Legal Marketing | Attorney Marketing | Marketing For Lawyers

Law week I posted this video about attorney marketing on the Internet and a number of people contacted me with follow up questions. Today I am going to try to answer some of those questions in this article and video. I am just going to answer them as they came in to me.

The Internet is a valuable part of an law firm marketing plan. Marketing on the Internet is like marketing anywhere else. The best place to start is by thinking about the things that make your law firm different and highlighting those qualities throughout your website.

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about Internet marketing for lawyers:

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Matt Cutts sis a great job explaining how Google works. SEO is the name for the process that will help your website land on the first page of Google when potential clients search for your services.

What is a Keyword?

A keyword is a word or phrase that people type into the search bar when they are looking for your service. For example: If you were searching for a Real Estate Lawyer in Miami you would not necessarily type in: Joe Smith, Esq. You would type in "Real Estate Lawyer Miami" that would be the Keyword.

Someone who does SEO would then optimize your website for the keyword so that when a client searches for your law firm's keywords, you come up on the first page.

How does search engine optimization work?

This is where the video below comes in. In this video I explain some of the basics of SEO.

What is "On Page" SEO?

That term means examining the content of your website, along with some of the technical aspects of the site, and making adjustments to it to make it more search engine friendly. (That is a basic definition).

What is "Off Page" SEO?

That is link building. This is what the bulk of the video above is about. When someone posts a link to your website on their website, the search engines treat it as a "vote" for that site. If your site has lots of links, then many people have voted for it, meaning it must have content that has some value.

Keep in mind that the best way to build links is to create great content that other people will want to reference.

There is a lot more to it than I outlined but those are the basic answers to the questions I received. Search Engine Optimization is tricky. You should talk to multiple experts before deciding to go with one. But remember, the key to getting great traffic to your website is great content.

This is a great video by Matt Cutts who is the head of Google's web spam team. He describes how a Google search works.

This is valuable for you and for legal marketing because if understand how it works you can understand how to make your website more friendly to it.

Here are some things I found interesting in this video:

• There are over 200 criteria for determining what search results are delivered. That means the Google algorithm is almost impossible for your average SEO guy to crack. So your neighbor-turned-SEO-expert probably only knows a little about how to get to number one on Google.
• Google takes synonyms into account in search. This makes sense but I wonder if it is only common synonyms or even some obscure synonyms.
• Google still places importance on Page Rank (something that has been promoted by "SEO experts" as untrue.
• Linking the pages of your website together though links in the actual text of articles is as important as ever.

Think about how your website is designed and think about the content on it. Is it easy for Google to tell what you do and why a client should choose you?

Google always strives to deliver the best search results based on user intent. Make your website as much about the people who will be using it as possible and you rank highly in Google search.

If you would like more information about law firm marketing on the Internet watch this video that answers basic Internet marketing questions for lawyers.