Smart SEO for Lawyers
Everything You Need to Know in 60 Minutes
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Outline
• The Search Stool– Content– Authority
• Links• The New Authority
– Technology• Local Search• Avoid• Free Tools• New New New Stuff• 11 10 Things you can do in 10 minutes
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Introduction
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Content and Competition
• Understand how competitive your space is– Name– Practice area– Geography
• In competitive markets, verbal nuance is important– Lawyer vs. Attorney– Name and Attorney– Name nuance– Geography nuance– Practice area nuance
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
The Search Stool
TechnologyContent
Authority (Links & more)
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Leg 1: ContentWhat is a webpage about?
Key Factors• Keyword density • Important Indicators
– Title Tag– URL– H1 Tag
– Meta description
• Uniqueness and freshness of content
Title Tag
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Content: Anatomy of a Webpage
Title Tag
URL
H1
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Common Mistake #1:A page about nothing
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Common Mistake #2:A page about everything
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Common Mistake #3:Copying content
Inlinks: 68Inlinks: 121http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Common Mistake #4:Firm name as the title tag on every page
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Leg 2: Links
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Leg 2: LinksHow important is a website?
Key Factors• Anchor Text
– Click here– Avvo– Rate your Lawyer
• Number of links• Quality of links (Authority and Relevance of linking site)• Homepage links • Internal links• Attracting Links
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Common mistake #5: Not optimizing anchor text
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Common mistake #6: Static Sites aren’t Linkworthy
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Common mistake #7: Hosting your blog on a different domain
Inlinks: 5,072 Inlinks: 151,158http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Counting Your Links
• www.blekko.com• Open Site Explorer• Majestic SEO• Google Webmaster Tools
• Links that Don’t Count:– No Follow Links
• Monitor w/(Quirk SearchStatus download)– Firewalled Links
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
The New Authority: Social
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
The New Authority:Social Graph
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
The New Authority:Personalized Search
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Leg 3: TechnologyCan the search engines find and read the webpage?
Key Factors• Simple URL’s in plain English• 1 Page : 1 URL• Standard links
– Avoid:• Flash• Java• Images
• How to surf like a spider– Turn off images– Turn off javascript– Turn off flash
According to Google, these are different pages:
http://avvo.com
http://www.avvo.com
http://www.avvo.com?pageid=458
http://www.avvo.com&reference=msn
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Counting your Indexed pages
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Common Mistake #8:Google can’t navigate a site
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Common Mistake #9:using a Page ID in the URL
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Common Mistake #10:http://website.com vs. http://www.website.com
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
LOCAL SEARCH
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Local Search
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Google Local
• Consistency of – Phone– Address– Website– Business Name
• Across– Your Website– Major Directories– Vertical Directories
• 5 descriptors – Car Accident Lawyer
NOT Car Accident• Tracking Phone
Number Issues
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
v
How Does Google Assemble a Business Listing
Source: Mike Blumenthal www.blumenthals.comhttp://www.thelegalconnection.com
How Does Google PlacesAssemble a Business Listing
Places
Dash.
Data1
Data2 Data2 Feed1
Feed2
Web1 Web2 UserEdits
Name Y X X X X X XAddress X X X X Y YPhone Y X X X X X X XWeb X X XCategory X X X XReviews X X X XGeoInfo X X XCitations X X XAdditional Details X X X
Source: Mike Blumenthal www.blumenthals.comhttp://www.thelegalconnection.com
Claim Online Presence
Primary Data SourceClaim listings from the principalsecondary data suppliers/sites:
• SuperPages• Yahoo, Bing• Yelp, Facebook• Avvo.com & Other Industry Directories• HotFrog, YellowBot, Kudzu• Note: You claim it. You own it.
Source: Mike Blumenthal www.blumenthals.comhttp://www.thelegalconnection.com
Local Ranking
• Social & GeoReferences• Citations & In-bound Links• Reviews
Source: Mike Blumenthal www.blumenthals.comhttp://www.thelegalconnection.com
What is a Citation?
Business Name Or Number
Phone NumberAddressLink
Source: Mike Blumenthal www.blumenthals.comhttp://www.thelegalconnection.com
Ranking Report Rant:Local and other Stuff
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Ranking Report Rant:Query Variations
Seattle DUI Lawyer DUI Attorney in SeattleDUI Lawyer, Seattle WADrunk driving lawyer in King CountyUnder the influence driving Seattle attorneySeattle DUI AttorneyDUI Laywer SeattleDUI Lawyers in SeattleTop Seattle lawyer for DUI Drunk driving attorneyBest drunk driving lawyers in SeattleSeattle Lawyers overturn dui verdictSeattle OUI LawyersLawyer to expunge DUI from record in SeattleNorth Seattle DUI LawyerAvoiding DUI in SeattleSeattle lawyers to beat drunk driving Multiple offense DUI lawyerDriving under the influence lawyerDUI LawyerBest seattle DUI attorneysPro bono Seattle DUI lawyerNeed a DUI attorney in seattleBest seattle DUI lawyersDUI law firms in WAAttorney in Seattle for DUISeattle’s best DUI attorneySeattle Drunk Driving Lawyers Need attorney in Seattle to get me off DUI arresthttp://www.thelegalconnection.com
Ranking Report Rant:The Long Tail
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Ranking Report:The Long Tail
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
“Tattoo Story” SEO Keywordstattootattoo picturetattoo picturesтатуtatoogame of lifeunity tattoospeaker tattootattoo photoscourage tattoocourage tattoosgame of life tattootattoosgame tattoogambar tattootattoo imagescraig tattoothe tattootattotattoo picstattoos photospics of tattoospictures of tattoosquestion mark tattoovideo game tattooschinese character tattootattoo#i=51
action tattoolife sentence tattooloudspeaker tattoopicture tattoospeaker tattoosstoryline tattoostatoostattoo choose lifetattoo phototattoo pictattoxunity tattoosanchor tattoocourage tattogame tattoslife gamelifer tattooname tattosnative tattoonative tattoosquestion mark tattoosstrength courage tattoostrength tattoosstrength tattostatto spekerchinese characters tattoochinese symbols tattoocourage and strength tattoosstrength and courage tattooslawyer tattootattoos pictures
craig's tattoocraigs tattoodivorce tattoohardcore tattoohoror tattohorror storyhorror tattoohorror tattoosimage tattooimages of tattooslawyers with tattoolife tattoosnative indian tattoosphotos of tattoopic of tattoospic tattoopictures of tattoopictures tattoopictures tattoospix of tattoossentence tattoostreangth tattoosstrengthstrength and courage tattoostrength courage tattoosstrength tattoostrenth tatoostato horrortatoo horortatoootattoo about lifetattoo action
tattoo chinese symbolstattoo designstattoo for lifetattoo fotostattoo horror storiestattoo imagetattoo of lifetattoos for strength and couragetatttotatttoothe game tatoosthe game tattoosunity tattoo designstattoo libeltattoo#i=2tattoos picsvideo game tattooصور وشموشم
-3 tattoo^tattoo
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
NEW NEW NEW STUFF
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
EMD Update
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Map Spam
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
11 Things you can doin 10 Minutes
Competition1. Benchmark where you rank on Google for:
• Your name• Your geo/specialty
2. Understand your website’s authority• PageRank• # of inlinks
Content3. Ensure your geo/specialty is the focus of your homepage.
• URL• H1 Tag• Title Tag• Content
4. Optimize your bio page for your name.• URL (www.website.com/bill-smith)• H1 Tag• Title Tag• Content
5. Remove your firm name from every title tag and rewrite them to focus on the specific page’s content.
6. Add you phone number and address to local directories like Avvohttp://www.thelegalconnection.com
11 Things you can doin 10 Minutes
Linkbuilding7. Add your website to Avvo.8. Make sure the links on your website are descriptive.
Technology9. Are all of your pages indexed?10. Type in yourwebsite.com into the browser toolbar.
Does it automatically redirect to http://www.yourwebsite.com?
11. Review all of your URLs for a ?, #, =, %. If you find any, they can probably be optimized.
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Avoid• Duplicate content• Any guarantees from anyone • Cheating on linkbuilding
– Buying links– Link exchanges– Linkfarms
• SEO’s paid by performance
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Beginner’s Toolkit (free)• Page Rank• Google Analytics• Counting Links: Google Webmaster Tools (your own
site only) www.blekko.com; www.majesticseo.com; www.opensiteexplorer.com;
• Google to check indexed page count (site:www.website.com)
• Google Adwords Keyword Tool for keyword research • Right click any webpage, view source, search for “meta”
or “H1”• Webmaster Tools
– Google– Bing– Yahoo
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
SEO ConsultantsI Personally Endorse
• Steve Matthews – Stem Legal – great Canadian focused on legal.
• Ian Lurie - Well regarded, do a paid, high quality audit. http://www.portentinteractive.com/landers/get-10-things-to-improve-your.htm [email protected]
• Will Scott, Search Influence (Drop my name for this guy). [email protected]
• Will Critchlow – Distilled Media (Will knows me. UK based, but I think they have a seattle office now.) http://www.distilled.co.uk/company/media.html
• Local: David Mihm and Mike Blumenthal
http://www.thelegalconnection.com
Smart SEO for Lawyers
Everything You Need to Know in 60 Minutes
http://www.thelegalconnection.com