If you all remember I issued myself a law firm internet marketing challenge a few weeks ago. The challenge was this - I wanted to see if I could get number one in Google for the search term "law firm internet marketing." Since this is kind of why everyone is hear to read this, I thought I'd update you on my progress.
And here is the progress - I'm still not ranking in the top 100 searches for that term. And, guess what? I'm not disappointed in the slightest. And here's why.
These kind of things take time. That's why I made the contest six months and not three weeks. It takes time to build up the backlinks necessary to get Google to really like your site. Up until three weeks ago, I hadn't made any links for this site. I was kind of just doing it for fun - a way for me to collect my thoughts and get my processes down - in case I wanted to write a book or something (yeah right). So, I'm starting fresh, just like you would be in your law firm internet marketing journey.
To give you an idea of what it takes, each day I write an article here, then I go out and post an article on one of the many article generation sites I use, posting a link to the post I just wrote and to the main site of the page. I vary the link up slightly, and try not to get too many of the same keyword going at any one time. So, for example, I might link law firm internet marketing, law firm marketing, marketing a law firm, internet marketing, law firm internet marketing, like that. I try to get my main keyword in 40-50% of the time.
Over time, as those links build up, Google will like my site more and more, and I'll continue to grow in the search engines. Additionally, I'll start to rank really well for keywords I didn't even think about but that just show up here naturally. That will get more people here, they will leave comments and things like that, and then it just snowballs from there. In no time your site will be ranked number one for your keywords.
6.25.2010
Law Firm Internet Marketing | Nolo.com Paid Profile Review
Remember in like the last post when I was talking about there was no magic bullet when it comes to law firm internet marketing? I think I also talked about staying the course when you are putting together a law firm marketing plan and not getting bogged down and beat down and desperate to the point where you start signing up for stuff that won't work.
Well, here's a little bit of a story about me. I guess this is a learn from me, don't be like me type of a story.
To begin, this is essentially a nolo.com advertising review. I got a call a few months ago from a salesperson at nolo.com that had this great pitch for a lawyer profile on their site (here's my original post about paid lawyer advertising where I talk about it - my how times change). She talked about how great it would be and how many calls I'd get and blah blah blah.
And as I'm writing this, I remember now that I wasn't really at all interested in her pitch, though if true it sounded wonderful (remember that by the way, if it sounds too good to be true, it is), but in the profile you could add in keywords and link them wherever you wanted. Here is my profile if you want to see it. It's nothing special, but you got 25 backlinks, so I thought that was worth the price ($165 a month for two years is what I signed up for!).
Needless to say, it hasn't really worked out that well, for my law firm internet marketing plan, or for my bottom line. Turns out, you make plenty of free great backlinks. You don't need to pay for them. And, nolo.com sends me zero business. I don't even think I've had a phone call. That is not good.
And I don't think it's nolo.com's fault. I think they probably believe in their services, but people who are looking for me, a DUI attorney and criminal attorney, aren't looking on nolo. They are looking on google, plain and simple.
So, take this review of nolo.com for what it's worth. Maybe for your practice area it's a good thing. Maybe it will make you feel good to throw some money at the fact that you don't have any clients. But I don't think it's a good thing or it will make you feel better. If I were you, I'd stay away from nolo, from lawyers.com, even from advertising on avvo.com, and stick with the old nuts and bolts of marketing.
What are the nuts and bolts of law firm marketing? Maybe I'll talk about those next time!
Well, here's a little bit of a story about me. I guess this is a learn from me, don't be like me type of a story.
To begin, this is essentially a nolo.com advertising review. I got a call a few months ago from a salesperson at nolo.com that had this great pitch for a lawyer profile on their site (here's my original post about paid lawyer advertising where I talk about it - my how times change). She talked about how great it would be and how many calls I'd get and blah blah blah.
And as I'm writing this, I remember now that I wasn't really at all interested in her pitch, though if true it sounded wonderful (remember that by the way, if it sounds too good to be true, it is), but in the profile you could add in keywords and link them wherever you wanted. Here is my profile if you want to see it. It's nothing special, but you got 25 backlinks, so I thought that was worth the price ($165 a month for two years is what I signed up for!).
Needless to say, it hasn't really worked out that well, for my law firm internet marketing plan, or for my bottom line. Turns out, you make plenty of free great backlinks. You don't need to pay for them. And, nolo.com sends me zero business. I don't even think I've had a phone call. That is not good.
And I don't think it's nolo.com's fault. I think they probably believe in their services, but people who are looking for me, a DUI attorney and criminal attorney, aren't looking on nolo. They are looking on google, plain and simple.
So, take this review of nolo.com for what it's worth. Maybe for your practice area it's a good thing. Maybe it will make you feel good to throw some money at the fact that you don't have any clients. But I don't think it's a good thing or it will make you feel better. If I were you, I'd stay away from nolo, from lawyers.com, even from advertising on avvo.com, and stick with the old nuts and bolts of marketing.
What are the nuts and bolts of law firm marketing? Maybe I'll talk about those next time!
6.24.2010
Law Firm Internet Marketing | There is No Magic Bullet
If you are reading this blog, you are probably interested in law firm marketing, and maybe even more specifically law firm internet marketing. I'm glad you're here. But you need to understand one thing (and I need to remind myself of this one thing) - there is no silver bullet of marketing. What I mean is, if you think doing one thing is going to be the holy grail, you are going to be disappointed when you reach your goals.
Let me give you an example.
For a long time I was bound and determined to get to number one in Google for the term Seattle DUI attorney. I had a great plan and became my own search engine optimization specialist. And, after several months, it happened. I've been at number one for that search term for quite some time. But, once that happened, people weren't breaking down my door to get to my office. I realized that even though I was there and people were looking, they weren't calling. I had to find out why.
So I started tweaking my website. And then I started tweaking some more. I'd change one thing here, one thing there, in the hopes of finding out what the problem was. And I'm still tweaking to this day.
And, while I'm here, I've got another important thing I want to mention - when you get frustrated, don't get desperate. I've wasted more money on a slow day when someone calls and I talk myself into believing that what they are selling will work (it won't). Stick to your plan, and if your plan doesn't work, tweak it. Law firm marketing is an art, not a science. You need to find out where your potential clients are and what they are looking for. That takes time and trial and error.
This post is inspired by that same guy I talked to last night. He was so sure that his stuff would work, and he continued to try to press it on me throughout the night, that I became less and less convinced that what he was selling would work. It sounds too much like all the other crap I keep hearing.
Let me give you an example.
For a long time I was bound and determined to get to number one in Google for the term Seattle DUI attorney. I had a great plan and became my own search engine optimization specialist. And, after several months, it happened. I've been at number one for that search term for quite some time. But, once that happened, people weren't breaking down my door to get to my office. I realized that even though I was there and people were looking, they weren't calling. I had to find out why.
So I started tweaking my website. And then I started tweaking some more. I'd change one thing here, one thing there, in the hopes of finding out what the problem was. And I'm still tweaking to this day.
And, while I'm here, I've got another important thing I want to mention - when you get frustrated, don't get desperate. I've wasted more money on a slow day when someone calls and I talk myself into believing that what they are selling will work (it won't). Stick to your plan, and if your plan doesn't work, tweak it. Law firm marketing is an art, not a science. You need to find out where your potential clients are and what they are looking for. That takes time and trial and error.
This post is inspired by that same guy I talked to last night. He was so sure that his stuff would work, and he continued to try to press it on me throughout the night, that I became less and less convinced that what he was selling would work. It sounds too much like all the other crap I keep hearing.
Law Firm Internet Marketing | Kirkland DUI Attorney Experiment
If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you know I like to use it for a couple of things. First, I like to use it to educate whoever is interested on law firm internet marketing. Second, I like to use it to see how Google reacts to certain changes and how quickly the pick certain changes up. Today you're in luck, because this post is going to deal with both uses.
Last night, I was talking to a buddy of mine. He's in the internet sales business. And by that, I mean he is in the business of signing up businesses and then posting ads on Google and in other places in the search engine results. He is sort of like Yodle, though I think he does some other things. I think because of the side of the business that he's in, that he doesn't believe as much in the organic search stuff we talk about on here. He was impressed with what I've done, but was skeptical that it was my methodology.
So I made him a bet about Kirkland DUI attorney. I bet him that I could rank number one for Kirkland DUI attorney within two weeks of last night. There are a couple of things that make this goal possible. First, I already rank 18th, so I don't have a long way to go. Second, I know what I'm doing, so I've got that going for me. And third, I have a bunch of different tools at my disposal to create a lot of great links over to the site.
How am I going to rank #1 for Kirkland DUI attorney? Well, it actually all starts with this post. See, right now this post is being optimized for that keyword. It's in the title, it's bold, and there is a link pointing to where I want the vote to go. Later on today, I'll probably go write an article and point it at the site. And I'll do the same thing tomorrow. And then the next day, and then the next. Soon, my site should be at number 1 for Kirkland DUI attorneys, or some variation thereof.
This is exactly how you should be constructing your website marketing plan. Everyday you should be doing something. Every day you should be creating links back to your sites. Every day you should be posting to your blog or to some place that you own so you can leverage that power whenever you need to. See, website marketing, as I've discussed, is all about the links (at least when we're talking about driving traffic). If you want a successful marketing campaign and a successful business, you've got to be doing these things.
I'll keep you updated on my progress. Hopefully because this site has got some pretty good Google juice built up I'll see an immediate jump of a few spots (or this page will show up! Either way it's good). I'm writing another post here later, so I'll let you know what happens.
And, who knows, maybe the phone will start ringing for someone that needs a Kirkland DUI attorney!
Last night, I was talking to a buddy of mine. He's in the internet sales business. And by that, I mean he is in the business of signing up businesses and then posting ads on Google and in other places in the search engine results. He is sort of like Yodle, though I think he does some other things. I think because of the side of the business that he's in, that he doesn't believe as much in the organic search stuff we talk about on here. He was impressed with what I've done, but was skeptical that it was my methodology.
So I made him a bet about Kirkland DUI attorney. I bet him that I could rank number one for Kirkland DUI attorney within two weeks of last night. There are a couple of things that make this goal possible. First, I already rank 18th, so I don't have a long way to go. Second, I know what I'm doing, so I've got that going for me. And third, I have a bunch of different tools at my disposal to create a lot of great links over to the site.
How am I going to rank #1 for Kirkland DUI attorney? Well, it actually all starts with this post. See, right now this post is being optimized for that keyword. It's in the title, it's bold, and there is a link pointing to where I want the vote to go. Later on today, I'll probably go write an article and point it at the site. And I'll do the same thing tomorrow. And then the next day, and then the next. Soon, my site should be at number 1 for Kirkland DUI attorneys, or some variation thereof.
This is exactly how you should be constructing your website marketing plan. Everyday you should be doing something. Every day you should be creating links back to your sites. Every day you should be posting to your blog or to some place that you own so you can leverage that power whenever you need to. See, website marketing, as I've discussed, is all about the links (at least when we're talking about driving traffic). If you want a successful marketing campaign and a successful business, you've got to be doing these things.
I'll keep you updated on my progress. Hopefully because this site has got some pretty good Google juice built up I'll see an immediate jump of a few spots (or this page will show up! Either way it's good). I'm writing another post here later, so I'll let you know what happens.
And, who knows, maybe the phone will start ringing for someone that needs a Kirkland DUI attorney!
6.23.2010
Law Firm Internet Marketing | The End of the Phone Book?
I live in Seattle. Seattle is a great town. But it is unlike many other towns in that it is extremely environmentally conscious. I'm all for the environment, but people take it to another level here. That's why when I read this story today from the Seattle Times about getting rid of phone book distribution that I was surprised to see that the primary motivation, at least from the city's perspective, was to cut down on recycling costs from unused and thrown away phone books.
The thing is, though, if you read the story, and you read the comments from people, it is clear that the reason people want to get rid of phone books is because they have become obsolete. Here are just a couple, from the story.
So, where is it? I think we all know it's the internet. My law firm internet marketing plan is the only thing I use (aside from referrals) and I'm doing pretty well right now, and only expect business to pick up as time goes by.
What scares the heck out of Dex and Yellow Pages, though, is that this is a market they can't control. Sure, you can't go make your own internet phone book, but look at all of the information I've already given you here for free. This is stuff you can do on your own, without the need of a search engine optimization specialist.
Marketing basics tell you one thing - whatever you do should be resulting in business for you, one way or another. By reading the information on this site, which could be called marketing tips, SEO marketing 101, or online marketing 101, you have a leg up.
One of the easiest ways to implement a law firm marketing plan, without spending a bunch of money, is to think about the way that you and your family buy services. If you have kids, find out how they decided to choose a particular brand of jeans. You'll be surprised at the the things they look at.
I have never done phone book advertising. I've never even considered it. As each day passes the phone book becomes more and more obsolete. Spend your hard earned money on something that will give you a return.
The thing is, though, if you read the story, and you read the comments from people, it is clear that the reason people want to get rid of phone books is because they have become obsolete. Here are just a couple, from the story.
Both junk mail and Yellow Pages are largely unwanted and a nuisance.But the real fun comes after the story, in the comments. Here are some of those:
The last time a phone book was used (in her house), the dog was chewing it.
Yep, same here - phonebooks go straight from front porch to recycle bin. And I do have a landline, but who wants to thumb through a huge book when you can find your info in 5 seconds online?So, what does this mean? Well, marketing 101 tells you you should be getting information about you and your company out to people where they will actually see it and use it. And it doesn't sound like that's the case here.
Have you noticed that phone books get thinner and thinner every year? Yet they charge businesses the same, if not more, to place their ads. Many of my fellow business owners have already cut back on yellow page advertising over the last several years. There are other more effective ways to promote your business.
I just dump them in the trash or I leave them outside the door. Who uses these? You can just google anything and get the phone number, the location and a map. This is archaic. Also, I wish they would quit stuffing ads and coupons in my mailbox.
So, where is it? I think we all know it's the internet. My law firm internet marketing plan is the only thing I use (aside from referrals) and I'm doing pretty well right now, and only expect business to pick up as time goes by.
What scares the heck out of Dex and Yellow Pages, though, is that this is a market they can't control. Sure, you can't go make your own internet phone book, but look at all of the information I've already given you here for free. This is stuff you can do on your own, without the need of a search engine optimization specialist.
Marketing basics tell you one thing - whatever you do should be resulting in business for you, one way or another. By reading the information on this site, which could be called marketing tips, SEO marketing 101, or online marketing 101, you have a leg up.
One of the easiest ways to implement a law firm marketing plan, without spending a bunch of money, is to think about the way that you and your family buy services. If you have kids, find out how they decided to choose a particular brand of jeans. You'll be surprised at the the things they look at.
I have never done phone book advertising. I've never even considered it. As each day passes the phone book becomes more and more obsolete. Spend your hard earned money on something that will give you a return.
6.22.2010
Successful Marketing | A Reminder
I took about 5 days off last week. I didn't do a single thing related to law firm internet marketing. I didn't post any blog posts. I didn't write any articles, I didn't do anything. And that's okay. And that's the point of this article. Successful marketing doesn't have to be done every day. With the caveat, however, that if you slack off too much, you'll never have a chance to reach your potential.
Before I get too far into the point of my post, I want to give you an update on the results of my challenge to myself to become the top ranked website for the google search term "law firm internet marketing." And, as I suspected, at this point I would call this experiment at this point anything but successful law firm marketing. I'm still not located in the top 100.
But, all is not lost. It takes time for Google to pick up what you have been putting down. Sometimes weeks, sometimes months. But it will happen. You just have to keep sticking to it. Every successful marketer I know rides his plan to fruition before analyzing it, and you have to do the same.
Okay, back to the post.
I didn't just take the day off because I was bored or tired or worn out. Those are excuses for lazy people. Nope, I had an actual excuse - I was in Cabo celebrating the marriage of my brother-in-law and his beautiful bride. That's not to say that I didn't plan on working, at the beginning. I brought my computer with me and everything. But I just couldn't do it. And you know what, it was the right decision.
Whether you are personal injury lawyer marketing or working some other lawyer internet marketing plan, don't forget what the whole point of this is.
The whole point of doing all of this work is so when occasions arise that allow you to enjoy the fruits of your labor you can do just that. So I did. And it was great. 5 days, 4 nights, two rounds of golf, some beach volleyball, a lot of sitting by the poolside, and many cervesas.
So, remember that there is a time to work hard, and that time is often. But there is also a time to sit back and enjoy the people you love and enjoy the places you are. Keep working, keep writing, and keep living.
Before I get too far into the point of my post, I want to give you an update on the results of my challenge to myself to become the top ranked website for the google search term "law firm internet marketing." And, as I suspected, at this point I would call this experiment at this point anything but successful law firm marketing. I'm still not located in the top 100.
But, all is not lost. It takes time for Google to pick up what you have been putting down. Sometimes weeks, sometimes months. But it will happen. You just have to keep sticking to it. Every successful marketer I know rides his plan to fruition before analyzing it, and you have to do the same.
Okay, back to the post.
I didn't just take the day off because I was bored or tired or worn out. Those are excuses for lazy people. Nope, I had an actual excuse - I was in Cabo celebrating the marriage of my brother-in-law and his beautiful bride. That's not to say that I didn't plan on working, at the beginning. I brought my computer with me and everything. But I just couldn't do it. And you know what, it was the right decision.
Whether you are personal injury lawyer marketing or working some other lawyer internet marketing plan, don't forget what the whole point of this is.
The whole point of doing all of this work is so when occasions arise that allow you to enjoy the fruits of your labor you can do just that. So I did. And it was great. 5 days, 4 nights, two rounds of golf, some beach volleyball, a lot of sitting by the poolside, and many cervesas.
So, remember that there is a time to work hard, and that time is often. But there is also a time to sit back and enjoy the people you love and enjoy the places you are. Keep working, keep writing, and keep living.
6.15.2010
Law Firm Internet Marketing | InfoBarrels
In my last few posts I've been writing about the places you can go to write articles to create some backlinks to your site, and today I've got another one that I want to talk about - Infobarrels. Infobarrels is a site that is a lot like goarticles and ezine articles in that you can write an article and submit it to the site and it will give you a link to where ever you want to point it (two links technically). This allows you to pursue your law firm internet marketing plan without having to have other people help you.
Like ezine articles, infobarrels has specific guidelines that you have to reach in order to get the link to work on the article. So, for example, if you wanted to promote a personal injury law firm by you would want to have your personal injury lawyer marketing plan to include links from all of these places. If you got the article up to 400 words, infobarrel would publish the article and the link, and you would get the juice.
Let's just say, like I am here, that you are wanting to push the keyword personal injury attorney marketing. You could go and write several articles, some on personal injury lawyers marketing, personal injury attorneys marketing, and personal injury practice marketing. If you did that, you wouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg to a marketing consulting firm or a lawyer internet marketing firm that would go out and get you bogus links.
So, when you get tired of ezine and goarticles, switch it up with little infobarrels.
Like ezine articles, infobarrels has specific guidelines that you have to reach in order to get the link to work on the article. So, for example, if you wanted to promote a personal injury law firm by you would want to have your personal injury lawyer marketing plan to include links from all of these places. If you got the article up to 400 words, infobarrel would publish the article and the link, and you would get the juice.
Let's just say, like I am here, that you are wanting to push the keyword personal injury attorney marketing. You could go and write several articles, some on personal injury lawyers marketing, personal injury attorneys marketing, and personal injury practice marketing. If you did that, you wouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg to a marketing consulting firm or a lawyer internet marketing firm that would go out and get you bogus links.
So, when you get tired of ezine and goarticles, switch it up with little infobarrels.
Law Firm Internet Marketing | Article Sites
In a comment a couple of days ago I told you I'd answer two of the law firm internet marketing questions that were posed to me: (1) does the article popularity matter; and (2) are there any sites besides goarticles that I use? I answer the first question yesterday. I'll answer the second question today, sort of.
The answer to the question by itself is a firm yes. I use several different article submission sites in my lawyer internet marketing plan. Goarticles is one of them, and I'm going to tell you about another one today. I'm not going to tell you about them all at once because that would take up too much room for one post. Why have one crazy long post when I can have several decently long ones? And, I can keep you all on the edges of your seats.
When talking and thinking about affordable search engine optimization, the best thing to do is find free, right? And if, on top of free, you can find powerful, that's all the better, right? Well, today we're going to talk about ezine articles, which is both free and powerful.
Ezine articles is a lot like goarticles, except it's not. See, in both places you write your articles, stick to the guidelines, and the article is published for the world to see. Except, with ezine articles, they actually have someone that physically reviews your article to make sure it passes their guidelines. If it does not, they send it back to you for editing. This makes it a great marketing support for your site, and it explains why Google likes it so much.
As with most sites, you only get to put in two links, and don't worry about having to put them in the resource box. Just do it. That part is published with your article, so you get the Google juice you've been looking for. Other than that, it can't be keyword stuffed, has to be at least 300 words, and needs to make sense. Sounds like our guidelines for out blog writing!
If you write an article for ezine don't be surprised to find it pretty high up on the search engine rankings pretty quickly. That goes to show you the power of ezine articles. And don't worry that your lawyer internet marketing plan is putting your articles above your site. That will change over time. The key is that you are writing and posting the article.
Up next we'll talk about another place to submit articles, hubpages. They make you work even harder than ezine does to take care of business, believe it or not!
The answer to the question by itself is a firm yes. I use several different article submission sites in my lawyer internet marketing plan. Goarticles is one of them, and I'm going to tell you about another one today. I'm not going to tell you about them all at once because that would take up too much room for one post. Why have one crazy long post when I can have several decently long ones? And, I can keep you all on the edges of your seats.
When talking and thinking about affordable search engine optimization, the best thing to do is find free, right? And if, on top of free, you can find powerful, that's all the better, right? Well, today we're going to talk about ezine articles, which is both free and powerful.
Ezine articles is a lot like goarticles, except it's not. See, in both places you write your articles, stick to the guidelines, and the article is published for the world to see. Except, with ezine articles, they actually have someone that physically reviews your article to make sure it passes their guidelines. If it does not, they send it back to you for editing. This makes it a great marketing support for your site, and it explains why Google likes it so much.
As with most sites, you only get to put in two links, and don't worry about having to put them in the resource box. Just do it. That part is published with your article, so you get the Google juice you've been looking for. Other than that, it can't be keyword stuffed, has to be at least 300 words, and needs to make sense. Sounds like our guidelines for out blog writing!
If you write an article for ezine don't be surprised to find it pretty high up on the search engine rankings pretty quickly. That goes to show you the power of ezine articles. And don't worry that your lawyer internet marketing plan is putting your articles above your site. That will change over time. The key is that you are writing and posting the article.
Up next we'll talk about another place to submit articles, hubpages. They make you work even harder than ezine does to take care of business, believe it or not!
6.14.2010
Law Firm Marketing | Writing Articles
My last post was about finding a search engine optimization specialist (or not having to find one) and posting articles to goarticles.com to create some great backlinks for your site. A commenter to that post asked me the question about whether or not the popularity of the article itself matters for your law firm internet marketing efforts, so we are going to talk about that a little bit today.
If you are just finding this site for the first time today, you probably have no idea what we are talking about with backlinks and writing articles and stuff, so I'll just give you the basics here real quick. The goal of your law firm marketing efforts, at least on the web, is to get more people to your site. The more people see it, the more they will call. The more they call, the better your business is.
The way to get your site higher on google is with backlinks. Backlinks are votes for your site from other site. The best backlink has your keywords in it, which are the words that people would use to search for you (think DUI attorney instead of the name of your firm). One way to help with backlinks is to write articles yourself and provide backlinks where you want them to go.
That's about as quick and fast as I can possible make a law firm internet marketing overview.
Now, to answer the question. It's always great to continue to build marketing support for your websites. As we may have discussed in the past, the more credible the source is that the link is coming from the more weight the link given to you will have. So, for example, if you get a link from some place like espn.com for your sports blog, that is going to carry a lot of weight and mean a lot more than a link from some fly by night website, or article that you've written.
It is possible to bolster the weight of your individual article. The best way to do that is by writing other articles in other places and pointing them at the article. But here's the problem with that. You are involved in small law firm marketing. You've only got so much time in the day to do things. If you are going to write an article, you might as well point it at your site rather than an article you've already written. It will make the article better, but without a lot of articles pointing to that one article, it's not going to make that much difference.
And, the other important thing to remember is that goarticles and some of the other article submissions sites are well liked by Google. Posting an article there automatically gives it some credit because they have article submission guidelines and won't stand for a bunch of spam being posted on the site.
So, to answer the commenter's question, yes, it does matter how popular the article is, and the more popular it is (in Google's eyes) the better it will translate to your site. But, in the limited amount of time that you can spend law firm marketing, you're better served to spend it pointing links to your site.
If you are just finding this site for the first time today, you probably have no idea what we are talking about with backlinks and writing articles and stuff, so I'll just give you the basics here real quick. The goal of your law firm marketing efforts, at least on the web, is to get more people to your site. The more people see it, the more they will call. The more they call, the better your business is.
The way to get your site higher on google is with backlinks. Backlinks are votes for your site from other site. The best backlink has your keywords in it, which are the words that people would use to search for you (think DUI attorney instead of the name of your firm). One way to help with backlinks is to write articles yourself and provide backlinks where you want them to go.
That's about as quick and fast as I can possible make a law firm internet marketing overview.
Now, to answer the question. It's always great to continue to build marketing support for your websites. As we may have discussed in the past, the more credible the source is that the link is coming from the more weight the link given to you will have. So, for example, if you get a link from some place like espn.com for your sports blog, that is going to carry a lot of weight and mean a lot more than a link from some fly by night website, or article that you've written.
It is possible to bolster the weight of your individual article. The best way to do that is by writing other articles in other places and pointing them at the article. But here's the problem with that. You are involved in small law firm marketing. You've only got so much time in the day to do things. If you are going to write an article, you might as well point it at your site rather than an article you've already written. It will make the article better, but without a lot of articles pointing to that one article, it's not going to make that much difference.
And, the other important thing to remember is that goarticles and some of the other article submissions sites are well liked by Google. Posting an article there automatically gives it some credit because they have article submission guidelines and won't stand for a bunch of spam being posted on the site.
So, to answer the commenter's question, yes, it does matter how popular the article is, and the more popular it is (in Google's eyes) the better it will translate to your site. But, in the limited amount of time that you can spend law firm marketing, you're better served to spend it pointing links to your site.
6.11.2010
Law Firm Internet Marketing | Article Writing with GoArticles
If you've been reading this blog at all, you know by now that the key to getting recognized on the internet is getting backlinks. Because of this, about 80% of your law firm internet marketing time should be devoted to getting and producing backlinks.
If you didn't know, backlinks are, in a way, like votes for your site. They are links from other sites to your site, and Google treats them like votes because it knows that if someone is linking from their site to your site they presumably think your information is good enough to send their people to check it out. The more votes you get, the more credible your site is, and the higher you climb on the search engine rankings.
Today I thought I'd let you in on one of the places I go to create some backlinks for me. It's called GoArticles. It's basically an article submission website. You go there, sign up, and start writing. Within the articles you can include two links to where ever you want. Presumably, you'd want these links to go to one your web based properties.
One word of caution, though, before you go out writing like a bandit. The law firm internet marketing posting rules apply to GoArticles just like they do here. If you want Google to give you any credit the article must be at least 300 words long. It's go to make sense, and it can't be copied.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you go out and hire some search engine optimization specialist, make sure they don't just submit a bunch of junky articles, because they aren't going to help. Your marketing objectives can only be reached if you take the time to make good content.
Good luck!
If you didn't know, backlinks are, in a way, like votes for your site. They are links from other sites to your site, and Google treats them like votes because it knows that if someone is linking from their site to your site they presumably think your information is good enough to send their people to check it out. The more votes you get, the more credible your site is, and the higher you climb on the search engine rankings.
Today I thought I'd let you in on one of the places I go to create some backlinks for me. It's called GoArticles. It's basically an article submission website. You go there, sign up, and start writing. Within the articles you can include two links to where ever you want. Presumably, you'd want these links to go to one your web based properties.
One word of caution, though, before you go out writing like a bandit. The law firm internet marketing posting rules apply to GoArticles just like they do here. If you want Google to give you any credit the article must be at least 300 words long. It's go to make sense, and it can't be copied.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you go out and hire some search engine optimization specialist, make sure they don't just submit a bunch of junky articles, because they aren't going to help. Your marketing objectives can only be reached if you take the time to make good content.
Good luck!
6.10.2010
Law Firm Internet Marketing | Effective Marketing
Although I love talking about law firm internet marketing and how to get your website to number one on Google, it is important to remember that there is more to it than that. Just getting to number one on Google isn't going to be any good if people don't know what to do when they get there. So today, I thought I'd talk a little bit more about effective marketing of your law firm website.
One of the first things you need to think about with your law firm internet marketing efforts is something called a "call to action." The call to action is something utilized by all great marketing people and what it does is kind of what the name implies - it tells people what they should do now that they've found your site.
The call to action can be something as simple as "call us today at 555-5555." But it needs to be something. Where people fall flat is that there is often no information on what a potential client should do now that they've reached your site and want to take the next step.
And the best thing is, this is something you can do without wasting any of your marketing consulting budget (if you have one). All it takes is thinking about what you want your potential clients to do and then telling them to do it.
For example, on my site right now I've got a couple of things people can do to take a next step. First, they can look at one of my several how to guides. Second, they can call to schedule a free consultation. In the very near future, there will be a video on there that they can look at to see who I am and what I've got to offer.
Law firm marketing, in the end, is all about getting people to know, like, and trust you. They have to think that you are the person for them. Do that, and the rest is easy. And the great thing about it is, the prospective client can do most of the work before they even call you.
One of the first things you need to think about with your law firm internet marketing efforts is something called a "call to action." The call to action is something utilized by all great marketing people and what it does is kind of what the name implies - it tells people what they should do now that they've found your site.
The call to action can be something as simple as "call us today at 555-5555." But it needs to be something. Where people fall flat is that there is often no information on what a potential client should do now that they've reached your site and want to take the next step.
And the best thing is, this is something you can do without wasting any of your marketing consulting budget (if you have one). All it takes is thinking about what you want your potential clients to do and then telling them to do it.
For example, on my site right now I've got a couple of things people can do to take a next step. First, they can look at one of my several how to guides. Second, they can call to schedule a free consultation. In the very near future, there will be a video on there that they can look at to see who I am and what I've got to offer.
Law firm marketing, in the end, is all about getting people to know, like, and trust you. They have to think that you are the person for them. Do that, and the rest is easy. And the great thing about it is, the prospective client can do most of the work before they even call you.
6.09.2010
Law Firm Internet Marketing | Comment Spam
One thing I like to do, now that I know a little bit about how this stuff works, is to talk to people that call me and want to sell me their law firm internet marketing services. I ask them exactly what they are going to do, how they are going to do it, and to clarify what "first page of Google" really means (most often it means stick some ads up there for you, which are not really that helpful.
When you ask what they are going to do they'll tell you they make up a lot of articles, submit them to a bunch of directories, and do some other undercover stuff to get you moving up the search engines. They'll tell you their marketing plan and marketing goals are the best around and they get results. And sometimes they'll be honest and tell you they are going to go and comment on a bunch of prominent legal blogs, like you are supposed to be wowed by this. They'll talk about backlinks and then talk about how each comment allows them to put a link in, helping you out.
Except they don't.
Comment spam, which is what I call this practice, does nothing more than piss people off and tell Google that you are trying to artificially increase your Google ranking. See, most comment sections on blogs and websites are what is called "nofollow." This means there is some special code inserted into the link which tells the computers that work for Google to skip over the link, giving it no credit. It's as if the link doesn't even exist.
Now, if you talk to the marketers, they'll tell you their marketing objectives include getting more eyeballs, and that some of those links, even though they don't work, will lead to click throughs. And it's true that they might, if the comments that were left had any thought put into them at all. For the most part they say things like "hey, great blog, keep it up" with a link right after that.
Your search engine marketing specialists, for the most part, are selling you bunk. Stay away, stick to the plan, and watch your Google ranking soar. If you want to be successful with law firm marketing, you have to do it above board. Otherwise it could all come crashing down.
When you ask what they are going to do they'll tell you they make up a lot of articles, submit them to a bunch of directories, and do some other undercover stuff to get you moving up the search engines. They'll tell you their marketing plan and marketing goals are the best around and they get results. And sometimes they'll be honest and tell you they are going to go and comment on a bunch of prominent legal blogs, like you are supposed to be wowed by this. They'll talk about backlinks and then talk about how each comment allows them to put a link in, helping you out.
Except they don't.
Comment spam, which is what I call this practice, does nothing more than piss people off and tell Google that you are trying to artificially increase your Google ranking. See, most comment sections on blogs and websites are what is called "nofollow." This means there is some special code inserted into the link which tells the computers that work for Google to skip over the link, giving it no credit. It's as if the link doesn't even exist.
Now, if you talk to the marketers, they'll tell you their marketing objectives include getting more eyeballs, and that some of those links, even though they don't work, will lead to click throughs. And it's true that they might, if the comments that were left had any thought put into them at all. For the most part they say things like "hey, great blog, keep it up" with a link right after that.
Your search engine marketing specialists, for the most part, are selling you bunk. Stay away, stick to the plan, and watch your Google ranking soar. If you want to be successful with law firm marketing, you have to do it above board. Otherwise it could all come crashing down.
Law Firm Internet Marketing | Daily Routine
One of the hardest things to figure out when you first get started on your law firm internet marketing journey is where to begin. It seems like there are a million things to do, and you should do them all at once, and it creates such a discombobulation (at least it did for me) that I ended up paralyzed and not knowing what to do. I also ended up not knowing if I was doing everything in the right order or not.
Well, today is your lucky day for two reasons. First, I'm going to tell you what I do on a daily basis to work on my law firm internet marketing stuff. Second, I'm going to give you two posts today since I ran out of time yesterday (you didn't think I was just going to quit after two days did you?!).
Before I get too far, when I tell you what I do every day, it might blow your mind a little bit (maybe it won't). You just have to think of it in terms of sitting down and knocking it out. It probably takes two hours a day. That just means instead of two hours of television you sit down and do this. You don't have to be a search engine optimization specialist to get the results you want. You just have to work at it.
I don't spend all of my time doing this. You all know that I'm a DUI/criminal attorney. And you know how time consuming that can be (thankfully I'm not strapped to the billable hour, so it's not SO bad, but still, I'm a pretty busy guy).
Here we go. Right now I have 5 SEO projects going on. Some are work related, some are internet marketing related. Some are for fun (like this one). Every day, this is what I do.
First, I have two static websites that I use for my practice. Every day I write one article directed to each one (two articles total) and their subpages. I used to do an article a day to the home page and an article a day to two subpages (two links in each article, 4 articles total) before I was in the top 5 of the search results for most of my keywords.
Second, for each of my 3 internet projects I write one post (like this) and one article every day. That's a total of six projects. So, every day I do eight projects. It takes me about 2 1/2 hours to do that, and some of it is because I'm still perfecting my system, so I spend a little bit of time tweaking that.
Now, when I write my posts, like any good SEO expert (ha!) I target them for specific keywords, my keywords (like law firm marketing, for example). Then I go out and write an article (you can't duplicate content) at one of several locations to create some backlinks. The places I write articles are hubpages, squidoo, goarticles, ezine articles, and infobarrels. They all have guidelines you have to meet, and because of that, Google loves them.
Tired of writing articles yet? Then keep going. In no time not only will your law firm website start climbing the search engine rankings, you yourself will become the search engine optimization guru you thought you could never be.
Well, today is your lucky day for two reasons. First, I'm going to tell you what I do on a daily basis to work on my law firm internet marketing stuff. Second, I'm going to give you two posts today since I ran out of time yesterday (you didn't think I was just going to quit after two days did you?!).
Before I get too far, when I tell you what I do every day, it might blow your mind a little bit (maybe it won't). You just have to think of it in terms of sitting down and knocking it out. It probably takes two hours a day. That just means instead of two hours of television you sit down and do this. You don't have to be a search engine optimization specialist to get the results you want. You just have to work at it.
I don't spend all of my time doing this. You all know that I'm a DUI/criminal attorney. And you know how time consuming that can be (thankfully I'm not strapped to the billable hour, so it's not SO bad, but still, I'm a pretty busy guy).
Here we go. Right now I have 5 SEO projects going on. Some are work related, some are internet marketing related. Some are for fun (like this one). Every day, this is what I do.
First, I have two static websites that I use for my practice. Every day I write one article directed to each one (two articles total) and their subpages. I used to do an article a day to the home page and an article a day to two subpages (two links in each article, 4 articles total) before I was in the top 5 of the search results for most of my keywords.
Second, for each of my 3 internet projects I write one post (like this) and one article every day. That's a total of six projects. So, every day I do eight projects. It takes me about 2 1/2 hours to do that, and some of it is because I'm still perfecting my system, so I spend a little bit of time tweaking that.
Now, when I write my posts, like any good SEO expert (ha!) I target them for specific keywords, my keywords (like law firm marketing, for example). Then I go out and write an article (you can't duplicate content) at one of several locations to create some backlinks. The places I write articles are hubpages, squidoo, goarticles, ezine articles, and infobarrels. They all have guidelines you have to meet, and because of that, Google loves them.
Tired of writing articles yet? Then keep going. In no time not only will your law firm website start climbing the search engine rankings, you yourself will become the search engine optimization guru you thought you could never be.
6.07.2010
Why Your Posts Should Be At Least 300 Words
If you're new to the search engine optimization game, you probably have a thousand questions about what you should do. It can seem like a great abyss of information out there, and everyone seems to be promoting something different. Well, today is your lucky day, because I'm going to tell you the secret to at least starting your search engine marketing journey - write decent posts of at least 300 words.We've already talked about this before, but the goal of your blog, when you create one and start writing, is not necessarily to get a bunch of readers. Quite the contrary, you really never care if anyone reads it. Part of your law firm internet marketing efforts include continuously providing yourself ways to create great links that you can forward on to the sites you want to promote.
But that doesn't mean you get to write crappy stuff.
Although Google doesn't have someone out there that reads all of your posts, it does have some pretty fancy computer programs out there that can tell when you're writing crap. This is how people can call you and claim to be providing affordable search engine optimization help. They are just going to go out and create a bunch of crappy links and charge you for it.
Back to 300 words. This is about the length that it takes to say anything meaningful. Sure, you can say it in less. Many people have and many people will. But the Google robots that read your posts really like anything that is greater than 300. And they like the sentences to make sense. If they don't you may get some real eyes on your blog, and then you may have your blog deindexed, never to be found, or have your links counted.
Like I've been saying this entire time, you don't need an SEO expert or marketing consulting expert to help you out. You just need a little elbow grease, a little time, and a desire to make out here in the great expanse that is the Internet. Happy writing!
6.06.2010
Law Firm Internet Marketing | A Few Changes
Okay, here we are, day two of my law firm internet marketing challenge, and I think that you can already see that some serious changes are taking place. This is because if you want to get to the top of Google, you have to work for it. It just doesn't happen. You just have to remember that Rome wasn't built in a day, and your internet presence can't be built in a day either.
One other thing I wanted to mention here too. As you start to learn about how this stuff actually works, you are going to start asking the people calling you and trying to sell you marketing consulting services some very different questions, and their answers are going to blow your mind. See, what you will be doing here the search engine marketing consultant won't be able to do. They just can't devote the appropriate attention your specific site requires. Think about that the next time a web marketing consultant calls.
Okay, to the changes. The first significant change you can see is that there is now a static page above my posts. It's only about 100 words long, but it is filled with great stuff about law firm internet marketing, telling all of you and Google exactly what this site is about. You don't need to necessarily do that for your site, but it doesn't hurt. It can also make your blog look a lot more like a static web page with blog posts below it.
The second thing you'll notice is that I'm posting on here two days in a row. Before I issued this law firm marketing challenge to myself I was only writing here once a week. Bottom line here is if you want to rank high in Google you've got to work for it.
So, today I'm writing this post, focused on marketing consulting work and how not to get shafted by search engine marketing consulting, and it will have a link pointing back to my home page and probably a link pointing to the post I did yesterday. This internal linking just helps to make everything else stronger.
When I'm done writing this post I'm going to go to goarticles.com and write an article about this subject. Then I'm going to include a link to this page and to the home page. The links will be keyword helpful. This helps Google to see that this site is not just out there for no reason, it's chock full of great information.
Happy law firm internet marketing! I'll probably see you here again tomorrow!
One other thing I wanted to mention here too. As you start to learn about how this stuff actually works, you are going to start asking the people calling you and trying to sell you marketing consulting services some very different questions, and their answers are going to blow your mind. See, what you will be doing here the search engine marketing consultant won't be able to do. They just can't devote the appropriate attention your specific site requires. Think about that the next time a web marketing consultant calls.
Okay, to the changes. The first significant change you can see is that there is now a static page above my posts. It's only about 100 words long, but it is filled with great stuff about law firm internet marketing, telling all of you and Google exactly what this site is about. You don't need to necessarily do that for your site, but it doesn't hurt. It can also make your blog look a lot more like a static web page with blog posts below it.
The second thing you'll notice is that I'm posting on here two days in a row. Before I issued this law firm marketing challenge to myself I was only writing here once a week. Bottom line here is if you want to rank high in Google you've got to work for it.
So, today I'm writing this post, focused on marketing consulting work and how not to get shafted by search engine marketing consulting, and it will have a link pointing back to my home page and probably a link pointing to the post I did yesterday. This internal linking just helps to make everything else stronger.
When I'm done writing this post I'm going to go to goarticles.com and write an article about this subject. Then I'm going to include a link to this page and to the home page. The links will be keyword helpful. This helps Google to see that this site is not just out there for no reason, it's chock full of great information.
Happy law firm internet marketing! I'll probably see you here again tomorrow!
6.05.2010
Law Firm Internet Marketing | A Challenge
I've been thinking about it, and I like to challenge myself to do things that others might think impossible. So, here's what I'm going to do. I've laid down the gauntlet to myself. I'm going to try to get this site ranking number one for law firm internet marketing. I figure I'm telling you all how to do this stuff, I might as well at least show you I know what I'm talking about.
To mark my progress, I did a google search for "law firm internet marketing." I went through the first 200 results and didn't see anything, which means, for the most part, I don't exist on the internet as it relates to law firm marketing. And that's okay. In fact, I would expect nothing less. Why, you might be asking? Here's why.
If you read my last post on law firm blogging, you now at least have the bare bones to put together a blog and start posting. But there's more to it than that. Not much more, but more, and that extra thing is the most important thing there is out there. I've been writing this blog since April 1, 2009, and I'm still not getting picked up.
So, here we go. Each week I'll track my progress for you and let you know where I stand. I'm only going to be searching one term - law firm internet marketing. It doesn't count if I get up there for other, close terms. I have no idea how long it will take, but it shouldn't take more than six months. So here, my full challenge, rank #1 for law firm internet marketing by January 1, 2011.
Let's see if I can do it!
Oh, and by the way, I know you are waiting for that second lesson on how to get your blog going. You'll just have to wait until next week!!
To mark my progress, I did a google search for "law firm internet marketing." I went through the first 200 results and didn't see anything, which means, for the most part, I don't exist on the internet as it relates to law firm marketing. And that's okay. In fact, I would expect nothing less. Why, you might be asking? Here's why.
If you read my last post on law firm blogging, you now at least have the bare bones to put together a blog and start posting. But there's more to it than that. Not much more, but more, and that extra thing is the most important thing there is out there. I've been writing this blog since April 1, 2009, and I'm still not getting picked up.
So, here we go. Each week I'll track my progress for you and let you know where I stand. I'm only going to be searching one term - law firm internet marketing. It doesn't count if I get up there for other, close terms. I have no idea how long it will take, but it shouldn't take more than six months. So here, my full challenge, rank #1 for law firm internet marketing by January 1, 2011.
Let's see if I can do it!
Oh, and by the way, I know you are waiting for that second lesson on how to get your blog going. You'll just have to wait until next week!!
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