Advertise With Yodle?

Oct 3rd, 2009 | By Rex Gradeless | Category: Blogging, Featured, Lead Article, Practice Management, Social Media, Web 2.0, YouTube

Promoting your legal blog can be a daunting task. You’re already blogging, Tweeting, friending, and following. Sometimes you feel like no one is really listening. In order to combat these feelings of loneliness (or just wanting to recoup on your investment) people sometimes hire advertising agencies to promote their blog.

There are a number of places you can go to advertise your blog without going to an advertising agency (and for free). Here’s a short list:

Blog Directories

Social Media Sites: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Google Adsense

Creating good content that people want to read (ding ding ding we have a winner!)

Do these advertising agencies really work?

One such advertising agency, Yodle, promises to help lawyers create a localized campaign to target their audience.

This company seems dubious at best when many states have ethical rules that preclude lawyers from advertising and solicitation of any kind. Other jurisdictions require disclaimers on every advertisement. These disclaimers can be lengthy and not aesthetically pleasing in an Internet advertisement.

Moreover, how can they target your audience when a legal claim has yet come to fruition? This is as if they claim to be able to target an audience that does not even exist yet!

Yodle promises to analyze your site and develop a marketing campaign based on your site’s content. This sounds like what search engines (i.e. Google) do for free?

According to TechCrunch:

The company, which started out in 2005, reports a whopping 700 % increase in annual revenue compared to its 2007 income. Of course, expressing growth in percentages is meaningless without actual figures, so we poked around a bit and got CEO Court Cunningham to at least share the run rate for last quarter (Q4 2008), which amounts up to $30 million. Also telling is the reported growth in employee count and signed customers: Yodle had 9 people on the payroll in 2006, it now has about 250, and the company now boasts 5,000+ customers which is up from 125 in 2006. Yodle expects to turn a profit in about six months.

In essence, Yodle is a lead generation company focused on aiding small businesses advertise their wares in search results for all major search engines. If customers have a website, the ad will point directly to it and Yodle will track and optimize actions starting from clickthrough to phone calls, etc. If there’s no web presence yet, the small business can opt to work with Yodle to create a custom so-called AdverSite which acts as a basic call-to-action website or landing page for the advertisers. Pricing for Yodle’s suite of services includes keyword bid management and optimization, website / landing page creation, and analytics ranges from under $1000 for small local business owners to over $5000 for larger businesses.

Here’s a “success story” from Yodle for legal services:

Have you used an online advertiser such as Yodle? Was it worth it? Do companies like this really work or are they just yodeling all the way to the bank?

This guy seems to be convinced:

Tags: ethical rules, google adsense, internet advertisement, law, lawyers, marketing campaign, Social Media, solicitation, yodle

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Joel Laffer October 27th, 2009 6:26 am :
Thank you for your post and review of Yodle’s services. I wanted to clarify some of the points made here to help further educate your readers regarding local online advertising and Yodle. 1) Rules around legal marketing 2) Targeting consumers seeking legal counsel or advice 3) the idea that Google does this for free.

1) It is important to note that online advertising is very common for lawyers. Displaying an ad on Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. simply lets consumers searching the web know the practice name, specialty, and location of an attorney. Upon a consumer clicking on an ad, they are taken to a website where all of the details and disclaimers are listed.
2) If an individual located in Manhattan is looking for an attorney to help them file for bankruptcy, they often google “bankruptcy in manhattan”. The individual is then presented with paid and organic search results of various Web sites. Yodle helps clients get listed in both sections when an individual is seeking their services. If our client does not provide bankruptcy legal services, we would not have them show up on the results page. Yodle simply targets our clients’ advertisements to consumers searching for their services on the web.
3) Any local business can have their web site listing displayed on the paid and/or organic sections of search engines. Having your site displayed in the paid section (clients are charged on a cost per click basis), is a complex process that could cost a lot of time and money if not done correctly and by an expert. Also important and is referenced in your post (“What search engines (i.e. Google) do for free”) is showing up in the organic listings. Unlike the paid section, clients do not get charged per click. However, to be displayed organically, your Web site must be coded, written, designed, and linked to and from other sites. This too requires significant time and expertise, and is the reason companies like Yodle exist to help local businesses.

Another great resource for lawyers to learn more is the recent “Yodle Challenge”, hosted by http://www.lawyerist.com. The Lawyerist chose a lawyer for Yodle to help advertise and report on the progress every step of the way. http://lawyerist.com/yodle-marketing-results/

I hope I was able to clarify some of the questions and topics in your post. We take a lot of pride in what we do, especially working with over 500 attorneys across the country. I am happy to discuss any of these or other questions regarding Yodle’s services directly. You can email me at info@yodle.com.

Thank you again for your interest in Yodle.

Joel Laffer, Director at Yodle

[Reply]
Rex Gradeless Reply:
November 8th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Thank you Joel for your response. Here are my initial thoughts about your three points.

1) State ethics rules for lawyers differ from state to state. Thus, the rules on advertising differ from state to state. The first advertisement, that takes an Internet user to another page, may still require disclaimers depending on which state you’re in.

2) Doesn’t Google do this already? In fact, this is exactly what Google does and they do it by region as well.

3) “Any local business can have their web site listing displayed on the paid and/or organic sections of search engines. Having your site displayed in the paid section (clients are charged on a cost per click basis), is a complex process that could cost a lot of time and money if not done correctly and by an expert.”

I could not disagree with you more in that Google adwords is pretty straight forward and costs less than your services. Learning how to do for yourself may take longer than handing over a check I suppose. Quality blog posts will trump any advertising campaign conducted by the small business themselves or by Yodle.

Organic search results are free, and are far more potent than Google advertisements. If people wrote quality content on their blogs, they will show up more via organic search results. Savvy potential clients should be able to tell the difference between someone who has tried gaming the system vs. someone with more substance.

Perhaps it depends on the type of clients you are seeking?

Wouldn’t the potential client typing “bankruptcy in Manhattan” into Google primarily be looking for the organic search results instead of the advertisements that show up?

I see you site the Lawyerist “Yodle Challenge”. It also appears you’ve bought advertising space on their blog after the results of the “Yodle Challenge” were released.

[Reply]