To start 2018, we decided to buy a little bit of Google advertising, aka as “adwords”. We set our limit at $150/month, or about $5 a day, and in return, Google will cause the firm – either Cyberlaw.International or RJ Hercher PC , depending on the search term entered by the user – to display in the result.
Admittedly, this is very experimental thus far (i.e., we don’t know exactly what we’re doing, and haven’t budgeted to pay an SEO expert to do this correctly for us.) But even with a tiny budget, it is remarkable how many calls are generated.
Here’s a sampling of some of the calls these ads have caused:
- At least 5 requests for help with immigration issues. Nowhere have we mentioned the word, nor any expertise in handling, immigration, and so we have become a good referrer for a couple of Denver attorneys who do this work.
- Caller wants to recover from Wal Mart. Initial reaction from us is, “Ka-ching!” A big juicy case that might even settle in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? No. Caller bought a replacement headlamp for his/her car there. Nice employee offered to do the replacement for Caller. Employee biffed and broke something. Caller had to take the vehicle to stealership to get it fixed. Wants Wal Mart to pay the bill.
- Caller wants to sue a major, international on-line games web site because Caller was banned from the system due his/her abusive and threatening language directed at another user. Caller is outraged, and to the extent s/he even becomes agitated and loud with us, on the phone, for asking clarifying questions. Caller shares that her/his spouse would be disgusted by how much money Caller has spent to play a particular game on this system. Caller also mentions s/he also has two kids. We try not to impose too many of our own family values on clients, but on this one, we’re thinking, “What a loser!” Went to the trouble anyway of finding the Terms and Conditions for this game, pointed out the conditions, and penalty, to which Caller agreed so s/he could clearly see the language, and s/he came off the ledge. “Guess I’ll just have to find a different game.”
- Caller wants help in utilizing the “voluntary repossession” process to return a lemon vehicle (Saturn Vue) Caller bought from a “buy and drive” car lot. Very nice, articulate person, but his/her description of the transaction, and lack of cite to any paperwork, contract, warranty, etc., made it clear s/he was terribly desperate, and naïve, in making this purchase. We did make tentative arrangement to help this one, however, there has been no follow-through from Caller yet.
If you’ve read this far and you’re an expert in search engine optimization (SEO), please don’t consider this an invitation to help us, yet. We’ll find you!
And also if you’ve read this far, and if you are married with young children and have not yet prepared instructions for contingency plans for the well-being of those kids in the unfortunate event of your disability or death, or that of your spouse, please reach out to us and let us help get those plans in place for you! Wills or revocable living trusts, powers of attorney, parenting instructions, etc., are all good tools to have ready in case you bonk your head, or worse!