This past week we conducted a click test to determine where people are clicking in the Google SERPs (search engine results pages) after conducting a search for a personal injury lawyer. As you can see, even with the local results appearing above the organic results, the #1 ranking still reigns supreme.
However, the lines are a bit blurred as users clicked all over the page, including a listing far down the page because it had “No fee unless we win” in the title tag! On the flip side, the 3rd paid listing beneath spots 1 and 2 received no clicks most likely do to a poorly written ad. This goes to show you that good title tags or ad copy will increase click-through rate to your page and a poorly written one can seriously hurt your click-through rate. You can click the image below for a larger version of the full length screen shot.
Why did visitors click where they did?
Some of the feedback that users provided about why they clicked where they did on the page is pretty interesting. You can definitely learn something from their responses, many of which are included below.
“I clicked on thegomezfirm.com result as it was the first website result that wasn’t an Ad.”
“It has the most star ratings.”
“It seemed more real.”
“I chose yelp because of the consumer ratings on a business market place conduct.”
“I clicked on the one with most reviews and highest rating 4.9”
“I would click on the very first result. The word “aggressive” really stuck out. Let’s just say I need an attorney for a personal injury case. I’m going to want an aggressive attorney to fight the battle.”
“The 2nd one below the map because it had starred review.”
“I clicked on the 2nd organic result, “Best Personal Injury Attorney” because I was looking for personal injury attorney in San Diego, and I do want to find the best one. Yelp is a great place to do that initial kind of research in this case because (based on my keyword search) I’m just beginning my search for a local personal injury attorney, and Yelp provides a way for me to narrow down the enormous list of choices with already-vetted, reviewed attorneys.”
“Clicked on the one with the highest reviews because it seemed to have the best reputation.”
“I would click on the Gomez trial attorneys page. I would click on it because it’s at the top of the search results and it says in the description that it’s an award winning company.”
“Yelp page for top Personal Injury Attorney’s in SD.”
“I clicked on the yelp results page. I wanted to see a list of law firms and scan over their reviews.”
“The bottom link for an attorney that claimed there would be no fee unless they won, below all the advertisements and sponsored links.”
“I chose the yelp link, so I could see others reviews and compare a few different lawyers.”
“I would click on Estey & Bomberger, LLP because I know that this result is both local and has a great rating. This selection just seems like the most efficient way to get me in contact with the person I needed.”
“Yelp, because it has a list of several options along with ratings and feedback.”
“It said it had the best personal injury lawyers and they were listed by yelp, meaning opinion would be up there as well.”
“Yelp”
“Gomez. It was the top listing that wasn’t an ad – the top three were promoted links.”
“The first link because they all look the same anyways”
Reviews are incredibly important for law firms
If there’s one huge takeaway from the comments provided in this study it is that online reviews, especially from Yelp, are heavily relied upon by consumers in 2015 when it comes to researching attorneys. So make sure you stay on top of your online reviews. Keep in mind that it’s against Yelp’s terms of service to ask for reviews. So how can you get more Yelp reviews without asking for them? According to Yelp, there are a few ways.
- Put a badge and link to your Yelp listing on your website.
- Put a “Find us on Yelp” sign in your place of business, on the front counter or window.
- Include a link to your Yelp business listing in your email signature with the words, “Check us out on Yelp!”
Yelp shouldn’t be the only place you worry about your reviews though. We’ve conducted multiple user testing studies this year and those who are researching which lawyer to hire are looking for your online reviews often from multiple sources. If you don’t have good reviews or even enough reviews they will often skip over you and call other lawyers with more reviews and higher review ratings. There’s Google, AVVO, and up and coming sites like the law.yers.io lawyer review site as well as others so if you don’t already, make that a priority.