Five things to remember when optimizing your website
One of the most difficult things to manage when providing optimization services for websites is the client’s expectations. Most law firms know that being listed on Google’s first result page will bring a lot of targeted visitors to their website and that they will get a lot of new clients through that listing. Unfortunately, these same lawyers don’t know how SEO (search engine optimization) works and what they can expect. The law firms still expect that their website will be listed on Google’s first result page after submitting the site to Google. That might have worked eight years ago but it does not work today.
Here are five things to remember when considering your website optimization:
1. SEO takes time
You cannot optimize your website today and expect results tomorrow or next week. Search engine optimization takes time. Search engines have to find your new optimized pages, they have to find the new links to your website, they have to update the index, etc. Many times it takes weeks before the search engine spiders will visit your website for re-indexing.
2. You must change your web pages
If you want to get high rankings for certain keywords, then these keywords must appear on your web pages. It is only possible to get high rankings for a keyword that is not listed on your website if lots of other websites link to your website with that keyword. That’s the exception, though. The best practice is that if you want rankings for – lets say toledo injury lawyer – you need to make sure you have a page of content related to that set of keywords.
3. You need links and you need the right links
Good backlinks are the key to high rankings on Google. Automatically created backlinks usually won’t help your rankings and they even might get you banned from Google’s index. These kind of links are typically offered by very low cost optimization company that even take the great leap of guaranteeing rankings.
As a general rule, the easier it is to get a link, the less is its influence on the position of your website on Google. The links to your website should be from related websites and they should contain your keywords in the link text.
4. It’s crucial to choose the right keywords
If are a Cleveland criminal attorney, than you might think that it would be cool if their site was found for the keyword “cleveland drug laws”. That might be cool but it does not necessarily make sense.
People searching for “cleveland drug laws” can be interested in anything: a law student working on a paper, another attorney researching a case, etc. If these people come to your website, they are not likely to result in a new client.
Optimize your website for keywords that attract the right kind of people. For example “charged with a drug crime in cleveland” or “dui lawyer in cleveland“.
5. You must be realistic
If you have a website with just a few pages and your competitors have large websites with forums, communities, blogs, etc. then you must improve your website if you want to compete. Search engines want to show the best sites on the result pages.
If you absolutely want to get high rankings for a term such as “cleveland bankruptcy attorney”, start with less competitive keywords and then proceed to the more competitive terms. Search engines must trust your website before they give you high rankings for very competitive keywords.
Some content inspired by Axandra Search Engine Facts July 6 2010 – Issue #428
Law Firms Using “Event Based” Marketing
June 15th the Wall Street Journal published an article that speaks to an opportunity emerging for many lawyers within marketing (Using Social Networking as Legal Tool — Law Firms Say They Are Turning to the Web to Develop Evidence for Suits and Market Themselves to Potential Clients). An opportunity that for many years attorneys would shied away from – or even condemned – but now is becoming critical for their survival.
The article references a New York law firm that took the opportunity of the recent gulf oil spill to build topical websites related to that event. With the resources of the 20 technology specialists behind this effort, it has generated big results. Within less than 60 days, they generated over 1000 leads related to the gulf oil spill. There are not too many marketing vehicles available that can generate that kind of results. A point illustrated very clearly when they indicate that their internet marketing has… “recently begun to supplant some more traditional marketing methods, such as yellow-page ads and radio and television spots” in generating leads for the firm. One of the partners even indicated that they dedicate “$1 million a year on digital marketing, about a third of its average annual marketing budget”.
Most firms probably do not have 20 technology specialists or $1 million dollars to dedicate to their internet marketing program. However, this is an area (and opportunity) that law firms can no longer afford to “opt-out” of. A strong internet marketing strategy focused on the firm’s ideal client is CRITICAL for the success of law firms in the 21st century.
Slow and Steady Wins the Optimization Race
If you have ever been approached by a company that offers a search engine optimization service, it is common to hear them talk about the number of in-bound links that your website has. It is no secret that this is one of the key factors that the search engines are looking to in determining a website’s value and resulting position on search results. In-bound links indicate to the search engines that your site is a good resource of information and therefore worthy high rankings.
So the natural conclusion is to look for as many linking opportunities as possible. In a recent announcement regarding links, Google’s anti-spam engineer Matt Cutts, reminds us to proceed with caution especially when it comes to paid links. The official Google policy on paid links is as follows:
“Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”
It now appears that Google has been working on new algorithms and tools to be able to detect paid links. So although these types of instant rankings boosters may be temporarily beneficial, ultimately they could result in devastating consequences for your website. Once paid links are found going to your website, Google will completely remove your website from search results as soon as they are discovered. Google also allows for the reporting of link violations, something that your competitors may also be on the watch for. So between the algorithm itself and vengeful competitors, it’s not about if but more like when you will be discovered.
The better alternative is to build credible in-bound links from websites that do not engage in any link selling. Although this takes more time, you avoid the risk of having your website disappear all together. This type of consistent, gradual increasing of the value of your website will show the search engines that your website’s position is warranted and not stolen.
Can’t I just have my (insert family member) build my website?
When it comes to building a new website, you usually don’t have to look far to find many options. As I meet with law firms across the mid-west, I have to laugh when – at least weekly – I will speak to a law firm who had their website built by “the partner’s son” or “my nephew” or my all time favorite “a former client who owed me some money”. With so many low cost options out there, does it make sense to just use one of these resources instead of investing more money to hire a professional website developer?
As the old adage says “you get what you pay for” and this definitely applies when building a website. There are many factors to building a good website and building an effective Internet marketing presence. When you consider the shear volume of people who are using the Internet to hire an attorney, these “cheap” websites can be a very expensive mistake.
Here are a few questions that you should keep in mind:
Does the website developer understand Search Engine Optimization?
A website that is properly built with basic search engines optimization best practices can make the difference between an effective site and a site that might as well be a billboard in the desert. Unfortunately I regularly analyze beautiful websites, some even with award winning designs, that have no presence on keyword based search results. An innovative, cutting-edge website design is great, but it must be coupled with an effective optimization strategy that is in place both during and after the website build is complete. In some cases, it is better to have a basic website design if it means more time and money can be spent after the build is complete on optimization.
Does the website developer understand what your customer is looking for?
The potential customers that are on your website have very specific questions that they need answered before they decide to contact you for more information. If you don’t address those questions, they will leave your website and search for another that does. From the content that written to the image it conveys, speaking to the right customer with the right message is essential in making sure your website is contributing to your bottom line.
Will your website developer be around next week?
In basements all across America you will find home-based website builders. Nothing against these noble entrepreneurs, but a reputable company that has website development as a focus of their business is far more likely to be around when you need to change or update your website. These ongoing changes to your website are critical for helping your website gain and maintain rankings on the search engines. Far too many businesses are held captive to a website that can’t be updated because the developer is M.I.A.
Google’s Matt Cutts Speaks About Factors Effecting Search Rankings
Factors in Search Engine Optimization from Matt Cutts
In an interview published on March 14th, Google’s Matt Cutts outlined some of the factors that play a part in determining a website’s search rankings. For many of you reading this article, the vast majority of those factors are completely controlled by your website developer. So your best action plan as it relates to those elements is to hire a website builder that will build your site with both design and optimization best practices in mind.
However, one area that you can help control is the number of websites that link to yours. And not just your website, but also all of the pages within your website. When asked about how many pages Google will index within a website (which plays a big part in determining rankings), Matt Cutts made it very clear that links are a big part of that equation… “There is also not a hard limit on our crawl. The best way to think about it is that the number of pages that we crawl is roughly proportional to your PageRank. So if you have a lot of incoming links on your root page, we’ll definitely crawl that. Then your root page may link to other pages, and those will get PageRank and we’ll crawl those as well. As you get deeper and deeper in your site, however, PageRank tends to decline.”
So I know what you are thinking… let’s develop as many links as possible from as many websites as we can. Your on the right track, but proceed with caution. The value of the website that is linking to your website is as important as the link itself. Relevance and credibility of the site play a part in how much value will be given for that link. Especially if the link is coming from a website known for selling links, or as Google likes to call them “spammy” websites.
This is a common tactic used by companies that solicit their optimization services with offers that are too good to be true… “guaranteed page one ranking on Google for only $500!”. As my mother always says, you get what you pay for! These types of optimization companies will sell links from websites in which their only purpose is to create link juice. So when implemented, the website experiences a temporary boost in rankings – “Hello first page of Google”. But once these tricky links are discovered, the value of the link is lowered and the rankings are lost – “Easy come, easy go”.
The best bet in creating these valuable links is to contribute to the on-line community in relevant and legitimate ways. Blogging, Twittering, FaceBook, YouTube, LinkedIn – all are great ways to establish relevant inbound links to your website. Or, you could always hire a legitimate search engine optimization company to do it for you 
Top 5 elements that you need for high rankings on Google
I saw a great article today from Axandra’s Weekly Search Engine Faces that I wanted to share with you. I have modified it a little… enjoy!
It’s not possible to get top 10 rankings on Google by focusing on a single strategy. Getting listed on Google requires you to work on all elements of your website. Here are the top 5 factors that influence the position of your website in Google’s search results:
Ranking factor 1: website accessibility
It doesn’t make sense to optimize your web pages if search engines cannot access your web pages:
- The HTML code of your web pages should be error-free and your web server should return the correct response code. The contents of your web pages should be readable to search engine spiders.
Ranking factor 2: site architecture
Google wants to show relevant websites in the search results. Your website shouldn’t be a collection of random web pages. If you want to get top 10 rankings on Google, the pages of your website should be related.
Your web pages should show Google that your website is relevant to a certain topic. All pages of your website should be linked. If possible, web surfers should reach any page of your website with a maximum of three clicks.
The links and the directory structure of your website should make it easy to search engines to categorize the contents of your website.
Ranking factor 3: keywords
Choosing the right keywords is one of the most important steps. If you choose the wrong keywords, you won’t succeed with your campaign.
- Optimize different pages of your website for different keyphrases. The more pages of your website you optimize, the better.
- Start with very targeted keyphrases that consists of many words, for example “find inexpensive hotels in brussels“.
- When you have top rankings for these targeted keyphrases, proceed with more general keywords such as “hotels in brussels“.
- When you have top rankings for these keyphrases, you can proceed with very general keywords such as “hotels“.
In general, targeted keywords have a much higher conversion rate than general keywords, i.e. you will get more sales per visitor with “find inexpensive hotels in brussels” than with “hotels“.
Also think about the type of visitor that you attract with a keyword. Are these people interested in information or do they want to buy?
Ranking factor 4: content
Your website won’t get high rankings on Google if it only offers articles and affiliate links that can be found on dozens of other websites.
Separate your website from the rest by creating unique and trustworthy content. Write your own articles about the topic of your website, publish them on your own website and make your website a useful resource.
Ranking factor 5: links from other websites
It is not possible to get high rankings on Google without having links from other websites.
The more links point to your website, the more likely it is that your website gets good positions in Google’s search results. The links to your website should be from trusted websites.
If a web page that links to you is related to your own website then the effect of that link on the search engine rankings of your website is higher than the effect of an unrelated link.
It also helps if social bookmark websites link to your website. If many people bookmark your website on social bookmark sites, then this is a sign that your website might deserve high rankings.
A small error in one element can destroy your effects in all other ranking elements. For that reason, it is important to use the right strategy when optimizing your website.
Why lawyers need the internet
If only generating new cases, even better – BIG CASES, were as easy as putting on a magic cape. Unfortunately for cape sellers everywhere, it’s not that easy. But fortunately for law firms across the country, it’s not as difficult as it seems.
In a recent video that is posted on my You-Tube page, I talk about why an effective internet marketing strategy is essential to the success of law firms. Until recently, lawyers relied on yellow pages advertising to generate new client leads. Far too many of them spent tens of thousands of dollars every month to ensure that their ad was seen. However, across the county, attorneys are starting to notice that these ads are not generating the same return on their investment that they have come to expect.
So what’s next? Enter the dapper attorney wearing the cape of an effective website and internet marketing strategy.
I won’t give away all the secrets… you will just have to watch the video
The great debate between long tail and short tail keywords
There is usually a lot of debate around the right keywords to choose when designing an internet marketing strategy. Some argue to focus all efforts on what are called long tail searches. These are searches that are made up of multiple terms, such as slip and fall attorney in saint louis missouri. These are very targeted searches but tend to have lower volumes than the alternative short tail searches. Those arguing for focusing on searches like injury lawyer point to the shear volume of searches performed as clear evidence on their importance. I believe both are important. The only question is when to focus on these variations. The proper strategy can be the critical key to internet success.
When looking at organic search rankings, which is where about 75-80% of searchers go first, you must focus your attention on the short tail searches. The job of search engine optimization is to increase the value of your website. These short tail keyword groups are highly searched and also highly competitive. Therefore requiring the website to be highly valued in order to obtain rankings. But in doing so, we tend to see ranking for many other keyword groups beyond the ones targeted. So for example, you would focus your optimization efforts on getting rankings for michigan bankruptcy which is very competitive and highly searched. Once the value and rankings are obtained, typically rankings for terms like home foreclosure prevention in michigan which is much less searched and far less competitive as long as there is good content regarding that also on the website.
Now pay per click advertising is a completely different strategy. Because of the nature of the searchers who click on a PPC ad (and because your money is on the line), conversion is everything. Several studies found out that long tail keywords have a much higher conversion rate on paid ads than single word or double word keyword groups. The more detailed search is evidence of a sophisticated searcher who knows exactly what they are looking for… and ultimately more likely to take the next step of either picking up the phone or contacting the advertiser.
So the “long and short” of it is (wink)… they are both important keyword groups that must be incorporated into your internet marketing strategy.
Don’t ignore your on-line reputation
I recently met with a firm in South Bend Indiana who had a reputation problem. Their reputation problem though was not with their word of mouth referrals. As a matter of fact over 80% of their new clients came from a referral from a past client. Their bad reputation was on-line and the implications of this were greater than they ever imagined.
This firm was split in their areas of practice. Half of the attorneys at the firm handled family law matters, which relied for years on direct referrals. The other half of the attorneys handled collection matters for some local companies. And this is where their problem began…
When a potential client went on-line and searched for the terms “south bend lawyer” or the name of the firm (referrals), the number one listing on the first page of search results was a local website and message board called “SouthBendSucks.com”. Apparently the firm pursued a collections matter with a local resident. Surprisingly this individual was not to happy with the firm for trying to collect this outstanding debt. So they decided to write a not so nice review of the firm on this website. As a result, when looking at those search results, the description summary under the website link was that review of the firm with the recommendation to “never hire the law firm of…”. Great for the collections attorneys, not so good for the family law attorneys.
Now, there is not much this firm could do to remove this post. This “not so happy” South Bend resident was stating their opinion and they had a right to do so. But the bad thing was the firm had no other source to tell their side of the story. Their website was built several years ago and they had not touched it since. Therefore the website was not showing up for many of the basic terms that it should be, like the firms name.
So the moral of the story is to make sure you often search the name of your firm, the name of your attorney(s), and some of the common keywords that you want to be found for. You have to be aware of where your website shows up on those searches and what other sources are saying about you. The best defense against a poor on-line reputation, is a good offense – a well built website!
But my clients don’t use the internet
As I talk with law firms across the Midwest, there is a very common reason (excuse) I am told by firms that haven’t jumped with both feet into the internet age. “Stephanie, I understand that there were over 55 million searches for lawyers on Google last month but MY clients don’t use the internet” they say to me. Usually this comes from lawyers who target one of two kinds of clients; either 1) low income clients or 2) business/corporate clients. Let’s take a look at these two segments to address the false notions that these audiences are not reachable with on-line searching.
First – low income clients. Some law firms target a clientele that they are certain do not have a computers in their home. Therefore the next logical assumption is that if there is no computer, there is no internet. A New York Times article demonstrates that this is not so. With the usage of smart phones becoming so common, the internet is more affordable and accessible to demographic groups previously thought to be out of reach. Criminal law firms have traditionally fallen into this line of thinking. So let me pose this question. If the internet doesn’t influence criminal attorney hiring decisions, who is responsible then for the over 2,000 searches last month for the keywords columbus criminal lawyer?
Second – business or corporate clients. This is the one that I think is the most ironic. Considering the fact that businesses rely so heavily on the internet to promote their own businesses, somehow we are to believe that when they are looking to hire an attorney they abandon the very consumer behavior that makes them successful. However, I was reminded again today by a partner of an 88 attorney law firm that the firm’s website is the first place their clients are going to evaluate their legal options. So now the biggest concern for law firms looking to increase their business clients is making sure their website appears on searches like chicago business attorney.
Ultimately, the internet has been woven into the fabric of our society reaching all income and demographic segments. My message to any lawyer that doesn’t have a website yet: “The time is now”. And to those who have a website: “Make your website work for you!”…