Business Edge

About a hundred years ago (ok, it was 15 years ago) when Business Edge first began designing law firm web sites, the managing partner of one of New England largest law firms turned to me during a meeting. He was smiling and was perhaps just a little smug as he exclaimed, "we'll never get a new client as a result of our web site." I knew then that he was wrong, even in that primitive Internet era, but in 1996 I wasn't able to quantify it.

This was a corporate law firm with over 100 attorneys, and although in 2011 a firm that size STILL may not be using advanced SEO techniques to improve their web site results, there is no doubt in my mind that they absolutely have to be. As firm's traditional "word of mouth" and referral business slows and Internet marketing becomes responsible for a higher percentage of new accounts, the performance of a law firm's web site in search engines will have a market value not just in the thousands, but quite possibly in the millions.

SEO, like the quality and reach and breadth of your web site, is becoming one of the most critical tools available to your law firm marketing team.

With that in mind, we've developed a list of the five most important rules in law firm search engine marketing.Drum roll please....

Rule 1 - The best content usually wins
Well-written original content is still the backbone of any forward-thinking marketing effort. Much of the writing should be initiated by attorneys at your firm, with marketing support if it is available. But a good SEO specialist should also tweak this content so it performs better in search engines. This is not a task to be taken lightly - your content in the hands of an SEO developer unfamiliar with legal industry jargon could be a disaster. The last thing you want are hits to a web page that contains gibberish or incorrect information.

Rule 2 - "Good" sites linking to you demonstrates the importance of your site.
This rule is at the core of Google algorithm, and all the other major search engines have in fact emulated it. The more that respectable sites link to you, the higher your site's "relative worth" becomes. Therefore, it makes sense to be linked to from as many good online sources as possible (not just ONE large site, like Findlaw). Developing these linking sites takes time and should be done by a respectable and knowledgeable SEO professional; they will not only know which sites are "respectable", but they will also avoid the ones which are not.

Rule 3 - Don't promote "bad" incoming links while trying to follow Rule #2
One of the most disastrous things you can do to your law firm's domain property is to hire someone who inadvertently creates links from "bad" sites to your law firm site. This can cause extreme and long-lasting damage to your domain's search engine visibility - we have seen this happen time and time again. We have spent countless hours trying to help clients fix these problems and removing bad incoming links that a previous SEO person was responsible for. Sites like Google can tell the difference between a valuable site linking to you and some sketchy "link farm" linking to you. These "Link Farms" are set up for no other reason than to create links for unscrupulous SEO companies - there are few if any professional SEO consultants who use paid links or "Link Farms" anymore. Our philosophy is to remain within the published guidelines of Yahoo, Google, and other sites so you will slowly increase your search results without ever being penalized.

Rule 4 - You don't need $10K a month for an effective Pay Per Click campaigns
More and more law firms are throwing their hats into the Pay Per Click (PPC) ring, and for good reason - it usually works. Right now the majority of PPC ads you'll see in legal search results are for Personal Injury (PI), but that is not because PI firms are the only ones who can benefit from an intelligent PPC campaign. We'll work with you to create an effective campaign, no matter what your practice specializes in, no matter what your budget. A good SEO professional will help research specific keywords, suggest additional words and phrases, adjust them based on results, and provide reports showing results.

Rule 5 - Develop an effective vehicle for clients to contact you
To an Internet consulting firm this is a no-brainer, but often we find that marketing campaigns hit dead-ends when a potential client can't find a good contact form or phone number. It might go without saying that once you present your services to a potential client, you should not only make it easy to contact you and give you their contact details, but you should also be able to track how the customer found your site in the first place. E-tracking of new clients can give us a better handle on what ideas are working, and which ideas are not.

Any SEO project requires a detailed evaluation of your web site, including

• Competitor analysis (to see what the bad guys are doing right)
• Keyword research (to see what your site is currently doing well)
• A code/design evaluation (to see what your web developer did or did not do right).