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 ian@portent.com

• Will Scott, Search Influence (Drop my name for this guy). wscott@searchinfluence.com

• 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