Many lawyers devote effort to developing their AVVO profile. I was recently part of a discussion in the Lawyers on G+ attorney forum where the topic of whether lawyers should use AVVO was discussed. To keep this article from being the length of War and Peace I’m assuming that you have a basic idea of what AVVO is. As explained below, attorneys should use AVVO for its online review features but I don’t believe they should devote effort to generating content on the site.
AVVO does an excellent job of serving as an attorney’s review management tool
AVVO is an excellent tool which helps attorneys control their online reputation. The site gives attorneys a place for clients to write reviews that are based on a five-star system (these reviews are separate from AVVO’s own attorney rating system, which is discussed below). What makes AVVO’s client review system better than that of similar sites is its fairness. Other sites have no guidelines as to who may review an attorney. It’s not uncommon for opposing parties to leave negative reviews on such sites out of spite. AVVO, by contrast, will remove a review if it does not meet certain guidelines as to who may submit reviews as well as subject matter. This leads to a more accurate representation of an attorney’s quality which can then be presented to potential clients.
AVVO’s review system proved critical to my practice. I had over thirty five star reviews on my AVVO profile and was often told by clients that the good reviews they found were one of the reasons for which they contacted my office in the first place. I was quite active in managing my AVVO profile, more so than many attorneys today and especially in 2009 when I first began utilizing the service. In the coming weeks I’ll be writing (Spoiler Alert) a series regarding online review management and tips for managing your AVVO profile will be included.
It must be understood by attorneys that AVVO is problematic for both individual practitioners and the legal profession as a whole
In addition to allowing clients to review a lawyer, AVVO has its own rating system, which functions on a scale of 1-10. One of the factors the site uses in ranking a lawyer is how much an attorney participates in AVVO’s online forums. These forums allow the public to ask questions for attorneys to answer. The more an attorney participates and provides content in these forums then the higher the attorney’s rating will be. Interestingly, AVVO does not take client reviews into consideration when issuing its rankings. For the reasons explained below, this rating system is having an impact on how a lawyer may market themselves online.
Why using AVVO is problematic for an individual attorney or law firm
Many attorneys currently use AVVO as an expanded marketing option rather than a simple review platform. They spend a fair amount participating in the site’s forums to obtain a higher rating so they may rank higher in results when people search for an attorney through the service. Many attorneys find this necessary because AVVO often ranks in law related searches ( a point I’ll address a little later) and they don’t want to miss out on being in a directory people are searching. While this provides attorneys with an option for marketing, I believe there are better ways to market yourself and your firm.
A problem with developing your AVVO presence (which requires your effort in answering public questions) is that in writing answers you are generating content that you don’t own for an entity that can change its rules on you at any time. In my firm I took the approach that if I wrote content then I was going to own it. Rather than devoting time generating content in AVVO forums, or other similar sites such as LawGuru.com, I generated content for my firm’s blog. As I’ve discussed in my Blogging Basics For Lawyers series, my blog became a crucial part of my SEO and online marketing efforts. I know a few attorneys who either don’t have a blog or, if they do, it’s inadequately maintained. These lawyers have cited the time requirements of generating blog content to me as the reason for not blogging. These same attorneys, however, devote a fair amount of time to generating content on behalf of AVVO, LawGuru, and other similar sites. If these lawyers focused on quality content for their own web presence they could reach the top of search, which provides far more potential clients than one will get through AVVO.
Why using AVVO is problematic for the legal profession as a whole
Attorney generation of content for AVVO is reducing the extent to which lawyers can promote themselves online. As part of my discussion of why SEO matters to attorneys, I explained that a key to getting to the top of search is generating quality content. Attorneys cite AVVO’s high search rankings as a reason for participating on the site – the problem with this, however, is that AVVO is only performing well in search because attorneys are (free of charge) providing them with the content to do so. Attorneys, therefore, are creating the very thing that is displacing their own sites in search. This relationship has ramifications for attorneys wishing to market online.
Lawyers’ relationship with AVVO is somewhat similar to the relationship between mental health professionals and Psychologytoday.com. Psychologytoday.com allows a mental health professional to create a profile (for a fee) which can then show up when a potential client searches the website. Many professionals rely solely on these profiles as the site has become so dominant in search that it often takes up the first 2-4 positions on Google when people search for Psychologist. Psychology Today, however, has only reached this dominance due to the massive amounts of content written for it by those in the mental health profession. Many psychologists don’t even bother with creating a website because they feel they can’t compete with the 800 pound gorilla. If attorneys continue to feed AVVO content then they might very well create a situation where the site is their only option to market online and AVVO will charge a large monthly fee to even maintain a profile (which Psychologytoday does).
Attorneys are in a better position to deal with AVVO than those in the mental health profession are to deal with Psychologytoday.com. First, attorneys typically maintain websites and blogs while many in the mental health field do not. This provides AVVO with more competition for top Google placement. That being said, attorneys should understand that AVVO’s position in search will only increase as attorneys feed it more content and this increase could very well mean AVVO taking up multiple positions in search.
Attorneys should focus on generating content for their own websites and blogs and use AVVO for review management
My firm did extremely well in search. Clients who utilize our attorney website design and SEO packages are also doing very well in search. Good search placement has proven far more lucrative for our clients than would developing an AVVO presence. While our clients do use AVVO for review management (which we recommend) we focus our content creation efforts on our clients’ own websites and blogs, which they own and control. We see this as the way for a firm to market online.
Obviously AVVO is a popular portal for attorney promotion. Do you use AVVO in your practice? Please feel free to chime in by joining the discussion below.
Nice post Luke. Thanks for explaining. This has been my concern with AVVO all along, as we have discussed. I’m glad that you are spreading the word so that possibly AVVO’s dominance will slow down. I wonder whether AVVO gives the same “credit” for short versus long answers to Qs. If they do, then perhaps attorneys could game AVVO, at least until they wise up, by providing shorter answers and therefore less content.
Thanks for the feedback Tina. Always appreciated! I can’t say how AVVO gives credit for answers. I do know that it my practice I didn’t bother with answering questions on AVVO or equivalent sites at all. I really just took a strong focus on building my own content on my own web properties. I preferred that “laser focused” type approach and I would think that taking time out to do something, even if it’s only a little, on these types of sites would be a distraction that isn’t worth any gained benefit. Any thoughts?
How do I get Avvo to stop contacting our law firm wanting us to list with them? We have 8 attorneys and they call constantly asking for each individual attorney (even for the 3 attorneys who are retired!!!!) Our firm does not want to participate in this service. We have told them repeatedly. They don’t get the message. Unfortunately, it’s like dealing with Expedia. You never get the same person calling twice. The frustration level is ridiculous. Needing to stop working to run and grab the phone only to find out it’s THEM again! Please – if someone has any info on how we can get off of their call list, let us know. They’re driving us crazy!!!!
Wayne, NJ
I’m not a fan of AVVO’s apparent default rating system. I don’t have conclusive proof, but it appears that if a lawyer has not been reviewed, she receives a default rating of 6.5 “Good.” This both diminishes excellent attorneys and inflates bad attorneys. Moreover it’s dishonest to assign a rating to an attorney not yet reviewed. I would argue that the directory post for an a “not yet reviewed” attorney should have no number or rating, but simply the notation that the attorney has not been reviewed.
Thank for sharing Charles. To add to your point, an issue I have with AVVO is that client reviews of the attorneys don’t factor into the ratings at all. I don’t know of another public review platform that calculates a rating without customer feedback. Does anyone else know of any such examples?
Luke, first of all, your points about attorneys generating more content online are well-taken – whether for SEO purposes or folks who have been referred and are doing their diligence, it’s critical that attorneys provide as much information as possible about their backgrounds and approach to handling client issues.
With respect to the Avvo Rating, let me clarify a couple of things: First, the Avvo Rating does not take into account participation in Avvo’s Q&A forum. The rating is solely based on biographical details in an attorney’s profile (years of experience, education, awards, publications, lack of sanctions, etc) and peer endorsements. Second, we made a very conscious decision to have client reviews work as a stand-alone rating. Consumer impressions and lawyer background are both important, but we believe they are fundamentally different measurements.
In any event, thanks for the post, and feel free to reach out directly if there are any questions about Avvo I can answer.
Josh King
VP, Business Development & General Counsel
Avvo, Inc.
Thanks for the feedback Josh,
In terms of attorneys offering information relating to their approach, I do find it much more in an attorney’s interest to post that information on their own website or blog. This is far better for the attorney from an SEO standpoint (both in promoting their own site as well as ensuring that their efforts do not go towards promoting the sites of others.) Also, if a potential client is looking at an attorney’s site and wants to know how that attorney will approach a matter than having that information on the attorney’s own site keeps the client from having to go to an external source. While this is obviously my personal and professional opinion, I see it much more in an attorney’s interest to keep his or her content on their own web properties for the reasons discussed in the article above.
While I would like to discuss the rating system in a moment – the larger point of the article above is that it is against the legal profession’s interest (both for individual lawyers and the overall profession) to continually fill AVVO with content that the attorney does not own. While the rating system is important, I feel focusing solely on that point gets away from the main topic of the article above. Also, I’m sure you would agree that as AVVO rises in search rankings attorneys than have no guarantee that AVVO won’t charge large monthly fees simply for the attorney to claim their listing, to post, etc.
There is a substantial body of writing (such as this article – http://www.lawyerseomarketing.org/news/get-10-star-superb-rating-avvo) indicating that AVVO uses the amount of written contribution in the calculation of ratings and most attorneys are under this understanding. My own review of AVVO’s discussion of the topic shows that AVVO says the information for rating “…may come from various sources…” and does not explicitly exclude any information from the ratings system other than client reviews. Also, I know many attorneys feel that the endorsement system on AVVO, which certainly goes into the rating, is often seen as a popularity contest between attorneys rather than an objective measure of skill. Consumers are likely more concerned about client reviews than things such as attorney endorsements.
Thanks again for the feedback.
Thanks again for the feedback Josh – your comments are appreciated as a healthy dialogue on this matter is good for the legal profession.
I strongly disagree with your statement that AVVO helps with SEO. Google, for quite a while now, has not passed page rank from links generated in a directory such as AVVO. Also, if one tests the results of AVVO’s Q&A section against Google’s identity checker it shows that the answers are credited to AVVO (as far as Google is concerned) and not particular attorneys actually answering the question – AVVO, therefore, does not pass along the “authorship authority” that has grown increasingly important since 2011. Also, Google itself is currently stating that the type of “guest posting” you suggest be done on AVVO and other sites adds no real value to SEO (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMxC3wQZOyc).
Also, the only reason an attorney may get referrals from AVVO is the fact that AVVO currently ranks highly in search. This high ranking, however, is due to the content generated by attorneys; it is a circular argument (no disrespect intended) to say that posting in AVVO has value because AVVO ranks highly in search when the posting itself is the very reason that AVVO ranks highly in search.
Finally, to compare AVVO to Facebook or Twitter is apples to oranges. Those are platforms that are based on social interactions between people and any businesses that advertise on FB or Twitter do so because there is already a high level of social activity that would already be taking place with or without commercial entities trying to advertise. AVVO, by contrast, is a directory that is largely based on commercial entities (attorneys) generating content to be consumed by the general public. AVVO is not similar to FB or Twitter. It is highly similar to Psychologytoday.com which charges psychologists for directory listings. If AVVO were to reach ubiquity in web search, which is what Psychologytoday has done, then it would easily be in a position to extract high rates from attorneys while the attorneys own websites are drowned out.
Again, thanks for the feedback. I am glad that you have joined in on the discussion.
Luke:
I agree with almost all of the points you make in your article and these comments about AVVO. I do think that attorneys need to have a presence on AVVO, primarily because it does rank high, for marketing (SEO included) purposes.
There are several Q&A sites, such as Quora and Ask.com. AVVO also needs to realize that they are not the only online legal Q&A site anymore. There are several sites that have them. AVVO needs to realize this and, if they continue to want attorneys to supply content, they need to offer things that these other sites do not. They did take a big step by letting attorneys add their Google Authorship profile, which other sites have not yet done. However, unless they continue to offer something of value to attorneys, especially now that most firms have their own blogs, they are going to end up in a downward spiral as they lower they fall in the rankings, the less content they will get, which will cause them to fall further, etc.
I still do not fully understand the AVVO ranking system despite Josh King’s explanations. My ranking is lower than several attorneys who have been in practice a much shorter time than me, have less “awards” and other items. However, I have qualms about Martindale’s rankings as well.
Thanks for sharing Jeffrey,
I agree that having a presence on AVVO is important for review management. I, for the reasons stated in the article, do not think attorneys should be writing content for AVVO (again just my personal opinion). One thing that needs to be understood is that it is true attorneys can link their G+ profile to their AVVO profile for authorship purposes. The important issue, however, with linking the G+ profile is that it links to the attorney’s profile and not to the questions an attorney answers on behalf of AVVO. The attorney, therefore, still gets no “authorship credit” from Google for supplying AVVO with content. This is why it is better for an attorney to write content on his or her own web property to build up that authorship authority which is becoming increasingly important in search. The largest point of Google + web identity, in the eyes of Google, is establishing authorship authority and linking to AVVO does not assist with this.
Thanks for the response Luke.
I disagree with you slightly as I do think you get some Authorship “credit” if you list AVVO on your Google Plus Profile as both “Other Profile” and “Contributor To.” However, I think the impact is minimal and would agree that attorneys should be publishing articles on their own site rather than on AVVO.
Thanks for the feedback Jeffrey. There would actually be no authorship credit as the rel=author tag, pointing at your profile, would not be present on the AVVO page where you answer the question. For example, on this website, Ben and I are both authors. If your run Ben’s posts through Google’s authorship checker he gets sole authorship credit for those posts and vice versa for my posts. This is because each of our respective posts contains our respective rel=author tags. It appears that when you “link” your G+ page to your AVVO profile then AVVO does give you a rel=author credit on your profile page (which is a good thing and, to my understanding, is far more than other directories do). However, you do not get the rel=author tag on any questions/posts you respond to and, as such, you do not get the authorship credit. I’m basing on this on some tests I’ve run since yesterday and the results have been consistent. Questions answered by attorneys come back as showing the author is AVVO, not the attorney.
What do you mean by listing AVVO on your google + profile as other profile or contributor? I do not see that anywhere….
Thanks Paul. In your Google+ profile you’ll see a section for “contributor” under your “About” page. You can add a link to your AVVO profile there. I hope this helps.
Luke, my purpose in commenting was to address the misapprehension that answering questions is part of the Avvo Rating. We’re pretty transparent about the categories of information that do – and do not -contribute to the Avvo Rating but this is an area of continuing confusion.
But with respect to your main point, I disagree with the cloistered approach you recommend. While an attorney’s website should be the primary repository of their writings/contributions, it’s most effective – both in terms of SEO and reaching actual clients and referral sources – to have content across as wide a net as possible. That may include Avvo Answers (although there are lots of reasons other than SEO to answer questions on Avvo), but also guest posting on other blogs, writing articles, actively using social media, etc.
As for the fear that Avvo might start charging – do you have the same fear with respect to Twitter or Facebook? The business models of new media companies are based on the posting of quality content that’s useful and engaging to users. There’s very little incentive for any of us to create economic barriers to that activity.
I find Avvo pretty good but not cheap
I have seen my Avvo profile incrementally increase after getting involved in the Q&As. I agree with Luke on this one. In my opinion, from an attorney marketing perspective, there are much better places to spend your time than on Avvo.
Thanks for the input Doug.
I’ve been on AVVO for 4 or 5 years and can offer some information based on my experience. It’s important to keep in mind that I am a solo practitioner for the purposes of these comments. I also have a website, however, it is in desperate need of an overhaul. I need to do that.
I can’t speak authoritatively re: the SEO concerns. But I’ll attempt to offer my layperson’s view. I understand the argument that AVVO gets free content from the attorney’s answers—-and that this helps AVVO’s online presence. It follows logically that this is to the detriment of attorney’s websites. For my small, solo practice I think that AVVO and my website complement each other.I also have a FB page for practice and very limited Google+ page. I’m not knowledgeable about how these different platforms affect my online presence. I believe that the confluence of the platforms—all of which link to the others—-would be a good thing.
My experience using AVVO has been very positive but I do have some issues with it. I spent a ton of time answering questions when I first joined. I would say that for about a month—-I spent 3 or 4 hours a day posting answers. This was with the free version of AVVO. Almost immediately—I received a ton of new client leads (for a solo practice).
After several months—-AVVO approached me regarding some advertising “slots” that had become available for my county and practice area. At one point, I was spending about $900.00 per month for AVVO advertising. I stopped advertising after 3 months. I don’t think that the Ads yield many leads. I believe this is because the public is typically more engaged in posting/reading answers OR reviewing attorneys’ profiles. My guess is that people tend to avoid the Ads because attorney advertising is ubiquitous. People go on AVVO to research legal issues and evaluate attorneys in their area.
Nearly every lead that contacts me from an internet search has done so based on my client reviews—–and I suppose to a lesser extent–all of the answers that I’ve posted. What I dislike about AVVO is the fact that there are attorneys with literally 3 years of experience practicing law that have a higher AVVO “score” than I do. My rating would be higher if I engaged in some public speaking and/or was more involved with various legal entities. Invariably, the “new” attorneys with 9+ ratings have been very active in the community, have been endorsed by many of their peers (the max number of endorsements that will raise your rating is around 12).
AVVO works well for me. It does require a significant amount of time in order to generate an appreciable amount of leads. One final comment: I publish answers and guides on AVVO but also post them to my website and other platforms.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts William.
My biggest concern, with any type of platform, is touched on in your last statement. Anything that requires a significant amount of time should be weighed against the fact of whether an attorney will own the content. Personally, I believe that one is better putting time into their own blog, which they own and control. Is that to say that AVVO, and similar services, can’t generate leads? Of course not. The big point, however, is to maximize return on the investment of time and I’m a firm believer that time is best spent on something one owns. Just my 2.5 cents on the matter. Thanks again.
Luke: I do not think that AVVO owns my content to the exclusion of my use of it on my website or other social media platforms. Granted, this is more of a “shotgun” approach to online marketing. I’m considering obtaining an AVVO website along with the “Ignite” suite very seriously. I would still keep my admittedly ill-conceived (i.e. no landing page to speak of) website online—I don’t want to lose any of “SEO” goodness conferred upon it simply by the length of time that it has been active. I will revamp it, however.
I’m very curious about several facets of having an AVVO website, as well. I spent more than 1 hour today speaking with them. From what I understand, they will put up as much content as I want. I can also have it updated when I want. I have the ability of choosing a URL that makes more sense than “Rosenfeltfamily.com.” While I’m sure that this is not available, it would be nice to have something like “Orlandofamliylaw.com” etc.
One thing that they were clear on is that they do not do “SEO” for individual websites. I totally get that—-the price is incredibly reasonable. My thought would be to consult with any number of SEO people that I know to help with the landing page and related issues. I can certainly pay for consulting and then have AVVO finalize it.
I’m, not trying to sell anyone on AVVO. However, I will say that I was an “early adopter” and this has helped me out considerably. Furthermore, AVVO is the big gorilla. My informal research concerning similar sites lead me to conclude that they are more expensive and not nearly as productive.
But to your question: While I concede that AVVO has rights to my “work product,” how does this preclude me from using it on my own blog? My thought is that I should get as much of my product out on as many platforms as possible. Thanks for response. Very interesting stuff.
Bill
One big thing to consider is the definition of “SEO.” Anytime someone tells an attorney they don’t “do the SEO” then it’s clear that either they don’t understand what meaningful and lasting search engine optimization actually entails or that they’re banking on the fact that the attorney won’t understand and that they, in turn, can make such a statement based on an attorney’s lack of understanding. Here’s an article on the topic: /understanding-what-is-and-what-is-not-seo/
I will say that when I reviewed AVVO’s website product, I found them to be poorly optimized for search: http://www.seo-for-lawyers.com/attorneys-avvo-websites-2015/
In my experience it’s easier to get a quick client in the door, in the early days of a practice, by doing things that lead to quick easy results (answering questions on third-party websites such as AVVO, using PPC, etc.). The problem, however, is that one is investing time and money into a product they don’t own, don’t control, and will not provide an ongoing return without the aditional investment of time and money. While that yields a few clients quicker, it also means that one is not fully investing in content that will provide an ongoing return without additional investment. This leaves the lawyer constantly chasing the quick client through more third-party website content, PPC, etc. Taking the time early on to invest in one’s self, rather than in someone else, is what leads to lasting results IMHO.
I would strongly encourage people to NOT use AVVO. We – foolishly – placed what we were told would only be a THREE MONTH listing. We did this because of a program that I ran in my field of immigration law, and we thought we might TRY to see if the cost was worth it. IT WAS NOT!! I do a specialized area of law: business immigration. What I got were random emails from people with all kinds of issues that were NOT related to business immigration. Now, when I continued to get billed for AVVO listing, I was told to send an email to my representative – Josh Stafford. I sent the email last week and Josh called me today. After I made it clear that I was not interested in his efforts to up-sell me by “expanding” my listing, he advised me that I could only cancel with 30 days written notice. IF YOU ARE AN ATTORNEY, DO NOT FALL FOR THEIR SOLICITATION TO USE THEIR SERVICE.
Thanks for sharing your experience Roy. Were you able to get the service cancelled?
Thanks to all who have submitted comments here, and to Mr. Ciciliano. I had a similar experience to a write above, who participated initially on the free portion of AVVO, answered many questions, and then was approached by their advertising team. I bought months’ worth of ads, and it generated a lot of poor leads. Many times, it was people seeking free advice over the phone or email, and not serious about retaining paid legal help. I believe Avvo created this problem: by advertising it as the place to go to get your legal information for FREE, the public is trained to continue expecting free. Avvo makes it very easy to start paid advertising, but quite difficult to cancel. I wrote them months ago requesting to cancel my paid ads, and was ignored. They went months just continuing to bill me, despite my request. I had to write them repeatedly, and they always try to upsell you when you try to cut out the paid ads. The expense did not justify the few paid leads that converted to clients that I got. I appreciate your comments about spending time generating content for Avvo, which does nothing for my own firm’s SEO.
Thanks for sharing your experience Sergio. Were you able to get the service cancelled?