Awhile back, I oversaw the development and optimization of a website for a divorce lawyer in Houston, Texas. The attorney, Carl Selesky , recently opened his own practice and needed to get his name out to husbands and wives that were tired of eachothers company.
But he never realized how an organic search result in Google would catapult that.
Carl reached the # 3 position for “Houston divorce lawyer” and it would go up to # 2, then drop to the 4 or 5 spots for other search queries. When Carl would ask how the potential client found him, they would say “on the internet”, but also that he was “one of the top 10 divorce lawyers” in Houston. Then he was “in the top 5.” Carl was not aware of any recognition from a online legal association. Determined to understand the phenomenon, it was surprising to find out that they simply meant that he was in the “Top 10” of Google’s first page of search results.
Google’s organic results were not just giving The Selesky Law Firm more traffic, but more credibility . An unexpected and very welcomed benefit to SEO.
The funny part is that some used to call and say they contacted him because he was # 3, and the client felt that they couldn’t afford the “#1 lawyer in Houston.”
I love it when online user behavior surprises me.