Lawyer v. Invisible Gorilla
Have you seen that video on Youtube with the “invisible gorilla”?
It’s one of those trick psychology videos that blow you away…
In the video, there are six kids with two basketballs. Three of the kids are wearing white shirts, and three of the kids are wearing black shirts.
The video asks you to count the number of times the kids wearing white pass a basketball.
If you really focus, you can correctly count that there are 15 passes. But what’s interesting is that the video then asks you if you noticed a gorilla!
See, while you’re focused on counting the passes, about half of us miss that somebody in a gorilla suit walks into the shot, pounds its chest, and leaves. We’re so focused on counting that the gorilla becomes invisible!
Psychologists call this concept “selective attention,” and it’s how we’re able to focus on what matters, and “tune out” everything else.
“Invisible gorillas” actually have something to teach lawyers trying to generate leads with Google ads…
Let’s say you’re bidding on an ad for “bankruptcy attorney.” When somebody searches on that, they may be focused on a bunch of different possible things:
- chapter 7 bankruptcies
- chapter 13 bankruptcies
- a corporate bankruptcy
- stopping a wage garnishment
- stopping car repossession
- stopping eviction
Unfortunately, while you only have one “headline” for your Google ad, there are an infinite number of things that prospects may be thinking of. And if you write your headline about the wrong topic, you will have turned your ad into an “invisible gorilla” that people will ignore.
No matter how much your gorilla pounds its chest…
Happily, there’s a workaround for this problem. You can use a feature that Google calls “sitelink extensions” and create a bunch of clickable links below your ad headline and text. Something like this:
Reston Bankruptcy Attorney
www.example.com
Blah blah blah ad description
Chapter 7 Low flat fee Stop garnishment Free debt analysis
But you’re not done yet. Each of those “sitelinks” needs to link to a “landing page” that focuses on that topic. So, for instance, if somebody clicks “stop garnishment”, they need to be taken to a landing page about how you can stop their wages from being garnished.
You also need to test your sitelinks against each other, so you can make sure that your sitelink isn’t the equivalent of: Invisible gorilla.
The fight against invisible gorillas never ends…
If you want somebody to fight your invisible gorillas for you, schedule some time with me here:
Bob Hiler