Law firm optimization efforts pay off - sometimes for spammers
As head of the Search Engine Optimization department, I get a lot of phone calls – both from clients and from solicitors. What I really find so amusing is when I get calls or emails from companies saying that our own website is not showing up well in the search engines and that they would be happy to help us for a fee. In fact, I already got one phone call and one email about it today – and that was before 9 AM.
And, of course, I feel the need to respond since they were so kind as to solicit me. I point out a few things to them. First, how did they come upon our information were it not for the search engines? This one always gets the email-ers because the email address that our consultation forms go through is not my usual email, so I can track where the inquiry comes from. Second, I point out that one of the most important terms for us is “law firm internet marketing” and our website is on page 1 for that term. So, how can they do better than page 1? Needless to say, I rarely get responses back from emailers (if I bother to respond at all) and I quickly get hung up on from the telephone solicitors.
Now, this is something that I can deal with; however, when these people call my clients to give them the same spiel, I get pretty annoyed. I explain the same logic to my clients and then point out places that they are showing up well. If they weren’t coming up, these companies would not be able to find them. So, before you doubt your law firm’s marketing firm’s efforts, consider how you were found in the first place.
How do I choose what keywords to optimize my attorney website for?
Any good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company will tell you that it is not possible to adequately optimize your site for every possible keyword that someone may type into a search engine to find your law firm. However, a good company will help you choose the most effective keywords and focus your optimization around that. While law firm internet marketing may not be an exact science, it sure does help to have a good place to start!
Just to give you an idea: Let’s say you are a Dallas personal injury attorney. Some of the initial, basic words that come to mind are Dallas personal injury attorney, Dallas personal injury attorneys, Dallas personal injury lawyer, Dallas personal injury lawyer, Dallas personal injury law firm, Dallas personal injury law firms, Dallas personal injury lawsuit, lawsuits, Dallas injury attorney, Dallas injury lawyer, Dallas injury law firm, etc. And all of those words don’t even include the specific areas you want to focus on, such as medical malpractice or birth traumas. You add in all of those and you can come up with thousands.
But, the search engines only read about the first 10 meta keywords per page (roughly 3 – 4 keyword phrases). So, “Dallas personal injury lawyer” counts as words; thus, you can see how quickly those 10 words can go! So, it is important to focus on words that are likely to result in business for you. For example, yes, it is great to come up under your firm name; however, why waste keywords on that? If someone already knows your firm name, they are going to call you anyway (and it is likely you come up under your firm name without optimizing specifically for it because your firm name is mentioned so many times on the site).
So, when we research words for our clients, we take into account keyword history (based on our clients past results), niche practice focus (focus on car accidents instead of general PI if that is your focus), geographic location (if your office is in a small town and you wouldn’t be willing to drive 5 hours to a bigger city, why waste words with that city name), area of the country (in some parts of the country “attorney” is searched for more than “lawyer”), and more. All of these things are going to help you choose the right words. Because of this, we recommend going with an SEO company that has a lot of experience with law firm marketing; otherwise, it is going to be a lot of trial and error.
Meta what? What parts of Meta tags you should know about for your attorney website
I am not the most technologically savvy person in the world, but I consider myself to be pretty well-informed. And, while I may not understand exactly how the search engine spiders work, I know that Meta tags play a key role in that. Meta tags are full of things that are not overly important to a general web user, but some of parts of it are important in law firm search engine optimization.
These are the “key” points of the Meta tags:
- Title
- Keywords
- Description
Every page of your website should have a different title, set of keywords, and description.
If you go to any website, there is a title bar across the top of it. For example, at our law firm marketing website, there is a bar across the top of the page (the very, very top – above the Internet window’s navigation bars) that says “Lawyer Marketing and Attorney Marketing – Attorneys Online, Inc.” That is our Title that is used in the Meta Tags. Not only is this the name of our page, it is one of the first things that the search engine reads to get an idea of what our website is about.
The description aspect of Meta Tags gives a quick overview of what each page is about. You want to keep it around 150 characters, so it must be short and sweet. Again, the search engines read this to get an idea of what the page is about. It is always, always, always better to take an exact line from your page and use that as a description. The search engines like that.
And, as for keywords, this is the hardest one to master. Each of your pages can have a few keyword phrases (that make up to about 10 words) to describe what is mentioned on your site. For example, “law firm marketing” counts as three words, so I have to be creative in selecting my next 7. You want to select keywords that are relevant to the content and you want to choose keywords that people will search for in the search engines. While it is great to come up under your name, I wouldn’t waste keywords on it. First, you probably mention your name enough in the text as it is (and there is not likely to be a lot of competition on your name unless you are a celebrity). Second, you are very limited on how many words you can use, so don’t you want to attract someone who doesn’t already know you by name?
This may not have answered all of your questions, but it gives you an idea of what we are referring to when we mention these words. These are things that your search engine optimization team should be willing to discuss with you. If you have more questions, feel free to drop me a comment.
