Archive for the ‘Law Firm Search Engine Marketing’ Category

The Internet now provides a unique opportunity for attorneys to promote their services through shared content on social media websites such as Wordpress.com, Squidoo.com, Hubpages.com, Weebly.com, YouTube.com, Facebook and many, many other search engine valued social sites.

As business owners and marketers, attorneys can utilize theses web technologies to further promote practice area services on the web to a much grander audience. Never before has there been the capability for lawyers to interact with prospective clients and colleagues online in such an interactive way.

Trumpet Marketing Group, LLC announces two new packages to help attorneys get started with social media and Web 2.0 marketing.

Learn more about our Web 2.0 Marketing for Lawyers.

The basics of search engine optimization remain the same as always.

1. Great Content
2. Search Engine Friendly Site Structure
3. Site Popularity (inbound links)

Simply, that’s what it takes to show up.

But to compete, you must also effectively implement interactive Web 2.0 marketing into the mix. This includes blogging, social networking, social bookmarking and content sharing. Those lawyers who take the initiative to learn how to actively contribute online will be the ones who excel in the search engines.

In 2009, we have included some level of interactive social marketing in all of our attorney website and Internet marketing campaigns. If you need assistance with taking your law firm marketing strategy to the next level with social media marketing, LegalMarketingPros.com can help!

No doubt, inbound links are an essential piece of a good search engine marketing strategy.   I get asked often, “how do I get links into my website?”   Below are some suggestions of what to do and what not to do!

1. Do NOT go for an excessive number of reciprocal or traded links.  Sure. Some reciprocal linking is OK, but don’t overdo it.
2. Do NOT purchase links solely for the purpose of improving rankings.  The search engines frown on link schemes and spammers and can often detect these.

These points are spelled out on Google’s Guidelines for Paid Links.

Inbound links that are more natural are what you want to achieve.  Here are some examples of good linking opportunities:

1. Provide good content on your website. If you provide good, useful and interesting content, others will link to it.   These are the best inbound links of all!
2. Articles – Syndicating articles is a great way to establish credibility for your self on a particular topic. Articles can be submitted or syndicated on the web. Most article syndication websites allow you to include in the credits box a short bio that includes a link to your website. Be sure to include keyword anchor text when linking back to your website. Also, do not put the same article on your website. This is considered duplicate content and will diminish the impact of the inbound link.
3. Press Releases – Online press release distribution is also a great way to get links into your attorney website.  Press releases can be distributed online and are great for getting the word out about newsworthy events for your law firm.  PRWeb.com is a great place to distribute your press releases.  To get an idea of what other law firms are doing visit the visit this page.  PRWeb categorizes attorney press releases into categories including general litigation, personal injury, criminal and other segments.  When submitting a press release, you are allowed links back to your website or practice area page.  Be sure to include keyword anchor text to get the best value out of your link.
4. Blog Comments -  Develop relationships with bloggers.   Comment on blog entries where you can add value.   Most blogs allow you to include a link with your comment.   Additionally, by developing relationships with bloggers, you may be able to get mention and credit in their blog.
5. Social Content Websites – Join social content websites such as Squidoo and Hubpages.  Build content pages on your practice areas. Provide useful content such as photos, videos and articles.   Have each social content page link to your firm’s website.
6. Social Networking Websites – Join Twitter, Facebook and Linked In. Create profiles. This is a great source for networking and developing relationships.  But you can also link to your website from each of these.
7. Google Maps – Submit your attorney website to Google maps. As part of Google’s universal search Google Local businesses are listed at the top of search results and link directly to your website.  Learn more about Putting your firm on Google Maps
8. Associations and Law Groups – Identify opportunities to get links from associations or legal groups for which you may belong.
9. General Website Directories – There are literally thousands of legal web directories out there that include a legal or law category. While the jury is still out on general web directories, it doesn’t hurt to submit to them.  Many of these links are picked up by the search engines, so they can’t be discounted.
10. Local Website Directories. Legal Web Directories and Portals – Look to local online resources. Many will link to you business absolutely free.   Take advantage. The visitors to these local focused websites are potential prospects for your business.
    There are hundreds of law firm directories and signing up for them all can be quite expensive.   I recommend identifying those who rank high in Google for your targeted search terms.  Some are actually free!

Link building is a time consuming task and requires an amount of writing, submitting and researching. As part of our Law Firm Internet Marketing service, we provide link building services.  Contact us to learn how we can help your law firm!

What’s in a domain name?  A lot more than meets the eye.   Search engines seem to rank websites with keywords in the domain name.  Research tells us that when people are searching for a lawyer, they tend to enter the city or county name in their search and a practice area.

To demonstrate how a domain name plays a role in which attorney websites rank, let’s take the term “san diego lawyers”.  We go to Google and type in the term San Diego lawyers.  Here’s what we get!

San Diego Lawyer Results

Seven of the top 10 results include the term “San Diego”, “lawyer” or a combination of both!

I’m recommend to my clients to set up multiple websites aside from their main law firm website, each focusing exclusively on a particular practice area.  Use a domain name that contains targeted keywords… the city, the practice area, the term “lawyers” or “attorneys”.

LegalMarketingPros.com can help you set up practice area websites, quickly and easily. The best part is that you don’t have to have a huge marketing budget. We have a proven system that cost far less than the typical attorney website. Email us or give us a call to discuss!  (301) 515-4184.

Are you listed on Google Maps?  If not, you need to sign up!

It takes just a few minutes, it’s free and absolutely necessary! This is your opportunity to show up when people search for attorneys in your practice area in your city.

The process takes just a few minutes.  You need to be at your office phone so you can confirm right away.  If this is not possible, you can have them send you a postcard with a code. Obviously this process takes longer, but it works if you can’t use the call verification system.

You can only sign up to show up in cities where you have an office.

Put your business on Google Maps

As part of our comprehensive Law Firm Search Engine Marketing services, we work with you to get your firm and advertisements listing on Google Maps. - LegalMarketingPros.com

Google is offering TV ad spots through it Adwords program. This is a brand new offering.

Take advantage of existing video TV ad creatives, upload to your Google Adwords account and start getting ads on your local TV networks!  The minimum advertising budget is just $150 per day making local TV adverting more affordable than ever!

Visit Google Adwords to learn more!

Pubmatic has released online ad pricing data for the fourth quarter 2008. Due to an unstable economy, they found that advertising prices dropped across the board.

You can view the full press release here.

Important thing to note.. all vertical categories experienced a significant drop in ad pricing. This poses an opportunity for law firms to lock in on better rates. I’d be curious to know if FindLaw and the likes have lowered their advertising and marketing rates to accommodate this downturn.

Let us know… has your firm seen any decline in advertising rates online?

Google has released a new sitemap generator and released it to the general public. The new generator is open source and uses your webserver’s traffic, its log files, or the files found on the server to quickly find the URLs on your site.

It automatically pings Google’s blog search and then creates multiple sitemaps for you!

• XML Sitemaps for basic web search based on the Sitemaps.org’s standard XML protocol
• Creates mobile sitemaps for mobile-friendly websites
• Creates sitemaps for source code that you make available to users

LegalMarketingPros.com offers assistance to law firms in adding Google Sitemaps and Search Engine Sitemaps to attorney websites. Contact us to inquire further about our services.