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Law Office of Matthew V. Portella, LLC

SEO Discovery Audit

Rankings.io SEO Audit | © 2018 |

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Law Office of Matthew V. Portella, LLC ........................................................................................... 1

2. SEO Discovery Audit ........................................................................................................................ 1

3. CONTENT BRIEF ................................................................................................................................ 3

4. Section I ........................................................................................................................................... 5

I. TITLE TAGS .........................................................................................................................................................5

II. META DESCRIPTION TAGS ............................................................................................................................... 14

III. HEADER TAGS (H1, H2, H3, etc.) ..................................................................................................................... 15

IV. IMAGE OPTIMIZATION ................................................................................................................................... 16

V. URL STRUCTURE ............................................................................................................................................. 17

VI. DUPLICATE CONTENT ..................................................................................................................................... 21

VII. MOBILE FRIENDLINESS ................................................................................................................................... 22

VIII. WEBSITE SPEED ............................................................................................................................................ 24

IX. USABILITY ...................................................................................................................................................... 25

5. Section II ........................................................................................................................................ 26

I. KEYWORD OPPORTUNITIES............................................................................................................................... 27

6. Section III ....................................................................................................................................... 39

I. GOOGLE MY BUSINESS OPTIMIZATION .............................................................................................................. 39

II. BACKLINKS ...................................................................................................................................................... 42

Referring Domains .............................................................................................................................................. 42

III. COMPETITOR ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................................. 43

7. Section IV ....................................................................................................................................... 68


CONTENT BRIEF

CLIENT OVERVIEW

IMAGE SOURCE: AHREFS

* Analysis:

The Law Office of Matthew V. Portella, LLC is an experienced criminal defense

law firm based in New Jersey proudly serving multiple locations

Primary locations are Haddon Heights and Mays Landing, New Jersey

Site contains approximately 220 HTML documents; 134 indexed

Site vital statistics

o 20 live referring domains

o 87 live backlinks

o 27/mo organic traffic (estimated—ahrefs)

o $9/mo traffic value

o DR7 Domain Rating

Link Power Rating Distribution

o 97% of links are DR0-10


Top pages which bring in the most traffic and their respective seed keyword

(listed in order of traffic share):


o Home > Blog > Atlantic City—A Crumbling Gambling Empire With High

Crime Rates – atlantic city crime

o Home – matt portella

o Home > Blog > New Jersey Police Arrest Log For Sept. 29 To Oct. 8 –

alexis caravella

o Home > DWI/DUI Defense > Misconceptions People Have When Arrested

for a DWI in New Jersey – nj dwi arrests

Most Trafficked Organic Keywords

IMAGE SOURCE: SEMRUSH

* Analysis:

The above chart from semrush.com details the keywords, rankings and percentage

of traffic brought into the firm’s site

We observed a distinct lack of actionable keywords – “nj criminal defense

lawyer,” “nj criminal lawyer,” etc. – and a dominant amount of informational

phrases

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/blog/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/atlantic-city-a-crumbling-gambling-empire-with-high-crime-rates/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/atlantic-city-a-crumbling-gambling-empire-with-high-crime-rates/



https://www.mvplawoffice.com/blog/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/new-jersey-police-arrest-log-for-sept-29-to-oct-8/


https://www.mvplawoffice.com/dwi-and-dui-defense/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/dwi-and-dui-defense/misconceptions-people-have-when-arrested-for-a-dwi-in-new-jersey/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/dwi-and-dui-defense/misconceptions-people-have-when-arrested-for-a-dwi-in-new-jersey/


o There is a direct correlation between ranking actionable keywords and the

number of referring domains going to a website

▪ Equity is required to rank in a competitive environment

o Additionally, the number of referring domains often equates to optimal

organic traffic performance

SECTION I

ON-SITE & TECHNICAL SEO

The foundation of a website’s successful performance in searches has a lot to do with

how the site is built and organized. Onsite SEO refers to optimization of web copy, page titles,

meta descriptions, URLs, and keyword analysis. We also tackle more sophisticated tasks, like

implementation of review schema and organizing content architecture to ensure a strong

foundation for a website to rank highly in search-engine results.

I. TITLE TAGS


* Analysis:

Keyword research plays a vital role in title tags, onsite SEO and rankings

o Keywords placed in a title tag set the stage for the page’s entire

optimization process

o Title tags also work in concert with offsite SEO

▪ Our link building team will sync-up our link outreach by optimizing

your anchor text to the page title tags

• This will yield a harmonious campaign that will give your firm

a distinct advantage over the competition

Below you will find a list of well-researched keywords for your firm’s legal

services in the following locations:

o New Jersey (home page)

o Haddon Heights

o Mays Landing

New Jersey State Keywords



Note: Search volume and CPC data provided by ahrefs.com is often lower than the data provided by Google

* Recommendations:

New Jersey, as a GEO/location, has more search volume and often consumer

intent than the towns contained within it

For this reason, we strongly recommend optimizing mvplawoffice.com for New

Jersey state on the front end as a “hub,” and then utilizing a similar hub system for

the smaller locations as inner pages


o At the moment, only the home page is optimized for New Jersey; the

practice area pages are optimized for national queries

We’ll get into the architecture of this in the URL Structure section, but here we’ll

discuss title tag strategy, which is a major ranking factor that will move your

firm’s site in Google

We recommend the following optimization strategy for proper targeting:

o Optimize the home page for “New Jersey criminal defense lawyer” plus

your brand (“Matthew Portella”)

▪ Thanks to the equity of the home page, you will rank easier for NJ

state keywords

• Expand content length substantially on the home page

Instead of a category-based navigation, consider a legal services-based navigation

of key areas in criminal defense

For example, here’s how some of the New Jersey title tags could look with some

navigation tab examples:

o Home: New Jersey Criminal Defense Lawyer | NJ Law Office of Matthew

Portella

o Drug Defense: New Jersey Drug Defense Lawyer | NJ Drug Charge

Attorney

▪ New content may need to be created for some of these pages

▪ Proper URL structure and organization needs to be maintained

o DUI: New Jersey DUI Lawyer | NJ DWI Attorney Matthew Portella

Next, build out a “criminal defense” hub for every location page

o Haddon Heights

o Mays Landing

▪ Create additional documents for legal services link out to them from

the hub



The goal here is to create an environment where one asset (page) is designated for

one seed keyword

o For “criminal defense” keywords, use those as opportunities to “hub” the

other criminal defense keywords together from an optimal UX standpoint

From a resource standpoint, the benefit is two-fold

o Less links is required

▪ We can send links to the hub instead of individual pages at times

▪ Equity will be dispersed to the practice area sub-pages

o As the home page authority increases, equity will flow to the hubs and

therefore the entire site (authority site model)

Haddon Heights, NJ Keywords



* Recommendations:

With a population of 7,544, search volume is very low comparatively on primary

keywords

o Still, there are searches for those keywords and the good news is

competition should be much less than state level

We recommend building out practice area pages for the above keywords

o House them under the Haddon Heights location “hub”

▪ mvplawoffice.com/haddon-heights-nj/dui-lawyer

▪ mvplawoffice.com/haddon-heights-nj/ [main criminal defense page]

▪ etc

o Optimize the Haddon Heights location hub for “criminal defense lawyer”

Mays Landing, NJ Keywords



* Recommendations:

With a smaller population than Haddon Heights (69% smaller), Mays Landing has

also maintained the same problem of not having identifiable keyword search

volume

That said, we recommend targeting all practice areas of interest

As with all locations, we suggest adhering to the recommended hub motif (see

Haddon Heights example above)

Title Tag Analysis

Title tags are the text you see in your browser tabs and in the blue hyperlinked text in search

engine results pages. They tell search engines and visitors what your page is about. Here are a

few suggestions with regards to your title tags:

LENGTH — 35% of your title tags are over the 65-character limit

o 6% are below the 30-character limit

DUPLICATE — 6% of your title tags are duplicates

IMAGE SOURCE: SCREAMING FROG



* Recommendations:

TOP PRIORITY — Relieve the 69 title tags (35%) that are currently over the

recommended limit of 65 characters by re-writing them

TOP PRIORITY — Identify & create new content for the 12 (6%) duplicate title

tags

TOP PRIORITY — Add content to the 13 (6%) tags below the 30-character limit

The firm brand name, “Matthew V. Portella,” is overused in the site title tags

o We recommend using it in the home page but sparsely on inner pages

o Consider removing it from some of the inner pages and using that real estate

for additional descriptive keyword text

Some of the firm’s practice area pages do not have a GEO modifier:

o Violations of Probation

o Expungements

o DWI/DUI Defense

o Superior Court / Indictable Offenses

o Municipal Court / Disorderly And Petty Disorderly Offenses

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/violations-of-probation/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/expungements/


https://www.mvplawoffice.com/criminal-defense/superior-court-indictable-offenses/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/criminal-defense/municipal-court-disorderly-and-petty-offenses/


II. META DESCRIPTION TAGS

Meta Description tags are the text you see in the search engine result pages (SERPs) underneath

your title tag. They are your virtual real estate "advertisement" area to tell the visitor what your

page has to offer.

Meta Description Usage

• MISSING — 43% of your website’s meta descriptions are missing

• DUPLICATE — 4% of meta descriptions are duplicates

• LENGTH — 26% are over the 155-character limit




* Recommendations:

TOP PRIORITY — Compose 84 (43%) new, compelling meta descriptions for

the missing items

TOP PRIORITY — Re-write the 9 (4%) duplicates into unique descriptions

TOP PRIORITY — Edit the 50 (26%) over the acceptable character limit

III. HEADER TAGS (H1, H2, H3, ETC.)

Headings are content on the page that is descriptive of the content underneath them. Search

engines crawl headings and web copy to learn what pages are about as well as what content on

the page is important. Here is a tip for optimizing headings:

KEYWORD USAGE — Header tags should contain the target keyword phrase for the page



IMAGE SOURCE: HTML

* Recommendations:

TOP PRIORITY — Identify and rewrite the duplicate (149) 77% header tags

TOP PRIORITY — Compose edited content for the (38) 19% header tags over

70-characters

TOP PRIORITY — Add new headers for the (2) 1% missing tags

We found multiple instances of opportunities for header tag improvements.

Header tags should closely mirror a properly optimized page title tag in a base

keyword with surrounding text to provide focus:

o The majority of the practice area pages do not have a header tag GEO

modifier

▪ Current: Expungements

▪ Suggested: New Jersey Expungement Lawyer

• Pro Tip: Use Google Search Console’s Fetch & Index tool for

near instant indexation in the SERPs once changes have been

implemented. It’s great for testing.

IV. IMAGE OPTIMIZATION


Alternative text allows you to add a description to an image. Since search engine crawlers

cannot see images, they rely on alternative text attributes to determine relevance to a search

query. Alternative text also helps make an image more likely to appear in a Google image

search and is used by screen readers to provide context for visually impaired users.

• MISSING ALT-TEXT – Warning! 56% of your images are missing ALT-text. This is

substantial. An accurate text description of an image is valuable to search engines, and

visually-impaired or blind website visitors. It’s also valuable to websites in potentially

generating traffic from image searches as well as avoiding losing potential customers.

• OVESIZED IMAGES – Warning! 3% of your site’s images exceed the 100 kb

recommended file size limit. Heavy graphics can weigh down load times and contribute

to poor user experience, especially for mobile users. Website speed is considered a

ranking factor by Google.


IMAGE SOURCE: HTML SOURCE CODE

* Recommendations:

TOP PRIORITY — Add content to the 18 (56%) images missing ALT-text

TOP PRIORITY — Optimize the 1 (3%) images over 100 KB in file size

V. URL STRUCTURE


Proper URL permalink structure optimization is essential when scaling content. It is also very

important to utilize keywords effectively in this location.


Schema Markup — Schema is especially important because the microdata it serves up will

allow Google to render rich snippets in the SERPs about your web site, including review stars,

attorney bio’s and more

a. The Law Office of Matthew V. Portella would benefit from additional Schema Markup

i. We recommend adding these additional schema markup tags:

1. Review

2. Person

3. LegalService

4. Organization

SiteMap — Your website has a sitemap.xml file, but does not link to it from the footer, which

we recommend site-wide

Equity Sculpting — To preserve on site equity (“link juice”), we recommend tagging non-

essential pages, such as the privacy policy, contact, etc., with “nofollow” tags

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/sitemap_index.xml


404 Error “Dead Pages” — A 404 Not Found Error status code means the page a visitor is

trying to find (and is also indexed by Google) cannot be found on your website. This poses two

problems: one with user experience and another with optimization, the latter in terms of

maintaining link equity. When a page status is deemed 404 (aka “dead”) by Google, it loses

some of its link equity. Proper measures must be maintained for 404 pages by 301 redirecting

them to relevant live pages

* Recommendations:

The following is a list of 404 error pages we found during your audit

o https://www.mvplawoffice.com/traffic-violations/an-overview-of-traffic-

crimes/

o https://www.mvplawoffice.com/expungement/general-information/an-

overview-of-expungement

Internal Linking Optimizations — Internal linking passes equity from within the site via

hyper links and gives pages categorization through anchor text. It is a vital component of onsite

SEO. During the course of our audit, we found some of the following inaccuracies

There is an internal linking strategy that does not take full advantage of existing

opportunities

With the blog, there are several articles, but do not interlink to key practice area pages

(examples [1], [2], etc)

o For instance, in the aforementioned DUI examples, one could link back to the DUI

legal services page

Inner URLs — During our research, we noticed several practice area pages had keyword

stuffed URL’s

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/traffic-violations/an-overview-of-traffic-crimes/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/traffic-violations/an-overview-of-traffic-crimes/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/expungement/general-information/an-overview-of-expungement

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/expungement/general-information/an-overview-of-expungement

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/9-people-charged-with-dui-at-route-37-checkpoint/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/off-duty-los-angeles-police-officer-charged-with-murder-in-dui-crash/




https://www.mvplawoffice.com/dwi-dui-defense/how-can-dwi-charges-be-defended-in-

new-jersey/

o To avoid over optimization, we recommend the following structures:

▪ mvplawoffice.com/dui-lawyer

▪ mvplawoffice.com/dui/

There are compartmentalized “hubs” for each main practice area:

o Disorderly & Petty Offenses

o DWI/DUI

o Traffic Offenses & Violations

o Expungements

▪ Hub main page has little content and links out to additional supporting

articles

▪ We recommend consolidating all of the hub content into one article and

posting it as the main page for maximum effectiveness

A “criminal defense” inner URL exists for a small hub relating to superior court offenses.

This lacks congruency with the site

o https://www.mvplawoffice.com/criminal-defense/

The county-based contact page inner URL’s are also keyword-stuffed:

o https://www.mvplawoffice.com/criminal-defense-dui-dwi-camden-county-nj/

o https://www.mvplawoffice.com/criminal-defense-dui-dwi-burlington-county-nj/

o https://www.mvplawoffice.com/criminal-defense-dui-dwi-atlantic-county-nj/

▪ We recommend truncating these URL strings. The title tag will carry over

the rest of the keyword relevancy into the page. Loading up the inner URL

with all major practice areas (i.e. criminal defense & DUI/DWI) is not

necessary

• mvplawoffice.com/camden-county-nj

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/dwi-dui-defense/how-can-dwi-charges-be-defended-in-new-jersey/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/dwi-dui-defense/how-can-dwi-charges-be-defended-in-new-jersey/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/criminal-defense/municipal-court-disorderly-and-petty-offenses/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/dwi-dui-defense/an-overview-of-dwi-dui-defense/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/traffic-violations/an-overview-of-traffic-offenses-and-violations/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/expungements/an-overview-of-expungement/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/criminal-defense/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/contact-us/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/criminal-defense-dui-dwi-camden-county-nj/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/criminal-defense-dui-dwi-burlington-county-nj/

https://www.mvplawoffice.com/criminal-defense-dui-dwi-atlantic-county-nj/


* Recommendations:

Scan entire site for internal linking errors

o Use a variety of anchor text

Consolidate content on practice area page hubs

Repair inner page URL’s

VI. DUPLICATE CONTENT

Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that

either completely match other content or are appreciably similar. Duplicate content can be very

detrimental to SEO efforts.

a. SITELINER

IMAGE SOURCE: SITELINER.COM


* Recommendations:

The duplicate content on your site measures in at 7%

Webpages are considered duplicate if they contain identical or nearly identical

content. Excessive duplicate content may prioritize in search results. Using

duplicated content across multiple pages confuse search engines as to which page

to index and which one to may lead to traffic loss and poor placement in search

results. Utilize the rel=canonical tag and/or 301 redirects to eliminate duplicate

content.

VII. MOBILE FRIENDLINESS

Mobile friendly websites make it easy for users to complete objectives and common tasks and

use a design or template that is consistent across all devices (uses responsive web design).

AMP - AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, a Google-backed project intended as an

open standard for any publisher to have pages load quickly on mobile devices.

IMAGE SOURCE: GOOGLE AMP TEST

Your site is not AMP validated.


IMAGE SOURCE: GOOGLE MOBILE-FRIENDLY TEST

IMAGE SOURCE: GOOGLE MOBILE-FRIENDLY TEST

MOBILE FRIENDLY – Your site passed the mobile friendly test. This is very important not

only for SEO, but for converting traffic into leads. A growing majority of visitors are using

mobile devices to browse the web.


IMAGE SOURCE: GOOGLE PAGE INSIGHTS

MOBILE SPEED – Your site scored 78/100 on Page Speed insights for speed tests. This is

considered a “medium” score.

Setup the site with AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). Google is giving preference to

pages created with its new technology, known as AMP, by placing them at the top of

mobile search results in the Top Stories area. Once Google becomes a “mobile-first”

index this could have a huge impact on the firm’s blog content.

Take advantage of AMP, compress images, minify CSS, minify HTML & minify

JavaScript to speed up your website not only on a mobile device but also desktop.

VIII. WEBSITE SPEED

Website speed has a huge impact on performance, affecting user experience, conversion rates

and even rankings. times, users are less likely to get distracted and the -By reducing page load

search engines are more likely to reward you by ranking your pages higher in the SERPs.

. competitorsConversion rates are far higher for websites that load faster than their slower

PAGESPEED INSIGHTS - These are the Google suggestions for improving website speed.

These changes will also improve mobile speed:


IMAGE SOURCE: GOOGLE PAGE INSIGHTS

IX. USABILITY

Website usability is the ease of use of a website by a visitor. Some broad goals of usability are

the presentation of information and choices concisely, a lack of ambiguity and the placement of

important items in appropriate areas.

IMAGE SOURCE: MVPLAWOFFICE.COM


* Recommendations:

Two comprehensive descriptors are used on the navigation

o “Criminal Defense—Superior Court / Indictable Offenses And Crimes”

o “Criminal Defense—Municipal Court / Disorderly Persons And Petty

Disorderly Persons Offenses”

▪ For usability purposes, we recommend listing each offense in an

enhanced menu which links to its own page (example:

brianzeiger.com)

Improve internal linking (see Section VII. “URL Structure” above)

“Domestic Violence” button is no longer working on the home page; it links

back to the home page (loop)

Make phone number in upper right-hand corner click/tap to call (mobile)

compatible

Add trust badges to home page for authority (e.g. AVVO, Super Lawyers, etc)

Add relevant case wins to respective legal service pages

o “Felony DUI Charge Dismissed” blog entry goes on DUI practice area

page sidebar

Instead of having county-based contact pages, we recommend having location

“hub” pages for Haddon Heights and Mays Landing placed under the Contact

navigation tab

o Each location page should house practice area pages relevant to that

location (Haddon Heights DUI lawyer, etc) you wish to rank for

o Link each location hub page to your Google My Business account

instead of the home page to improve relevance

▪ This will improve your GMB (Google Maps) rankings

SECTION II

CONTENT AUDIT

https://brianzeiger.com/


Content is one of three key pillars of search success. Ranking a site on the first page of

Google requires a combination keyword placement based on searcher intent as well as

authoritative and useful content. Part of our systematic process includes identifying keyword

opportunities, leveraging your site’s most popular content, and crafting content strategy to

outrank your competition.

I. KEYWORD OPPORTUNITIES

The keyword list featured below shows a list of phrases that could dramatically increase the

flow of organic search traffic to your site if it was ranking on the first page.

(NOTE: LOCALIZED RESULTS WILL PROVIDE DIFFERENT ESTIMATED SEARCH VOLUME)

IMAGE SOURCE: AHREFS.COM


IMAGE SOURCE: GOOGLE

Below you will find images which show the average word count of the top 10 ranking sites

versus the Law Office of Matthew V. Portella’s word count for some of your high volume, high

competition keywords.


IMAGE SOURCE: SURFERSEO


IMAGE SOURCE: SURFERSEO

* Recommendations:

TOP PRIORITY — Add 500 – 1,500 words to each page as needed. Businesses

should focus on optimizing appropriate pages for these keyword phrases because

they represent an opportunity to rank better for the services they provide, drive

purchase-intent keyword traffic, and increase their overall prospective client

opportunity from organic search.


SECTION III

LOCAL SEO & BACKLINKS

Having a solid local SEO strategy means optimizing everywhere your business appears

online so search engines can provide relevant search results to consumers based on their

locations.

I. GOOGLE MY BUSINESS OPTIMIZATION

NAP - It is crucial to keep NAP in mind and confirm that the Names, Addresses, & Phone

numbers are an exact match to the ones listed on the website. The Name format being used

should also remain consistent.

A. NAME

a. All local citation directories should have consistent naming structure aligned

with your Google My Business profile

B. ADDRESS

a. There is a NAP (name, address, phone) inconsistencies listed across your

citation portfolio.

C. PHOTOS ON GMB

a. All GMB listings should have a minimum of 40+ photos. Significant amounts

of photos have been correlated with higher GMB rankings.

See here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091?hl=en

https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091?hl=en


Citation Audit: Haddon Heights, NJ

IMAGE SOURCE: GOOGLE MAPS

IMAGE SOURCE: BRIGHT LOCAL


* Vital Stats:

Citation Score – 2/100

1 out of 45 top citations acquired

1 major errors found

This is a very poorly optimized profile

Performance should dramatically improve with additional citations

As a service-based business, ranking well in Google Maps is essential

Citation Audit: Mays Landing, NJ

IMAGE SOURCE: BRIGHT LOCAL

* Vital Stats:

No citations found


* Recommendations:

TOP PRIORITY — Add more photos to your Google My Business page. I

highly recommend hiring a Google Certified Photographer for photos and a 360

tour. They are inexpensive and found here:

https://www.google.com/streetview/hire/

TOP PRIORITY — Acquire more favorable reviews on:

o BBB

o Yellow Pages

o Facebook

TOP PRIORITY — Aggressively pursue more tier-1 citations for NAP

consistency and presence across the web for both locations

TOP PRIORITY — Correct errors on existing citations (NAP). Maintaining

consistency is critical for ranking in Google Maps

TOP PRIORITY — Change GMB category from “Law Firm” to “Criminal

Justice Attorney” on both accounts

Use the proper location URL (once page is created) in your Google My Business

account for both locations

II. BACKLINKS

REFERRING DOMAINS

To acquire market share, an increase in referring domains is required.

njlaws.com leads the way with 424 referring domains. It is no surprise they also rank at the top

of the SERPs and receive the most organic traffic (16x that of the Law Office of Matthew V.

https://www.google.com/streetview/hire/


Portella, LLC). Conversely, mvplawoffice.com has 20 referring domains. The higher number

of relevant referring domains typically equates to optimal performance.


* Recommendations:

TOP PRIORITY — Obtain at least an equal amount of relevant, high domain-

rated referring domains utilizing a variety of anchor text.

III. COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

Overview—In this section, we will briefly review the Top 4 competitors listed in the “referring

domain chart” image above. Here we cover their referring domains, backlinks, traffic, and

other pertinent metrics related to their success as a competitor.

Kenneth Vercammen and Associates, PC

NJLAWS.COM

Overview



* Analysis:

Market leader in terms of referring domains and 2nd highest in organic traffic

among our competitor sampling

o 424 live referring domains

o 34,800 live backlinks

o $4,800/mo traffic value

▪ The value of ranking organic keywords in Google Ads traffic

o Powerful domain

▪ DR33

• Compare: mvplawoffice.com—DR7

7,440 indexed pages

Site is non-commercial in appearance. Because of this and its large content

archive, it has amassed an impressive array of high-quality links

o However, it’s ranking keywords are not of high commercial value despite

the large number of organic traffic

o Other competitors, such as Vecchio, has less organic traffic, but ranks for

much more valuable keywords due to a different (and a more commercial)

optimization strategy

Anchor Text Distribution



* Analysis:

Anchor text is 100% natural

o We saw no signs of optimization, which can be good and bad

▪ Good in the sense of the site is ripe for improvement; bad in the sense

of the site has yet to achieve its full potential


Referring Domains


* Analysis:

Referring domain acquisition improved by 30% over the past 5 years

o September 2013—326

o September 2018—424


Organic Traffic

IMAGE SOURCE: SEMRUSH.COM

* Analysis:

Organic traffic improved by 89% over the last 12 months (see semrush image)

o October 2017—3,079/mo



URL Rating Distribution


* Analysis:

Link quality of fairly decent quality as a collective with very good links

interspersed



o < 1% of links are DR20-30



Organic Pages


* Analysis:

Here are the Top 3 pages where njlaws.com receives their SEO traffic

o Motor Vehicle Surcharges—7%

▪ Informational Keywords

• Nj surcharge payment

• Nj surcharge

• Nj dmv surcharge

o Failure To Make Lawful Disposition of Drugs—5%


• 2c 35 10a 4

• njsa 2c 35 10a 4

• 2c 35 10a 1 third degree

o Driving on a Suspended License—5%


• 39 3 40

• Driving with suspended license nj

http://www.njlaws.com/surcharges.html?id=5590&a=

http://www.njlaws.com/failure_to_make_lawful_disposition_of_drugs.htm

http://www.njlaws.com/driving_on_a_suspended_license.htm


• Suspended license nj

Note the dominance of informational keywords rather than commercial or

“actionable” keywords like “new jersey criminal defense lawyer” in njlaws.com

profile

Helmer, Conley & Kasselman, P.A. HELMERLEGAL.COM

Overview


* Analysis:

New Jersey firm specializing in criminal and family law

178 live referring domains

23,200 live backlinks

$1,500/mo traffic value

High power Domain Rated (DR) 33

1,260 indexed pages

While they are the 2nd largest referring domain in our sampling, their organic

traffic is low. This is indicative of lower quality links




* Analysis:

Mostly natural anchor text profile in appearance

o Signs of optimization


▪ “criminal defense law firm in new jersey”

▪ “criminal law attorney”

o Abnormal amount of “visit website” generic anchor text

Referring Domains


* Analysis:

Referring domain acquisition declined by 2% over the past 12 months

o October 2017—182


Organic Traffic



* Analysis:

Organic traffic increased by 78% over the last 12 months (see semrush image)

o October 2017—237/mo

o October 2018—423/mo

Running Google Ads

o Top 3 paid keywords:

▪ NJ drunk driving laws

▪ New Jersey drunk driving attorney

▪ DUI lawyer brooklyn

• Always a good idea to incorporate keywords from paid traffic

campaigns conducted by competitors




* Analysis:

Straight away, we observed a large number of DR0-10 links. Contrast this with

Vercammen’s (njlaws.com) profile

Here is a breakdown of the links pointing to Helmer Legal’s website:


▪ Vercammen: 87% of links are DR0-10


▪ Vercammen: 12% of links are DR10-20


▪ Vercammen: < 1% of links are DR20-30



▪ Vercammen: < 1% of links are DR30-40

Link power (Domain Rating/DR) is only one metric—other factors play a role,

such as anchor text and relevancy—but power is an important one to be certain

Organic Pages


* Analysis:

Here are the Top 3 pages where Helmer Legal receives their SEO traffic

o Home Page

▪ Branded Terms

• Ron Helmer lawyer nj

• Helmer

• Ron Helmer attorney

o Attorneys > Mark Emmer

https://www.helmerlegal.com/

https://www.helmerlegal.com/attorneys/

https://www.helmerlegal.com/attorneys/mark-emmer/


▪ Branded & Informational Keywords

• Mark Emmer

• Egg Harbor city police

• Egg Harbor city police department

o Attorneys > David R. Branco

▪ Branded & Informational Keywords

• David Branco attorney

• Entrapment laws in PA

Clark & Clark, LLC CSCLARKLAW.COM

Overview


* Analysis:


987 live backlinks


Domain Rating—5

https://www.helmerlegal.com/attorneys/

https://www.helmerlegal.com/attorneys/david-r-branco/


438 indexed pages




* Analysis:

Anchor text profile has signs of optimization

They do have some issues with spam (not shown) from external sources

Referring Domains


* Analysis:

Referring domain acquisition decreased by 34%



Organic Traffic



* Analysis:

Organic traffic improved by 74% over the last 12 months (see semrush image)






* Analysis:

Here is the link quality breakdown for Clark & Clark:





Clark & Clark has less powerful links, but better optimized anchor text

distribution for commercial terms than Helmer Legal and njlaws.com

Organic Pages



* Analysis:

Here are the Top 3 pages where Clark & Clark receives their SEO traffic

o Fines, Jail Time, Prison Terms for Simple Assault Charges in New Jersey—

18%


• Simple assault nj

• Assault charges in nj

• Simple assault nj penalty

o Points For Speeding Tickets in New Jersey—10%


• Speeding ticket nj

• NJ speeding ticket points

• How many points to suspend license in NJ

o Possession of a Fake ID—8%


• New Jersey fake ID

https://www.csclarklaw.com/jail-time-prison-terms-for-simple-assault-charges-in-new-jersey/

https://www.csclarklaw.com/points-for-speeding-tickets-in-new-jersey/

https://www.csclarklaw.com/possession-of-a-fake-id/


• Where can I get a fake id in nj

• Fake id consequences new jersey

Law Offices of Anthony J. Vecchio, LLC ANTHONYVECCHIOLAW.COM

Overview


* Analysis:

4th in referring domain count, 2rd in organic traffic, and 1st in keyword traffic value

o This tells us Mr. Vecchio’s anchor text profile is very well optimized and

pushes for commercial terms


2,170 live backlinks

Ran an .EDU scholarship campaign


Respectable power—Domain Rated (DR) 18

1,310 indexed pages in Google




* Analysis:

Anchor text is a well optimized blend

Harmonious mix between brand, URL, generic and exact & phrase match anchors


Strong push for DUI terms

Referring Domains


* Analysis:

Referring domain acquisition improved by 17% over the last 12 months



Organic Traffic



* Analysis:

Organic traffic declined by 12% over the last 12 months (see semrush image)






* Analysis:

Another component of Mr. Vecchio’s success is the strength of his domains

Over half of his backlinks are DR11-20

o This distribution pattern is unique to his site

Here is the breakdown:





Organic Pages



* Analysis:

Here are the Top 3 pages where the firm receives their organic (SEO) traffic

o Blog > NJ Penalties For Operating a Vehicle Without a License—17%


• Driving without a license in nj

• Penalty for driving without a license in nj

• 39 3 10

o Controlled Dangerous Substance (CDS) Possession Charges in NJ—15%


• Possession of cds

• CDS drug

• What is possession of cds

o Blog > Why You Should Never Leave The Scene of an Accident in NJ—

8%


• Leaving the scene of an accident nj

• Leaving the scene of an accident nj points

https://www.anthonyvecchiolaw.com/blog

https://www.anthonyvecchiolaw.com/blog/nj-penalties-for-allowing-unlicensed-drivers-to-operate-a-vehicle/

https://www.anthonyvecchiolaw.com/drug-charges-lawyer/drug-possession/

https://www.anthonyvecchiolaw.com/blog

https://www.anthonyvecchiolaw.com/blog/why-you-should-never-leave-the-scene-of-an-accident-in-new-jersey/


• 39 4 130

SECTION IV

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The following represents our formal summary of your SEO Discovery Audit.

SEO Issue #1 – Lack of Referring Domains

To acquire market share, an increase in referring domains is required. During our competitive analysis, we

found njlaws.com lead the way with 424 referring domains. Conversely, mvplawoffice.com only has 20

referring domains. This discrepancy is the primary reason why njlaws.com ranks higher than

mvplawoffice.com.


As you can see below, domain diversity has an outsized impact on a site’s ranking in Google. Essentially,

Google wants to see a broad range of different sites linking back to and endorsing your page. The more domains

that link back to you, the more powerful the endorsement, in the view of Google’s search algorithm.

1

SEO Issue #2 – Improper Use of Title Tags

1 http://searchengineland.com/now-know-googles-top-three-search-ranking-factors-245882


Title tags have a very important role in a site’s overall SEO campaign. They identify what each page is to

Google’s search bot. We found 35% of mvplawoffice.com’s title tags were over the 65-character limit and 6%

were under the 30-character limit. Furthermore, we found 6% of your site’s title tags were classified as

duplicates. Title tags are a top-ranking signal for Google.

SEO Issue #3 – Improper Use of Header Tags

Headings are content on the page that is descriptive of the content underneath them. Search engines crawl

headings and web copy to learn what pages are about as well as what content on the page is important.


Our research concluded there are poorly optimized header tags that may be impeding the performance and

capacity of your campaign.

SEO Issue #4 – Thin Content

During our SEO audit, we found that, overall, the site’s content was simply too thin. In our experience, strong,

in-depth content is a crucial component of SEO. They say that half of success is just showing up…but the other

half is what you do when you’re there: that’s where content becomes important.


Content complicates the matter of SEO by, essentially, hitching its wagon to links. It’s important that your

content be on authoritative domains that link back to your own site…but it’s equally important that the content

linking to you be of sufficient word count to make the impact that you want. In the simplest terms, long-form

content ranks significantly better than short-form (see above). In fact, the average first page Google result

comes in at 1890 words.

SEO Issue #5 – Under-Optimized Anchor Text Distribution

What is anchor text? Anchor text is a visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. In modern browsers, it’s often blue

and underlined and links one website to another. From an SEO standpoint, anchor text is the proverbial “DNA”

of your website. It tells Google what your site is all about.

Having proper balance in an anchor text profile is an exacting science as Google has become more sophisticated

with its algorithms. A little too far with exact match anchor text without having enough brand or phrase match,


and the site will get stuck on page 2. Conversely, not enough referring domains with an appropriate distribution

will stifle progress.

SEO Issue #6 – Meta Description Errors


Meta Description tags are the text you see in the search engine result pages (SERPs) underneath your title tag.

They are your virtual real estate "advertisement" area to tell the visitor what your page has to offer.

26% of mvplawoffice.com’s meta descriptions are over the 155-character limit. Additionally, 43% of the site’s

descriptions are missing.

SEO Issue #7 – Image Optimization Errors

Alternative text allows you to add a description to an image. Since search engine crawlers cannot see images,

they rely on alternative text attributes to determine relevance to a search query. Alternative text, also known as

“ALT-text,” also helps make an image more likely to appear in a Google image search and is used by screen

readers to provide context for visually impaired users.


An accurate text description of an image is valuable to search engines, and visually-impaired or blind website

visitors. It’s also valuable to websites in potentially generating traffic from image searches as well as avoiding

losing potential customers.

mvplawoffice.com has 56% of its images missing ALT-text, and 3% are over the 100 KB file size limit.

SEO Issue #8 – Duplicate Content

Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either

completely match other content or are appreciably similar. Duplicate content can be very detrimental to SEO

efforts.

mvplawoffice.com has 7% duplicate content.

SEO Issue #9 – Poor NAP Consistency

NAP - It is crucial to keep NAP in mind and confirm that the Names, Addresses, & Phone numbers are an exact

match to the ones listed on the website to rank in Google’s coveted “Maps” listings.


We found errors with your Local campaign. These inconsistencies may hinder your Google My Business

account from achieving ranking higher in Google Maps listings.

This audit was prepared exclusively for the Law Office of Matthew V. Portella, LLC.

At Rankings.io, we take your firm to the head of the line.

https://rankings.io/

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