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Just wanted to say hello to LawRex.com – nice looking site! I’m looking forward to seeing how the attorney directory works out. The Internet Marketing section already has some interesting articles as well.
LawRex.com – Lawyer to Lawyer Referrals
Written by jclayc on February 25th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on General SEO Discussion and Legal Websites and SEO for Law Firms.
McDonald’s has a new website, www.filetofish.com, where you can go and play online games centered around their food – namely, the Filet O Fish sandwich. Other than being sort of cool (I like “Aquatic Tennis“), what’s the point?
First, this is a perfect example of linkbait: an online article, widget or game that attracts visitors but, moreover, attracts bloggers and online news outlets to link back to the site.
Next, the touchy nature of dealing with a game and legal topics forces you to consider the “alternative” markets for your legal website.
When it comes to the world of online gaming, gamers are no longer restricted to the typical niche demographic ruled by young men. Online gaming’s “snacky” nature appeals to mass audiences. According to the International Game Developers Association, around 100 million Americans will play an online video game this year.
Online Gaming Clearly Mainstream with Latest McDonald’s Campaign · MarketingVOX
Do I envision every lawyer out there developing an online game? Definitely not… it’s not for most firms. But I do see the right firm making a marketing splash with an “accessory” game. Perhaps a child-focused game where you navigate the immigration process is a good idea. Could a railroad accident law firm create a buzz with a Tetris-like railyard game? Could it go as far as a Spy Hunter-like game where the firm’s message is displayed on the post-crash splash screen… Thoughts?
[tags]lawyers, filet-o-fish, linkbait[/tags]
Written by jclayc on February 24th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on General SEO Discussion and Legal Websites and SEO for Law Firms.
Something I look for when I’m assessing a website is the site’s conversion elements. Generally speaking, conversion elements are slogans, quotes, images and metaphors used to convey a message. They urge visitors to act – either to click on a link, submit a form or download a PDF.
One of the first impressions a firm makes is with their primary slogan or tagline. Traditionally associated with television and radio commercials, these are the catchy sayings that run along with a lawyer’s or firm’s name…
What are the merits of using a slogan? A quick Google search turns up a few articles on the matter:
I particularly enjoyed the “How to Build Your Law Firm’s Brand Using the Internet” discussion by Jerry Lawson, Brenda Howard, Dennis Kennedy. In it, they specifically address lawyer slogans:
Taglines or slogans are frequent components of a branding campaign. Web usability consultants recommend them… but in general I tend to be skeptical about taglines for law firms. What do you think?
(DK): …Events can turn your slogan into an ironic comment. I’m not sure that I’m as skeptical in general as Jerry is, but I am very skeptical of slogans and taglines written by lawyers or, worse, committees of lawyers.
(BH): …I LOVE tag lines. It’s akin to a mission statement that a client can understand. When you have a tag line for your law firm – you have a mission that a client can understand. More precisely, your law firm has a mission that it can understand. Jerry, your own tag line on your web site is wonderful, “Internet Tools for Lawyers.†Your visitor knows immediately where your focus is and you can keep that focus because you have identified a “one sentence mission statement 
If we side with those who think attorney slogans are effective, let’s also consider whether an website slogan should be different than one delivered through traditional media. I would say they are very similar in their goal of converting viewers to clients, but I think the online slogan has other requirements. Namely, an online legal tagline would ideally reference the firm’s practice areas and would necessarily appear in real text somewhere on the site. Online marketing is all about reinforcement of a short, direct message or association. By creating a slogan that is somehow inclusive of words focused on their area of practice and then by creating it so it can be easily spidered by the search engines, the firm can best create a slogan that’s effective and relevant. Tie relevancy to rankings and you can see how an online slogan does have special considerations above and beyond offline applications.
Which brings me to a stopping point: I’m led to wonder what the best and WORST law firm slogans are that are out there. Which ones have caught my eye for the right or wrong reason?
I’d like to compile a few more. Anyone with an opinion?
[tags]law firm slogans, slogans, legal marketing[/tags]
Written by jclayc on February 18th, 2007 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on General SEO Discussion and Legal Websites and SEO for Law Firms.
I’ve been messing around with PDF files lately – trying to make sure they’re able to be spidered by (at least) Google. Here’s a crash course in what I found. Using a full version of Acrobat, open the PDF you want to optimize and press CTRL + D. This will open the Document Properties. Within the PDF’s Document Properties, enter in the PDF’s TITLE, Author, Subject and Keywords. Be accurate, be succinct and don’t spam.
The TITLE you set in your PDF Document Properties will show up in Google as the PDF’s link. (Without it, all of your PDFs will be indexed as Untitled.)
What about the rest of the document? Can the search engines read my PDF? Well, the answer is “it depends“. In general, if you open the PDF and can use the text tool to highlight individual lines of copy, it’s going to be indexable by Google. Another way to tell: open the PDF and press CTRL + A to select everything in the document. Then press CTRL + C to copy everything. Go to Notepad and press CTRL + V to paste what you just copied. If real text appears in your open Notepad, it’s searchable.
What about scanned PDFs? If you’re unable to select any text using the Text Tool, it’s likely your PDF is just an image of text — not searchable. What can you do about that? My best advice is to try to use Acrobat’s native OCR feature to convert that image to real, searchable text. Once the OCR has run, it won’t be apparent that anything has happened – that’s because Acrobat keeps that original image “in front of” the converted text. The converted text is now there, but it’s behind the scenes and only readable by “users” like search engine spiders. NOTE: the quality of the OCR is poor. I’ve never had much luck with it. To see what the converted text is, use the CTRL + A trick. This time, it will copy the converted text. When you paste it to Notepad, you’ll be able to see the quality of the results.
To answer the question “Are PDFs Searchable?” the answer has to be… sometimes. Use the tips above to find out if your PDFs can be read as real text. If not, don’t worry, setting the Document Properties will at least let you convey the PDF’s TITLE to the engines.
[tags]PDFs, PDF optimization[/tags]
Written by jclayc on February 14th, 2007 with 5 comments.
Read more articles on Coding Topics and General SEO Discussion and Legal Websites.
On some sites I work on, I see the coders have used CSS to format the site’s H1 tags to not show the text but, instead, display an image in the text’s place. This is commonly called the “display:none” trick. The advantage is that it allows you to use an image as a header while, at the same time, keeping the text “version” behind the scenes. Spiders see the text, end-users see the image. Matt Cutts makes it clear Google is watching this “trick”… the biggest thing they’re watching is keyword spamming and multiple instances of the trick.
I’ve recommended a few sites use the trick when a client insists on a crazy font for their content headers but always use real, CSS formatted text in the H1 tag when you can. If you do have to use the display:none trick, make sure what’s inside the H1 tag is pretty well 1 phrase… 3-4 words at most… and reflects the content of the page. No matter what, be careful!
[tags]SEO tricks, h1 tag, CSS[/tags]
Written by jclayc on February 6th, 2007 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on Coding Topics and Design Topics and General SEO Discussion and SEO for Law Firms.
