A common mistake made by many law firms is pushing their website and online legal marketing strategies to the back of their priorities. By doing this, the law firm loses a lot of exposure and potential clients.

Everyday, people and businesses go online – not to the phone book – to look for a lawyer. In every major city and in every practice area, thousands of searches flock to Google and other searches engines to seek legal counsel.

To show you how important it is to begin quickly, we ran a search count in several major metro areas in different corners of the United States. The number represents the number of searches Google received for that keyphrase each month. It’s an approximation provided by Google.

Miami divorce attorney – 1,600

Seattle personal injury – 6,600

Boston bankruptcy lawyer – 1,700

Houston criminal defense – 12,000

Los Angeles immigration lawyer – 3,600

As you can see, the traffic is out there and if your website can’t be found or if it doesn’t look its best, your firm is missing out on new cases.

Keep in mind, search engine optimization does not happen overnight so beginning a strong online law firm marketing campaign soon is imperative to the success of your firm in 2010.

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

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Would a personal injury lawyer use a corporate design for their phone book ad? Would a divorce attorney use an ambulance on their billboard? And would a corporate attorney have an image of a family in crisis? You probably know the answers.

All marketing literature from print to mass media to the web must be properly branded to your practice area. This is very basic. However, many law firms try to cut costs with their online law firm marketing efforts by using templates for their website.

The problem with template designs is that they are oftentimes designed around generic ideas. For example, if a designer is trying to sell their cookie cutter template to as many attorneys as possible, they are going to make it suitable for common ideas. So you will have a gavel, a serious looking professional in a suit, and nine times out of ten, the United States Capitol Building.

However, the template website design will come with a means to communicate with your target clientele. By using a generic design, you’re marketing your law firm as being – well, generic.

The branding of your law firm is a multifaceted effort that must show congruence from business card, to billboard, to letterhead; and even to your website. The only way to truly communicate with your target market and really reap the benefits of your online marketing investment is to have a custom design developed exclusively for your law firm around your practice area(s), and exclusively for your target audience.

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

At the center of online law firm marketing is search engine optimization. While some less scrupulous search engine optimization companies may give promises of overnight success, the rise to the top requires a little time investment.

Websites that rank highly in Google and other search engines do so because of their clear design, navigation, sometimes age, and the quality of their website.

Search engines want to deliver the highest quality results to their search audience. Google claimed market share from competing search engines like Yahoo and Altavista by writing an algorithm that assessed a quality score to every website and ranked them accordingly. The result, a search engine that displayed top quality search results.

Of course by doing so, they raised the standards of website development and search engine optimization and made it a little harder to get to the top.

In most moderately competitive markets, rankings move up in a “two steps forward, one step back” motion that ultimately stabilizes in a preferred ranking on the first page.

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

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.

We recently did some research on some of America’s largest law firms to see what they do to get traffic from the web. So we picked a few of the firms from the nation’s top 250 largest law firms. Basically, these firms are becoming content machines.

First, we looked at the largest law firm in the country, DLA Piper. On most of their practice areas (on their website referred to as global services) they have a list of publications separated from the news. From an SEO perspective, what we found most fascinating is that their website has a horrible URL structure (i.e. http://www.dlapiper.com/global/services/detail.aspx?service=629&show=pubs) but their publications have neat SEO friendly URL (i.e. http://www.dlapiper.com/life-sciences-personalized-medicine-shift/). Remember, the structure of your URL plays a huge role in how Google favors your website.

Baker & McKenzie (the second largest firm) was our favorite. Separate from news, they have published a massive number of articles on their site per practice area. Google has more than 34,000 pages indexed on Bakernet.com – a number significant enough to give them their own search box when Googling Baker & McKenzie.

What makes them our favorite is that they are getting close to the same number of pageviews as DLAPiper.com, with only a third of the content; and they could probably get more by optimizing the titles of their content. In fact, DLA Piper has over 100,000 pages indexed in Google, according to Google’s site search tool.

A comparison that puts this into perspective is the American Bar Association’s ABA Journal. When doing the Google site check, the ABAJournal.com website has just 17,000 pages indexed. This means that a legal journal’s website has half the amount of content as the second largest law firm.

Even number 81 (Patton Boggs) on the top 250 law firms list has over 6,000 pages.

We checked these three on Cubestat to get an estimated pageview count to see how the content was working for them:

The following are daily pageviews:

DLA Piper (dlapiper.com) – 6,304
Baker & McKenzie (bakernet.com) – 6,005
Patton Boggs (pattonboggs.com) – 1,349

You do not have to be a giant law firm to make Google recognize your practice as a significant resource. Contact SEOLawFirm.com to learn more.

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

If your law firm is getting website traffic but converting to fewer cases, one simple fix could be a quick upgrade.

Oftentimes, law firms that have been around a while, have traffic going into their website. If the domain name (www.yourlawfirmname.com) has a few years behind it, that greatly helps the search engine optimization process. Google looks at websites that are more established, have stood the test of time, and offer valuable content. So an aged domain name is a big plus for the search engine marketing side.

While Google likes seeing websites that have been around the web for a significant length of time, that does not necessarily mean they want your design to be old. In fact, if your design is more than a few years old, it’s time for a new one.

The standards for web design have changed significantly over the years. Back in the early nineties, websites frequently used frames (a website structure that uses 2-3 webpages and displays them as one). Now if you use frames, chances are Google has tucked you away deep into their search pages.

With website designs constantly evolving, your law firm should not be left behind. Most people put a lot of emphasis on the professionalism of websites when deciding to contact a lawyer, make a purchase, or engage in any other transaction. Your website is an extension of your firm and represents the quality and professionalism of the service you provide.

So to bump up conversion and get more out of your online marketing dollars, a new website design could be a simple fix.

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

When you have traffic on your law firm’s website, you are only halfway to your goal. Google wants to see high quality websites with error free code and professional design. Designs that offer easy navigation for both your end user and the search engine bots are key to getting favorable rankings in the search engines.

Once you have a professional website with inbound links, and your website appears on the first page, then it is time convert traffic to new cases.

Your website must include a call to action. What do you want your visitors to do? Do you want them to read about your achievements, your history and your education? Certainly those are all very important items to have on your website to build a level of confidence in your legal abilities. Ultimately, you want an email or phone call.

The best way to improve your website’s conversion is through a call to action. You must tell your visitors what to do. For example, you can have information about your area of practice, and then periodically interrupt with “click here to contact the Law Office of Joe Lawyer.” That link should, of course, take your visitor to a detailed contact page.

Another important element for conversion is making a short contact form readily available. On every single page of your website, you should have a basic contact form that visitors can easily click on to contact your firm. You do not want to make your prospective clients work to find out how to contact you. Make it obvious and make it simple.

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

Unlike other legal marketing and search engine optimization companies, we like to express an honest expectation of how search engine optimization works. The search engine optimization process is progressive, which means a newly optimized website will gradually make its way to the first page of Google for its related search terms.

So at first your attorney website may rank on page 5 (shortly after the SEO re-indexing) then it will work its way to page 3, then 2, and then ultimately to the first page.

So does that mean you are not going to see results for months? Not at all. Utilizing a series of traffic sources is what gets you to the first page.

You have two main elements of search engine optimization: onsite relevance and third party websites linking to your law firm’s website. The inbound links build credibility for your website, thus resulting in a high ranking.

What are the traffic sources?

Newswires – On most of our standard plans, we write two press releases every month for your law firm. Those press releases go out to newswires that syndicate to Google News and other relevant news sites and blogs. As people read your press releases from these sources, they click through to your website, thus building not only links but traffic.

Blogs – Your website blog can be syndicated to Digg, your Business Facebook page and Google Blog Search (Google’s search engine for blogs). As content is posted to your onsite blog, it gets syndicated and distributed throughout the web – again, carrying your link and leading web traffic back to your firm’s website.

Social Networks – Social networks are a great traffic source. In fact, we now work with over 6 social networks. These networks allow us to post content to their high traffic, high page ranking networks. As a result, your information and website links reach a targeted audience of potential new clients looking for information related to your area of practice.

The combined search engine optimization process will yield immediate clicks and traffic to your website, even before your website is ranked on the first page of search results. However, this isn’t necessarily the case with all law firm marketing companies because no other company offers the combined press releases, articles, blogging, social networking and writing services as a standard part of their law firm marketing package.

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

As the web standards change, your website may become an obsolete part of your law firm marketing effort. However, not all attorney websites are over the hill. You may in fact own a search engine friendly website that just needs a few modifications.

Here is a checklist to determine whether or not you need to upgrade your site’s design.

Format – Is your website written in HTML, ASP or ASPX, PHP, or CFM (Coldfusion)? If it is written in something other than HTML, is there a content management system that allows you to edit online? Many older content management systems are not SEO friendly. If you are using a program that is sub-hosted by a service provider, chances are, it is also not SEO friendly. However, if your website is in HTML and has a fairly modern design, you can probably get away with doing search engine optimization on your existing site without having to build a brand new one.

Navigation – When talking about navigation on a website, we are referring to the method of which your visitors get from one page to another. Are text based links present? Do you have a menu that is intuitive? Or are you using fancy Flash effects? If your menu is text based, you might be in good shape. However, image and Flash based menus are not SEO friendly. Therefore, if you are exclusively using those types of menus, you may need to do a full upgrade.

Design – If your design was ahead of its time, you may be able to keep it. Visitors generally like larger buttons, lowered text, and an overall easy to read website. Put your main points at the top and everything else below. If your existing website does that, you’re probably in good shape and just need some SEO attention.

You can ask us to review your existing website by visiting http://design.seolawfirm.com. Keep in mind, we offer both design services and search engine optimization only services for websites that are SEO compatible.

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.comor call 1.800.728.5306.

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.