Your Law Firm Can Compete with Older Websites
One of the best things we get to do on a daily basis is talk to lawyers from all across the country from law firms of all sizes. It is through this daily interaction that we learn about the concerns of attorneys in their pursuit of online marketing strategies that work.
A major concern with many firms is whether or not they can compete, since they are coming into the online market much later than firms that may have established a web presence well over a decade ago.
While it will not happen overnight, your law firm can compete in the search engines.
When ranking a website, Google looks at two primary elements: your website and the number of quality links coming into your website. The advantage that law firms have – that started many years ago – is simply their inbound link population.
As your website exists, serves visitors and is referenced in third party articles or news organizations, you start acquiring a number of inbound links (other websites linking to your law firm’s website) which improves your credibility with Google.
If you do not currently have a website at all, you have to get a little more aggressive. A new website needs to (forgive the ancient motivational rhetoric) hit the ground running. From the time it goes live, you need a media machine putting content out on the web, news articles into online newswires, and a team of specialists distributing content through a series of social networks.
As time goes by and content continues to circulate the web with links back to your site, your inbound link population will naturally improve; thus raising your ranking in the search engines.
To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.
Good Law Firm Websites Rank Number One
As new methods of online law firm marketing surface and existing forms get enhanced, it’s important to notice another change in the webosphere. Things are getting prettier.
Sometimes we like taking a trip down memory lane and looking at the exhibits of yesteryear. First stop, the museum of website design. In 1990, an application was introduced called the WorldWideWeb Browser. It just so happened to also be an editor. You can see a screenshot of this masterful work at http://www.w3.org/History/1994/WWW/Journals/CACM/screensnap2_24c.gif.
The concept was simple. A website was little more than a bunch of textual pages linked together. A few pages of content, some links to other similar content, and tada, you have a website. Was it built for conversion and optimized for the 20 nonstandard search engines? Probably not. But it was a website and it laid the foundation for the Internet we now have.
Nearly twenty years ago, there was much fascination with the concept of publishing something that could be accessed from anywhere in the world that had an Internet connection. The first Windows web browser that allowed background imagery was cause for excitement. But now, the honeymoon is over; the web is all grown up.
Believe it or not, some law firms still have websites that look like they were made with the above mentioned 19 year old program (WorldWideWeb). But to make it to the first page of Google, your website needs to put on some makeup and its “Sunday best.”
If you search for anything that is popular on Google, you will notice that most of the websites on the first page look fantastic. They are easy to navigate, are very intuitive to work through, and the images and coloring make the site an overall pleasant experience.
For your law firm’s website to compete for page one, it’s going to need some improvements. Do a search for other law firms in your area, and notice how many pages their website has. Notice the simplicity for contacting the firm and getting information. Notice the colors used – are they soft or are they contrasting and obnoxious? Compare what your firm has to what other firms have and think to yourself, “If I didn’t know anything about either firm, which one would I call?”
Of course, sometimes it’s best to have an unbiased third party review it. Go ahead and request a quote from us at http://design.seolawfirm.com and give us some of your competitors to compare websites. We will then make suggestions to improve your performance.
To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.comor call 1.800.728.5306.
Your Law Firm’s Website is the New Marble Floor
Upgrading your law firm’s design could possibly upgrade your website’s performance. Imagine for a moment that you are shopping online for an item. You use the usual methods to find websites that are selling the very item you need or want.
Finally, you stumble across two sites – they both have the same product, but one is more expensive than the other. The more expensive item is offered on a nice website that has a professional design, easy to navigate menu, and even has an intuitive checkout process. The site offers clear images of the product, even multiple angles and comments from other buyers.
You could save ten to fifteen percent if you buy from the second website. This website has random moving objects that are distracting. The bright green text is placed atop a black background making it difficult to read. And while the website assures you that you can purchase online, the “buy now” and “checkout” buttons are not obvious.
More than likely, you will spend the extra money and buy from the cleaner website.
The same rules apply to your law firm. When an individual or company is seeking legal representation, a professional website that offers a clean, easy to navigate user experience and a substantial amount of useful information will lead to greater response.
Your website has to attain what you or a representative of your firm would traditionally do which is achieve a comfort level with your prospective client. Your law firm’s website has become the new marble floors and imported furniture in your lobby. It is the very thing that will either scare your prospective clients away or encourage them to contact you and setup a consultation.
I invite you to monitor your own web surfing habits. Take note of the types of websites you gravitate toward and notice their quality of content, design and simplicity. Then ask yourself and those around you if your law firm’s website gives off the same positive feeling.
To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.comor call 1.800.728.5306.
Designing Your Law Firm Website Like Apple without Sacrificing SEO
What Your Law Firm Can Learn from Apple Part II
Last week, we discussed the simplistic, clear, and intuitive brand of Apple. With their easy to identify stores, no frills image, and use of negative space (white space), they have been able to dominate their markets in a way that “clutter as much as possible” Microsoft has not.
When comparing Apple’s strategy to determine how you can integrate their wisdom into your law firm marketing strategy, we must first express that Apple’s website design style is unique to their size. They don’t have to include their keyphrases such as Apple, iTunes, iPhone or iPod because they already have the weight and strength to get top placement in the search engines for those terms with a minimal amount of text.
But you can still design your law firm’s website with Apple-like simplicity and still achieve Overstock-like optimization.
First, focus on the top. The very first things you want your prospective clients to see are what you can do and who you are… in that order.
At the very top of your page with as little distraction as possible, you should identify the type of law firm you are. Then identify how to contact you.
Below that top heavy introduction is where you should introduce content. The content should be easy to access, easy to read and always geared towards your audience contacting a lawyer. Content is how Google can identify your firm’s site as being relevant to your practice area.
It’s always best to break up your practice areas into as many sub-pages as possible to build a website that offers a substantial amount of relevant information. For example, if you are a divorce lawyer, you shouldn’t have just one page called “family law,” but rather break it up into sub-pages such as divorce, custody, adoption, prenuptial agreements, etc.
The more pages you have to offer, the more substantial your website appears to be. You can have a lot of content, simplistic easy to use design, and achieve high conversion rates from Apple-like clarity.
All you have to do is keep it simple.
To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.
Do News Feeds Help Search Engine Optimization?
A misconception among those involved in search engine optimization for their own websites is that news feeds will drastically help their search engine ranking. This is a partial fact.
It is true; using an RSS feed to bring in frequently updated content helps out a little. It offers a valuable benefit to your visitors as well as a minor benefit to your search engine ranking. However, for optimal performance, make sure your SEO company is always adding new original content to your website.
Another misconception is that your website needs to constantly be changing. That is not true. Your website needs to constantly be growing. Adding unique content (content you write or content written exclusively for your company) can achieve this element and ultimately make your website look more substantial, thus resulting in a better ranking.
To learn more about search engine optimization and search engine marketing, contact search engine optimization company, Adviatech.com at 1.800.728.5306.
Lawyer Directories vs. SEO
A lot of legal marketing companies like to offer enhanced listings in directories. Others prefer to focus on search engine optimization. The question is, which one is better?
Lawyer directories, such as http://directory.seolawfirm.com, Lawyers.com, and others do provide a useful service when it comes to driving traffic to your website. However, if a legal marketing company is ONLY providing a directory link, your ranking is not likely to improve in Google or other search engines.
The process of search engine optimization consists of your onsite presentation and use of keyphrases, and the number of third party websites linking back to your law firm’s website. Just one directory listing will not achieve that as you need multiple links to your website to enhance your ranking.
Does this mean you shouldn’t use directories?
Not at all. What this means is you should use both. Directories are a good traffic source and generally, a directory is a powerful inbound link for your website; so they are good to have. However, you also need search engine optimization and a monthly process in which multiple inbound links from multiple sources are being created for your website.
It’s also important to make sure your legal marketing company clarifies exactly how they are getting links for your website. If your contract only states “link building,” then they are probably just plugging you into some of their internally owned websites.
Always get a detailed outline of what is being done for your website’s onsite search engine optimization and inbound link building because ultimately (according to Google), you are responsible for what gets done to improve your ranking.
To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and law firm web design, visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.
Can Your Law Firm Afford a High Google Ranking?
A major concern of law firms (mid to large firms as well as sole practicing attorneys) is whether or not they will see a return on their search engine optimization. For smaller firms, an even bigger concern is whether they can afford search engine optimization at all.
Since last year’s economic downturn, traditional advertising has experienced a steep decline. Radio, television and print advertising are slowing sectors of marketing; however, online marketing is on the rise even with less than favorable economic conditions.
Why are so many law firms turning to online marketing? It is more affordable than traditional marketing; plus, you can track conversion of an online law firm marketing campaign in ways that traditional marketing cannot be monitored.
With a search engine marketing campaign, you can see how many visitors the effort is yielding. Through tracking contact forms, you can also monitor conversion.
How much does search engine optimization cost?
The amount of work needed to achieve a page one ranking on Google is determined by the competitive nature of your keyphrases; thus, the cost will vary. However, in most cases search engine marketing costs much less than advertising in your local Yellow Pages and yields a much greater return.
The best way to see if search engine optimization is a viable addition to your online law firm marketing effort is to get a quote.
To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and law firm web design, visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.
Writing Legal Marketing Articles that Get Cases
Last time, we talked about the importance of writing articles, how to utilize your keyphrases in your title, and a two sentence summary.
Articles are used to share information with Internet users while building back-links to your law firm’s website. They are a crucial part of your legal marketing strategy.
When writing your articles, you should know a few important things.
1) You may not use your law firm’s name, your personal name, or references to yourself in a manner such as “us,” “we,” or “I.”
2) Articles are to be informative. They should provide direction to your users.
It’s OK to encourage readers to use an attorney, but you cannot in the body of the article reference your own firm.
Last week, we built a title and summary around a fictional Boston attorney that specializes in divorce.
Title: Boston Divorce Petitioners May Face Delays
Summary: Are you filing for marriage dissolution in Massachusetts without a Boston divorce lawyer? Here are some ways to avoid delays in your case.
Now it’s time for the article body. Your article should be 350-400 words. The rules for what’s allowed in the article are set forth by the article directories to which you will be submitting. So if you mention your firm’s name, they will decline your article.
Begin your article by utilizing your keyphrases. In this example, the keyphrase is “Boston divorce lawyer.” The first paragraph needs to encourage your readers to continue reading.
First Paragraph of Article Body: Getting a divorce is one of the most stressful events a person can face in their life. The emotional side that constantly presents uncertainty and fear has to be set aside to deal with the legal aspects of divorce. In a divorce, all property and assets must be reviewed and agreeably split between the two parties. Doing this without a Boston divorce lawyer could spawn disaster. Without the use of a Boston attorney in your Massachusetts divorce, you may let the emotions of the divorce get in the way of the asset disbursement part of the dissolution, which will only complicate the matter.
From that point, you want to continue to give brief insight on the process of getting a divorce while periodically (no more than once per 100 words) mention the keyphrase Boston divorce lawyer.
So you can’t use your name, law firm name, or personal information in the article… wondering how that’s going to get traffic to your law firm’s website?
Next week we will talk about how to link to your site from your articles while getting them approved by the article directories.
To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and law firm web design, visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.
Building Your Law Firm’s Web Content
A common misconception is that Google wants to see a website always changing. For a website like CNN, your newspaper, or an active blog, that’s alright because they don’t focus on any one set of keyphrases. Their traffic comes from the keyphrases in their articles.
However, your law firm website is different. As a crucial part of your legal marketing effort, your website has a set of keyphrases for which you want to achieve first page placement. If you constantly change your website titles, headers and on-site page content, your website may appear to be more unstable than dynamic.
Unstable is not attractive. However, dynamic is a good thing.
The key is having a balance. The best way to achieve this balance is with a blog and an RSS feed. By regularly posting blog entries to your onsite blog, your legal website will always be growing with new pages generated from your blog entries. The larger your website, the higher quality it looks. That, of course, is assuming the content is of good quality.
By using an RSS feed, you can display the blog entries on your home page and sub pages. The feed will update each time you post a new blog entry.
A good example of this can be found on our website at http://www.seolawfirm.com. The content you see in the right column of the website is coming from our blog and is automatically posted on the side whenever we post a new blog entry.
To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and law firm web design, visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.
How Many Clicks to a New Case
Search engine optimization is important, but getting your website ranked on the first page of Google for the right keyphrase(s) is the most important part. So, how many clicks does it take to get a new case through your law firm’s website? The answer is, just one qualified click.
Of course that doesn’t mean each visitor will immediately become a new client, but a strong part of converting web visitors to new cases is appearing on the first page due to the right keyphrases. You can select keyphrases using two different methods.
Casting a Wide Net
If your practice area is considered to be a niche area of the law or you are in a less populated area, you may want to cast your net wide by using general keyphrases and omitting the word “lawyer.” For example, a divorce attorney in Omaha should focus on the term “Omaha divorce.” The term gets 1,391 searches a month on Google, according to Adwords, whereas “Omaha divorce lawyer” only receives a quarter of that number.
Focusing on a Narrow Target
If you live in a larger city, a general keyphrase may bombard your office with unnecessary phone calls. For example, the keyphrase “New York divorce” gets 35,096 monthly searches on Google, according to Adwords. It would be best to narrow the keyphrase to “New York divorce lawyer” or “New York custody lawyer.” By narrowing down the terms, you are more likely to attract an audience in need of your services rather than an audience looking for free information.
That is why it is important to always begin your search engine optimization project with a full analysis to determine the right keyphrases.
To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and law firm web design, visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.
