Law Firm Marketing Spam

Yet another marketing spam:

Hello.

Have you been to Google lately to see if a listing of your law firm‚s website appears on the first page of search results? If it is not there, you may be losing a lot of business to your competitors.

To check it, go to google.com and enter the name of your town and the word „attorney.‰

If it is not listed, we can list it on the first page of search results within 24 hours. We have done this for hundreds of professionals like you.

We charge monthly for this service. There is no contract. In most cases, the cost is $49.95 per month. To learn how much it would cost in your city, please visit the website at the address below:

http://www.attorneyweblinks.com

Sincerely,

Joseph F. Alward, PhD
Spectrum Web Design and Advertising
2524 Bonniebrook Drive
Stockton CA 95207-1304
(209) 473-8423
(800) 506-5866

Boy, lawyers must have a reputation for being a bunch of rubes.

For most people, having your law firm pop up under such a generic search term is worthless. If you handle bankruptcy cases, you need qualified leads, not just random people searching for attorneys in your town. (And what about people searching for "lawyers" instead of "attorneys"?)

Worse, from following the link, all this site is doing is offering to purchase you AdWords ads under that generic search term. I doubt many people are using that search term for your town. Also, this type of flat fee deal creates a perverse disincentive for the marketing company, in that it is selling "pay per click" ads and will make more money if your ad is sufficiently unappealing that it doesn't generate many clicks.

If you want to find out how much it actually costs to set up an ad campaign like this for your town, open a free AdWords account, set up an ad, and see how much they project as the cost. You can even authorize a maximum monthly budget of $49.95.

Also, make sure you're registered with local search - it's free, and may get you a link next to a map at or near the top of the first Google search results page.