What Lawyers Need to Know About Search Engine Optimization
By ESQCoach, Terrie S. Wheeler
Email: TWheeler@MarketYourLawPractice.com
What is Search Engine Optimization and Why is it Important?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website through organic searches on a search engine. Increasingly, potential clients are turning to the web to find legal services. To be competitive, your website must be found by potential clients when they search the internet using search engines like Google or Yahoo, or when they are surfing the blogosphere or social networking sites like LinkedIn. Learn more about SEO so that you can ensure that you are being “found” on the internet!
The Difference Between Paid and Organic Search Results
There are two types of results on search engines—paid results and organic, or natural, search results. Paid results are typically listed at the top of the search results or in a side bar and must pay a fee to the search engine for the listing when certain key words are used in the search. The most common type of paid result is the Pay Per Click, where the website pays the search engine every time someone clicks on the paid link.
In contrast, organic search results are generated by search engine crawlers that go through websites, scan their content, and then list the websites most relevant to the search term used. If your website is one of the first sites that comes up, it is more likely to be clicked on. Not only are these organic search results free to you and your website, but organic search results are clicked on much more frequently than paid search results.
How are Rankings Decided?
In order to make the most of organic searches and get more web traffic directed to your website, it is important that your site is ranked highly so that you are one of the first websites listed in the organic search. Search engines like Google rank your website based on relevance to the search term, which is determined by factors like the content on your site and the number of links to your website from other websites.
How To Search Engine Optimize Your Website
- Determine Your Key Words: Decide what search terms you want to be found under. For example, you may want to be highly ranked when someone searches for “Minneapolis patent attorney” in a Google search. Be sure to use words that your clients would know and use when creating a search, not legal jargon.
- Gauge the Competition: Do a search for your selected keyword and look at the top ten to twenty results. Do you think you can overtake them based on your site’s relevance and authority related to the search term? If not, you may want to experiment with another key word or search term.
- Work with your Web Developer: Once you’ve selected some key words you want to be found under using a search engine, work with your web developer or technical support to ensure the terms are used in the page content, the metatags, page titles, and page descriptions. If you are in the process of creating a website, be sure to work with the copywriter or content creator to ensure that key words and terms are drafted into the site content from the beginning.
- Build Inbound Links: The more websites that link to your website, the higher your ranking will be because search engines see such links as a recommendation or referral to your site. You can use hyperlinks within your own site to other pages on your website. You can also submit your website to online directories like Yahoo! Directory or business.com. Finally, consider creating a blog and participating in social networking activities in order to build traffic to your site.
For more information, see my blog postings on:
- A LAWYER’S GUIDE TO SOCIAL NETWORKING
- BLOGGING 101
- ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR LAWYERS
- BLOGGING FOR LAWYERS
- SOCIAL NETWORKING: TIPS FOR LAWYERS WHO WANT TO TRY IT
Measure Your Results
Website analytics programs, like the free Google Analytics
(www.googleanalytics.com) program, allow you to measure and analyze various aspects of your website traffic. You can track site statistics, like the number of site visitors and unique site visitors, how long visitors view each page, and, most importantly, what key words are driving visitors to your site and what search engines they are using.
Looking at what key words current site visitors are using to find you can help you determine which key words to use when you optimize. Moreover, getting a snapshot of your site’s traffic both before and after search engine optimization will show you how well your SEO worked or whether you need to make some modifications.
Other Resources:
Information on SEO from Google
Learn more about Google Analytics
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About MYLP
Unique Web-Based Tool to Help Lawyers Develop New Business
ESQCoach, Terrie Wheeler has been helping lawyers attract new clients for more than 24 years. In 1996, she founded Professional Services Marketing, Inc. (PSM), helping professionals develop Targeted Strategies for Business Growth. In January 2011 Terrie merged PSM with Ingenuity Marketing Group in Saint Paul, MN.
Launched in 2007, www.MarketYourLawPractice.com (MYLP), is an innovative web-based marketing coaching tool for lawyers which replicates ESQCoach Terrie Wheeler’s individual marketing coaching process. Today, MYLP is helping lawyers across the US and in the UK develop new business, retain and grow current client relationships, increase their name recognition and more effectively communicate with clients.
Numerous bar associations across the country, including New York, California, New Jersey, Ohio, Vermont, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and others, have recognized MYLP as a cost-effective marketing coaching and training tool for lawyers and have partnered with MYLP to offer the tool as a valuable member benefit.
MYLP was recently launched internationally in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Visit www.MarketYourLawPractice.co.uk, developed with our UK business partner, James Dunning of Geotrupes Consulting.
Join our Linkedin Group: The Legal Network - created just for lawyers and in-house marketing professionals to compare best marketing practices.
We have also launched a sister product for financial advisors, www.MarketYourFinancialPractice.com, and are marketing the site nationally to financial advisory firms.
For more information, contact Terrie: ESQCoach@MarketYourLawPractice.com
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The goals of PPC and Search Engine Optimisation Wales are basically the same. The only differences are the procedures and risks. If both are effectively used on a single campaign, the end result will be astonishing.
You might also instruct your audience that “thought leadership” is a very strong driver of SEO. But the reality is, if you spend a lot of time really concentrating on keyword usage and density for each page, leveraging many of the things you mentioned (especially inbound links from authoratative and relevant sites) their SEO will not move much.
We’ve found success combining smart Search engine marketing with SEO. The combination works really well and can help boost your understanding of SEO.