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S2 E32: Search Speaks Volumes

28/09/2020

00:00
00:00
PI & WC Google Search Volumen
ICP Logo

S2 E32: Search Speaks Volumes

28/09/2020

00:00

00:00

PI & WC Google Search Volumen

If you ask two personal injury lawyers in the same market what results they have seen from their marketing efforts year-to-date, you’ll probably get two completely different answers. And while every law firm’s business levels will be different, there is one thing they share in common, and that is the number of search queries related to their practice areas completed in Google search in their market.

Join Grace and Liel as they review the search volumes for personal injury and workers compensation queries for the ten largest states, population-wise:

  1. California
  2. Florida
  3. Texas
  4. New York
  5. Illinois
  6. Pennsylvania
  7. Ohio
  8. Georgia
  9. North Carolina
  10. Michigan

While many law firms reacted with panic to the arrival of Coronavirus, our numbers show which markets have weathered the storm and which have seen an increase in demand. In some markets, we noticed record increases in relevant queries month by month. 

Download the slides here!

Send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com

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Transcript

Liel: [00:00:00] You may know your Law Firm’s marketing numbers inside out, but how about your market’s numbers?

Liel: [00:00:05] Open the episode notes, download the slides and join us as we review personal injury and workers compensation, Google search volumes over the past 24 months.

Liel: [00:00:15] I’m Liel Levy co-founder of Nanato Media and this is In Camera podcast.

Liel: [00:00:50] Welcome to In Camera podcast, Private Legal Marketing Conversation, Grace, we are back. It’s September 25th as we are recording, my mind is blown. I cannot believe that within a week we’re going to be on the last quarter of twenty-twenty. And quite frankly, Grace, I’m happy. I’m happy that at the end of this year is coming near because it’s just being hard, right? Whenever you think that you’ve seen it at all. Something comes and knocks you sideways and it’s just, you know, lesson after lesson that we’re getting. But Grace, how are you today?

Grace: [00:01:25] I’m doing all right. Actually, I feel like it’s raining crazy over here. But other than that, yeah, it’s thunderstorms and lightning the last few days. You know, I’m in Florida, guys, so we kind of have that every day, really. And this entire winter season or fall season is just rain, rain, rain. So but other than that, it’s pretty good.

Liel: [00:01:44] So, Grace, in that note, when there is these rains in Florida, is it expected that there would be an increase in car accidents and other kind of motor vehicle related accidents increase? 

Grace: [00:01:58] Such a good point. 

Liel: [00:02:00] Search volumes go up?

Grace: [00:02:01] Yes, actually, yes. Particularly because there was a flooding warning last night, in effect until really late. And when there’s flooding, there’s hydroplaning and there’s car accidents. So, yes. 

Liel: [00:02:14] That’s right, Grace. And so that’s one of the things that we very carefully monitor. When we were on personal injury, campaigns that are targeting motor vehicle accidents is weather conditions, because we know that when certain inclement weather is forecasted, there is likely increase of accidents to happen on the road Grace.

Liel: [00:02:35] And so with that being said, that’s what we’re going to dedicate this episode to. We’re going to review search volume trends for personal injury and potentially worker’s compensation. It depends really on which state you are in what kind of cases you’re targeting. You may be on a state that work related injuries are sought after because of personal injury. You could be in a state where people are looking for worker compensation cases. Right. And so, Grace, before we dive deep into these search volumes, let me set the parameters here as to what is it that we’re going to be looking at in how is it that we’re approaching these numbers? OK, so the first thing we’re going to be looking at the search volumes for the past 24 months, Grace. And the reason why we’re doing 24 months is because we all agree that this past year has been extremely volatile.

Liel: [00:03:30] Right. It’s really uncommon. So it’s really good to take, for instance, a year like twenty eighteen and most of twenty nineteen to kind of look at how things looked under normal. And I’m saying this in quotes circumstances and then what happens during twenty-twenty.

Liel: [00:03:50] Right. So we’re going to be able to really see beyond the past 12 months but really go a little bit deeper and see how things looked up to 24 months ago. So that’s number one. Number two is we’re going to be looking at state level, so we’re not going to be zooming in two particular cities. Now, these will influence the way that you see or experience things if you are in one of these particular markets, because obviously things don’t look the same. And I’m going to just use Texas as an example in Houston, Texas, then in Tyler, Texas. OK, so obviously when you’re looking at state level search volumes, and particularly when it comes to the cost per clicks, you can expect to have a range that averages numbers. If you’re zooming in into a particular market, you can see higher cost per clicks. And with that Grace, the last part I want to say here is that the numbers that we were going to be seeing are actually statistical and they are up until last month. So none of these numbers are reflective of yesterday, last week or the week before. We can only see up until August of twenty-twenty because that’s when Google releases numbers is after a month or a period has ended, then it actually shows you numbers for up to that period. So we cannot know exactly what’s been happening since that period closed. So for this month of September. Right. But we can definitely use that trend pattern as a way to forecast what we could anticipate to be happening in the month of September. And obviously now we were already kind of like heading towards the end of September. And in those markets that we’re involved, well, we already kind of know how things went through. But still, what is the information that we’re going to be sharing here? It’s only going to be covering up until what was recorded for August. How does that sound, Grace?

Grace: [00:05:47] Sounds great. And the states that we’re specifying our California, Florida, Texas. 

Liel: [00:05:53] So we’re going to go one by one, Grace, and so just as you’ve mentioned, California, right? Biggest state in terms of population in the United States.

Grace: [00:06:02] Huge. 

Liel: [00:06:02] Very big state, very, very big state, Grace, we’re looking at over 40 million people.

Liel: [00:06:08] And so, Grace, let’s start with auto accident lawyer. Right. That’s the first search term. The search terms stay consistent across all the markets that we are running this study. So auto accident lawyer, Grace, you have your slide in front of you. As you can see, Grace, we’ve had a good 20, 20. And listen, here it is, OK? If you look at the numbers since the beginning of 2020, they actually have been consistent with any period between 2018 and any moment in 2019. And really at some point during the worst time of COVID-19, we’re talking about April, May, June. Right. They actually have reached the peak, which then came down right around July. And right now it seems like in August it started to pick up again. But what is very important here to mention is that at no point have the search volumes dropped below what was seen in any other period between twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen Grace. OK, and so we’re looking here at the median being thirty thousand search queries that relate to accident lawyer. OK.

Grace: [00:07:33] Right.

Liel: [00:07:34] And it has peaked very close to up to 60000 search queries on one given month. And that was the period right around, as I’ve said, May, June potentially. Right. And then it looks like somewhere in between June and July, it start deep diving or maybe even a little bit early, maybe end of May. But really, we see that between April and May, there was a spike in cases. Right. Not in cases in search volume. Right. So that’s one thing. Now, the other thing I want to look at is what are the low range cost clicks going forward and what are the high range cost per clicks going for in order to show on the top of the page for search results. Right. So at the low end, we’re looking at one hundred and ten dollars at a high end, Grace Three hundred and ninety four, really personal injury in California. Not surprising. Pretty consistent. I’ve seen it go way much higher in California, way much higher, doubled and right again. And it will depend exactly on which market you’re looking at. But… 

Grace: [00:08:44] Yeah, I think most of us know that the big states cost a lot per click for attorney terms.

Liel: [00:08:49] That’s so that’s part of what we’re going to be looking at here, Grace, is everything as predictable as it is, or are there surprises? Because I’m sure more than once you were going to be surprised. Here are some of the numbers we’re going to see. Now, let’s look at another number here. California, there’s plenty of workers compensation lawyers there, right? We know that work related accidents are also in demand. So now let’s look at the different search term. OK, work accident lawyer or workplace accident lawyer in California, Grace. And so now the chart looks a little bit different, right?

Liel: [00:09:23] While we don’t see a massive dip in twenty-twenty, we do see like the highest it has ever peaked over the past two years, which happened right around July. Right. You see the blue line really all the way up to close to one thousand eight hundred. Right. That’s kind of like the maximum search volume that has ever been. The median is nine hundred. And another thing that is important to point out here, Grace, is that the search volume never gone below what it has been at any other point in the previous years. Again, 2018, 2019.

Liel: [00:10:00] Right. And what we also see here is that we are looking at some very competitive cost per clicks, because if you compared what was the actual cost per click for a motor vehicle accident for workers compensation, we see that it’s a fraction of that. Right. And it can it could very well be a personal injury. Right. Work related accidents. Right. Of their operating machinery or anything like that. And so here we see that there is really, really competitive pricing at a low range. We were looking at twenty six dollars per click at a high range, we’re looking at ninety five dollars. Now, Grace, do you see on the slide at the very bottom that I’ve highlighted one search term.

Grace: [00:10:40] Yeah Workplace. Accident attorney.

Liel: [00:10:43] And that one is the only search term that really spikes all the way up to two hundred and thirteen dollars. Yeah, so that’s a very good indication that there is a few or potentially one law firm there that has these search terms on exact match and are bidding aggressively on it. Right. So, yeah. And so when you’re building your strategy, well, you may want to include some of these keywords, but don’t go after the exact match, because obviously it’s being very aggressively sought after considering what the other cost per clicks are. Right. Because you can still get very, very good quality leads without necessarily having to spend that much, you know, more than double.

Liel: [00:11:26] So, Grace, let’s move on to your home state, Florida, OK? Grace. 

Grace: [00:11:32] What did Florida do? 

Liel: [00:11:35] That’s exactly what you see that I know every single time that you see these, that’s what happens. Like your mind goes to there. And for our friends listeners that they cannot see this actual chart on September of last year, there is like this crazy spike, OK, that I mean, you know, it looks outrageous.

Grace: [00:11:58] You see a baseline and then a mountain.

Liel: [00:11:59] It spikes massively. Yeah. It’s like a peak. Right. And so basically, let me put things into perspective for our listeners. So we’re looking at an auto accident lawyer in Florida for the past two years. The median seems to be somewhere around 15 to 20 thousand search queries. But then in September or August, September of last year, that went really all the way up to sixty thousand. Is it sixty? 

Grace: [00:12:26] Eighty thousand. 

Liel: [00:12:27] Eighty thousand, Grace, and then sharply declined, bringing it back to somewhere between thirty thousand.

Liel: [00:12:35] But so that was last year, Grace, what happened last year? So that’s again, the thing that I’m asking, right? Is it the rainy season? Is it really?

Grace: [00:12:44] It is. We kind of start out really like a heavy rain season. And in theory, it’s supposed to be August to October is our hurricane season. So I don’t remember exactly what happened last year around that time. But I could tell you it probably was a hurricane or something related, tropical storm of some sort or something of that nature. So because, yes, we do have huge spikes when a natural disaster occurs.

Liel: [00:13:09] Yeah. And so the funny thing here, Grace, is that because our chart stops right out September of twenty eighteen, if we would have potentially gone a few months further back, like June of twenty eighteen, we will potentially you would have seen a similar spike happening. Right. And if we fast forward, for instance, and look back at this in November, we would potentially see another little spike happening there, because as you can see, our blue line, which indicates the search volume, it’s kind of like about to trend upwards right where we are left, which is in August right . Now Grace, let’s look a little bit into cost per clicks. We’re looking here at our auto accident lawyer in Florida goes for one hundred and twelve dollars on a low range and on a high range, it can easily go to three hundred and fifty. Now, if you go to the last line in the slide, there is this one search term, Grace, that I’ve been seeing come over and over and over again. And the cost per click on that one particular search term doesn’t matter to market, just really takes it off the chart. I need a car accident Lawyer. Five hundred and sixty four dollars. OK, great. So that’s how high the keyword on exact match potentially would be.

Liel: [00:14:27] And again, it’s a great search term, right? I mean, you place call only out in front of us of a user that he’s searching, that you’re potentially going to get a call. However, you can strategize your way of showing up for these search term without necessarily having to spend that much, right? Now. Here’s the other thing I would say, Grace. I mean, look at the search volume that the search term has, right? You’re looking at a market that has easily forty thousand search queries a month. Yet I need a car accident Lawyer only generates 20 search queries per month. Right. So it’s a tiny little fraction. Now, if you set up your if your game plan is I want to get every single one of these clicks because they convert up a very high rate, kudos to you. You find what works to you. And if your ROI works, then perfect. Right. But at the same time, I don’t want people to get fixated and say, oh, that’s the one search term that works. Not necessarily. All of the search terms that are both here are very valid. And it can lead you to a very valuable conversion as well. OK. 

Grace: [00:15:29] Yep, that makes sense.

Liel: [00:15:31] All right, Grace, let’s move on and see what’s happening in Florida with a work accident, lawyer or workplace accident lawyer? Well, Grace, I think we see a chart that has been very consistent, like while we do have a trend that over the past two months seem to be going at higher search volumes that we’ve seen in any other year, it looks very consistent and steady. So first thing that it’s really worth mentioning here, there is not a lot of search volume in Florida for these, right? We don’t even look like we’re getting a medium of 300 search queries, 600 total. We’re looking at the second largest state in the United States. And there doesn’t seem to be a lot of search volume for work-related accidents. So that’s where we find another interesting fact by itself. Right. And then we see that the competition is not as fierce. Right. There’s less amount of interest. I’ve run worker’s compensation campaigns in Florida, Grace, and I must say there is very limited interest on this particular practice area, primarily, there is a lot of interest for the potential of PI, but not so much for workers compensation as such. So it’s not so as competitive, obviously, as we’re seeing personal injury, again, we’re looking at cost per clicks that range anywhere between 50 dollars on the low end. One hundred and sixty dollars on the high end. So let’s move on, Grace, what do you say?

Grace: [00:16:58] Yeah, I think the reason that happens in Florida is because we’re an at will to work state. And so we don’t have as many protections a lot of times. I know that’s not necessarily having to do with worker’s compensation, but that’s one factor or variable that I think maybe have to, has to do with search terms and also the fact that we are predominantly, maybe not depending on where you are, but predominantly an older state. Right. Instead of like younger in terms of in the workplace and potentially. And that’s just a thought I had. I don’t know what you think about this.

Liel: [00:17:30] That could very well be the case. But you know who else doesn’t have very stringent workplace regulation laws? Our next state, Texas.

Grace: [00:17:38] Where you are.

Liel: [00:17:39] Ok, so let’s get here with Texas. Right. Because Texas has been on a roller coaster these couple of years. And so let’s look how that chart looks. So auto accident lawyer in Texas, Grace, we’re looking at September 2018 all the way until August of this year. And so what we see with Texas is that we really had a really, really strong summer and really kind of like it went through almost to the end of the year where things had a lot of momentum, great search volumes in a place where the median is, as state, where the median is twenty thousand search queries per month. We in Texas had a period that went from June to almost November of last year where we were reaching forty thousand search queries comfortably every single month. And then in December, which is not uncommon for things to kind of slow down during the last month of the year, things went down. And as things started to pick up right, which they seem to be picking up right around March of twenty-twenty, what happened in March 2020?

Liel: [00:18:45] Well, you know, COVID happened. And so then there was a slight fall, but it’s pretty much been steady ever since. But steadily, ever since, and by steady we mean that we’ve been right at the median. Twenty thousand. Right. But by steady, it’s not enough for a state like Texas if you think that last year there was way more volume way more queries, way more people looking out for legal representation, for personal injury and the markets become competitive at that level to go after that, you know, you slashed that into half and now you have a little bit of scarcity in the market. Grace, I mean, it’s a saturated market. Texas, it’s hurting. A lot of law firms here are hurting because of that. Right. Obviously, those who enjoy great brand recognition and have been in the game for a very long time are able to weather the storm. But many other law firms that were in the process of building brand or heavily relying on pay per click strategies, they’re now all from the sudden facing a situation where they just have to be way more aggressive and pay more per acquisition than they were doing potentially a year ago. Grace. So, again, while it’s not terrible, it’s certainly had an impact. Right? Now, let’s look at how things look in Texas for work-Accident lawyer, workplace accident lawyer, or by the way, sorry we didn’t look at cost per click. Right?

Liel: [00:20:27] One hundred to three hundred and sixty five dollars. That’s the median grace. Depending on the markets that you go. You can see these easily jump to five hundred six hundred dollars. That’s how competitive things get here. But Grace, what do you see already as we are getting, we’re almost coming to half way of these charts is that there’s been a very consistent pattern on the cost per clicks, right. For personal injury. It starts to feel very common to see them in the range of between one hundred to four hundred dollars.

Grace: [00:20:57] Right.

Liel: [00:20:58] And I know it’s a big range, but it kind of gives you a good idea of what the major markets cost per clicks go for.

Liel: [00:21:08] And so, of course, if you’re interested or looking at potentially starting your own strategy, you want to be very specific and focused on what is it, what are the costs in your particular market. But, you know, as a high level overview, we are starting to see some consistency there, right?

Grace: [00:21:24] Yeah, that’s what I’m looking at. I noticed that it seems very similar across the board. Yeah. You know, for the states anyway. That’s what we’re talking about. 

Liel: [00:21:33] So Grace, work accident lawyer, workplace accident lawyer in Texas. It’s been increasing, it’s been growing over the past two years. And it’s really like a diagonal core line from twenty eighteen all the way to twenty nineteen. That’s been constantly growing. No drops at any point this year. We’re looking at close to sixteen hundred search queries per month. And the cost per clicks are half of what the PI are, right, between fifty dollars and one hundred and seventy two hundred dollars on the high end.

Liel: [00:22:09] Grace, let’s look at New York right in I know New York, you guys are based in New York, right. So you potentially have some opinion here on some of these numbers. But New York is a very interesting market, right? Because particularly New York City doesn’t have that motor vehicle accident demand that you have in other cities where every person represents one vehicle on the road. New York is a slightly different market in that sense. So the search volume for auto accident lawyer is considerably lower than what we saw in these smaller states. So we’re looking at around eight thousand dollars, the median, sorry 8000 search queries a month on the median, sixteen thousand at a spike or when it’s spiked, which also happened in the summer of last year Grace. But what is interesting to see is that really over this year, things have been very, very consistent, like there hasn’t been any drops. And if anything, during summer there’s been an increase of search volume.

Liel: [00:23:14] So that’s what we’re seeing in New York now. The range Grace here is that’s exactly what I was saying. Right. I’ve heard a lot of people say, listen, New York, the market motor vehicle, it’s just crazy. It’s super expensive and stuff. And it may have been at some points, Grace, right now. Thirty-five dollars to One hundred and twenty three dollars. Right. That’s what you’re paying for Auto accident lawyer in a market that is super competitive and many practice areas in these prices are really I mean, you’ve just seen what we were talking about. 

Grace: [00:23:45] Normally much higher, double. Triple.

Liel: [00:23:48] Yeah. And I’m telling you true that these are the prices for New York State. But if you zoom in into New York City is not that different now. I will tell you, I can already tell you September has been way more aggressive than this.

Grace: [00:24:01] Yes. And it will be because, you know, they’re actually entering into their phase two in terms of reopening plans.

Liel: [00:24:07] And this is super aggressive right now, what’s happening in New York and New Jersey. So I’m interested in seeing how these numbers may evolve over the next few months. Now, New York work accident lawyer, workplace accident lawyer. We see that, you know, the search volume had a massive drop this year. Right. So, like, it really kind of almost matches the drop that was caused by COVID.

Liel: [00:24:35] So 600 search queries is what they peaked on at the beginning of the year. The median is about three hundred search queries per month. And you can very well see that during March, April, May, things were very much right there at the median, if not a little bit lower. And then over the past three months, it has slowly starting to get back to where it should have been. Right. The cost Per Clicks go from anywhere from 50 to two hundred dollars. Great. Now, Illinois, Grace, this is another interesting one, right? We have a median for a car accident lawyer of 4000 search queries per month. And that’s pretty much what they were getting up until the summer of last year. Then at summer last year of twenty nineteen, they had a spike when things almost like from one month to another climbed all the way to six thousand search queries per month. And it’s been there ever since then. And the thing that is really, really amazing here is that throughout COVID there actually been on a growth pattern, which…

Grace: [00:25:39]  I see that.

Liel: [00:25:40]  Seems to continue to be ongoing despite a slight drop that they’ve had in July. Things seem to now continue to going up and you’re looking at around eight thousand search queries per month search volume, sorry, cost per clicks go between fifty-two to two hundred and thirty dollars. Grace So that’s what’s happening in Illinois. I know.Right.

Grace: [00:26:03] And it’s interesting. 

Liel: [00:26:03] Some things you wouldn’t expect and just surprise you. So let’s look at Illinois work, accident lawyers, workplace accident lawyer, where there is quite a bit of interest in competition for workers compensation cases. We can see. Right, that the search volume has also doesn’t look very different. Right. Like the trend doesn’t look very different than what the motor vehicle accident search queries looked like. Right. It’s almost kind of like the same thing. June of last year, things started to increase in search volume. And ever since then, they’ve been kind of like the same thing. And then at the beginning of this summer, things climbed even further. And now it looks like they may have had a slight drop. It will be interesting to see whether that’s peaking up now in September. Right. Search clicks for work accident lawyer or workplace accident lawyer range between as low as twenty dollars all the way up to one hundred and eighty dollars. Grace, so are you ready for us to jump to Pennsylvania?

Grace: [00:27:04] Yeah, let’s move on to the next big state?

Liel: [00:27:07] Yeah, Grace. So Pennsylvania for auto accident lawyer, what do we have here? Well, we have a search volume that at a median it’s at three thousand search queries per month. Right. But we’ve seen it come all the way up to six thousand search queries per month. And when is that most recently happened? Right now. Right. Like right in August, over the past couple of months, I would say as early as May of 2020. Pennsylvania has been trending upwards on search queries for motor vehicle accidents, and it seems that they are also getting to search volumes that they haven’t had before, or at least not over the past two years. Right.

Liel: [00:27:50] And so what is also super important here, because what these charts also illustrate very clearly is how much more adaption there’s being from users to use their desktop or mobile devices to search and research legal professionals. It’s not, I don’t have statistical numbers that I can compare and say, well, what happened? Was it less accidents in Pennsylvania in twenty eighteen than they were in twenty-twenty? Right. But the thing is that we are seeing this across all the markets, every single market. Right. Maybe with exception of Texas, but every other market you can see the surge volume increasing disregarding of COVID-19 or not this year compared to the previous two years. And so that is a very good indication that people are using more the Internet for finding legal representation. And that’s it, period. Right. And potentially the next few years are going to look even higher than they look now because more people are getting online for researching this kind of search terms Grace.

Liel: [00:28:55] So going back to Pennsylvania, Grace, as I’ve said, there have been reaching almost kind of like breaking a new record every single month for the past couple of months. They now seem to be generating up to 6000 search queries per month. And the cost per click here seems to be going somewhere between 60 dollars all the way to 250 dollars.

Liel: [00:29:16] I know Pennsylvania is also competitive for work accident lawyer, workplace accident lawyer, Grace here. It’s more kind of like an up and down sort of thing scenario, right? We see them starting the year very strong. And then kind of like going into a deep because of COVID most likely, and then kind of like bouncing out of it a little bit in the summer of this year. And they seem to be stable now. Cost per clicks go between eighty four to three hundred dollars and there is a median of two hundred search queries per month.

Liel: [00:29:47] And so if you think about it, 200 search queries. We’ve already gone through quite a few markets. Right. Florida also didn’t have that much volume. So it’s really not that much. I mean, if you were talking about millions of people and these search queries, it doesn’t mean that these search terms are going to end up clicking on a paid ad. These search queries go for everyone. For the organic ranking, for the local pack ranking for the local search ads positions. So it’s shared amongst a big repertoire of listings. And so, you know, it’s competitive if you’re after that. OK, Grace. So we’re now moving to Ohio.

Liel: [00:30:30] So, again, I mean, I think Ohio is another good example of how, you know, 2020, it’s been a year of growth in terms of search volumes. And we see them sitting at around two thousand five hundred search queries per month on a medium. But they have reached this year and most recently, again, this seems to be kind of like their peak search volume came just recently with 5000 search queries per month.

Liel: [00:31:00] Now, Grace, that’s a lot. That’s double of what they had last year. So that’s what we’re talking about here. Right. Some markets are seeing double the search volume that they had 12 months ago. And so those are the areas where there’s massive opportunity right now.

Liel: [00:31:15] But quite frankly, for a market like Ohio, it’s turning also competitive. Now we’re seeing that cost per clicks are going to two hundred and twenty four dollars at the high end of clicks, as little as thirty four dollars on the low end. Right. Now when we’re looking at work, accident lawyer or workplace accident lawyer, obviously the search volume is less a median of 200 search queries per month, however, this year it’s been increasing all to the point that it’s close to four hundred search queries now and the range goes from twenty seven dollars to eighty five dollars. Grace. Now, Grace, are you ready for Georgia?

Grace: [00:31:56] Yeah, let’s take a look at Georgia pretty close to me. So I’m very interested in Georgia.

Liel: [00:32:01] Oh, my God, this market I honestly, Georgia could be its own case study. Right. It’s really, really peculiar. It’s very competitive. And so let’s look into what this chart shows us. So, Grace, Georgia, auto accident lawyer, they get a median of about seven thousand search queries every month. Now, as you can see, this year, things have been trending upwards the entire year, disregarding nothing like a slight dip somewhere, maybe April beginning of May, but they quickly recovered and skyrocketed all the way up to 14 search queries. Right in July, in August. And they seem to be having a sword drop right now. But the bottom line is that Georgia is another market that has seen the search volume double up between last year and this year, despite everything. Now, when we’re looking at the range for the cost per click, you know, it’s one hundred dollars all the way to four hundred and forty seven dollars. Grace, Georgia, is another market where if you zoom in in two particular areas, whether that’s Atlanta or metro Atlanta, these cost per clicks can potentially far exceed those four hundred dollars. Right. It gets very competitive in some of these markets. So that’s one thing.

Grace: [00:33:29] Now when we’re looking at work accident lawyer, workplace accident lawyer in Georgia, which workers compensation is also highly competitive in this particular market, it looks slightly different Grace. Now we see that they did have a big drop right around the time that COVID was at their worst, which pretty much went from March all the way until June. And they’re slightly coming out of it. Right? They get a median of about two hundred search queries per month. In the past last year, primarily, they have been able to get as close to five hundred, but that doesn’t seem to be happening this year. So that’s what we see with Georgia. But what I want you to see is that when you start looking at some other search terms than the ones that we were focusing here, particularly cost per clicks can get very competitive, whereas we see here somewhere between one hundred to three hundred and seventy dollars. We can also see them come very close to five hundred dollars. Now, Grace, let’s look into North Carolina. So North Carolina, Grace, it’s another state that is not breaking records in twenty-twenty, but it seems to be holding strong to where they have been before. So we’ve we look at where North Carolina was in terms of auto accident lawyer search queries the previous year there pretty much had a great beginning for twenty-twenty. They actually pretty much since the fall of last year, all the way until the beginning of this year, they were on a roll and then COVID came and things dropped. But they seem to have started to recover from that and they look like they’re getting back to the place where they were last fall. So that’s good news for them. They get a median of two thousand search queries per month.

Liel: [00:35:15] But as I said, last year, they were sitting at four thousand search queries per month, almost all of fall until in winter. And right when COVID started is when they had a sharp drop and really competitive, really, really competitive cost per clicks here, right, Grace? I mean, we’re looking at between 50 and a 153 dollars. So that’s quite competitive compared to what we’ve seen for personal injury in other markets. Now, when you look at a work accident lawyers, Grace, look, my screenshot is not letting me see there the actual range, but we can tell that it seems to be right around a median of two hundred search queries per month. And it’s very consistent, right, Grace? Like it seems like it’s been the same for the last two years. They haven’t really had any growth. You know, there is a drop in this year potentially due to COVID right around the spring, and they seem to be stabilizing now. The cost per click here for these keywords, work accident lawyer and workplace accident lawyer range somewhere between thirty-eight, Forty dollars in one hundred and twenty dollars, Grace.

Liel: [00:36:17] Now, our last state of this leased Grace, Michigan. All right, Michigan. Grace.

Grace: [00:36:23] Yeah.

Liel: [00:36:23] So isn’t it like fascinating the way the mobile, I know we’re not really differentiating now between the mobile search queries and the total search queries, but isn’t it amazing like how it exactly is parallel all the way through, like since December, all the way until June? Like everything is exactly identical.

Grace: [00:36:44] Yeah, it is.

Liel: [00:36:46] It is. It’s mind-blowing. So, Grace, what do we have in Michigan? We have about two thousand search queries per month average. However, we see that Michigan started this year particularly very strong breaking records, getting very close to four thousand search queries in search volume at the beginning, right around January, and then had a slight drop in February and then a further drop in March. And then they seem to be recovering pretty much since May. June is already showing signs of growth and all the way until August Grace. So the cost per clicks in Michigan go somewhere between. Eighty dollars and three hundred and thirty dollars, right? So, again, there’s a big range there, competitive market will change depending on where which city you are. And last but not least, work accident lawyer, workplace accident lawyer in Michigan. Grace. Right. So, very limited volume, right? Yeah, it’s potentially the median here is around a hundred at some points to get close to two hundred last year in the fall they came close to 300. But then for the rest of this year it seems to be fluctuating between one hundred and fifty and two hundred. And it’s consistent. No sharp fall during the COVID months and the cost per clicks are also somewhat low. There’s a big range here. I see clicks that go as low as six, seven dollars, and all the way up to one hundred and eighty-six dollars eight. Great. So you can see how that can play out.

Liel: [00:38:16] Grace, I know this was more kind of like a monologue of me talking and lecturing here on charts that people cannot see. And I really wonder, how does this feel as an experience for someone who’s listening, whether it’s as informative as we think it is? Well, send us your feedback. Let us know what you think about it. But I’ll make sure that on our episode notes we have a link to these slides.

Grace: [00:38:41] Yeah.

Liel: [00:38:42] So people who would like to listen to a particular state and have the numbers right in front of them and actually have the opportunity to look at the same charts that we are looking at. So, Grace, what takeaways do you get out of these?

Grace: [00:38:56] So for me, the takeaways have to be, you know, obviously it has to do with look at all of the variables, look at all the things that are going on and don’t look at any numbers in a silo. Be as specific as you can when it comes to your market, your target and what it is that you’re looking for. But don’t, in my opinion, tell me if I’m wrong. Don’t try and keyword match some of these things because it doesn’t seem to make sense, you know, because otherwise you’re going to be competing with all these other people that are doing the same thing at the super high level. And, you know, you’ll blow your budget in a day for no reason.

Liel: [00:39:31] I totally agree with Your Grace. It’s a fantastic exercise to me. Not only when you’re deciding about opening and starting new campaigns in new markets, it’s a good exercise to do, period, in order to understand what’s happening as a whole in your market or markets that you may be interested in entering or practice areas that you may be interested in starting to offer services for. So that’s a great thing. And then, that what you said right there, like understanding which keywords are having a hype. Right. So I can tell you, Grace, that up until very recently the near me keywords were really were the ones that were breaking the banks. Right. They were some of the most competitive ones because they also some of the most frequent to come up as suggestions by Google as you were typing in things. Right. So that influences a lot where most of the expensive keywords are going to be going. For now, I need a car accident lawyer Grace that’s trending in exactly that same pattern. It’s a keyword that is having a lot of hype, primarily because of extremely high intent. Right? I mean, it’s a beautiful keyword, but you can still get to target users with that exact same intent without necessarily having to break the bank, Grace. So I love that first take away Grace. I have another takeaway here, and that is don’t just focus on your metrics. Don’t just focus on what’s happening in your market like you have your campaign on. You have your personal injury campaign. You know very well. What’s your impression share. What’s your click-through rate, what’s your cost per click. You want to make sure that you also know, OK, I’m seeing these numbers when I go to Google keyword planner. How do those compare to these? Because being able to kind of position your campaign in this graph and understand where you’re standing and see how the number of leads that you’re acquiring matches the graph that Google shows us here in terms of search volume. And so it is a really, really powerful interest because you can see how much your campaigns are actually influenced by what’s happening in the market as a whole. I’m going to be honest. Like, we do these for clients. And there is a lot of times that when the market’s having a drop as a general, we see a spike in our clients. And so it’s very important to understand this, because going back to what we were talking about in previous episodes early on when COVID just came through, a lot of times we just because of panic, but we don’t realize that during those months, actually some of our clients saw quite a bit of growth.

Grace: [00:42:11] Right. And so better things can happen.

Liel: [00:42:14] You know, when you have these data and when you can look back if anything were to happen again, you can tell where you know what, when this unprecedented event happened last time we were still able to grow. And so knowing that could prepare you better to make decisions in the future. Now, Grace, our last takeaway for today, and it’s going to be, your Honor, because you’ve been very quiet this episode, Grace.

Grace: [00:42:39] Well, you know, the thing is, you’re the owner of the numbers, you know? I mean, I feel honestly, I feel like you can explain it. And when you go over it, for me, it makes the most sense for you to go over it. But I still think that this is going to be a lot of value to people because I personally would go to the New York section of the podcast and then go take a look at the numbers, you know. I mean, as a marketer and analyst. So that’s why I’ve been quiet. But I’ve also been quiet because I’m trying to not just absorb the information, but also think of a way for people to understand that now more than ever, with all the fluctuations, because of the fluctuations, I mean, pick of a reason, you need to have a finger on the pulse of everything that’s happening in your business and law firm. And that includes exactly what you said, looking at it from the high level, looking at it from the middle level, focusing not just on your metrics and not pulling out because you’re scared. It needs to be all-strategic. Everything you do as a business has to be strategic, and that includes handling a crisis.

Liel: [00:43:45] Grace. Absolutely. And you know what? I was running a report on the market that we did not include in this presentation. But let me tell you what I saw in New Orleans. So New Orleans Grace during the worst of COVID, search volume dropped, but competition increased, and really the cost per clicks went high and then Grace, potentially, some of the advertisers got burned out because prices went high and they did not see their return on the investments that they wanted it, whatever the reason may have been, many of them dropped. And now that the search volume is picking up again considerably, the cost per clicks are at the lowest rate that they’ve been over the past 12 months. That’s another reason, right? I mean, you probably agree that this is always a good take away. It’s the consistency. 

Grace: [00:44:30] Consistency is key.

Liel: [00:44:32] It’s the consistency. 

Grace: [00:44:32] Yes, right.

Liel: [00:44:33] I know we want things to be predictable. I know it is desirable to have cost per click that doesn’t fluctuate dramatically. But the reality is that this is a market that is influenced by supply and demand.

Liel: [00:44:49] And those who are persistent, those who linger around for the good times and the bad times are the ones that actually on the overall at the end of the year have a good balance sheet. 

Grace: [00:45:03] 100 percent. I agree with you completely. It’s always about consistency, you know, and not running scared. You know, I know that’s a lot easier said than done, especially we’re looking at these numbers. I mean, even looking at these numbers ourselves, I know that we’re both like, oh, wow. Oh, I wasn’t expecting that.

Liel: [00:45:19] And that’s the thing, Grace. Again, I don’t I just wrap this up. We Are predisposed to think that because we’re going through a certain dark period in times, because we’ve never been through a pandemic in our lifetimes. This exposed and close to it. Grace, a lot of people automatically think, no, there is no growth in what I’m doing in my eara, in my vertical, where we just went through ten markets and most of them have seen search queries reach record highs.

Liel: [00:45:53] Exactly. So don’t jump into conclusions before actually looking at the numbers, right.

Grace: [00:45:57] Don’t let your gut dictate. Let the numbers dictate. That should be the final takeaway.

Liel: [00:46:02] Yes, Grace, I like that one. So have a great rest of your day, Grace. 

Grace: [00:46:06] You too Liel.

Liel: [00:46:07] Thank you again for another wonderful conversation. We’ll talk again next week.

Grace: [00:46:10] Sounds good. Thanks, Liel.

Liel: [00:46:11] Thank you.

Liel: [00:46:14] If you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your co-workers. Leave us a review and send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com. We’ll see you next week.

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