Noticed that we’ve been quiet for two weeks? Well, we’ve been gathering feedback from our email list on how we can really provide you with information that is relevant to effectively marketing your practice online. We had a number of suggestions from people who thought that a question and answer email layout might work. It makes sense. So, we thought we’d try it. If you’ve got other ideas, we’d love to hear them.

If you’ve got a question, send it to questions@growyourfirm.com.au

This Week’s Question

I’m the Marketing Coordinator for a mid-sized firm. We had a Google page rank of 5, but now notice that it is 4. How does this happen?

The Answer

Page Rank really is no longer a definitive tool for proving how much Google loves you. For those who don’t know what page rank is, it is simply a number between 1 and 10 that Google assigns to your website based upon its algorithm that takes lots of things into consideration. 1 is the lowest and 10 is the highest, and the distance between each numeric value grows exponentially. Most law and accounting firms are ranked between 2 and 4. It does not necessarily follow that if your business has a Page Rank of 5, you will outrank your competitor in Google search if they have a rank less than you. For example, we have a law firm with a Page Rank of 1, ranking #1 in Google for a competitive keyword phrase.

To answer the question though, Page Rank is recorded by Google at various intervals throughout the year. So, it’s not real time. If you’ve invested heavily in a link-building and content improvement campaign, the benefits of which won’t be recorded in Page Rank data until the specific Google bots do this analysis which can take up to 9 months. So, understand that Page Rank is not an accurate depiction of the “now.”

In your case, if you’ve suffered a drop in Page Rank it can arise from lots of different things either individually or collectively. The most common is that your website had a link from a site with a high Page Rank, but that link no longer exists. An example of this is that recently we were working with a firm that does a lot of government work, and the relevant government department’s website linked to the firm. There was a change in governmental policy which resulted in those links being removed. Accordingly, the firm dropped a place in Page Rank. There can of course be other reasons. If your firm has a search engine optimisation (SEO) company engaged, they may have acquired links for your firm from dubious websites of which Google has subsequently penalised and in doing so, penalised your firm. (Be careful with who is link-building on behalf of your firm if you’re not doing it yourself)

What you should do about it if you cannot find the specific reason, is to ensure you keep marching on with the creation of great web content and of couse, link-building to reputable sites. You’ll climb back if you do this. Hope this helps.

In next week’s podcast, we talk with Australian leading search engine optimisation company on getting to the top of Google.

Also, if you’re a law firm, the World’s leading Law Firm Marketing Experts are joining us for a very special event. Stay tuned!