California Family Law Website Rankings

California Family Law : Average Rank Consistency Score

Today I look at the family law sites of California.   For the past two weeks I have been running the Average Rank Consistency Score (ARC) on 1,546 family law websites in well over 100 California markets.   The ARC takes a ranking snapshot of 8 important family law keywords for each City.   The 8 keywords in Family Law are “Divorce Lawyer”, “Family Lawyer”, “Divorce Attorney”, “Child Custody”, “Child Support”, “Divorce Modification”, “Spousal Support” and “Annulment Lawyer”, .   If a site appears on the 5th page of Google results, the site would “score” a 5, page six a “6” and so on…  If a site does not appear in the top 10 pages of Google results it scores an “11”. For terms that show up in the top 3 of the first page, score a “0.3” and a site that is either #4 or #5 on the first page will get a “0.5”.   The ARC is then calculated as a weighted average of those 8 scores, with more important terms like “divorce and family law” weighted more.   The lower the score the better.   An ARC score is effectively a firm’s average page ranking.  Assuming you are looking at 10 results in a SERP (search engine results page) an ARC of 6.00 roughly means that your average ranking is the 6th page for those 8 keywords, which would not be very good.   Whereas an ARC of 0.30 means you are ranking in the top 3 for all 8 terms – the best score you can get.

*So how do I determine what sites and markets to include?   Since I am judging actual SEO performance, I wanted to ensure that ranking was intentional.   Therefore, I used the geography included in the home page title tag in order to conduct the analysis.   So if a site had two cities in the title tag, I ran the ARC for those two cities.   I also ran the analysis for firms that used a geographic sub folders AND specific geographic pages.  For example the below firm, Harris Family law Group, has a home page title tag that targets Los Angeles so I ran the ARC for Los Angeles.  But I also ran it for several other cities in which they had an optimized page which you can see below.

FindLaw Vs Scorpion 

There is no question that when it comes to marketing family law for attorneys there are two companies that dominate the market; FindLaw and Scorpion.   Both companies are well represented in California.  FindLaw has 72 template sites and 100 custom sites that market family law in California.  Those 172 sites target family law in 235 geographic markets.  By my count Scorpion has 121 sites that are actively marketing family law in California, targeting 198 distinct geographic markets.   (Geographies mentioned in home page title tag or a site that features a family law section targeting a specific area.)    These companies are similar in that they both employ a similar subscription type model and use a mix of template and semi-custom designs.

So which company performs better in terms of organic search in California?   Below is a chart that shows the average rank consistency (ARC) score for Scorpion and FindLaw sites in Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 markets.   The results are clear.   Scorpion is clearly better at getting consistent rankings for their family law clients, particularly in Tier 1 and Tier 2 markets.  (At the end of this post I explain how I distinguish the different markets) .    One argument for why Scorpion may fare better is that FindLaw has many more low cost options for websites than Scorpion.  However, even if you take out the templates level sites, FindLaw’s ARC score drops to 6.45, which is still considerably worse than Scorpion.

*This analysis includes rankings for cities and counties only.   Neighborhoods like Woodland Hills and Encino are not included (Scorpion does dominate these markets) .  Nor do I include areas like “Bay Area” or “San Fernando Valley” .

How do I distinguish between markets?
One of the keys to the average rank consistency score, is that it allows an attorney to compare performance across similar markets.   Getting top rankings in Hemet, CA as Hibu has done for (Clark & Gomez ARC 0.38) is a bit different than a Tier 2 market like Pasadena where , where Hibu’s Family law client, Anthony Hill, has an ARC of 7.91.  

So how do I distinguish the different tiers in family law?  The biggest thing I look at is the level of internet Competition.   A tier 1 market (LA, SF, San Jose, Sacramento, San Diego and Orange County) are extremely competitive and will have at least 50 or more family focused websites.   A tier 2 market like Irvine, Pasdena, Walnut Creek, Riverside etc.. will typically have 20-49 competitors.  A tier 3 market (ex Murrieta, Lancaster, etc..), is usually a smaller suburb with 5-19 competitors.   Finally a tier 5 is typically a small town with just a handful of competitors.

ARC in Tier 1 Markets
So what company does the best in the most most competitive markets?   Below are the top 25 ARC scores for family law firms in Tier 1 markets.   My company, iLawyermarketing, is the clear winner here as we represent 8 of the top 20 performing sites in Tier 1 family law markets in California – including the best performing site in San Fran, Sacramento and San Diego.   I should note that 5 years ago I did a similar analysis for family lawyers in the top CA markets which you can view here.   The big loser appears to be FindLaw who had 6 of the top 20 results, whereas today they have zero of the top 20 results.

Other Web Companies well represented In California. 
In my analysis I counted 213 different web companies that have sites in California that market divorce and family law.  Out of those there are 11 companies that market more than 20 companies.   Besides FindLaw and Scorpion, which I previewed above, here are the ARC scores for each company in Tier 1, 2, 3 and Tier 4 markets.

Attorney Marketing Network
A legal SEO company that is based out of California.   They actually only have 7 website clients in California, but use they use an aggressive sub folder strategy to market multiple locations for each client.  Their best result in Long Beach (Puro Law) and San Bernardino (Holcomb), who both score a perfect 0.30 ARC in those respective markets.

AVVO
Avvo, which is known for their large attorney directory and ranking system, also builds websites.   I track 55 California markets, where Avvo sites are marketing family law.  It will be interesting to see if their ARC numbers improve as they become more aligned with their new sister company – Martindale.

Hibu:
41 family law sites in California.  Very popular in smaller markets.

ILawyermarketing
The company I represent has the best ARC scores in the State for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 markets.   Besides great SEO performance, iLawyermarketing builds some of the best looking sites in the State – ex.  www.sflg.com

Justia
Sunnyvale based Justia markets family law in 49 markets, via their website clients.  Their most impressive result in CA is Sadler Family law – which sports an ARC of 1.50 in San Francisco.

Martindale
The inventor of the legal website has 81 sites in the State.   Despite, terrible ARC numbers in Tier 1 markets, they do have one of the better ARC scores for Tier 4 markets in the State.

MyCase
Another company that offers a lower level brochure site at a lower price point.

Townsquare Interactive
Like Hibu, Townsquare focuses on building legal sites for lawyers in smaller towns.

Web.com
After firing their entire field sales force last year, Web.com has been losing a lot of clients.   The rankings of their websites certainly does not help.

Conclusion:
While not perfect, the Average Rank Consistency score or ARC offers a useful and objective ‘point in time’ ranking analysis.   I have been doing this analysis for years.   Here is an example of an ARC study I did for select PI sites earlier this year: https://www.azlawyermarketing.com/the-websites-of-the-inner-circle/   Besides showing the current rankings of every family law site in California, the ARC study  is important in that it creates a ranking baseline that you can compare results too later.

If you are an attorney in California, or for that matter anywhere in the Country, and you want to know your past and current ARC – I can send that to you.  I can be reached on my cell at 480-889-4216 or email: alex@ilawyermarketing.com.