The competition for personal injury law firms to get
noticed on the Internet is fierce. You can have the best
website around, but if it isn't on the first or second page
of Google, it is "invisible." Getting placed well in Google
is not a matter of luck nor is it necessarily a reflection
of how much money you are spending. Here are some things to
remember about search engine optimization (SEO):
1. Think about your web visitors like foot traffic to a
retail store. You can either go for quantify or quality.
SEO is like advertising to Google's "shoppers" on the web.
The more advertising that is done to promote the store, the
more potential shoppers will stop by the store.
2. Link equity is a powerful tool for SEO. Link equity is
having other web pages point to your site as a source of
information. The more quality sites that point to your site
the higher your page ranking, but your web site should be
linked to others as well. This is known as reciprocal
linking. Beware of "link farms" and of exchanging links
with junk sites. These can pull your Google ranking down.
3. The age of your website is important. While you can't do
much about how old your website is you can make sure that
your domain name does not expire. There are actually
services out there that track expired domain names so that
others can obtain them. Letting your old domain name expire
and be scooped up by your competition would be like having
another law firm get your phone number before you have
moved. Also, if you end up not liking the domain name you
chose years ago, you can still keep it, buy another, more
interesting name, and have the second name point to the
older name.
4. Unique published original content that is relevant to
your practice area is key to good placement on Google. The
very best way is to do it yourself, since you are the one
who knows your business best. Consult with an experienced
SEO expert to become knowledgeable about how to write
content, generally, but you know your story and you know
what interests consumers so you be the writer. With
billable hours, family time and everything else that has to
be done the attorney may not be able to provide the new
content.
In some cases you may be able to hire a ghost writer for
some or all of your content. The goal of using the ghost
writer is for them to get you 80% of the way there. Give
your ghost writer good resources to look at for article
ideas. Have them sketch out the article for you. You
however, are the one that needs to add your "personality"
to the article.
An older personal injury web site that is rich in relevant
and interesting content and which links with other quality
sites should find itself placing well in Google.
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Ben Glass is a personal injury attorney in Fairfax,
Virginia. He is the creator of the Ultimate Personal Injury
Practice Building Toolkit. He runs mastermind and coaching
groups, and conducts marketing seminars for attorneys,
teaching "Effective, Ethical and Outside the Box
Marketing." You can find out more about Ben Glass and get a
free 3 hour CD set on marketing by visiting
http://www.GreatLegalMarketing.com
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