CaseDetails.com - Internet Marketing for Law Firms

When assessing if a site is a good one to get a link from, the first thing I look at is the site’s PageRank in the Google Toolbar. (PageRank is a quantification of how much authority or “juice” the page has in the eyes of Google.) When developing links, your goal is to pass that authority from their site to your site by having them link to you. It follows that a link from a high PageRank site is good, where a link from a site with a PageRank lower than yours is not as good. Of course, the end goal is to have a site with good, targeted content complemented by authoritative, incoming links - those are the websites that receive good rankings.

When judging the quality of a link placement opportunity, it’s important to look at the PageRank of the page where your law firm’s URL will ACTUALLY appear. I’ve seen many, many sites where the homepage has a PR6 or 7 but NO PageRank assigned to any of the internal pages. (There are times when the location of your intended placement is too new for PageRank. In these cases, you can either assess that site’s older pages’ PageRank and take your chances or wait a month or two and take another look.) Ultimately, the quality of the incoming link is determined by the PageRank of the page(s) actually bearing your site’s link.

Next, if the page where the link is to be placed has PageRank, I then look at what KIND of link to the firm’s website is available. Is the link pointed to your law firm’s site direct to your URL or is to be sent through some jumbled JavaScript or have the nofollow attribute set? It matters. Direct links are good. Links through JavaScript don’t pass PageRank. Nofollow means what it says. Search engines discount links tagged with nofollow.

In a final step, I usually step outside a pure SEO viewpoint and ask myself (regardless of PageRank) if this is a good advertising value. In other words, even without PageRank, would the firm benefit from placement on this site because of the audience targeting, traffic or overall corporate outlook? After all, getting rankings is only a means to an end: new clients for your law firm. At the end of the day, if I can drive new business with a $100/year ad, it doesn’t matter to me if search engine rankings for my URL is included as part of the deal.

Here’s a sample assessment of MerchantCircle.com:

• The homepage (http://www.merchantcircle.com/corporate/) has PR5. Ok, fairly good.
• There are a few promotions of individual businesses on the homepage but, ultimately, businesses are listed either through a feature city page like the one for Denver Colorado (PR3) or through a directory listing like the one for Walnut Creek, CA (PR2). Neither prospect is great but I do see individual businesses on these PR3 pages, that’s good, right? Nope - we’re not done yet.
• Notice that the individual city pages don’t link to the individual businesses’ websites. Instead, they link to a feature page about each business. That means the city page isn’t the one that will pass authority to you.
• Looking at a typical, small town individual business promo page, we see that there is no PageRank to pass to the “Main Website” link allowed within the profile. Not ideal. If we revisit a higher PR page like the one for Denver, we see that some local businesses there have profile pages with PR2. While PR2 isn’t ideal, at least there’s PageRank to pass when featured within a major city.
• Final judgment of the quality of this incoming link: individual business profile pages currently have a max of PR2. If a law firm’s site is PR3 or higher, this won’t do much good. If a law firm’s site has PR2 or lower AND they’re located in a major market, this would be a link worth pursuing.
• Not too promising, eh? Remember my final assessment step: go outside SEO considerations. Is this, in general, a good advertising value? For the price, would a business benefit from the exposure this site brings? Is the site/business of a high enough quality that they’ll prospectively gain more authority and traffic in the future? With these questions in mind, let’s note that MerchantCircle.com’s “web 2.0” approach is growing in popularity and recognition. Major cities like Denver ARE receiving higher PR and passing it to profile pages - telling me that the site structure CAN support passing of authority. (There are no stops like JavaScript involved.) Moreover, the price is right - FREE! For these reasons, despite the site’s low PageRank, I would recommend building a profile on this site. If it doesn’t work out, what’s the cost? About 30 minutes’ time.

While this post totally ignores linkbuilding opportunities like .org affiliations, blogging & article syndication, I hope this sample assessment helps lawyers effectively build authoritative incoming links using sites you find every day.

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