He then continues to explain how social networks are like cocktail parties which is where this week’s metaphor begins. When attending a social event, you always find different people, but they can be classified in similar categories.

Can’t Hold Their Liquor

This classification of party patron can be interpreted online as the online users that talk too much about too little. This is a parallel to the users who post comments on twitter keeping you up-to-date from getting out of bed, to morning cup of coffee, to shower, to mouthwash, to driveway, through morning traffic, and into the office. Generally, these people provide little to any value to the internet as content is currency on the web.

The Attention Grabber

We have all seen this person. They scream “me” at the top of their lungs with the way they dress, their just-slayed-the-world’s-most-dangerous-dragon smile, but when you finally get a chance to speak to them you find that their conversation is little more than a regurgitation of their autobiography and many great accomplishments, proven or imagined. They have no interest in why you are talking to them only that you are, thus giving them an audience for the many great things they think about themselves throughout the day.

An Informative Presence Is All They Need

Now we tie this into your law firm marketing strategy. The last person in the cyber cocktail party is who your law firm needs to be. This is the person whom everyone goes to because they have the answers. Real answers. They give a brief bio of their history and qualifications, but the preponderance of your conversation with them is about you. You have questions and this confident but warm person has helpful answers. Your law firm needs to position itself on the web.

Your law firm’s news releases, website content, and social media marketing need to focus on your clients. What problems are they facing? What solutions can you offer? Who else are they talking to? There is a chance that prior to talking to your law firm, they have had a disappointing conversation with the “look at me lawyer” who provided an impressive resume with no solutions to their problem. They have also ignored the attorney on TV who is filmed in a boxing ring and on his boat doing things that have nothing to do with their legal needs.

Your firm needs to be about solutions. If your website and marketing content talks about solutions with just a brief bio of your expertise, your law firm will become the presence in the room that gathers an unsolicited audience which ultimately means new cases.

If you haven’t already, I recommend reading Scott’s book as it will help transform your view of online marketing as being more than just search engine rankings but rather a combined marketing effort with many different solutions coming together to achieve one goal: making your law firm grow.

Recommended Reading

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | Law Firm Social Network

Among the most popular techniques is a website being ranked on the first page of Google and other search engines when those needing legal services search for an attorney in their region. This is very effective and at the center of our legal marketing strategy.

However, the journey to the goal can yield as great of a return as the actual achieved goal itself. There is no such thing as one absolute item that must be on a site to get it properly optimized; search engine optimization is made up of many services.

Optimizing the content of a website is at the very beginning of the list and must be done correctly for other techniques to be effective. However, onsite optimization is not the focus of this week’s piece.

Links. Websites linking to your law firm’s website are what makes or breaks your SEO strategy. In getting third party links to your site, we discover great ways to get traffic, get phone calls, and get new cases long before your website is on the first page of Google search results.

News. Cheesy gimmicks, partisan reporting, and bloggers doing more investigative journalism than major news outlets have caused many news organizations to lose viewers. While the major news organizations are losing viewers, America’s thirst for news is growing unquenchable. Many people have replaced the daily paper with multiple visits to Google News throughout the day, and that is where you need to be.

Getting news about your firm to potential clients will reach your audience directly through the only news medium that is rapidly gaining larger audiences: the Internet. If your firm is involved in a major case, sending a news release to reporters is not going to get the exposure you need. Sending that release through the internet is going to allow your firm to:

1) Control your message. News releases can go out directly to potential clients without going through an editorial process at a paper. This means, you control 100% of what is said about your firm.

2) Reach a targeted audience. A local newspaper article about a change in your state’s legislation regarding family law, civil rights, bankruptcy, immigration, corporate law, new regulations, etc., may get your law firm’s name out to the paper’s subscribers, but it won’t get targeted to the potential clients. Using keyphrase and targeted distribution outlets, a new release can accomplish a greater return and open your message up to a wider audience.

3) Get Links. When your news release goes out online, it will be picked up by a variety of websites who are related to the release. It may get published on blogs, aggregate news sources, and other websites. Most of these sources will keep your news release in its original form which means the links in your release will be syndicated along with the news article.

Search engine optimization is more than a high ranking, it’s about reaching your audience through all the mediums possible on the internet. Effective content sent out through targeted channels equals new cases.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | Law Firm Social Network

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But we know that what keeps our clients renewing year after year is partially their high ranking but primarily conversion. How many new cases and contacts are coming from their website… that is what truly matters.

A great factor in conversion is the design of the website. The key to conversion is simplicity and fewer steps. The goal of the design is to instill confidence in a user then make it as easy as possible to contact the law firm.

Keeping It Simple

The best way to increase conversion is to add a simple contact form on every page of the website. The form should request only the necessary information like name, email and phone number. It should be clearly visible and accessible on the home page and every sub page within the website.

Secondly, you should encourage the reader of your website and blog to contact your firm and link to the contact page. It is helpful to place contact links within the content of your site.

Implementing a couple simple techniques may improve leads and your return on investment with your online marketing dollars.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | Law Firm Social Network

The way to improve this is to put a short contact form on every page. Regardless of the page the visitor lands on first on your site, they have immediate access to an easy way to contact you via a short contact form. Otherwise, they may just pass your “contact us” button, read some information then leave without contacting your firm.

Adding a short contact form to every page of your website is probably one of the easiest ways to improve conversion on your attorney website.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | Law Firm Social Network

When deciding how to best search engine optimize an attorney website, we look at competition in a different way. Online, competition is not always made up of lawyers in your city. It often comes from more powerful sources.

When building an online legal marketing strategy, we have to first determine the most popular keyphrase for your practice area. Popular keywords are going to give you the greatest return, since they provide the most exposure. While (for example) “Dallas Texas Criminal Defense and DUI Lawyer” may yield a quick page one ranking, it’s unlikely that the 5 individuals that search for that full keyphrase each month will cover your expenses. However, shorten that to “Dallas Criminal Defense Attorney” and you open yourself up to at least 1,600 monthly searches.

Let’s assume you have a keyphrase that is very popular and very competitive like “New York bankruptcy.” With 50,000 monthly searches, this is certainly a keyphrase worth investing in. However, when you search for “New York bankruptcy” in Google, you see that the competition for your search engine ranking is not always other lawyers.

Below the sponsored listings, the first result for this keyphrase is the website for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Southern District of New York (nysb.uscourts.gov). Being a government website (.gov), it is going to carry a lot of prominence in the search engines. It’s also now your competitor.

The second ranking is a directory of bankruptcy lawyers in New York. This is somewhat like a competitor in that, should someone click on it, they will be exposed to competing bankruptcy lawyers. The third ranking is the Northern District of New York, another government website. When reviewing the whole page of listings, we find 4 government (.gov) websites. That means that 40% of the results page is dominated by search engine heavyweights.

When thinking about the competition for your keyphrases, your online law firm marketing company must take into consideration that everything on the first search results page is a competitor. This can be Wikipedia, a government website, a video on YouTube, or a news story on CBSNews.com. Knowing who you are really competing against will help your law firm achieve prominent rankings for the keyphrases that get search traffic, which ultimately means new cases for your firm.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | Law Firm Social Network

Attorney

The office of a law firm used to be ultimate in luxury. Marble floors, imported furniture, and expensive art were the norm for many high profile firms.

Things have changed in recent years. As lawyers see their client base come from the Internet more so than via traditional media advertising, many are investing in a luxurious website rather than an office fit for a king. Attorney website design and legal marketing company, SEOLawFirm.com has seen many firms paying closer attention to the custom feel of their site and the old “just want something up” attitude is a thing of the past.

An elite look and feel provides a great first impression, but that alone will not bring in traffic. Only consistent search engine optimization with inbound linking and social networking can make that happen. To improve the ability of SEOLawFirm.com’s clients to interact on social networks, they are offering several optional upgrades for their clientele.

The most popular of the newly available features is an application that sends a tweet to Twitter every time the attorney posts a blog entry. One of the most valuable features of Twitter is its ability to drive traffic to websites. A few tweets by themselves may not accomplish a lot, but link to a blog post and suddenly, Twitter is driving potential clients to the law firm’s website.

Another feature now available to SEOLawFirm.com website owners is connectivity with their social network accounts. A couple weeks ago, the company announced their law firm social network. Now, attorneys can syndicate their blog postings onto their SEOLawFirm.com Network profile.

SEOLawFirm.com continues to develop multiple plans for various website needs, and future upgrades will focus on better connecting legal websites with social networking.

To learn more, visit http://www.seolawfirm.com/web-design/.

In the last couple of months, we have seen a lot of fluctuation in rankings which is a pretty good sign that the upgrade is well underway. But one of things we are also seeing is that Google is looking for a new third element, social networks.

It appears that the world’s largest search engine is paying attention to how often a website is linking with popular social networks as a way to gage popularity. Some experts even speculate that they monitor Tweets and Re-Tweets.

The clear message to take from this is that you need a social networking strategy to compete online. It’s that simple. If you are currently working with a marketing company that is not implementing a social network strategy then it’s time to change quickly to catch up with the new Google search.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | Law Firm Social Network

To fully utilize Twitter, you must first get familiar with a URL shortener. You will need this to stay within Twitters 140 character limit. Bit.ly is one of easiest to use and it’s free. Just go to http://bit.ly/ and paste your long URL in the box. It generates a new one that looks like this, http://bit.ly/9CaPNn and takes up less space in your tweet.

Write a blog entry on your website’s blog or social network blog. For example, a family law attorney can write a blog entry outlining some common hurdles in the adoption process. Copy the URL of the published blog entry, go to Bit.ly, and paste it in the long box at the top of the home page. Then, go to Twitter.com and log in to your account. Write a tweet that goes something like this “Common hurdles and delays to expect when adopting – (paste bit.ly shortened url).”

This gives a teaser and a link to your blog post thus driving traffic.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | Law Firm Social Network

Due to hectic schedules, most lawyers do not have the time to fully handle their online marketing efforts, but we have a few tips and tools that can easily be squeezed into a heavy schedule.

Social Networking

Social networks are quickly becoming the backbone of search engine optimization. It’s theorized that search engines are looking at links being posted through social networks to gage popularity. But aside from that, social networks have an audience. If you post content on a blog on your website (which should be done) you will be reaching out to the audience of people who find it on Google blog search or are already visiting your page.

However, running a blog on a social network immediately gives you an audience. Currently, the SEOLawFirm.com Law Firm Network is being tested by a few firms and we invite you to sign up and try it out. The blog will be set up for you at sign-up. Like other social networks, we have our blog feeds syndicated to different blog directories and search engines so that members of our community get immediate traffic to their Law Firm Network blog.

This attorney centered network is also helpful for firms that market themselves to other firms; those that practice in similar areas of law but in states in which you are unable to work. Connecting with these attorneys can open up a referral network for your firm.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | Law Firm Social Network

When you go to a store, most major retail outlets have sensors at the doorway. You probably overlook them, but they are certainly watching you. Every time someone walks in and out, a system tracks the activity to see how popular the branch is. Consultants are often brought in to monitor shopping habits from the cameras in the ceiling to figure out new ways to attract shoppers to high profit items.

Fortunately, getting statistics about your website is a little easier but certainly no less valuable. What keywords or referring sites are getting people to come to your website? When they get there, are they staying? Where do they go? Your blog? Your ‘about’ page? How long do they stay? What percentage is filling out your contact form and of that percentage, which traffic source is driving your highest conversion?

Of course you probably don’t know this off the top of your head, but do you at least know how to get your website’s statistics?

Knowing what is happening on your law firm’s website is extremely important. Without statistics, you are flying blindly up (or down) the search engine optimization ladder.

A good place to start is with Google Analytics. If you already have a Gmail account, Adwords account, or other Google Account, you can point your browser to http://www.google.com/analytics and sign up. Your webmaster will have to place code in the footer of your site on every page you want to track.

While other statistics applications and services are available that compete with Google Analytics, we have found that Google Analytics is widely supported and fairly accurate when compared to server logs.

Statistics play such an important role in the success of our law firm marketing projects that last year, SEOLawFirm.com’s parent company bought all of their SEO staff members the Apple iPod Touch and tied in the Analytics data for every client that member manages. We also believe that clients should have access to their data and know how to access and read it.

If you currently do not use a statistics package, integrate Google Analytics into your website and see what you have been missing.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer

In our Tampa office, we have a constant arm wrestling tournament between the designers and the search engine optimization and writing team. The designers want clean designs, a few crisp images, and “Apple like” simplicity. The search engine optimization group is also a big fan of simplicity, but not so much with images; they want text.

The result is always a clean design with adequate room for plain text to be optimized, though text placement is something done by the designers with an almost querulous tone. Ultimately both sides are pleased and the client is always happy with the end product.

Does it have to be a battle between the designers and word warriors? Not really because people and search engines both want to see the same thing. When you are searching for something, you want easy-to-read text on a white background. You want a navigation menu that is direct and to the point. You also don’t want to interpret clever slogans.

Clever slogans? That’s our next stop on the simplicity highway.

We were talking to a semi-competitor that specializes in imagination. They’re a consulting group that helps companies come up with completely out-of-the-box methods of getting the word out regarding their products and services. They could not figure out why they were getting so much traffic, yet very few contact requests.

When a visitor would land on their well-designed website, they would see a lot of information, examples, and everything was pretty much in line with web layout and design standards. However, rather than having an intuitive button that said, “Get a Quote” or “Contact Us,” they had a button that read “Imagine!”

Clearly, people going to their website were not in the mood to learn somebody’s corporate culture lingo, so visitors interested in getting a quote were even less interested in using their imagination.

The moral of this week’s article is that simplicity can work for everybody. Branding can play nicely with design. Designers and search engine optimization specialists can work together to present SEO friendly text in the center of a crisp website, and the end user can clearly navigate the website to discover the exact information for which they are looking.

That translates into a professional image for your law firm and, most importantly, new cases on your desk.

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

Over the years, here are some of the reasons we have discovered.

Age

Most commonly, the cause of the high ranking over a law firm that is new to marketing online is due to the competing firm having a more established presence on the Internet. Law firms that have had an active website for 3-5 years have an advantage over newer sites.

Media

A little attention from the media helps your search engine optimization. Sometimes, law firms that maintain strong relationships with their local news organizations get a boost in their ranking. When a news outlet writes an article in their paper or reports a story on television, they also include the article on their website. News organizations generally have high ranking websites so by maintaining strong relationships with your local news outlets, you can get some strong links pointing to your firm’s website.

More than Age

It certainly takes a lot more effort than just existing to make it to the first page. For example, a law firm in your practice area that sets up a website and does nothing with it (in terms of link building or onsite SEO), is going to rank just as low five years from now as they do the day they go live.

From the time your website goes up, content should be written and distributed with links back to your site, social networks should be pointing to your website, and your onsite blog should be syndicated; a variety of inbound links should start pointing to your law firm’s website from the time it is visible to the public.

So with a little time (which can be greatly reduced with a strong inbound linking strategy), some distributed content and inbound links consistently pointing to your website, your law firm can compete with Internet elders.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer

Here are a few frequently propagated myths:

One Link Theory

The one link theory suggests that your website only needs one very high quality website linking to it, to get credibility in Google Search and other search engines. Online law firm marketing takes slightly more work. This theory goes against the very core of the PageRank algorithm which uses multiple links from third party websites to determine quality and relevance.

The one link theory is often pushed by legal marketing companies that only have a directory linking to their clients’ sites and do not offer monthly services like writing, distribution, link building from third party sites, social networking and blogging.

Domain Name Is King

While a healthy domain name is helpful, it does not make or break search engine optimization success. Some believe if your domain name contains all of your keyphrases, then it will naturally rank high on the first page. In reality, you still need valuable content and multiple quality inbound links. We have firsthand experience that proves that a domain name can spell out anything and still achieve a high page one ranking.

Keypages or Doorway Pages

If you hear an SEO company talk about keypages, you should quickly run away, as Google openly prohibits this practice in their Webmaster Guidelines. Basically, you build a bunch of low quality keyword rich sites in hopes of appearing most relevant to the term. It may get your website banned, thus this is not an ethical SEO practice. Here is what Google has to say about Doorway pages:

“Doorway pages are typically large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase. In many cases, doorway pages are written to rank for a particular phrase and then funnel users to a single destination.

Whether deployed across many domains or established within one domain, doorway pages tend to frustrate users, and are in violation of our webmaster guidelines.”

You can’t really argue with that. So when searching for an online law firm marketing company, seek out a firm that offers an all inclusive method of SEO that consists of link building by custom unique content, quality website development practices, social networking and blogging.

If a proposed service is centered around one magic bullet, it’s probably not going to be successful.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer

When it comes to marketing your law firm’s website, the goal is always centered around links. The more quality websites linking to your website, the higher quality Google sees your website content as being. So, how do we build link?

Press Releases
Press releases go out across (primarily online) newswires which then syndicate content through places like Google News, Yahoo News, the Law Firm Chronicle, etc. When your law firm’s press releases are syndicated, the link to your website is also syndicated; thus increasing your inbound link population. We recommend at least two press releases each month which your legal marketing company’s writers should supply.

Articles
Articles work much like press releases; however, press releases are all about your law firm and articles are strictly informative. Generally, your law firm’s name is never mentioned in the body of the article only in the author credit footer. In the footer, we are able to link to your website using keyphrases. So a divorce lawyer in Boston would have this keyphrase, “Boston divorce lawyer” linking to the law firm’s website. Just like press release, we recommend at least two articles be written each month.

Articles serve a double purpose because they are also used in the social networking and blogging aspect of your legal marketing plan.

We will go into detail on blogs and social networks in next week’s issue.

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

Lawyers are flocking to the internet to invest their marketing dollars. And they should. No other medium gives them access to a large pool of people who already know they need a lawyer, its just a matter of finding one.

In order for a law firm marketing strategy to work on the web, an attorney needs to stand out and project themselves as a professional leader in their area of law. A leader with experience and in today’s market, a leader with a brand.

Often, lawyers make the mistake of going to a large company with a name they recognize when getting website design and marketing quotes. The unfortunate reality when working with such companies is that the attorney will not get the personal attention to their account that is needed to stand out.

A web site is much like a work of art. It needs to say something to the visitor before they read it. Communication through design is why it is vital to have a professional designer develop a law firm’s site.

We have outlined a few areas of law and explained what their design needs to say in order to communicate with their target market.

Divorce Lawyers
Divorce and family lawyers probably work with the most stressed out client base of any other practice area. Aside from uncertainty, clients working with a divorce attorney are angry, scared, bitter, and are experiencing a handful of conflicting emotions. Therefore, when branding a divorce firm, attorneys should choose calming colors, avoid red, orange, and yellow, and go for softer earth tones. Content that communicates with the fears of a family lawyer’s client base will help the web site convert better.

Personal Injury Lawyers
Personal injury law is the most commercialized area of law. However, its also very sensitive. Aside from vehicle accidents, another area of law practiced by personal injury attorneys is wrongful death. If a picture of a lawyer looking character is swinging a sledge hammer to a shattering window that has “Insurance company” written on it, this will not communicate the firm as a compassionate and reliable personal injury attorney. Again, softer colors. However, a more corporate feeling is appropriate as well to give the feeling of reliability and experience. By the way, the shattered “insurance company” window… I can’t make this stuff up.

Bankruptcy Lawyers
While bankruptcy clients are also feeling a handful of emotions, they are primarily scared and a little embarrassed. Bankruptcy attorneys can project themselves as being tuff because they are what will come between the client and large, intimidating banks. Darker colors are appropriate, but earth tones will be more calming.

These are just a few areas of law. We will go into detail on immigration, criminal defense, and employment law in our next article.

Jason Bland is with SEOLawFirm, a legal marketing, law firm marketing and law firm web design subsidiary of guaranteed search engine optimization company, Adviatech Corp. To learn more, visit SEOLawFirm.com.

Whether the last straw was dropped in a marriage, a DUI received on a Friday night, or a company board meeting ending with a vote to restructure in bankruptcy, people are turning to Google before turning through Yellow Pages.

A handful of companies exist that claim to have lawyer’s best interests in mind. They offer services like web design, law firm search engine optimization, and so on but do they really understand branding?

I must admit, the law firm marketing department of my company is my favorite to work with. Primarily because it is unspoiled land. I can count on one hand how many attorneys we work with who were branded with a logo, slogan, or any sort of branding prior to working with us. Most law firms come to us with a template web site that they spend thousands of dollars for from a huge lawyer service that doesn’t fully understand branding themselves. But rather than focus on the negative, let’s identify the problems and how law firms can evolve.

Think Like a Business

Most law firms I work with are essentially, small businesses. Less than fifteen lawyers working together, often specializing in various fields. Just like a company, a law firm should consider a positioning statement or slogan.

New Firms May Consider a Company Name

This is something rarely done by attorneys. Using a corporate name like “Divorce Law Group” or even “Smith Defense and Justice” may help your firm stand out. Using a corporate name for your firm rather than your own name also has some reputation management and online reputation management benefits which we will go into later on.

Brand Your Firm With a Logo

One thing that many law firms fail to do is consider their image. A logo. A face for the firm. By having a logo, your firm stands out and can be easily identified. So long as that logo is not just your law firm’s name and gavel clipart. If your firm does not have a uniquely branded logo, prospective clients will only see “just another group of names”.

Prepare for the Internet

All of this gets your law firm prepared for the internet. Search engine optimization can get traffic to your firm’s web site, but it takes professional design and branding to convert traffic into new cases.

Jason Bland is with SEOLawFirm, a law firm marketing and law firm web design subsidiary of guaranteed search engine optimization company, Adviatech Corp. To learn more, visit http://www.seolawfirm.com.

]]> http://www.seolawfirm.com/2008/09/law-firm-marketing-involves-branding-offline-and-on/feed/ 0 http://www.seolawfirm.com/2008/09/do-law-firm-seo-companies-pay-attention-to-google/ http://www.seolawfirm.com/2008/09/do-law-firm-seo-companies-pay-attention-to-google/#comments Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:04:09 +0000 admin http://www.seolawfirm.com/blog/?p=11 Nope. It doesn’t look like it. While Google has openly talked against active link exchange solicitation, some SEO firms are not listening.

There was a day in yesteryear that you would install a link exchange partner page on your site as an SEO tool as necessary as a sitemap. You would solicit links to your web site and then, in return, link to somebody else.

I won’t deny participating in such an event myself. For years, this was sold as a beneficial way of building links. Such link exchange services like Linkmetro, BRL, Telalinks, and so on (all of which now useless in my opinion) popped up and started automating the link exchange process.

To those SEO companies that get their ethics and strategies from the tubes (GOP synonym for “interwebs”) I invite you to visit the law giver. The knower of all things in the search engine optimization “rightosphere”. I introduce you to Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Google Webmaster Guidelines is where you learn the rights and wrongs of search engine optimization. Don’t know where it is? Well, there is no easy way to get there except Googling “Google Webmaster Guidelines”. Once there, type in “links schemes”.

A couple bullet points down you will see on the list of do nots “Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)”. Whaaaaat? You mean my link partners page is useless? Those countless hours of spamming link exchange partners done in vein? Those beautiful two way links for nothing?

Yep. Life’s tough, move on.

In spite of Google putting their opinion of solicited link exchanges in clear view, a walk down Search Engine Optimization Company Lane (a sadly unsafe neighborhood) will show that few are listening. They still advertise “reciprocal link management” and similar services. Save your time. Blogging, articles, press releases, in short, content based links are still strong and true. As for your link exchanges, well, cut your time loss and move forward.

Of course, what other search engine optimization companies advertise doesn’t mean their wait in wasted kilobytes to me. But occasionally, these half informed Google Webmaster Guideline illiterates solicit their phony services to one of our clients. So, occasionally conversations just as this appear.

“Why aren’t we doing link exchanges?” Client will ask.
“Waste of time.” I will answer.
“But other SEO’s are saying we need link exchanges.”
“They’re wrong.”
“But I’ve heard it from more than one SEO, I need link exchanges.”
I sigh briefly before replying, “Well, more than one search engine optimization company can be ignorant. It doesn’t strike you as odd that you are on the first page of Google without link exchanges?”
“But why are these other SEO guys saying I need link exchanges?”

The response to that question is of course, “Well, while I’m sure they know how to read, they choose not to read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.”

The journey to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines always seems to disarm their concerns. Reciprocal links are just another SEO tactic of the past that is better off staying there. Write content, build one way links, and by all means, read the rules.

To learn more about law firm marketing and law firm web design, visit SEOLawFirm.com.

To many, search engine optimization is a mystery. The truth is, search engine optimization is simply a science. In order for your web site to be ranked on the first page, the content needs to be relevant to the term(s) you’re trying to be ranked highly for. Relevancy simply means, your keyword and keyphrases are used within the content enough times to where it increases relevancy but not too much to the point that your get tagged for keyword spamming.

The next step is getting links to your web site. Links to your web site act as votes for the quality of your content. The use of press releases and articles increases your one way inbound links. Press releases are commercial and talk about your law firm and something your doing. These get submitted to a list of newswires then syndicated to sources like Google News where they are syndicated again to relevant web sites. All the while, your link is being syndicated with the press releases.

Articles are information. Information pertaining to your area of practice. While articles do not mention your practice, the footer of the article will and will always include a link to your web site. Articles go into article archives which also syndicate to relevant web sites, blogs, forums, and newsletters.

Together, these elements give your web site increased inbound links and pull your law firm’s web site to the first page of Google. The key is consistency. Sure, if you have the time you can do this yourself. While many SEO firm’s will try to say that there are secrets and magic behind SEO, the truth is, you can do it yourself. But, if your law firm is thriving, you will need a company that can consistently increase your link population and focus on your online success. Much like filing for divorce or filing a bankruptcy, someone could do these things themselves, but for the best result, they should turn to someone that has done it before and is an expert in the field.

To learn more about law firm marketing and law firm web design, SEOLawfirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306 ext 1.