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Achieving High Search Engine Rankings for your Legal Website–Part One

Of course you know by now that the SEO for your legal website is critical—if your website is not on the first page or two of the search engine results you may as well be in the never-never land of cyberspace. Those who find themselves in this unfortunate position either “rent” Internet space with pay-per-click sponsored advertising or invest in permanent rankings—a combination of SEO web copywriting and strong inbound links. If you happen to be rolling in the dough, then sponsored advertising might be the way to go for immediate results. On the flip side, if you are that financially secure, do you really need a website?

Generally speaking, those legal websites that are achieving high search engine placement and lots of traffic have selected keywords that many of us are searching with, and those keywords are strategically placed in the body of the legal copy. This, in a nutshell, is search engine optimization, and can end up being one of the most important investments you may make while putting together your legal website. Whether you put together the website copy and content yourself or hire a professional service, search engine optimization is critical for the final outcome.

Keywords are….key!

Keyword search may seem like a no-brainer—after all, you just type in your selected keywords and voila! your website is an instant hit! Unfortunately, there is a bit more to it, and some basic rules need to be adhered to if you want to be at the top of that first search result page. Some tips to keep in mind are that keywords and keyword phrases must occur near the beginning of the title tags, the description and keyword meta tags and the body of your legal web pages and must occur often. You stand a much greater chance of achieving a high search engine position the more often the keywords appear as well as how near they are to the beginning of the tags and pages. To be more specific:

  • The title tag is the very most important tag on your entire web page, and as such should begin with the most important search phrase that you have determined users will type in to find your particular legal website. The title tag is even more important than the actual content, although content keeps your potential clients on your law firm’s website.
  • Your description meta tag should use a sentence written in clear English of no more than 40 words. This description, like your title tag, should begin with the most important keywords. If you have not included a description meta tag then search engines will attempt to build one based on the content at the top of the body of the page. Don’t merely use a list of keywords in your description meta tag as search engines may recognize this ploy as an attempt to receive high rankings and your legal website might actually end up lower on the page.
  • While the keywords meta tag is important for your legal website, it is likely that most search engines will pull keywords from the content of your web pages. However, it is still a good idea to include keywords meta tag in all pages you want indexed. Again, only use keywords that will appear in your content.

The All-Important Home Page

The home page on your legal website should naturally have the greatest concentration of your keywords and phrases for the best legal SEO results. If your users will search for “personal injury attorney” then you must make absolutely certain that the phrase “personal injury attorney” appears on your law firm’s home page. Search engines list in order of importance all the sites which have content that relates to what your potential clients typed in when they began their search. As you can see, it is absolutely critical for your future search engine ranking that you and the other members of your law firm determine which words and phrases your users will enter to find your site. These tips are just the beginning of getting your law firm’s website to achieve the highest search engine rankings possible.

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Achieving High Search Engine Rankings for your Legal Website…Part Two

To continue with the discussion of the best ways you can achieve the highest search engine ranking on your legal website, consider that a full 70 percent of web site owners have sites that are missing out on search engine traffic because their design is not conducive for high rankings. Has your legal website had the absolute maximum optimization for search engine rankings? Has it been submitted to the top 20 search engines and directories? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, your website could be languishing among that 70 percent. If, after looking carefully at your legal website, you believe your site design could be standing in the way of your high rankings, don’t wait—make the necessary corrections now!

Here are a few more “tips” to make sure your legal website ranks as high as it possibly can, resulting in lots of happy clients:

  • Never forget that search engines look at words, not images when they index, so never, ever, use an image as the main content of your page. This can seriously reduce your chances of high search engine rankings.
  • You need words on your pages to achieve high search engine rankings, not flashy graphics. Your text must contain the most important keywords and key phrases that your potential clients will enter on their search engine.
  • You must make certain your words are written in a language the search engines can read. To test this on your own website, use your mouse and bring your cursor down to the text on one of your web pages. Click and hold down the left mouse button; if you can highlight just one or two words of text, you are probably fine, but if you can only highlight a large block of text it could be in graphic form. Graphic text must be replaced by standard HTML text so the search engines can easily read it.
  • Remember to use keyword phrases, rather than single keywords as often as possible. Most web users will type in “DUI attorney” rather than simply attorney. Your keyword phrases need to be as specific to your business as possible.
  • Hidden text is a big no-no. If you are attempting to achieve greater keyword density by hiding them in ways such as making them the same color as your background, don’t. Trying to fool the search engines could risk having your site banned from search engines, so always, always, be up front and straightforward in the design of your legal web page.

If you have determined that your legal website needs some optimization to make it more compatible, don’t panic. It’s not as complex as it may seem, and if your legal website has been launched for months without the search engines having any idea it exists, SEO is critical. Not having meta tags and optimized text in your site code can result in the wrong search terms and low search engine rankings. Legal SEO requires constant monitoring to be successful.

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The Effect of Outgoing Links on Your Law Firm’s SEO

Before you link your high-quality legal website to another site, it is vitally important that you look carefully at the caliber of the site. The web pages your website is linked to form the “neighborhood” of your site. It follows, then, that if you link to spam websites, whether intentionally or not, search engines may think your important legal website is also spam. It’s sort of like your mom telling you that you are who you hang out with, but take this warning a bit more seriously than you took mom’s! Consider the following:

** Your website is put into a much larger context by virtue of the websites you are linked to. If your site is linked to superior quality sites with useful content, then web surfers associate your site with the that quality
** You wouldn’t send your friends to a car mechanic you didn’t trust, so don’t send your web visitors to a website you don’t trust. Equally true, you wouldn’t put down a job reference who was going to say negative things about you, so make sure no negative information about the legal services your business offers will appear in any context on a linked website. Links add value to your site in that they show your potential clients that you have confidence in business and services.
**Some people feel that offering links to other pages is like sending potential clients down the street to another attorney. Not true. The links you provide your clients will bring you more clients and will bring repeat visitors to your site. All web surfers will leave your site sooner or later, no matter how fabulous it is—the question is what they do once they leave.
** It is something like a very polite dance; you offer your web site visitors links so they don’t have to go back to their search engine, and the other websites send you visitors in return—like a “thank you” note!

For maximum legal SEO on your important website, outgoing links should be:
1. Similar quality style and only associate with higher quality content
2. Keywords in anchor text—integrate links with content
3. Develop your content first rather than randomly placing outgoing links and keywords
4. Don’t get carried away—not too many links per page; it can be confusing and distracting for your clients.

Outgoing links can add important credibility to your own legal website and could potentially provide your prospective clients with in-depth information about similar topics. Outgoing links can show that you have thoroughly researched your content and that you have experience and skill in everything users find on your website. Good links to other websites can make your visitors return to your website again and again for more information on future legal topics. As a final note, according to Google, you should not be overly concerned about the PageRank of your outgoing link so long as it is a link you believe will benefit your visitors. Even if the linked website has a lower PageRank than your own, if it is logically linked to your legal website, it will remain a common sense way to give extra value to your potential clients.

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Creating Law Firm SEO Content to Attract Quality Clients

Creating law firm SEO-friendly content is hardly an easy task. Consider that today’s Internet is full to the brim with amazing visuals; take away all the colored links and special fonts, the flashing banner ads and bells and whistles and you’re left with the backbone of the Internet—content. Creating your law firm search engine optimization content can be an ongoing process, and sometimes a downright chore. It is also the only way to make your pages popular. While many law offices will randomly add large blocks of content to their site thinking it is free and will surely add flavor to the website, you must remember that if you are adding anything but the highest-quality content it can backfire, hurting your entire website.

Some of the problems that can occur when low-quality SEO content is added to your law firm’s website are:

• If the same article, or one very close to the same, exists elsewhere on the web, yours probably will not rank as well as the other copies.

• Low quality content reflects poorly upon your law office.

• Sometimes when unfocused content is added to your law firm’s website, visitors can quickly lose interest.

• Though it is not particularly scrupulous, people will sometimes copy the content of other websites verbatim without asking.

Remember that no site will get the traffic you desire without content, and all content will contain certain keywords and phrases throughout. The repeating of those words and phrases draw the attention of search engines. However, even though your site may be rich in important keywords, there must also be solid, interesting and readable content to engage the reader’s interest in your particular law firm. Additionally, the savvy search engines of today actually know how to scan for sensible content—in other words content with little to offer other than the same keywords strung together over and over will likely not get your law firm noticed. The words must appear frequently—but naturally– within your text, and must make sense within the context of your copy. In order to produce the highest-quality content for your law firm’s website, think like a searcher—what do you want to read when you type in your search words? Brainstorm for your firm and try to come up with fresh, interesting content.

Website content writing must engage your visitors immediately, keeping them on your site. After all, the longer your visitors stay, the more likely they’ll purchase your attorney services and become clients. SEO-friendly content on your law firm’s website will also be an easy read for your average Internet user, having bold headings and subheadings featuring your particular law firm’s keywords and keyword phrases. If building content for your law firm’s SEO website sounds like a lot of work—it is! The Internet is an ever-changing animal and constantly reinvents itself. If you want your law firm’s website to stay at the top of the game you will need to constantly add fresh content and keywords to keep up with the ever-changing trends. Many highly-visited sites actually employ a full staff of writers whose sole purpose is to turn out new, engaging content on a regular basis. Either way, content is key to the ultimate success of your law firm’s website—take it seriously and produce the best.

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