Internet Marketing for Lawyers - Law Firm Search Engine Optimization 101

Attorneys look to search engine optimization, as law firms can no longer rely on print media.

/lawyermarketing101.com/Kevin Quinlan/ 06/24/2010

Kevin Quinlan, president of Cepac lawyer marketing, goes back to basics on search engine marketing for law firms, and discusses how the inclusion of a newsroom can support SEO efforts and improve search engine results for personal injury and other law firms.

 

Remember the days when all a personal injury or family law practice needed to generate new business was the big yellow book? Law firms dominated the pages and spent huge sums of money to promote their business, but lately the best reason most attorneys can come up with to be in the yellow book is that they are afraid not to be.

 

Consumers are moving away from the traditional yellow pages and other print media at an astounding rate. Research clearly shows that more and more consumers are looking to the Internet for goods and services. Even more specifically they are using Google, Bing and Yahoo to research the law and lawyers in their geographic area.

 

Your law firm website can give you the edge in your geographic sphere of influence by showing prospects what differentiates you from other attorneys that you compete with. Your law firm's website can contain an unlimited number of pages that position you and your firm as experts in the field, plus by including a newsroom, social media and web videos you can make their experience on your site more personal and engaging. A great law firm website will also support any other advertising your firm may do: TV, referral marketing, radio and event sponsorships.

 

But what good is a great website if no one can find you?

 

Organic search engine marketing (SEO) is the most cost effective way to move your law firm to the top of the page in search engine results. SEO incorporates on-page and off-page techniques which include re-engineering of an existing website to make it more "spider friendly" so that the search engines can crawl your site and index those pages that you want to be prominent in the search results. It also involves making the site as user friendly as possible by adding the most relevant key word rich content for those consumers you are targeting and making it compliant with W3C guidelines. It is not an overnight magic bullet and requires a consistent effort.

 

The off-page aspects of SEO include link building and link-baiting strategies to acquire as many high quality inbound links from sites that are considered an authority in your category and have longevity on the Internet. Google and the other search engines view each link as a vote of confidence in your attorney website which increases its popularity. One highly effective method of acquiring links is to use a lawyer news room to craft articles, opinions and commentary on current events, updates to your law firm, changes in the law and information that potential clients might find useful in their search for help.

 

Cepac developed the Smart News Technology product specifically to provide law firms with the ability to directly transmit articles, firm news and press releases to the Internet via their own private label newsrooms. Virtually no other product provides lawyers this unique ability to create high visibility and improve site rankings through this powerful link building news software platform. Each syndicated article or release is transmitted across Cepac's vast network of newswire partners including Google news.

 

For more information on website design for attorneys, SEO for law firms or Smart News Technology, contact Kevin Quinlan.

 

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