Internet Marketing for Lawyers - Advice That Counts

Lawyers face the same challenges any business does. In order to get new business they must market their services, i.e., advertise. And lawyers deal with the same marketing and advertising challenge every business does - how to beat the competition. Plus lawyers have to assume that any Internet or non-Internet marketing or advertising they do may well produce little or no results for the amount of time and money they spend -- regardless of what an outside marketing or advertising advisor may say to the contrary.

Prior to the Internet the main non-Internet marketing option or advertising choice for any lawyer was to advertise in the yellow pages. To this day the print yellow pages contain plenty of colorful, one page display ads that feature lawyers offering their services, and lawyers pay a lot for these ads. How effective these ads are is anyone's guess -- it's hard for your colored, one page display ad to stand out when you have 20 other lawyers doing the exact same thing! The yellow pages companies, however, continue to promote their marketing and advertising philosophy that "bigger is always better" and "everything we sell is an opportunity," so they often present a lawyer with a non-Internet marketing and advertising solution that costs plenty but often produces little.

This line of thinking, along with the use of print yellow pages in general, has gone the way of the dinosaur at a very accelerated pace. The yellow pages in print form had their heyday for many decades, but the population now goes to the Internet for the information they seek, so most print directories are collecting dust. A lawyer who advertises in the print yellow pages may well get calls, but they'll most likely be from vendors using the yellow pages as a cheap source of leads.

The major paid search providers (pay per click search engines) tend to offer lawyers Internet marketing and advertising solutions in a manner similar to the way the yellow pages do with their print directories. "Bigger is always better," so rather than realistically discuss with a lawyer a pay per click Internet marketing and advertising campaign that makes financial sense and produces a decent ROI, the pay per click providers will tell the lawyer to go for as many top listing keywords (the most expensive) as their budget will permit and bid as high as they can. The lawyer may go broke in the process, but at least they'll get exposure! Many lawyers get into pay per click as a quick way to get leads but quickly exit a month later after spending lots of money for Internet marketing and advertising results that produce nothing but expense.

While pay per click Internet marketing and advertising is the running favorite of Internet marketing advertisers worldwide, pay per click advertising for a lawyer is usually an extremely expensive proposition for what they get. How much a lawyer is willing to "pay for a lead" takes on a whole new meaning with pay per click. The cost per click for many lawyer related keywords, e.g., "personal injury lawyer," "criminal defense lawyer," can range from $5.00 to $70.00 per click depending on the market, and when the typical lawyer's conversion rate (the number of clicks it takes to generate a lead) of one to two percent is factored in, the lawyer can find themselves paying upwards of $500.00 to $7,000.00 per lead, and a lead is not a client.

Part of the problem lawyers face when they work with pay per click (and this translates directly into poor conversion rates) is that (1) they spend little time creating their pay per click ads and (2) the ads direct traffic to the lawyer's website. Any Internet marketing professional who knows something about pay per click knows you never send pay per click traffic to a website. Instead you create special pages, i.e., "landing pages" for pay per click traffic to be directed to. The landing pages perform the job of convincing traffic to do what the lawyer requires, which is normally to contact the lawyer via e-mail or by phone.

Legal Internet directories and portals offer the lawyer a potential Internet marketing and advertising option because of their popularity and enhanced Internet visibility. How effective a listing in a legal Internet directory or portal can be for a lawyer in terms of marketing, advertising and Internet exposure will depend upon the particular attributes of the legal Internet directory or portal in question. All things being equal, legal Internet directories or portals that charge a fee to be listed in them make more sense as an Internet marketing and advertising choice than similar sites that offer listings for free. The lawyer has to be particularly careful, however, when they consider advertising in legal Internet directories and portals that "look" like they offer a lot -- and a price to go with it -- but for whatever reasons simply do not produce enough leads for the amount of Internet marketing and advertising money the lawyer must spend.

Many legal Internet directories and portals exist that have a very strong Internet presence, and they are excellent resource centers for lawyers, but this does not automatically make them good places to advertise. With Internet legal portals especially it's not how many lawyers the portal attracts but how many people the Internet legal portal attracts who are searching for legal services. People have paid thousands of dollars for advertising in Internet legal portals that have produced nothing in the way of Internet marketing and advertising results. A very wise idea for any lawyer who considers advertising in an Internet legal portal is to get some very accurate user demographics on what kind of specific traffic the Internet legal portal is actually attracting.

What is a lawyer supposed to do? Everywhere the lawyer looks, whether the marketing and advertising media is Internet or non-Internet, considerable financial risk is involved, and a guarantee that the lawyer will get good, solid results for the amount of money they spend is often hard to achieve.

Ultimately the best way for a lawyer to go with Internet marketing and advertising - the way that will ultimately get them the best long term results for the money they spend -- is to focus on getting their website to rank high in organic search results. When all things are considered, people on the Internet who search for goods and services mainly search for websites to find their answers. They may look to legal Internet directories and portals, and if they don't find what they want they may turn to pay per click listings as a last resort (only about 30% to 40% of users bother with pay per click) but ultimately people who search the Internet are looking for websites that provide them with the answers they seek.

If a lawyer is looking for an Internet marketing and advertising solution that doesn't require being part of the pay per click crowd, the lawyer may want to look into pay per phone call programs. Pay per phone call is like pay per click, but the lawyer does not pay for a call unless they receive one. And the costs for pay per phone call are normally substantially less that what the lawyer will pay for a click in many cases. A smart lawyer may even want to consider getting involved with several pay per phone call providers with the idea that between the providers the lawyer will receive enough leads in the aggregate to make involvement with these programs worth it.

Many of the Internet marketing and advertising solutions that a lawyer chooses to look into must be tried on a case by case basis. Absolutely nothing can be assumed. A pay per click advertising campaign that works extremely well for the lawyer with one search provider might fail miserably with another.

One last thing that a lawyer should be aware of when it comes to the Internet and a website presence is that appearances really do count. Many people have been on the Internet for 10 years and have correspondingly seen websites of all types and styles. People are used to seeing professionally designed websites. The lawyer's website should be too.

Michael Merten is an Internet marketing professional who consults with lawyers and legal finance companies. He specializes in getting legal websites to appear in first page search results on major search engines in record time. Mr. Merten can be reached at Minnesota Internet Marketing [http://www.minnesotainternetmarketing.com].

Electric Razor Guide

The electric razor (also known as the electric dry shaver) has a rotating or oscillating blade. The electric razor itself does not require the use of shaving cream, soap or water, with the razor being powered by a small DC motor. The typical major designs of this evolution in shaving includes the foil variety of electric razor, which uses a fine structure of layered metal bands that partially pulls out the hair follicle before cutting off the extracted length and then allowing the remainder of the hair follicle to retract below the surface of the skin. A recent study in the UK alone has discovered that almost 32% of men shave regularly with an electric razor. Using an electric razor has many great benefits without the major disadvantages that can be associated to shaving with a blade. If properly used, most electric razors can offer the user a shave that is every bit of close as a normal shave but with the absence of cuts and scraping irritation, The electric razor is a quicker, less messy and more convenient way to shave, but however some patience is necessary when starting to use a razor of this type, as the skin usually takes some time to adjust to the way the electric razor lifts and cuts the hair.

Preparation Before Shaving

To begin shaving with an electric razor you must follow the correct preparation in order to achieve the ultimate electric razor shaving experience, we recommend the following to begin:

1. A good facial wash or facial scrub - Either of these products will clean the face and leave the pores open and ready for shaving.

2. A good quality pre shave oil - This can be just normal pre shave oil or specifically formulated electric razor pre shave oil, both will allow the razor to glide effortlessly over the skin and will decrease the chances of painful pulling.

3. An electric razor (obviously)- This can have one of two head designs, either foil or rotary. The rotary cutting system works well on people with lighter facial and beard hair, whilst the foil cutting system is more effective on dense thick facial hair and beards.

4. An electric razor brush - This will allow the cleaning of the electric razor once the shave has commenced and will allow the razor to operate at maximum efficiency

5. A premium quality skin food product - Whilst shaving your facial hair the user will also shave a layer of skin off the face. This will usually contain vital minerals and nutrients that promote healthy skin, a skin food product will replenish these mineral reserves.

6. Finally a skin moisturiser or aftershave milk, both of these will replenish the skins moisture after shaving and will allow it to retain the moisture it produces; this will help the skin heal faster and more effectively after shaving.

Shaving With An Electric Razor

In order to get the most out of your electric razor and to achieve the finest and closest shaving experience you've ever had, these are the steps that we recommend:

1. Firstly make sure you purchase the correct electric razor for your facial hair type. As mentioned previously, the rotary head design shaving system works better on lighter and finer facial hair and beards, whilst the foil head operated system is more effective on dense and thick facial hair and beards.

2. Prepare your face properly with a good quality facial scrub or facial wash and dry thoroughly. This will open the pores and clean the skin ready for the shave.

3. Next use a pre-shave oil, let this oil sink deep into the skin and use it generously over the face. This will act as a lubricant between the skin and the electric razor, thus reducing friction. This oil will also help the hair follicles to straighten making them easier to shave and with less risk of pulling.

4. While you are waiting for the pre-shave oil to sink into the skin you should briefly clean your electric razor with the cleaning brush provided. Brush each of the electric razor heads separately and the protective shields on the electric razor as well. Not only will this enable and closer more comfortable shave, but it will also preserve your electric razor for longer.

5. Once shaving has commenced start to shave against the grain of the beard or facial hair. Doing this will help you pull the hair follicle protruding out of the skin and so the electric razor will be able to cut lower down the follicle, thus resulting in a closer shave.

6. The next thing to do will shaving is to go slowly. This may sound like common sense but when shaving with an electric razor it is very easy to get carried away and rush the process. Whilst shaving with an electric razor is faster and neater than shaving with a standard razor blade, it needs time and slow pressure to be completely effective, especially under complex areas like the chin and neck.

7. After the shave has been completed ensure that you apply a light coating of skin food onto the shaved area. This will replenish the vital minerals and protective oils that have been removed from the skin during shaving.

8. Finally, never under estimate the use of a good moisturiser to replenish all the lost moisture in your skin and to regenerate the protective skin layers that shaving removes.

Cleaning Your Electric Razor

The common electric shaver as mentioned above works in essence due to moving or oscillating blades that move back and forth to trim the area of hair that you need trimmed. Due to the very design of the electric razor, this motion creates hair blockages in the razor itself, which decrease the electric razors effectiveness and power. You should clean your electric shaver regularly in order to keep your blades fresh and at optimal efficiency, for good hygiene and sanitation purposes and in order to increase the life span of your electric shaver.

Here it is recommended that you clean your electric razor regularly, preferably after every third or forth shave. With a foil head electric razor you can lift off the head frame, which holds the screen (foil), and then brush out all the hair follicles from the under side with the electric razor cleaning brush that should have been provided with your electric razor. Make sure not to touch the foil screen itself with the cleaning brush as the screen is very fragile and requires great care. Next you can run the under side of the head and foil under water in order to rinse out any remaining hair follicles that brushing alone could not remove. Below this foil screen you will find the electrics razor's cutters, these are the main components to any electric razor, this is the part of the electric razor that you must take the greatest care to clean and maintain properly. Hair follicles, dirt and general debris can easily build up inside the cutter area of the electric razor and reduce the electric razors effectiveness and power and so take extra care and attention to make sure that this part is properly cleaned.

For rotary head electric razors, the cleaning method differs slightly. Here you must lift of the electric razors head assembly unit and brush out the under side of the three electric razor cutters and the three chambers. Here ensure that you do not tap the electric razor heads on the sink itself to remove any trapped hair follicles as this has a high risk of damaging and altering the shape of the precision made combs. Every month or so you must make sure that you remove each of these individual cutters and combs from the retaining plate, making sure that each cutter and comb are kept in their original 'set', as mixing these up would have a detrimental effect on your electric razors performance as they are each designed to compliment each other. After this is done you can brush the hair follicles from the cutters and then soak them in liquid cleaner and lubricant. This will ensure that your electric razor is kept in its peak operating condition and that you will never be disappointed in its performance.

Finally after these cleaning steps have been undertaken you must ensure that you have correctly lubricated your electric razor. Here it is especially important to lubricate the metal surfaces of the screen and cutter. Here just spray a light lubricant on the shaving screen while the electric shaver is running. This will immediately have the effect of freeing up any metal on metal binding which will nick and blunt the surface of your electric razor.

Other Electric Razor Tips

Here are a list of additional tips that we think may help any novice or seasoned electric razor user, these are:

1. Ensure that you completely read the user manual that comes with your electric razor. These are produced for you specifically and will cover all of the basic functions of your safety razor along with some ideal shaving tips.

2. Shave daily. Here you're skin must adapt to an electric razor if you have switched from a razor blade. The skin will need to get used to and adapt to the way in which an electric razor removes hair follicles. By shaving everyday you ensure that your skin will adapt to this change quicker.

3. As stated in the previous section. Always ensure that you give your electric razor a brief clean after every three to four shaves and then make sure that a detailed clean is committed every month as well.

4. If you frequently suffer from razor bumps, skin burn or general skin irritation, try to consider changing your electric razor to one which ahs a built in lubricating gel dispenser that should help to reduce skin irritation.

5. Applying regular baby or talcum powder to the face before shaving is a neat trick to reduce friction on your face between the skin and the electric razor and thus allows for a smooth shave. This is especially important for those unfortunate sufferers of sensitive skin.

Kevin Nicholls founder of The Executive Shaving Company provides extensive and essential 'How to Use' guides and information pages allowing you to perfect the ultimate shaving experience. http://www.executive-shaving.co.uk gives lots of useful information about the art of traditional shaving.

Statue of liberty logo












'Liberty' Tells Human Story of Immigrants

There’s a lot more to the Statue of Liberty than stone, copper and a great view of New York Harbor.

As the new musical “Liberty” points out, it was living, breathing people – many of them Jewish – helped turn Lady Liberty into an iconic symbol of freedom.

Written by brother-and-sister team Jon and Dana Leslie Goldstein, “Liberty” recasts its eponymous heroine from inanimate statue to a French immigrant girl living in 1884 New York.

She meets prominent people who help her along the ways, including a handful of Jews.

Joseph Pulitzer, the newspaper magnate, mobilizes the public to give to the construction of Liberty’s pedestal with his decision to print names of donors publicly. Emma Lazarus, the poet, pens the lines inscribed below Liberty’s feet that famously offer refuge to the “huddled masses.”

Many of the characters also wrestle with deeper issues of acceptance and identity. Lazarus, a Jew of Sephardic ancestry who’s become “naturalized” to American life, feels pressure to assimilate further to “uptown” society. Russian immigrant Olga Moscowitz scrapes by as a pushcart vendor in the city. Eventually, with Liberty’s help, Lazarus comes to terms with who she is, giving Liberty the book she holds as a gift.

The musical opened last weekend at the Warner Theater in Torrington, Conn., and runs there through July 14.

The characters’ struggle to define an American Jewish identity is a complex one and the storyline developed gradually. “They started as caricatures,” says Jon Goldstein, 42, who composed the show’s music. What began as a “happy little play” for children turned into a “fleshed-out, stronger show” when producer Theresa Wozunk came on board in 2008. With the help of a new team, the Goldsteins reshaped “Liberty” into a sweeping story of the American immigrant experience.

It’s a narrative that Dana Goldstein, 48, the playwright and lyricist of the duo, finds relevant both historically and personally. “I’ve always been in awe of people who have the courage to leave comfort for the sake of the next generation,” Dana Goldstein says. “The statue symbolizes the best of what America is.”

The immigrant story definitely hits close to home. The Goldsteins’ father was brought to the U.S. as a child from Poland by way of pre-Worlld War II Palestine. The two siblings found creative partners in each other early on, performing their first plays in their parents’ basement. But growing up in Manhasset, L.I., in a neighborhood with few Jewish families, Jon says the question of “fitting in” was always looming — a theme that carries over from childhood productions to the story of Liberty and Emma Lazarus on a bigger stage.

“Liberty” is the ultimately an inspirational tale of a country that Dana Goldstein calls the “polyglot like no other place.”

And Jewish identity and Jewish characters are truly the cornerstones of both the story and the statue.

Statue of Liberty, Viewed From Afar With Affection

From my fourth-floor inland Brooklyn apartment, I see the Statue of Liberty as I lie in bed without even lifting my head from the pillow — though for only six months of the year. When I first took the apartment, upon moving here from London in 2007, the statue didn’t seem an important factor; it was remote. I wondered if I should place the bed to face Lower Manhattan, a dramatic image looming large. Those skyscrapers are a cliff face; Liberty is a mere comma.

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Yet I chose to face her, a heroic human figure forever holding up that torch. I am a dance critic, devoting much of my life to looking at bodies in statuesque poses. I love spending time with the Classical statues in archaeological museums; my apartment is decorated with dance imagery from different cultures and centuries.

Liberty connects. Over the years she has become an obsession.

Between late May and late November, however, I can’t see her from home. Lush leaves intervene. And so in summer and autumn, missing my view of Liberty, I take walks that bring her back into sight. I often visit the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, which is less than 10 minutes from my place. But I also love to draw a little nearer. So I walk down to Red Hook or cross over to Manhattan and stroll in Battery Park.

Statue of Liberty | Design, style, and symbolism

Bartholdi and Laboulaye considered how best to express the idea of American liberty. In early American history, two female figures were frequently used as cultural symbols of the nation. One, Columbia, was seen as an embodiment of the United States in the manner that Britannia was identified with the United Kingdom and Marianne came to represent France. Columbia had supplanted the earlier figure of an Indian princess, which had come to be regarded as uncivilized and derogatory toward Americans. The other significant female icon in American culture was a representation of Liberty, derived from Libertas, the goddess of freedom widely worshipped in ancient Rome, especially among emancipated slaves. A Liberty figure adorned most American coins of the time, and representations of Liberty appeared in popular and civic art, including Thomas Crawford's Statue of Freedom (1863) atop the dome of the United States Capitol Building.

Statue of Liberty | Design and construction

Origin

The origin of the Statue of Liberty project is generally traced to a comment made by French law professor and politician Édouard René de Laboulaye in mid-1865. In after-dinner conversation at his home near Versailles, Laboulaye, an ardent supporter of the Union in the American Civil War, stated: "If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united effort—a common work of both our nations."
Bartholdi's design patent

Laboulaye's comment was not intended as a proposal, but it inspired a young sculptor, Frédéric Bartholdi, who was present at the dinner. Given the repressive nature of the regime of Napoleon III, Bartholdi took no immediate action on the idea except to discuss it with Laboulaye. Instead, Bartholdi approached Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, with a plan to build a huge lighthouse in the form of an ancient Egyptian female fellah or peasant, robed and holding a torch aloft, at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal in Port Said. Sketches and models were made of the proposed work, though it was never erected. There was a classical precedent for the Suez proposal, the Colossus of Rhodes: an ancient bronze statue of the Greek god of the sun, Helios. This statue is believed to have been over 100 feet (30 m) high, and it similarly stood at a harbor entrance and carried a light to guide ships.

The American project was further delayed by the Franco-Prussian War, in which Bartholdi served as a major of militia. In the war, Napoleon III was captured and deposed. Bartholdi's home province of Alsace was lost to the Prussians, and a more liberal republic was installed in France. As Bartholdi had been planning a trip to the United States, he and Laboulaye decided the time was right to discuss the idea with influential Americans. In June 1871, Bartholdi crossed the Atlantic, with letters of introduction signed by Laboulaye.

Arriving at New York Harbor, Bartholdi focused on Bedloe's Island as a site for the statue, struck by the fact that vessels arriving in New York had to sail past it. He was delighted to learn that the island was owned by the United States government—it had been ceded by the New York State Legislature in 1800 for harbor defense. It was thus, as he put it in a letter to Laboulaye: "land common to all the states."As well as meeting many influential New Yorkers, Bartholdi visited President Ulysses S. Grant, who assured him that it would not be difficult to obtain the site for the statue.[11] Bartholdi crossed the United States twice by rail, and met many Americans whom he felt would be sympathetic to the project. But he remained concerned that popular opinion on both sides of the Atlantic was insufficiently supportive of the proposal, and he and Laboulaye decided to wait before mounting a public campaign.
Bartholdi's Lion of Belfort

Bartholdi had made a first model of his concept in 1870. The son of a friend of Bartholdi's, American artist John La Farge, later maintained that Bartholdi made the first sketches for the statue during his U.S. visit at La Farge's Rhode Island studio. Bartholdi continued to develop the concept following his return to France. He also worked on a number of sculptures designed to bolster French patriotism after the defeat by the Prussians. One of these was the Lion of Belfort, a monumental sculpture carved in sandstone below the fortress of Belfort, which during the war had resisted a Prussian siege for over three months. The defiant lion, 73 feet (22 m) long and half that in height, displays an emotional quality characteristic of Romanticism, which Bartholdi would later bring to the Statue of Liberty.

Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue, a gift to the United States from the people of France, is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue has become an icon of freedom and of the United States.

Bartholdi was inspired by French law professor and politician Édouard René de Laboulaye, who commented in 1865 that any monument raised to American independence would properly be a joint project of the French and American peoples. Due to the troubled political situation in France, work on the statue did not commence until the early 1870s. In 1875, Laboulaye proposed that the French finance the statue and the Americans provide the pedestal and the site. Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these pieces were exhibited for publicity at international expositions. The arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in 1876 and in New York's Madison Square Park from 1876 to 1882. Fundraising proved difficult, especially for the Americans, and by 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened due to lack of funds. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the World started a drive for donations to complete the project that attracted more than 120,000 contributors, most of whom gave less than a dollar. The statue was constructed in France, shipped overseas in crates, and assembled on the completed pedestal on what was then called Bedloe's Island. The statue's completion was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland.

The statue was administered by the United States Lighthouse Board until 1901 and then by the Department of War; since 1933 it has been maintained by the National Park Service. The statue was closed for renovation for much of 1938. In the early 1980s, it was found to have deteriorated to such an extent that a major restoration was required. While the statue was closed from 1984 to 1986, the torch and a large part of the internal structure were replaced. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, it was closed for reasons of safety and security; the pedestal reopened in 2004 and the statue in 2009, with limits on the number of visitors allowed to ascend to the crown. The statue, including the pedestal and base closed beginning on October 29, 2011, for up to a year so that a secondary staircase and other safety features can be installed; Liberty Island remains open. Public access to the balcony surrounding the torch has been barred for safety reasons since 1916.

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