the offices are closed. So there is like, it's all amorphous. I've always said that like, when I first started Virginia, didn't allow virtual offices as a Bar Association as a Bar, right. So that was their, their, their thing. And there was so much pushback, because the reality of how people practice has changed. So the irony now that many of the largest firms, the mega firms downtown, not the little guys we deal with for local search. But like the mega firms, nobody's in the office where, as a lawyer, their bar rules about where you're sitting in practicing, all of that goes out the window. What are you going to, like you're living in the suburbs of Virginia, but you're a DC bar lawyer, I mean, that in the old, in the non-COVID times, would be a bar violation. So it's just interesting to see that like, all these rules have been set up against virtual offices, but we're all virtual now. I'll get off my soapbox. The, of all the different bells and whistles that we're seeing in the Google My Business, whether, you know, whether it be hours, posts, messaging, you know, we always say, hey, if Google's putting it out there, take advantage because you know, you never know if it's gonna be a ranking factor that Google wants more time. I'd say, what do you what, do you like, which are the ones that you'd say, Hey, I recommend people pushing more resources and time to and which ones you're like, yeah, they put it out there, but this might be the next Google Plus, and you may not want to spend as much time focused on updating and curating?
Joy Hawkins
So I actually did a Whiteboard Friday recently at Moz, that talks about like, the four signals inside the dashboard that actually influence ranking. So those are the four I would always go to, but the business name, which I realize you can't do a lot with. Categories is a big one. So you might think like, okay, categories? Oh, you get it.
Seth Price
No, no, I'll tell you, I don't want to cut you off. But I'm gonna give you a story that's gonna prove your point. I woke up one morning for, we have some, some certain rankings that have been number one for 10 years, we've done everything right there, you know, great lawyers. One day, it's gone, out of the three pack, like what the hell. Somebody had gone in and changed the category. That was it, we put it back, boom, we were fine. But the idea that that is, so proving your point, yes, it is, if you're not keeping an eye on categories, you know, buyer beware.
Joy Hawkins
Yeah, and they are really, lately anyways, expanding categories. So they've been adding a lot. So we actually did see a new category for lawyers, a few months ago, called medical lawyer. So that's something you'd kind of be aware of, like, you know, depending on what types of cases you do. I would expect that there will be more categories added for some of the niche kind of areas. And we're about to launch a resource on our site very soon that's going to actually list all the changes. So if you're not sure, because it's a lot to track, but every month I check them and add new ones, or ones that got removed or updated. So we're gonna be publishing that on our site soon.
Seth Price
When you talk about those if somebody does, let's say medical malpractice, but it's not their only area. Now, obviously, if you do only that, it's awesome for you, what are your feelings on, on the subcategories? Would common sense would dictate you're gonna go to somebody in that specific niche if it, if it's available? How do you, you know, I've heard some philosophies of like, Hey, don't, have one category per place, don't mess around with it be very clear about what you do. What's your philosophy about using the subcategories?
Joy Hawkins
So if you have more than one type, its a category that really applies to you. This is where practitioner listings are really handy. So if you've got six lawyers at your firm, creating a profile for each of them, each having a different category on them, and then you can kind of spread it out, right, really well, that's like by far the best strategy. But if you're like, okay, it's just a single lawyer, and this is the firm listing or whatever. Again, you could have two, you could have a lawyer for Seth, and you could have a lawyer for the firm. But let's just say you still have tons of categories, I would add secondary categories. Like there's nothing wrong with having like six or seven categories on a listing, just know that the first one is way more ranking weight. Another disclaimer, we are seeing right now, and I don't know if lawyers fall into the categories that would have this happen, but if you're in a sensitive category that's like very spammy, I've seen businesses this week that have been suspended by simply adding a category. Which is nuts, like it shouldn't be that sensitive, because you added a category.
Seth Price
Is that just the issue that we're seeing across the board with any changes? We've seen changes where people have added hours. So it's, so it's the problem is we don't know, is it sensitive to the categories or is it just like right now, if you make any changes, a spelling change, like it's crazy, we're seeing. Yeah, it's crazy. And again, resources. Yeah, it gets old, like you got billions of dollars, like figure it out. With, with that, the practitioner profile. What is your thought, that you know, the downside of that is that you need reviews for that practitioner profile. So okay, great. You get yourself showing for something, but then you have no meaningful reviews. Do you have, at any level, do you think there is an issue? So you have your primary, and now you have your secondary. Is there ever a point where Google gets confused on the SEO side? We're so leery about having anything that confuses Google, part of me feels like when you're number one for something, you get a lot of good stuff. Do you want to have that second bite at the apple and possibly, you know, bifurcate your juice? What, what's your feeling there?
Joy Hawkins
So you, you would only want another profile if it's something you're not already targeting, right? So if you, if you have your firm set up for personal injury lawyer, then no, it doesn't make any sense to create a practitioner listing also targeting personal injury lawyer.
Seth Price
Understood. But what about medical, you know, medical, which comes up under personal injury sub like, that's where it gets sticky to me.
Joy Hawkins
So if you're already ranking for medical malpractice terms, and you're ranking really well, then probably not. But if you're not ranking well, then I would definitely give it a shot.
Seth Price
So it's always something like depends on the day, right? How many spammers are in your way. Okay, so you were going through the four signals. We had name, we had categories...
Joy Hawkins
Right, reviews were the other one, which we already talked about. And then the website field. So this is another one that actually we have a blog about and we used a lawyer example, a personal injury lawyer. So if again, this is another, if you've got multiple listings for, let's say, you have five lawyers, and one of them, you really want to rank well for train accidents and one for construction accidents, you could actually have the one lawyer in the website field linking to like your train accident page on your website, that's all optimized for training queries. And then your other lawyer going to like a construction accident page. It seems a little weird, because normally you'd put it to their bio, but you can also just update their bio to optimize it for those types of cases.
Seth Price
You're saying, but this is from the GMB? Can you walk, walk me through this a little bit?
Joy Hawkins
Yeah. So let's say for example, that you have a listing and you know, your firm's already ranking really well, for general car accident terms. So right, we're not gonna touch that, but you guys don't rank really well, let's say for bicycle accident terms. So this would be a great opportunity to create a listing for yourself, maybe use the category lawyer, or you could also see how it works for personal injury lawyer, but specifically in the website field, instead of going to the homepage of your site, you would go to the bicycle accident page.
Seth Price
As a practitioner.
Joy Hawkins
As a practitioner.
Seth Price
And then, would you build a practitioner profile around bicycle accidents?
Joy Hawkins
Pretty much. Like I mean, again, you can't throw it in your title unless you want to break people's guidelines. But I've seen this done really well in certain markets, you will find some some attorneys have, like, what I would call one boxes, but essentially, you type in like bicycle accident lawyer, and they're the only one. And it's because they've done a fabulous job of making themselves look like the bicycle accident expert.
Seth Price
Understood. But again, starting reviews from scratch. And my, goes back to my fear that there's not a, there's not a subcategory for bicycle accidents, is there?
Joy Hawkins
No.
Seth Price
So you're sure, now you're fighting, that, that goes back to my original question, because now you're fighting the original juice. Again, you don't get anywhere unless you take risks. At the same time, if you're doing really well across the board, and you're coming in for bicycle accidents, it'd be great to have stuff that lets you know that somebody's a specialist in it. At the same time, it seems that, like, everything in some of the bigger markets, people take bigger risks. But you are, do you think that there is risk, meaningful risk there, putting somebody as a second Personal Injury Lawyer within the firm instead of going to bio going...? So are you an advocate for practitioner profiles under the same category if a firm is ranking?
Joy Hawkins
No, not if the firm's ranking. So this would be like in my scenario, you're not ranking.
Seth Price
So they don't come up for personal injury. So instead, you you create a practitioner profile, that's not the firm profile, for John Smith, that instead of going to the homepage is going to the bicycle accident page. And then let's say Atlanta, massively competitive market, you might have a shot there.
Joy Hawkins
Right. And this is where it really only works for niche terms, right? You got to look at who you're competing with, like, because you said you're coming in with zero reviews. So if you're competing with people that have like 500 reviews, you know, it's debatable on how much traffic you're gonna get. But something else to keep in mind is like, when you're asking people to review you there is nothing wrong with somebody reviewing both the practitioner and the law firm.
Seth Price
So let me ask you this. Great, great point. I'm going to pop into this for a second, we talked about reviews, but something that I have seen anecdotally is that somebody with multiple offices, if somebody goes... I saw one friend that had let's say, five offices, legitimate offices, and somebody went and reviewed all five, boom, hit a filter came down. People do two, seems to be okay. Is there a magic number within a firm's ecosystem that you think is safe? I mean, I always tell people don't, don't get greedy, and you'll be fine. That line moves. But what's your thought on that?
Joy Hawkins
Yeah, well, it's definitely like, it's unnatural for somebody to leave reviews for five different places, but leaving reviews for multiple offices is technically not allowed. So, because they're not, like, there's no way that somebody actually was a customer to different offices.
Seth Price
I don't think that's, actually, factually, that's like, that can happen easily. You have people resources, especially now, like you have people, paralegals are in one office, lawyers are in another, you could easily review two Jiffy Lubes. And again, I feel like I'm back to my Mike Blumenthal days of what is just and what is not. Putting that aside for a second. Like, there's certain realities where it does make sense. But certainly, law, for a law firm and practitioner profile, that would be more natural, I guess that's always fine.
Joy Hawkins
That's actually not against policy at all. What you're describing, it's gray, right? So it depends on what Google's core revenue gets. I've had some people say it's okay. Definitely okay for like McDonald's. Like, it's typical, you know, you go to different McDonald's locations. But for professional services, usually, it's like, okay, you didn't work with all five of these offices.
Seth Price
That's, definitely not five. But when you have two, that to me, like it's rule of reason, like, it's like, that would not be insane. That said, do you it's like, it goes back to what you were talking about earlier with the Regis is, do you want to defend the fact that the Regis office? Or would you rather just not have to deal with the issue at all? And what are your, what's your, let me ask you one more, which, again, there's no magic answer, but law firm and to practitioners, is that legitimate? Or does that start to push it?
Joy Hawkins
You can have as many like...
Seth Price
So a person reviewing multiple...
Joy Hawkins
Oh, I see what you're saying. Ym, again, like if I, if you have two different lawyers that are working on the case, and the reviews are saying, you know, Joe helped me, but also Amy helped me. And the reviews are clear about that, then I think it's fine. Because, again, Google doesn't know the facts, per se.
Seth Price
I understood that, frankly, they don't seem to care, period. You have people cite one case that I think it was even shown shown to you guys, you know, somebody in one market was going to a state fair, and handing out prizes for reviews where people, and the guy said, I've never been to this firm, but I wanted to get the baseball cap. And you know, and that didn't pass, a human at Google said, Yeah, we're okay with that. And so it's, you know, the craziness, craziness. So look, this is as good a representation of this, on reviews. What is your, your take, right now they're giving us little buttons, good and bad of words, so that the person doesn't just leave stars and leaves, but gives them, which is very, really cool. Are you seeing the words in the reviews as a major ranking factor? Or how are they using the words in the reviews?
Joy Hawkins
I haven't seen it as a major ranking factor. Now that being said, Mike Blumenthal did do a study, I think it was two years ago, showing how reviews on Yelp actually influenced ranking on Google. So the text of the review. So he actually did an experiment where he had a bunch of his friends leave a review for a bar, using specific words,
Seth Price
Not a jewelry store?
Joy Hawkins
No, it was a bar. So he had them use specific words in the Yelp review, and then the listing started ranking on Google for those words. So I think that it's definitely true, like off-site. And we see this all the time with, like, even content on websites, you know, impact stuff. So I do think that Google is using content, but I don't, I haven't seen enough evidence really with Google reviews to say that they use it a lot with their own reviews.
Seth Price
Gotcha. So look in our remaining moments here, any sort of advice to people who are, I mean, look, we've, this is as great a sort of, you know, a conversation as far as you've gotten to the heart of like, what's their what you can do what you can't do. What is your, your advice to people who are sort of fighting that uphill battle? You know, who, you know, they get, like, let's take the the classic example. For bad reviews, you go through your normal process. You know, any, any advice to business owners who are trying to do things right, but having to deal with the public and spammers, and all these other things? What do you, what do you have to say?
Joy Hawkins
It's just a matter of regularly monitoring it. Like, you know, if you're not hiring an SEO company, monitoring yourself, or you know, however you want to do that. But you got to, it keeps changing, like the moment you take your eyes off it for a few weeks, there might be something different. So it's not one of those things you can kind of set and forget, which I don't think a lot of people understand. And so that's, you know, just a matter of like making sure that you have somebody that's regular checking the listing the search results, see what your competitors are up to, because that changes quite frequently too. And yeah, I mean, I don't want to like plug my my agency too much, but like, we have a newsletter that's completely free that will like, if you're not familiar with what's going on in the industry, we have all kinds of stuff like hey, here's what Google's doing this week. This came out, that came out. So you know, Sterling Sky's newsletter can help you at least keep on track, but you need someone to monitor.
Seth Price
I'm a huge, huge Sterling, Sterling Sky fan, you guys are just amazing. Final, final thing for the audience. Favorite softwares for local. What are your, give me two or three softwares. So, we just did, we're gonna be talking to Local Viking guys at an upcoming show. What do you, what do you love these days?
Joy Hawkins
So Places Scout is probably the highest on my list for the one I use most often. It does not have a small learning curve, though, so when you first use it, it's like, well, there's a lot of stuff in here. But as a marketer, I love it because of how much stuff is in there. So I'm kind of like sold on that one. I'd say BrightLocal is another one that's like a lot easier to use. They, I think, are gonna be launching some, some new features that sound really exciting. Whitespark as well. I throw them in the mix. They have some really cool tools as well.
Seth Price
What, another final question. When, you know, some things you talk about is when people start out, they may look at the MOZ product or the Yext product and as they get more advanced, they might go BrightLocal or Whitespark. What, you know, is, do you, do you have feelings on that? Is there a point, when do you, when should somebody be making that jump?
Joy Hawkins
So, funny that you mentioned Yext, I actually have a study that I'll be presenting on next year. But I actually think there may be a use, case to use Yext as a lawyer.
Seth Price
I'm sorry, say that again.
Joy Hawkins
Again, I think there may actually be a use case to use Yext as a lawyer, which I never thought I'd say in a million years.
Seth Price
Explain.
Joy Hawkins
Okay, yeah, no, no, you're gonna let that one sit, huh? So basically, it's like, you know, five, six hundred dollars a year, it depends on what access level you have. So it's annoying that it's that cost. But the positive thing about Yext is that they have an exclusive, I believe, deal with Yahoo. So it was really hard to get your Yahoo listings updated and optimized without using Yext, like, very hard. So we actually tracked over six months, the number of leads that came in from Yext for a personal injury lawyer, they're in a big city. But we actually found that through Yahoo, you know, over the course of six months, it resulted in a handful of leads, not a lot, but a handful. So if any of those were to turn into cases, you can see where I'm going here, it might justify the hundred, couple hundred a year or whatever.
Seth Price
That's so funny you say that. On a personal level, you know, back in the day, Yahoo was everything, even, not, not even when Google was there, Yahoo directory and getting into, into those those elite places. You know, that was a huge deal. So did they control D-Moz back in the day, I can't remember?
Joy Hawkins
It was Google.
Seth Price
It was Google so. But, but with, with, the Yahoo directory was extremely, with the most powerful local ranking factor back in the day, and I just got somebody, one of my, one of my SEO team saying, Hey, we just had something can you please approve it? Like we're going back, and I wonder if that's because we've been focused so much on Bright Local and have moved away from Yext as we've grown, but I will go back and check that out and find out, hey, there may be a cost effective solution for that one widget, even if you don't want to use Yext as your main thing, and maybe hey, if this is your way to Yahoo, and the cost is cost effective to get the Yahoo directory going. Just so sad to see what was once a legitimate competitor is really just a ghost land now.
Joy Hawkins
Yeah, it still brings in some traffic, but that's the thing. Like it's, the numbers were not high, let me be clear, like, over a six month period, you know, it resulted in, I don't know, something like 60 visits and like out of those was like five or six leads.
Seth Price
Still, like in the PI space. And that's where, you know, in the PI space, leads could be worth $300 or more lead, you know. All of a sudden you're like, but, but you also, you know, with what they're charging either per month or per year. Very, very amazing stuff. Thank you so much. You know, it's great to watch your journey. Proud to say I am the the first nonrelated client to Sterling Sky, and I will I take that badge of honor very proudly. Thank you so much. Can't wait to to read this upcoming report of yours and hope we get to connect in person sooner rather than later.
Joy Hawkins
Yeah, share the same feeling.
Seth Price
Thanks so much.
Joy Hawkins
Alright, thanks a lot.
BluShark Digital
Thank you for tuning in to the SEO Insider with Seth Price. Be sure to check back next week for fresh insights into building your brand's online presence. Episodes are available to stream directly on BluShark Digital's website.
