You've spent time and money on creating a great lawyer website to promote your legal practice. Unfortunately, all that effort could be useless if you don't take the proper steps to make sure your lawyer website is being found by potential clients! Because your lawyer website can play such a critical role in your legal marketing strategy, you need to make sure you're getting the most exposure possible.
Search Engine Rankings Matter Most
Almost all of your Internet clients are going to come from search engine results. Google, Yahoo and Bing all have different methods to analyzing and ranking sites, but the common thread between all 3 is fresh content and keywords. Search engines rank websites based on how frequently their content is updated and how well that content features popular keywords.
Ranking based on updating content is done with the belief that the more often content is updated, the more relevant it must be to the search terms. Search engines would much rather rank a lawyer website that updates on a regular basis over a static site that hasn't been edited in months. Fresh content means the lawyer website most likely has better quality information and would be more relevant to the searcher's needs.
Keywords Are Important
Keywords are worth their weight in gold when it comes to getting your website ranked higher on search engine results. Through your legal marketing development you should be identifying the words and phrases your clients are searching for when they look for a law firm such as yours. These are the keywords your lawyer website should focus on when writing your content.
The more often a keyword is used in your lawyer website content, the more relevant those words become to your website. Search engines love to see this because that creates a confidence that your website is relevant to a users' search for those terms. Therefore, they rank your website higher when those keywords are the subject of a search.
Who You Link To and Are Linked From is Important
Inbound and outbound links also add a bit of clout to how your lawyer website is found on the Internet. Obviously, the more outside websites that link to your lawyer website content, the more opportunities you have for new visitors. Search engines also look at the sites that are linked to from yours, both inbound and outbound.
When a particular blog post on your lawyer website is linked to from several outside sources, the search engines take that to mean that information is relevant to users, and will increase your page ranking. When you link out to other sites, it's also a sign of good activity, as you're sending the message; "yes, I am a human who takes time to find relevant content and discuss it."
The more relevant and active your lawyer website is, the better it will appear to search engines. Having a short, relevant URL is also helpful for word-of-mouth purposes, but the true king of increasing your website traffic is to play to the search engine's desires.
At Great Legal Marketing, we focus on saying NO to ineffective traditional lawyer marketing. We seek out new strategies to market to our ideal clients in ways they'll actually respond to. So how do you get started? Get a FREE report and CD from legal marketing guru, Ben Glass. http://www.greatlegalmarketing.com/
Ben will teach you how to: stop marketing like every other lawyer on the block; grow the kind of practice you can be proud of; and still get home in time for dinner. Contact us today - (703) 591-9829.
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