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Archive for February, 2012
Wednesday, February 29th, 2012
If you are relatively new to the cyberspace world, and have just put your business on the web, you may be wondering how you can involve the media in your online business and draw them to your site on a consistent basis. Where do you start when attempting to become overwhelmingly appealing to the media at large?
Why Not Turn the Tables?
Instead of sitting back and waiting for the media to come to you, why not go to them first? Ask the editor of your local newspaper if you can interview him or her for your website or blog on a topic which is relevant to your site or niche. Even better, be exceptionally brave and approach the editor of a larger national magazine or newspaper for an interview, creating interest in your site and your business.
If the media becomes interested in your site, your product or what you have to say, they may ask to be added to your distribution lists which will enable them to be kept apprised of new developments, new products or new information you share on your site. Once you have established a relationship with a member of the media, provide them with several links to your best work and ask if they would like to be added to your list. What this means is that every time you write a new blog article, you are likely to get multiple media mentions from taking the initiative and approaching the media first.
Let Your Customers Be Part of the Process
When a member of the media profiles your site, they may want to include an interview with a customer of yours—a satisfied one, obviously. Speak to the customers you have in mind prior to the interview and ask if they would mind doing a little PR work for your business, and if they are comfortable being interviewed, photographed or even being on television. Then let the member of the media know that you have several customers who are willing to discuss their experiences with your company in person or via phone.
Build the Relationship Prior to Pitching an Idea
It’s important that you connect with members of the media several months in advance via Twitter, Facebook or other social media avenues before you jump right in and ask for media attention. Even though we are talking about internet business, you are still the real person behind the real business and these people must get to know you and to trust you before they will be willing to promote your business. Reporters often use Twitter to converse with the public, so keep up with these exchanges and respond to comments.
Read a reporter’s work on a regular basis, and comment favorably on a particular story he or she did. If you are at a charity event or chamber of commerce event and spot a reporter you are interested in having review your business, make a point of introducing yourself, but save the hard sell for later on down the road. Pleasant small talk is all that is necessary at this point, but do try to make a favorable impression. Write a blog posting on your blog which highlights a reporter’s story in a positive manner, then shoot them an e-mail, including the link.
Start small by scouting out your local publications which have smaller, but more targeted readerships. Often these publications are run by a handful of people, who will welcome the opportunity to have a guest column done by you, saving them the time of running down their own story. There are many more ways to make your site tantalizing to the media, but the tips above are a good way to begin.
Tags: website marketing
Posted in Social Media Advice | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 29th, 2012
Social media is now more and more pervasive in brands, companies and organizations across the board. While there may still be a few holdouts, a significant number of companies are jumping on the social media bandwagon. The goal is to effectively use social media tools to reach the target audiences, and especially those audiences of small and medium companies in manufacturing, technical products and professional services.
Most of these companies are cautiously approaching the social media buzz by looking at the tools available and attempting to build a strategy based on those tools. What businesses should probably be doing is narrowing down their chosen list of goals for their business, figuring out how social media fits into those goals, then working systematically through the goals, choosing first a goal which will improve merely one aspect of their business.
Implement a Social Marketing Program
You will definitely want to implement a social media marketing program for your business, however doing so without correctly optimizing your content is worthless. If you are applying blogs, videos, audios, Facebook pages, etc, into your social marketing program, but they cannot be found by using a search engine, then your hard work is for nothing. Social media sharing creates the kind of content which can significantly increase your brand visibility through search results—after all, the nature of social media encourages sharing, commenting, linking and participation which results in high numbers of relevant inbound links.
Detail Your Social Media Roadmap—Then Follow It
SEO and social media can only mesh well together when there is a framework for them to do so. You will first need to find your audience, making it your mission to know everything about them. You need to understand why they do what they do and what their preferences and methods of publishing and sharing include. Companies who have already been involved with the social web areas where there customers spend time are ahead of the game. You will next want to define your specific objectives, which may be driven by marketing or sales. In a rather indirect manner, social media can boost your links to website content with a result of improving your site’s traffic as well as your online sales.
Go With a Game Plan
Because people first discover content, then share it with others, the focus should be on content and social media interaction. Your keyword-focused strategy should definitely include publishing new content often, but will also involve promotion of your business and will make it easy for members of your community to share. Make sure that you can measure your goals and objective, both the direct and the indirect.
Social Media Optimization
Social media optimization includes helping those who want to view your content be able to do so through widgets, apps or other entry ports for social media. The more “transportable” your content is, the more people will see it, read it and share it. While Facebook is certainly the primary place people share content—almost 40%–that leaves 60% being shared elsewhere, so don’t overlook other social media avenues.
Questions to Ask Yourself
In the end, when you are developing your strategies for social media optimization, consider which people you are interested in “talking” to, where you will locate them, what are they currently talking about, is it appropriate for us to join in that conversation, how can we be useful without being overtly promotional, what value can we provide, and how can we earn their undying trust? While some of these questions will not be answered until you have begun interacting in social media conversations, your main goal will be to read and react in such a way that you are soon viewed as an authority in your field, and a highly useful resource.
Tags: lawyer websites, social media optimization
Posted in Social Media SEO | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
SEO is a technique which is widely used to make your legal website or blog more visible in an environment (the Internet) where there are already plenty of websites with the exact same type of law firm or legal specialty as your own. Most research will tell you that if you want to get the desired traffic to your legal website or blog, you need to be within the top 10 in the search engines. As you probably already know, however, competition to be in that top 10 is fierce, and staying there once you’ve made it is just as difficult.
SEO crosses the barriers between search engines, as they all operate by the SEO Bible, and allow your business to attract more of the “perfect” client, thus increasing your offline business. If your law firm has spent thousands—or more—creating the highest quality, most creative legal website around, but have left it running in an un-optimized manner, then you are simply spinning your wheels on the Internet. In older advertising terms it is something like have the most fabulous sign made up for your firm, then sticking it in the storeroom, where obviously your targeted clients will never see it.
While SEO is imperative, ethical SEO is critical for natural or organic search engine rankings. Major search engines such as Google are highly developed and able to easily understand the credibility of SEO techniques. By the same token, they can quickly identify unethical search engine techniques, with a potential consequence of blacklisting your website or even banning it. While “black hat” techniques can boost your search engine rankings quickly, in the long run it is a bad choice. In case you are unclear about what constitutes “black hat” techniques, here are some of the most common:
- Keyword stuffing involves the repetitive use of the same keyword phrase over and over in your meta tags, comment tags, alt tags or the actual copy on your website. Repeat your targeted keywords no more than six or seven times within each 200 words.
- Inserting hidden text or links that are readable by search engines but cannot be seen by your human visitors is not good use of SEO. All search engines consider these hidden text and links to be spam and will penalize the page, or possibly the entire site.
- Cloaking involves a software program to direct search spiders to a group of pages which are created to “trick” the spider and re-direct the user—while cloaking can have some proper uses, by and large it is used to deceive search engines, and is therefore considered spam.
- Creating mirror sites or duplicate content and placing them on multiple servers with different domain names, and search engines will not only suppress duplicate content but will also count them as a violation of the search engine’s spam guidelines.
- Link farming refers to putting hundreds of links on one page to sites which are essentially unrelated to your site content and can contain poor quality content that is useless to your potential clients. Reciprocal links can associate you with “poor neighborhoods,” so you should avoid link farming at all cost.
- Irrelevant link exchange is often considered unethical SEO, and no matter how tactfully or carefully you hide them, hiding repetitive keywords is also considered unethical.
These types of spam can cause your firm to lose your rankings and be booted off the search engine index; while search engines have varying rules for spam detection, the end result will be the same, and it can be extremely difficult for your firm to recover from a ban, which is why ethical SEO is so critical. Used correctly on your legal website or blog, proper search engine optimization techniques will almost certainly get you ranked higher in the search engines, and achieved legitimately, organic links can last indefinitely. Acquire your search engine rankings fairly, and maintain them ethically for far-reaching positive results.
Tags: website law firm design
Posted in Law Firm SEO | No Comments »
Monday, February 27th, 2012
Once you’ve gotten your website for your online business up and running, you may step back and take a moment to pat yourself on the back. A word of caution here—make sure that moment is a short one, because your work is really just beginning. Successful online businesses take constant work and promoting your online business can be frustrating, tedious, yet (hopefully) ultimately rewarding. While some online business owners choose to pay for advertisements in their quest for getting noticed, others go the article marketing route.
Successful Article Marketing = Increase Link Popularity and Quality
While article marketing has many benefits, one of the greatest is that it can improve both your link popularity as well as your link quality. Considering the vast importance of links in getting your site to the top, you can see why article marketing is crucial. If you have decided to use carefully crafted article marketing strategies to grow your online business, take note of the following ideas.
If You are Unfamiliar With Article Marketing…
For all the online business owners struggling to get their message out to their target market, article marketing and promoting may well be one of the most well-liked strategies around. As you know, search engine bots go through the Net with a fine-tooth comb, using incredibly complicated algorithms to neatly index the vast array of pages. These algorithms use (among other factors) offpage optimization techniques which target both link popularity and link quality in their final assessment. Link popularity encompasses those links which purpose back to your site while the link quality basically refers to importance of other websites which leave a breadcrumb trail back to your business website.
Article Marking Brings Multiple Backlinks
Article marketing consists of adding a resource box at the end of the article with at least one link back to your site. Once the articles are submitted to multiple article directories, you will happily receive a link from each directory back to your website. Additionally, other website owners who are hungrily looking for content for their own site can use your article, sending yet another link back to your site. Don’t forget, however, that any old hastily-written article just won’t do. If you are serious about increasing your link popularity and quality, then your articles must be compelling and of the highest quality.
Qualities of Successful Articles
Obviously the text in your articles should, in some compelling way, relate to the content on your website. Your chosen keywords should appear relatively sparingly through the body of each article, and you should take special care with your resource box at the end of your article to ensure it contains a catchy phrase to encourage a solid click-through to your site. You also must consider anchor text as well as the words surrounding it. Anchor text is what you see and click on in an article which takes you to the web page link, and can definitely affect your link quality. Make sure only your most relevant keywords are used in anchor text, and also make sure your article has a totally compelling, attention-grabbing title which will persuade your readers to click and read.
Mechanics of Article Writing
Of course after you’ve crafted the most amazing title in history, you have to back it up with a great article which delivers solidly on the title’s promise. You don’t want to leave your reader disappointed in the time they’ve spent, feeling as though you left your promise unfulfilled. As most of us are aware, reading on a computer screen is vastly different from reading a book. Break up your text into short paragraphs, and use headings, bullet points and numbering (judiciously) throughout the article, making skimming much easier. Using trusted resources, scatter plenty of details and facts throughout your article and—it cannot be said enough—proofread, proofread, and proofread again. Many find they can more easily see mistakes on a printed copy than on a screen, so sacrifice the ink, print out a copy and proofread yet again.
In the end, article marketing for site promotion is not particularly complex, but it does require persistence, patience and dedication to the end result. While you will likely not see a huge impact from one single article, the more you write, the more backlinks you receive, and, ultimately, success is realized!
Tags: website marketing for law firms
Posted in Link Building, Social Marketing | No Comments »
Friday, February 24th, 2012
Countless websites took a heavy hit during Google’s latest algorithm, known as the Panda, and those which contained weak or “spammy” content probably took the hardest hit of all. The underlying message from the Panda is that every site on the web should be striving for the evolution of organic search quality. Another component of the algorithm determined the relative trustworthiness of each site, and part of this trust was determined by actual human analysis.
Ad-Stuffing, Content Value and Link Quality
Those real human beings had a list of specific questions which were designed to evaluate their overall comfort level with a website. Those sites which were over-stuffed with ads (especially ads above the fold) were rapped the hardest as it was felt these overabundant ads were a deterrent to trustworthiness. Further criteria for a slap on the wrist from the cuddly bear included content value and link quality. Fortunately, those who have continued to rely on tried and true link building strategies escaped the Panda’s displeasure. Traditional tactics can bring targeted and unique traffic to your site, and quality links provide solid click-through traffic. So, just what are those “traditional” techniques you ask? Read on!
Partnerships and Networking
Establishing blog partnerships with a handful of highly relevant sites (no marginally relevant or totally irrelevant sites allowed) is an excellent way to develop your own Internet networking base. Start by making a list of all your real-life business contacts, then reach out to them. These days nearly all businesses have websites, so choose your business contacts which are within the same niche as you are, making sure their websites are trusted and well-ranked, although not directly competitive. Choose a few of the very best ones then offer to mention their site on your blog if they will do the same for you. Convey a sense of enthusiasm for the project, and make a point of mentioning the mutual benefits for both parties. If the other webmaster is unsure of how to manage reciprocal links, send along an easy-to-understand, step-by-step flow chart to make it as easy as possible.
Offer to Guest Blog
In the same way you reach out to your business contacts to exchange links and create a network of online partners, you can also offer select sites your services as a guest blogger. Additionally you can find other sites within your industry who accept guest bloggers simply by typing into Google’s search bar an industry-relevant keyword along with “write for us.” This type of search should take you straight to the top-rated sites which continuously post fresh content into the world of blogs. Every time you post a guest blog, you garner a relevant backlink—or two. Take extra care to create a highly valuable and informative guest post, and you will see benefits in the form of increased traffic and deeper link authority.
Comment on Other Blog Sites
Although there are a certain amount of spammers who have discovered this formerly valuable link building technique, it is still quite valuable when used properly. It is very possible to not only build on your loyal fan base, but to increase your brand exponentially and generate highly targeted traffic through blog commenting. While this particular link strategy takes time and patience, just remember to employ creativity and value when adding comments—no sloppy “what a great posting” allowed. Give your readers valuable information and insight, and let your personality shine through. Don’t be afraid of a little controversy—after all, that’s what keeps the comments streaming in. If everyone is of the same opinion, there is little to interest readers. Google is still very happy with high-quality blog comments which link back to your site, so employ this strategy wisely and reap the rewards.
More Still-Respected Link Building Tips
If you have offered your skills or knowledge in some volunteer or charity manner, ask politely to have the favor returned through a text link from their blog to your website. Send out a press release for a charity event—not only will you be bringing in additional traffic, you are adding to your image in a trustworthy manner. The goal is to acquire high-quality, trustworthy, respectable and honest backlinks, and while this takes time, these strategies should allow you to remain safe from Google’s next update.
Tags: Website Link Building
Posted in Link Building | No Comments »
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Links are the lifeblood of your website’s eventual success and there are a variety of ways to secure high quality links, as well as a number of different types of links. Some of the more productive ways you can obtain those coveted links include inviting guest bloggers to post on your site, agreeing to be a guest blogger on another site which is in the same niche as your own, adding links to social media sites, as well as a whole array of other nifty link building techniques. Focus on one area at a time, such as bringing in guest bloggers to your site, then doing some guest blogging of your own.
Bringing in a Guest Blogger
It can be exceptionally beneficial to bring in a guest blogger to post on your site. Although it takes some time and effort to get the best guest bloggers, it can be a worthwhile endeavor. Once you’ve chosen a few potential guest bloggers, contact them and discuss your expectations. These particular expectations could include your requested word count or any other ideas you have regarding the guest post. Once you’ve loosely agreed on a topic, you should also agree to a deadline to ensure you actually hear from them again. Make sure you give the guest blogger credit then once the article or blog is live, send out the link along with a thank you for the post. Many times guest bloggers will forward the link to their friends, families and business acquaintances, giving you great link exposure.
Becoming a Guest Blogger
First and foremost do your research before you decide to submit guest posts. Take some time to get to know the content of the blogs you are considering as well as their owner and the audience. Read through the comments and get a good feel for what is popular on the blog. Once you are comfortable with the blog, brainstorm a few ideas, then narrow them down and submit an idea for a guest post which is both relevant and fills a necessary gap in their content. When you are pitching your post, provide your credentials and make the owner of the site truly understand why you are the best person to write this particular guest post.
If your own blog statistics are impressive—share them. Be straightforward when pitching your idea, go easy on the compliments and don’t embellish your credentials, but do show you are a pro at blogging not to mention your particular subject—which should also be the subject you are proposing to write a guest blog for. Provide links to your blogs as well as any other online writing you may have done. It’s a good idea to have your blog posting written before you pitch your idea, then you can quickly provide it should the other person agree.
Make sure your guest blog posting is the highest quality, and has been checked and re-checked for mistakes of any kind. While you shouldn’t overload the post with links, you do want to include a short bio with one or two key links to a page or website which will provide access to further links. You don’t want your guest post to look “spammy,” so avoid peppering it with links. Once your guest post goes live, you must promote it, sending the maximum amount of traffic to the site as humanly possible. If the other blogger sees a definite jump in traffic, you will probably be asked to write another guest post…and another. Each guest posting, whether one you write or one another writes for you will add valuable links to your site and increase your traffic and rankings.
Tags: links for attorneys, links for law firms, links for lawyers
Posted in Link Building | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
If you use Facebook strictly for personal social interaction, you may wonder why you would want to promote your business through Facebook as well as how SEO relates to social media sites. In the very recent past, business pages on Facebook have become almost like another Home Page. Unfortunately, it is getting harder and harder to do a thorough job of social media marketing if you don’t’ take search engine optimization into account. It does little good to jump headfirst into the social media marketing program without optimizing your Facebook page so it can be easily found in a search. If your site cannot be found, you have lost a golden opportunity to reach the readers who are specifically looking for you. As we all know, Google changes its search algorithms quite often, yet there are still a few tips which remain solid that can help you fully optimize your Facebook page.
Think Long and Hard About Your Facebook Page Name
If you keyword stuff your title with relatively generic keywords, then your potential Facebook fans may believe your page is spam and hide all your carefully crafted updates. They may also not be enthusiastic about sharing your Facebook page with others which is the lifeblood of Facebook SEO. Even if you discount Google, Facebook disables updates from Pages which appear to have a generic name, so it could be much more effective in the long run to simply use your business’s real name as the title of your Facebook page. Further, once you’ve settled on a name, leave it be, since modifying the name in the future can cost you valuable SEO points.
Use Your “About” Box Wisely
Since Facebook limits you in the amount of content which can be placed on your Wall tab, it can greatly increase your SEO when you place unique, keyword-dense text toward the top part of your page, using the “About” box to place it in. Utilize each Facebook information tab to incorporate your contact information, company overview, products you sell or services you offer, and your local address.
Always Include Relevant Links in Your Status Updates
Google hands out rewards for those pages that provide truly relevant links. You can either provide a URL which will take your reader directly to the website when they click on it, or attach a link, which is actually more effective in boosting your keyword density. Post text links to your Facebook page from the “outside” and you will get a good Page rank boost in the same way inbound links give you a boost. Facebook provides a badge which says “Find Us on Facebook” to all users, so be sure and post this badge on your website.
Make Use of Photos with Captions and Events
You should always strive to keep your content fresh and intriguing, so when you post photographs, use your SEO to the maximum level, and add keyword rich captions. When you post events, take the extra time to include both text and relevant keywords into the field where you post the description of the event. People love seeing new photos, so use that to your advantage.
Finally, urge your friends and fans to comment and “like” your content since this process causes FB to link their name back to their profile page. Once those pages are indexed, Google sees reciprocal links between your Page and your fans—a process which will grow over time and give you big rewards in the form of organic SEO. Look beyond the social nature of Facebook and use it to boost your business and increase your visibility.
Tags: Promote Your Law Firm through Facebook, Strategies to Promote Your Law Firm through Facebook
Posted in Law Firm SEO, Social Media SEO | No Comments »
Monday, February 20th, 2012
Just as most all professions are guided by a set of rules, the SEO world also has certain rules and code of conduct which should be followed by all those engaged in the business of SEO, and even those of us who undertake SEO practices for our personal websites should certainly be aware of the rules we should make every effort to follow. Most of us know the difference between right and wrong, and would not consider engaging in a practice which is obviously dishonest, however some of the SEO rules are ones you might not have fully considered. Additionally, because SEO changes and grows nearly daily, it is hard to maintain a “universal” SEO code of conduct, but following these general rules will ensure you never cross the ethical line.
The Most Basic Code
Slander is slander, whether in real life on online, and as such you should always scrupulously avoid it. Slander is providing any type of false information which would defame another person. Your goal is to make your own site, and your own brand look good to the public and to Google, however success is not achieved by going out of your way to make your competition look bad, no matter how tempting that might be.
Follow the rules as set out by Google, Yahoo, Bing, or other search engines—whether you agree with them or not, attempting to find a way around these rules will ultimately cause your site and your rankings to suffer. If you work for others, performing SEO for their business, remember they are trusting you with their personal information, and all privacy policies you would use in the traditional sense are applicable online as well.
Never, ever, sacrifice private or personal information no matter how valuable it could potentially be. If you use someone else’s work, give them credit, never claim it as your own. This is plagiarism, and is illegal. Copying and pasting may seem harmless, but it absolutely is not. Finally, if it’s against the law in your everyday world, it is against the law online. Take care with copyrighted names or trademarks so others don’t mistakenly believe you are associated with a particular company that in reality you are not.
More Specific Rules of SEO
You should take care to never employ so-called “black hat” techniques which include using mirror pages or sites, link farms, hidden texts, hidden links which promote websites, doorway pages or keywords written in minute text. By the same token, never take credit for another’s creativity in any way, shape or form, and never use unauthorized software or tools for web promotion. Websites which are made for AdSense, but consist of scraped content are completely unethical, as is deliberately misspelling well-known websites. If you are engaging in keyword stuffing and loading pages with irrelevant words in an attempt to boost your search engine rankings, you may get short term results, but they absolutely will not be lasting ones, plus you could cause your site to be banned from the Internet altogether. Essentially any method which tries to trick the search engines violates the SEO code of conduct
SEO tactics which are both ethical and provide long-term, long-lasting positive results include optimizing your existing web pages and HTML code, engaging in organic link building to get high quality inbound links, and going out of your way to build a website which offers great value to users. Ethical practices make everyone involved in the entire Internet process a winner, so make sure you always adhere to these rules.
Tags: website law firm design
Posted in Google SEO | No Comments »
Friday, February 17th, 2012
Deep linking is a technique which has had its critics in the past, and, in fact, was subject to a lawsuit involving Ticketmaster, nearly a decade ago. Ticketmaster sued a rival company known as Tickets.com in the United States District Court of California claiming Tickets.com featured links which took consumers deep within Ticketmaster’s site, bypassing home pages. When the courts were finished with the case, the bottom line was that while it was fine to link to another’s home page, deep linking without permission was a definite no-no. So, all these years later, where do we stand with deep linking, and is it beneficial to your site?
What is Deep Linking?
A “regular” link points to the home page of a website, such as yahoo.com, while a deep link points to a specific web page inside yahoo. In the same manner, a regular link would point to Facebook.com, while a deep link would take you to a specific member profile or specific page within Facebook.
What’s So Bad about Deep Linking?
Larger companies discourage deep linking into their website, feeling it sends visitors directly to a specific page they are interested in, bypassing sponsor advertising or other features that are fiscally beneficial to the company. In other words, although the user is getting exactly what they want through following a deep link, the company may not be getting every last penny they possibly can from consumers.
In some cases, deep linking can also be considered detrimental to the company being linked to simply because they have their web pages in a certain sequence, and that specific sequence is necessary to gain the maximum benefit from the site. If someone posts a deep link to page 17 which bypasses the prior pages which are leading up to 17, then the user has potentially lost some of the value of the site.
What’s Great about Deep Linking?
In fact there are many exceptional benefits of deep linking; it has been definitively shown that getting from a homepage to a specific product page contributes to over a fourth of the failures in getting a user to purchase a product. When deep linking is incorporated, the user does not have to spend inordinate amounts of time navigating a company’s unwieldy website in search of a specific product. When users are taken directly to the information they are looking at, then the conversion rates go up significantly, whereas if the link is only to the homepage of a company, the user must take many more steps to find the exact product they are looking for.
Even though companies might be losing out on the user seeing the initial advertisements on their home page, the payoff generally offsets that minor disadvantage many times over. Many of us have suffered through such a situation: we want a simple item such as a recipe for chocolate-chip cookies. After typing the words into the search bar, we are taken to a homepage that wants us to do many more things, and wants to give us the royal runaround before finally giving us the recipe we wanted. It can be extremely aggravating for consumers with limited time who merely want what they want in the most expedient manner possible.
Deep linking can boost your website’s page ranking, and, if done in an ethical manner is not only perfectly legal, but can also improve the site you are linking to by providing enhanced customer satisfaction to users.
Tags: add link attorney, add link law firm, add link lawyer, add link legal, Website Link Building
Posted in Link Building | No Comments »
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Most all of us tend to judge others, at least in part, by our first impression of how they appear or present themselves. We judge businesses in much the same way. And guess what—we also judge businesses by how we perceive their website. In fact, the Stanford Web Credibility Project states that at least seventy-five percent of us freely admit to making judgments about a business’s credibility based solely on the website design and presentation. After reading that sentence you may be frantically wondering just how many times your site has been judged, whether that judgment was positive or negative and if it has hurt your rankings and conversions.
What is Credibility?
Of course credibility is important in your virtual business, but it can be just as much, if not more, credible in your online business. You may be wondering just what credibility really is. It its most concise form, credibility encompasses both expertise in your field and a solid feeling of trustworthiness. If your website visitors perceive your site as truthful and unbiased they will view you—the person behind the website—as experienced and knowledgeable. Add all these qualities together, and you have credibility. Consider the truly massive amount of information on the web, and you will see why it is more important than ever to stand out from all the rest, but only in the best kind of way. People find credible websites appealing, and the most highly credible websites are able to actually change the attitudes and behavior of their users.
Design Mistakes Which Can Damage Your Site’s Credibility
Elements of your design, including photos, graphics, dominant colors and your company logo all mix together to provide credibility. Research has shown, for instance, that when websites use a dominant red background in their design, users perceive the site as evil or dangerous. Very dark colors were found to give a sense of foreboding, and all in all there were few positive reactions to extreme colors of any type. Pictures and logos are harder to get a handle on, as the reactions to both were mostly based on personal preference. All of those questioned during the research on website design agreed that a website needed, first and foremost, to appear professional.
Positive Design Aspects Which Increase Credibility and Conversions
Keep your site professional, and make it extremely easy to verify the accuracy of all information on your site. You can do this through third party citations or links to your source data. Make a point of playing up the expertise behind the products, content and services you provide. It should be apparent that there is organization behind your site, and it should be very easy to find contact information for you.
Be sure to add your physical address and phone number as this is one of the primary ways you will build trust among your users. You want users to have no doubt that your organization is real, so provide evidence that you have a real business in the real world. You can show photos of your office, or list your membership with your local Chamber. Your site should be useful, but should also be easy to use. Update content often to give your users the sense that you are reviewing your site often. Don’t go crazy with advertisements or offers—users find it distracting and a little tacky. Avoid errors of any kind—even the smallest error in spelling, grammar, sentence structure or information can damage your overall credibility. Take the extra time and proofread not once, but several times.
If you have followed standard website design guidelines, then you should begin to see the fruits of your efforts very soon through increased traffic and a boost in your rankings. Building trust takes time, whether in real life or online, but the reward is worth the time.
Tags: Website design for attorneys
Posted in Lawyer Website Design | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
While most all of us certainly set out with only the best intentions and motives when building our website through organic SEO and link building, we may inadvertently stumble and fall along the way. Whether these falls are due to inexperience, sheer carelessness or simple short-sightedness, they all have the same end result—they short-circuit our efforts to move our site up the ranks in an ethical manner.
Haste Really Can Makes Waste
The old adage is especially true in this context, and rushing around to add as many links as possible in the shortest amount of time can end up causing you serious grief. Sometimes we may simply be short of time or in a hurry—after all nearly everyone is overbooked and overly busy, and finding time to take care of our website may be difficult to do. Even so, the primary thing we should remember when building links to our site is that “any links are better than no links” is really just not true. We must remain focused on getting the crucial, relevant, high-quality links our site needs, and if this will not happen immediately—and it likely won’t—then patience is required. In other words, any old links just won’t do, and can hurt you much more than they may help you, so slow down, take a breath, and map out a realistic strategy for exception link-building SEO.
No Bad Behaviors Allowed
Even in our technology-filled world, politeness and consideration is still highly valued. Even though your goal may be to contact as many other webmasters as possible in an attempt to build links to your site, mass e-mails are an immediate turn-off to most of us. E-mails which are short on politeness and finesse are equally frowned upon, and worse, others will have a mental black mark against both you and your website from now on. All of this can be avoided simply by not approaching other web owners in a cold or generic fashion. Just as you build relationships in the real world, so should you do online. Introduce yourself, provide some quality interaction, show that you have actually read the other person’s website by detailing some key points about it, then persuasively show the advantages of the linking to your site. Building strong networks can pay off handsomely in the future, so take the time, and remember your manners.
Don’t Waste Valuable Time and Energy Targeting the Wrong Sites
By “wrong” sites, I mean those that we agree to even though in our gut we know they are like the fruitcake under the Christmas tree—something we don’t really want, like or need, but we accept anyhow. That fruitcake likely sits on a shelf, taking up space and collecting dust, effectively wasting valuable resources until we finally have a cleaning frenzy and throw it out. Links which have little value or quality can seriously undermine our website while also taking up valuable resources. Expending your precious energy getting links which are not relevant to yours, and may actually drag your site down is just not smart. Don’t wind up with a stable full of useless links, rather prioritize your goals and go for a handful of quality links instead.
Patience is Mandatory
Link building takes time, like it or not, and a mistake which is seen often involves premature link promotion. Whether we are too impatient, or we are trying to cut corner in order to meet the demands of clients, getting links from other sites which just don’t meet quality standards is one of the reasons many people end up abandoning the entire SEO process completely. In other words, if you hurry to get your site ranked before it’s really ready, your return on investment probably just won’t happen. Your site absolutely must project credibility or users will fail to be impressed no matter how highly you are ranked. It can save you tons of wasted time to simply get it right in the beginning, and that generally means taking it slow, and building quality links which are highly relevant to your site. In most of life, the things which are truly worth having are neither easy nor fast, yet hard work and patience generally pay off in the end. So it is with link-building.
Tags: attorney links, dui links, law links, legal links, personal injury links
Posted in Link Building | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
You’ve probably heard about how users read on the web—they skim, they scan, they notice headlines, etc. In truth, what users do on the web cannot really even be considered reading, since only 16 percent of web users actually read content word-for-word. The vast majority of web readers pick out individual words and sentences, rarely reading even an entire paragraph.
What is “Scannable Text?”
This is why “scannable text” has become one of the latest buzzwords surrounding search engine optimization and rules about the best way to write compelling, readable copy. This type of text is basically comprised of highlighted keywords, attention-grabbing headlines, sub-headlines which are rich in meaning, bulleted or numbered lists, one idea per paragraph, and at least half the word count of conventional writing.
How Much Do Readers Read?
The average web page reader reads a maximum of 28% of the actual words on your page, probably even less. The possible flaw in this equation comes from the fact that in order to come up with this particular statistic, the users in the studies tended to all possess above-average intelligence, and some might say that the typical reader of above-average intelligence might tend to scan most of what they read, whether it’s online or a book in their hands. Interestingly, the studies which found how much people scan on the web also determined that the “back” button is the third most-used feature on the web, and that most users consider it a lifeline which rescues them from content that turns out to be neither helpful nor interesting to them.
Nearly 20% of all page views last less than 4 seconds, meaning the user bounced out almost immediately after a quick scan of the page. Users tended to spend more time on pages with more information, meaning the website owner must not only grab the reader’s attention almost immediately, but must also provide the highest quality, most interesting information around in order to hold the reader’s attention.
Keep Your Intro Short and Sweet
Because much of the introductory text on web pages tends to be extremely long, users simply skip it. If you want your readers to actually read your intro, keep it short, informative, and make sure it increases the overall usability of your site by telling your reader about the purpose of the rest of your content. Many users will simply skip the introductory paragraph, jumping immediately to any actionable content on the page. This type of content could consist of the specific features of your products, bulleted lists, a short explanation of your business services, or hypertext links. Forget rolling out the welcome mat, and simply get to the heart of the matter, and you will stand a better chance of hanging on to your reader.
Use the Same Technique with Your Content
Your content must take note of the same issues as your intro. Once you’ve written your content, go back and slash mercilessly, leaving only the very most pertinent, interesting, exciting information behind. As noted, web articles should be approximately half as long as a comparable hard copy if you want your readers to read to the end, so learn to edit. Pepper your article with lots of subheads, which break up blocks of copy and allow those who are scanning to get the idea simply by looking at the subheads. Bullets and numbered lists immediately draw your reader’s attention, especially those who like reading lists. Use your white space judiciously rather than trying to fill every single space on your page with text. White space gives the eyes a break, making the overall article much more scannable. Complex sentences are not web-friendly, neither are long paragraphs. Finally, if you want to make your most important words stand out, use different colored text, bold or italics–but use them judiciously. Use photographs to show your reader exactly what you are talking about, and make sure you use an easy-on-the-eyes font. It’s important to understand how your web readers operate in order to reach them and keep them reading.
Tags: website law firm design
Posted in Lawyer Website Content, Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, February 13th, 2012
While link popularity and Page Rank are definitely the subjects on everyone’s minds when considering effective SEO for websites, how, exactly do you determine whether your links rate high in the popularity category or not? The basic premise is that if other (quality) sites are linking to your own, it must be a winner, deserving a boost in rankings. After all, most people link to good sites rather than bad ones, right?
Review Constantly
If you are vigilant about constantly reviewing how your site stacks up against those at the top, then you probably do such things as completing link requests, making blog or forum posts, commenting on blogs, sending press releases, posting articles and placing advertising on a regular basis. Try to do all these things on a regular basis, then wait a few days and check the results. If your numbers increased—great—you are obviously doing something right. If they dropped, focus on the links, and try going back to your old pages, at least temporarily.
PageRank May Not Necessarily Reflect Link Popularity
Many do not quite understand the distinction between Google PageRank and link popularity, believing them to be one and the same. The difference lies in the fact that PageRank focuses more on the number of links, as well as their relative popularity while link popularity focuses more on the quality of the links on your site. Increasing your link popularity may come down to your ability to acquire links from other sites which focus on the same keyword phrases your site focuses on as well as links from relevant sites which are listed in major directories. If you are gaining tons of links whose focus has little to nothing to do with the topic of your own site, your link popularity is probably not going anywhere fast.
Do Reciprocal Links Count in the Popularity Game?
Reciprocal links have lost some favor with Google, and, in fact, some say reciprocal linking is near-dead, and the benefits are minimal. While this may be an overstatement, you do need to be careful when using reciprocal linking to avoid having Google rate it as spam. While exchanging links is a relatively easy way to get links to your site, don’t approach reciprocal linking in a random manner. Do your homework, and only request link exchanges with other webmasters whose pages are highly relevant to your own, are of the highest quality, and are currently ranked at least as high as you are, preferably higher.
How Much Should I Obsess Over Link Popularity
While link popularity is certainly important, it is, after all, only one aspect in the search engine algorithms. At this point in time Google places more emphasis on incoming links than the other search engines do, however how much incoming links actually boost your site’s rankings is debatable, and also depends on the words which comprise your anchor text. In many cases, having only a few links which are highly relevant and are comprised of strong anchor text can significantly increase your overall link popularity. Perhaps the best—albeit most time-consuming—strategy for increasing your link popularity is to consistently offer the best site on the Internet in your particular niche. Give your readers a well-written, high quality site which answers their questions in the most thorough yet expedient manner possible, and update constantly. If you can accomplish this, you probably won’t even have to go out looking for links—they will come to you in droves.
Tags: Lawyer Website Design
Posted in Link Building | No Comments »
Friday, February 10th, 2012
Anchor text references the words which make up a link on your law firm’s website—for example if you have the sentence “If you have been in a car accident, call a personal injury attorney,” the words “personal injury attorney” are your anchor text which links back to your legal website and the name of your firm. Anchor text is used when you want your website to rank for a specific keyword, however it’s easy to go overboard with anchor text when optimizing your law firm’s website; too much and you will end up accomplishing the exact opposite of what you intended, as Google will penalize your site. When you are clear on which keyword you want to target, and are getting links on your website with the desired keyword, that’s all well and good, but you must be careful about having too many links which look exactly the same. If 99% of the links which point to your law firm’s website pages are “personal injury attorney,” a red flag goes up to Google that these may not be “normal” links. Because people have exploited anchor text in the past, everyone must now be more careful about how they use it.
Build Your Legal Website’s Links for Branding and Alternative Keyword Phrases
Your goal is to build links to your business/brand name so the brand becomes much more authoritative in Google’s search results. This goes back to Google Instant results in that if someone only “sort of” remembers the name of your law firm and begins typing in hopeful letters in the search bar, you really want your name to pop up under Richardson Law Firm once the potential client has typed in “Ric.” On the flip side, if your potential client is not really sure of what they are looking for, Google’s suggestions may send them off in a direction that is, unfortunately, not toward your law firm. Make a list of the keywords your legal website uses, then start typing each one of them into Google’s search bar and see what suggestions come up. This little exercise may send you in another direction when you are considering anchor text. Other major search engines–such as Bing–offer keyword alternatives, so take advantage of that when considering alternative keywords and anchor text.
Why Anchor Text is Important
It is actually possible to achieve top ranking for extremely competitive keywords even though you may have not even a hint of on-page legal SEO elements. Consider that Monster.com consistently sits in the number one spot when one types in “jobs” in the search bar but that the word “jobs” does not appear on the page in actual text form. By the same token, if you type in “computers” on the Google search bar, six of the top ten pages don’t even contain the word “computers” in the copy, meaning the search results are due solely to the anchor text of inbound links. Therefore it is impossible to say that anchor text is not important, but your firm needs to learn how to use it wisely when building links.
Using Anchor Text Wisely
Anchor text must be used judiciously when building your firm’s legal SEO as using the wrong words can take you even further away from the links you need. It is advisable to avoid using the anchor text “click here,” as the phrase is not specifically related to the content on your legal website—when the crawler examines the “click here” anchor text it may not see any relevant keyword even if that particular link points to a relevant part of your legal website. When considering legal SEO and your law firm’s web design, you should try to use as many keywords as possible from the list you developed during the planning process. Then determine what anchor text is absolutely essential to your firm’s site, and use only the most critically important.
Tags: law firms website, Legal SEO, legal website
Posted in Lawyer Website Design | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
Link popularity has evolved into a major ranking factor with Google’s latest algorithm, meaning your site is assessed both for the quantity and quality of links which point to your site. In fact, when Google’s PageRank came into being it actually determined the relative “importance” of your site simply by checking the other sites which linked to your own. Google still gives considerable weight to PageRank and links, but also considers some 200 other signals as well.
Links are beneficial to your website because they increase your Google PageRank and bring more visitors to your site. If your link building campaign is well thought out, well executed, and above all, legitimate, then you are well on your way to a site which climbs up the rankings quickly and stays solid. On the flip side, a poorly-executed linking campaign will not only waste your valuable time, but can also get you a slap-down from Google.
High Quality First, Unique Second
While unique content is certainly good for your readers, it’s possibly not quite as good as you might think. If your content is actually 100% unique, then you may have to copyscape-proof the site before unscrupulous site scrapers beat you to the draw, leaving the search engines believing they are the originator of your content. Other than this, however, unique is good, certainly head and shoulders above copying other’s content.
What is great content? Well, great content is definitely non-spun, and is highly readable copy which educates your readers and gives them something of value. If you have a site which is full of great content, your click-through rates—as well as the average time spent on your site—will go up accordingly. It is also likely you that you will begin betting more and more new visitors (and fans) to your site, leading to increased social sharing. High quality content is written from the heart without the sole focus of keywords—in other words it is written for humans, not search engine spiders even though ultimately the spiders will reward you.
Best Practices for Content Links
The best way to avoid raising a red flag with search engines is to build the links in your content slowly and naturally—too fast and your site may look suspicious. Always remember that quality links are miles above quantity in the overall SEO scheme. The best links come from websites with high PageRank, are respected, trusted and high quality, and have content related to your own. It’s much better to have a single great link than twenty, thirty or forty inconsequential ones. While difficult to obtain, links from .gov and .edu sites are highly coveted, as they are generally considered authoritative. Strive to have your target keywords in your anchor text, but avoid repetition in keywords.
Jump on the Blog Bandwagon
Blogs are an excellent way to acquire links to your website, as well as offering short, informative posts which readers find interesting. Remember, search engines love fresh content, and newly published content is miraculously indexed almost constantly, sending a link right back to your site. Blogging is rich in relevant keywords about your overall subject or topic, again, linking back to your website. There really is no downside to blogging, other than the time you will invest, however the rewards you reap may well make that time more than worthwhile.
Give Your Content an Assessment
Look at your content with a critical eye and ask yourself whether it is good for the user, credible, authoritative and high quality. If you can answer yes to all these questions, then incorporate responsible link building strategies within your great content, and you have a recipe for success.
Tags: website design for lawyers
Posted in Law Firm SEO, Lawyer Website Content | No Comments »
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