Attorney Marketing Blog2008-05-12T22:32:46Zdavid@attorneywebcreations.comCopyright 2008, david@attorneywebcreations.comSPHPBLOGMake Sure Clients Can Find Your Web Site Telephone directories are a foundation of small law firm advertising, but the Internet has begun to challenge that tradition. Consider: When was the last time that you looked for a phone number using a phone book? Wise firms are beginning to refocus their marketing budgets on ads that drive visitors to their Web sites.
To bring in clients, two factors must be in place. First, potential clients must find your site. Second, the site must be compelling. This article will focus on ensuring that clients find your Web site.
Develop a search-engine-friendly Web site. Search engines develop ranking algorithms in an attempt to provide quality results -- that is, to make sure that the sites that are most on target will rank higher on the search results list. It has been our experience that law firm Web sites with the highest rankings obtain the majority of search engine clients.
Because savvy Web site owners understand the value of high rankings and work hard to obtain them, achieving a top rank is not a simple matter. Search engines are as secretive about their ranking algorithms as Coca Cola and the Colonel are about their secret recipes. However, the following principles can help you develop a site that will rank well:
• Provide descriptive, keyword-heavy metatags. Metatags are hidden text tags that are placed in the programming code. The most important metatags are the "title" and "description." The title typically consists of 60 to 100 characters such as, "New York family law firm -- Smith & Jones."
• Provide valuable content and segregate topics by placing them on different pages. For example, if yours is an estate planning firm, you should have an overview page, a frequently asked question (FAQ) page, an estate planning page, a probate page and, if applicable, an elder care page.
• Obtain links from other Web sites that rank well in the search engines and are related to your profession, e.g., other law firms. For example, you might exchange links with a firm in another state or city that does not compete with you. These links are often called "popularity" or "backward" links. Search engines assume that if a site has incoming links, it has value and is well established.
List your Web site in affordable directories. There are a surprising number of directories for most areas of practice. To find them, perform a search engine query for your practice areas and add the word "directory" at the end, e.g., "personal injury directory" or "[your city] personal injury directory." Type your competitors' names into the major search engines and see where they are listed.
Review the directories and request listings in the free and/or affordable ones. Try the same query with "free listings" at the beginning, e.g., "free listings personal injury directory." Many of these listings will add "popularity links" to your total and increase your visibility. Typical listings are $295 per year.
Obtain sponsored ads. Google, Overture and LookSmart offer sponsored ads, typically on a "bid" basis. The highest bidder typically receives the most prominent ad. Other factors, such as activity (the number of times an ad is clicked on), sometimes play a role in the ad ranking.
Internet search and ad sales fueled a 43 percent increase in Internet advertising in the second quarter of 2004, over the same period in 2003.
Usually, sponsored ads appear at the top or on the right-hand side of search engine results. Some of these services require that ads generate traffic and will drop inactive ads lower in the listings or eliminate them completely. Choosing competitive phrases such as "personal injury lawyers" can cost as much as $100 per click. However, if you choose similar phrases for a small town, e.g., "smalltown personal injury lawyers" or "smalltown estate planning attorneys," the ads can be as little as a few cents per click. By focusing on niche areas, you can greatly reduce your sponsored ad investment, while targeting certain types of prospective clients.
Sponsored ads obtain considerably less traffic than the "free listing" area, but a few well planned phrases can pay off for you. Sponsored ad services help you set daily budgets and let you block certain phrases that may not apply to your practice or locale.
For example, if you are an attorney in Charleston, W. Va., you can block your ad from appearing when someone searches for Charleston, S.C., attorneys. If you have to prioritize which of these processes to put into place, sponsored ads are currently the least important.
Another option: outsource. If you do not have the time or interest to learn or manage your Web marketing campaign, you can contract with a legal Web consultant for all or part of the process.
Many Web marketing consultants provide both search engine optimization and sponsored ad management. Web marketing campaigns are priced based upon the competitiveness of the phrases and locales. Campaigns can range from two thousand dollars to six figures per year. You can often pay for such consultation on a monthly basis.
Be careful when choosing Web marketing consultants. Many pretenders advertise services that they cannot deliver. It is best to use a legal consultant because they will have experience that will save you time and will have linking affiliations that can quickly improve your rankings.
To evaluate consultants, perform searches for your practice areas in your city and other cities. Determine which law firm Web sites consistently rank well. You can usually find their consultant's name at the bottom of their site. If not, you can ask the firm whom they used. If you aren't successful using that method, perform Google searches for "law firm Web consultants," "law firm Web marketing consultants," etc. If the consultants can truly deliver, they should rank well.
Reputable consultants typically list their clients on their Web site or will be happy to provide a list. Do not talk to one or two favored clients -- contact several law firms to measure the consultant's performance.
However you decide to develop your Web site, it can tell your story in accordance with your wishes and in as much detail as you desire. Additionally, your Web site investment will carry forward to future years, changing and evolving as your market dictates.
Written by: Dale Tincher is president of Consultwebs.com, Inc., of Raleigh, N.C. He can be reached at dtincher@consultwebs.com.
David Hallstrom Attorney Web Creations Attorney Web Design ]]>http://www.attorneywebcreations.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry071001-1057052007-10-01T00:00:00Z2007-10-01T00:00:00ZAWC Donates 2 Website Packages to Charity Auction I decided to donate two custom web packages to the event. What a great way to help get my son a great new playground for the next 8 years.
I'm looking forward to seeing how much the sites will bring to the cause.
I'll keep you posted.
David Hallstrom II Attorney Web Site Design]]>http://www.attorneywebcreations.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry060516-2226592006-05-17T00:00:00Z2006-05-17T00:00:00ZMaintaining Your WebsiteAuthor: Tim Pirebe
Contrary to what some believe, a web site should definitely not be set up and then forgotten. Over time, information about your company can and will change. If your website remains unchanged, the world will pass it by. A website is not a one-time investment, but something to be cultivated and maintained.
Whether you do the maintenance on your site yourself or have someone else do it for you, you still need to personally review the write-ups on your website every month or two to ensure that they remain accurate. It often helps to get someone else to look at it with you. You may look at it so often that you overlook something, where the other person may see it immediately. In addition to reviewing the write-up of the site, also make sure that all the links are working. Make sure that they go to the page that you intended them to go to. If they do not, you may need to do a little hunting to find out where they should link to now. Remember, Google and other search engines can help a lot in this process. And if comes down to it, rework that page's content so that the link is not required. Remove content for events that have long since passed. Keep all the pages with dates on them current. Those types of pages should be checked more often than your other pages.
Also, make sure any forms or other custom programming on your website continues to work. Although any web programs will likely remain unchanged, server upgrades can often cause those programs to no longer work in the way the programmer originally intended. As a frequent programmer myself, I can attest to that.
Finally, make sure you check for any broken images. Hopefully all the images on your site are hosted by you, which can decrease the chance of that happening. Still, you need to make sure that all of the images are there.
Again, even if you have someone else perform the actual work on your site, you are the one that knows your company best. You should be the one checking the site on a regular basis to make sure all information is up-to-date.
Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com.
]]>http://www.attorneywebcreations.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry060513-2220362006-05-14T00:00:00Z2006-05-14T00:00:00ZWhy is Link Popularity Important?What is link popularity? Link popularity is the practice of increasing the number of quality web sites linking to your web site (known as your site's link popularity).
Why is it important?
Increasing the number of quality links to your web site is arguably the single most efficient technique you can use to increase traffic to your web site and boost your search engine rankings. The benefits of having a large number of relevant web sites linking to yours are two-fold....
1. Direct Traffic
Your web site will start to receive a consistent stream of highly targeted visitors. Unlike search engine rankings and paid advertising (banners, per click, etc.), traffic generated by link campaigns can usually be counted on for years to come, with no recurring cost. If you have a commercial site, an added benefit is that incoming visitors may perceive your site in a better light, since they have found it via a recommendation (link) on another web site.
2. Search Engine Rankings
Increasing the link popularity of your web site can dramatically improve your search engine rankings. Most major search engines have tailored their algorithms (internal rules used to decide which sites are given priority) to reward sites which have high link popularity. Why? Two reasons...
- Search engines have found that judging a site by who links to it is one of the best indicators of site quality. After all, not many webmasters make a habit out of linking to bad or less than useful web sites.
- In the past, search engines have played a continual cat and mouse game with many webmasters who try to 'trick the engines' or 'beat the system'. Link popularity is one of the few factors which is very difficult to abuse (a webmaster would have to have control of tens or hundreds of different sites located on different servers). As a result, it is a safe bet that the major engines will continue to rely on link popularity and reward 'well-linked' sites in the future.
It is this approach which has made search engines like Google the new standard. In fact, Google's entire approach relies heavily on link promotion and link quality. In describing their proprietary ranking system (PageRank), Google's web site says the following...
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."
It's not just quantity.... it's quality!
Just getting hundreds of random web sites to link to you will not help your traffic or search engine rankings. The quality and content of these sites is critical. Ideally, you will want to approach established sites already listed in the search engines which have content related to your web site. These sites already have a steady stream of targeted visitors . In addition, links from these sites have the advantage of being considered 'more relevant' by the search engines and will help your own rankings improve.
Summary
If done correctly, proper link promotion will dramatically increase the number of quality web sites that link to you. These additional links will provide your web site with a consistent stream of highly targeted visitors and give you an ongoing advantage with the major search engines.
How to go about it?
There is no 'instant solution' to boosting your link popularity. An effective link promotion campaign involves.... 1. Locating established quality web sites containing content relevant to your web site. 2. Approaching the webmaster of each site in a professional manner and explaining the benefit of linking to your web site. 3. Organizing your link promotion campaign.... tracking your results and following up when necessary.
]]>http://www.attorneywebcreations.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry060512-0151392006-05-12T00:00:00Z2006-05-12T00:00:00ZWhy Should an Attorney Use Attorney Web Creations As lawyers, my partner and I make the grand assumption that we can relate to those attorneys needing web sites, especially because we are also educated in web site design. This assumption has proven fruitful over the years and we have many satisfied clients.
Law web sites have a bit more responsibiliy in their creation than most other websites. They need a privacy policy and disclaimers on all their pages explaining that the site is for informational purposes only and that the services of an attorney should be retained if believed needed. They also should have attorney bios, firm profile and a practice areas page.
Many Law web sites make the mistake of writing their content so that only other attorneys could understand their meaning. At Attorney Web Creations we edit the content in order to ensure that the average potential client visitor to the site can understand the attorney's legalease. This is a practice that non-legal personal would have difficulty in achieving.
We have designed over 400 custom law sites since our inception. And recently we have begun creating Lawyer Blogs or "BLAWGS" as they are commonly known in our community.
If you are interested in employing our services, please feel free to contact us at (800) 756-8158.
David Hallstrom II Attorney Web Creations]]>http://www.attorneywebcreations.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry060511-1227372006-05-11T00:00:00Z2006-05-11T00:00:00ZOrganic SEO With Organic optimization, we work on your Title, Decription, Keywords and related content in order to allow your site the opportunity to rise up in the search engine rankings. It doesn't stop there though. Articles and Blog posts are very important these days, even more important than keywords for most major search engines. When ranking your site the search engines attempt to ensure that the most relevant results come up for any search engine phrase submitted. They are doing this now by having their algorythms rate your sites content. If your site is a Law Firm web site , for instance. The search engines look for words such as: attorney, lawyer, law firm, court, trial, litigator and so on to show that your site is relevant content.
Another important factor to consider with Organic placement is relevant Links to your site. How many other sites are actually linking back to your website is very important. Why? Because if sites are linking to you, the search engines assume that your web site is a quality content related site.
So many factors go into properly marketing your website for the search engines that I could not even possibly list them all in this article, you wouldn't want to read that much :)
If you are interested in having Attorney Web Creations market your website for Organic placement, please feel free to contact us for a free consultation.
David Hallstrom II Attorney Web Creations]]>http://www.attorneywebcreations.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry060510-2057082006-05-11T00:00:00Z2006-05-11T00:00:00ZWelcomeAttorney Web Creations blog.
We will be posting blogs in the near future. Please come back to post.
Regards, Admin Attorney Web Creations]]>http://www.attorneywebcreations.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry060329-0046052006-03-29T00:00:00Z2006-03-29T00:00:00Z