You know it’s important to rank well, preferably #1, for your main brand, but in your efforts to maintain this rank, you may be neglecting extended brand keywords. Ranking well for these terms can help you guide the perception of your brand.

Richard Shove discusses this topic as part of his post “Big Brand SEO – Campaigns, Integration and Extended Brand Keywords.” As he points out, a brand’s website is sometimes outranked by other sites for certain types of searches, even when the brand name is included in the search. Some things to consider:

Complaints/reviews:

While you certainly don’t want to rank highly for actual complaints, the fact is people investigate companies and products by looking for reviews before buying. And review sites like Yelp regularly outrank the brand for these searches. Include a page on your site detailing your commitment to the customer and explaining how you handle complaints. Use the word “complaint” in the title and URL, and you should rank at #1 for the term.

Discounts:

Affiliate sites offering voucher codes often rank at the top of SERP for price-related searches. Consider creating your own landing page for discounts and voucher codes. Link it to a PPC or other paid search campaign.

Product names:

These are also brands, and if they’re well-known, they can outrank the parent brand. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if the product has its own site, but you can still increase your main brand’s visibility with a page on the main site dedicated to the product.

Review your own analytics to get ideas of what other related or extended brand terms might be sending traffic to your site. Then see where you rank for them in SERP. If you’re not at the top, consider adding a page or section on your site dedicated to that term.

Information in this post gathered in association with Atlanta Injury Attorneys.

You’ve put significant effort into improving your website’s SEO, so it’s only natural you want to know which keywords you rank for. But keep in mind that you don’t need to know every keyword, just the important ones.

In his blog post entitled “What Keywords Do I Rank For?” Dr. Pete says the essential keyword information you want to dig up includes:

• Which relevant keywords you rank for
• What position you hold for those keywords
• How they are performing for you

The following sources can help.

Google Webmaster Tools (GWT)
Under “search queries” within “your site on the web,” GTW will display a table with:

• Queries for which your site showed up in search results
• How many times your site showed up (impressions)
• The number of times searchers clicked your link
• Your average position for queries for which you got at least 10 impressions

Information and data within this post gathered in association with Pittsburgh medical malpractice lawyer John A. Caputo, Attorney at Law

Analytics
Your own analytics program, such as Google Analytics, can compile a report listing the keywords people searched to get to your site. This is different from the GWT data because it includes only keywords that actually resulted in a visit and contains sources other than Google.

This report also helps you see how effective these keywords are for you, including:

• Number of pages viewed
• Time spent on site
• Bounce rate

This is important, because if visitors don’t spend time on your site, these keywords don’t benefit you.

Anchor text
When other sites link to you, they often use words they consider relevant to your site as the link’s anchor text—the words that are “clickable.” Online tools like SEOMoz’s Open Site Explorer can show you:

• Which keyword phrases are linking to you
• Who’s using those phrases
• The number of links using each phrase

Use these tools to find out which keywords you rank for, but don’t lose sight of your real goal: providing relevant, useful content that will keep your visitors interested.

If you’re looking to improve site traffic and pull in customers to your firm, harnessing traffic from local search for mobile may be the key.

According to Greg Sterling’s article “Google’s Eric Schmidt: ‘2011 All About Mobile,’” Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said that Google will be putting a heavy focus on local mobile search in 2011.

Why focus on mobile?

Google reports that mobile search volume is up 130% year-over-year. People have access to the Internet anytime, anywhere. They’re using their phones to get the information they need when they need it.

How can this help with local search?

An increasing amount of mobile search is local. In fact, in another article “Microsoft: 53 Percent of Mobile Searches Have Local Intent,” Sterling states that one in three Google mobile queries and 53% of Bing mobile queries are local. People are using their phones to find products and services in their area.

How does this apply to law firms?

People are searching for everything from their phones. The woman who wants to plan her will might be researching estate planning attorneys on the train to work. A man whose wife was hurt in an accident might be searching for a personal injury lawyer from the hospital.

How can I get mobile keyword data?

Until recently, businesses were hesitant to jump into local mobile search campaigns. There wasn’t a way to collect data such as average CPC and competition level on mobile search, making it a bigger risk.

This all changed when Google announced a new Mobile Keyword Tool designed to help marketers develop keyword lists that better target mobile searchers. The Mobile Keyword Tool can be accessed via your Google Adwords account, in the “Advanced Options” tab.

In his article, “Why Google’s New Keyword Data May Actually Make 2011 ‘Year of Mobile Marketing,’” Brian Klais explains the new tool allows marketers to get keyword information for mobile search, which can be filtered just like the desktop search data. Klais offers a quick tutorial for the new tool in his article.

The search landscape is changing and mobile user demand will continue to grow. This is a good time to start working on a local search plan for mobile. Thanks to Google’s new tool, you now have the ability to collect the data you need to move forward with your firm’s campaign.

Keep checking in at CaseDetails.com for more information on local search for mobile, and check out our Local Search in 7 Days series.

Arizona bankruptcy lawyers of Clint W. Smith, P.C. have contributed resources for the development of this content.

If you’ve already optimized the obvious—and easy—areas of your website to improve its visibility, your next step might be to try to boost your site with Q&As (Questions and Answers), either by answering questions on Q&A sites, or by creating a Q&A page on your own site. These Q&As are of particular value to law firms and those seeking legal advice, due to the number of questions the average person has about matters of law.

As reported by Pavel Israelsky in his SEOmoz post entitled “6 Reasons Why Q&A Sites Can Boost Your SEO in 2011 (Despite Google’s Farmer Update)“, Q&A sites’ popularity has been growing as people get more comfortable with using online social interaction to gather information. They also rank well in search results. Some less-authoritative sites were felled by Google’s Farmer update, but the stronger sites are still doing well.

You can use Q&As two ways:
• Answer questions on already established sites
• Start your own Q&A site or section of your current site

Answer questions
The simplest way to start is to find open questions related to your area of expertise as showcased on your website, and answer them. Most Q&A sites allow you to put links either within the text or in a sources section. Link back to appropriate pages on your website or blog to boost your inbound links. Two popular Q&A sites are Quora and Askville (operated by Amazon).

Start with questions related to your main keywords – the phrases you are targeting on your website (Read more about keyword selection here). Once you have a good link profile for these, move on to secondary keywords. Do this slowly to avoid Google becoming suspicious of a sudden influx of links.

Most Q&A sites’ links are nofollow and don’t help PageRank. But Google still sees them, and they still drive highly targeted traffic to your site.

Set up your own Q&A pages
Create a subdirectory on your website for your Q&A pages, and post some relevant questions for people to answer. To gain better authority and visibility, keep your Q&A pages tightly focused on your niche. If you want to branch out, create a new site.

Your Q&A section can boost your entire site’s credibility as more people visit to ask and answer questions.

Information and data contained in this post gathered in association with Chicago Brain Injury Lawyers at Phillips Law Offices.

In the article “You Say Law Firm, I Say Lawyer” published on Search Engine Land on September 17, 2010, Mark Sprague outlines some interesting research showing the importance of targeting the right variant of a keyword phrase to attract the most appropriate lead for your legal practice.

Using the example of “lawyer” versus “law firm,” Mr. Sprague shows that the searchers’ intent is different depending on which version of the term they are using.

Searchers using the term “law firm” are more likely to be seeking general legal information, information on a specific law firm, or information on job opportunities. A relatively small percentage of those using the phrase “law firm” as part of their search query are looking for a certain type of lawyer (criminal, for example).

Contrast that to those searches conducted with “lawyer” as part of the query. Like the “law firm” searches, the purpose of most of the “lawyer” searches seems to be gathering information, seeking advice, or asking legal questions. The similarities end there, however. People using “lawyer” as part of their search query are most apt to be looking for a specific type of lawyer (family, medical, divorce), or a referral to a certain type of lawyer. They are also looking to find a law firm or lawyer in terms of value (free, best, top, etc.) or looking for one in a specific geographic area (Memphis car accident lawyer). Also popular with “lawyer” searches are those looking for business tools or software.

Another product of Mr. Sprague’s research was finding out that people search using the term “attorney” far more than “lawyer.” He recommends using both within your website copy, with “attorney” being the dominant term.

Mr. Sprague summarizes his research by stating that targeting the term “law firm” is best when recruiting new legal talent and strengthening your firm’s name branding. To bring in leads around your area of practice, target keyword phrases with “lawyer” in them.

“Understanding the legal search behavior by category,” writes Mr. Sprague, “allows you to develop custom landing pages to target specific user intent. Users are more apt to stay at your website if their first impression is an exact match for their intent /search phrase.” To paraphrase: if you create a page that speaks to the searchers “pain point” (or what led them to search for information on a specific topic) you are much more likely to have that searcher become a customer. Understanding the “why” behind search terms will help you transform your website into a lead generation machine.

Differentiate Your Online Presence

In Day 6 of the SEO in 30 Days series we discussed how competitor research can help you uncover good keyword phrases for your own site. We’ll take that a step further today by explaining how to do a “deeper dive” into competitor’s keyword and website research, and how to use this information to differentiate your business and services online.

Tip 1:
First take into consideration any competitor websites that may have similar or higher authority than yours (“authority” means that the search engines find the website highly relevant to the topic or service being offered). Websites that have more authority than yours will naturally rank higher for targeted keywords. For example, the local burger joint cannot compete with McDonald’s – at least not on a global scale – and if your firm’s site is new, it cannot compete with well-established sites that have a large number of inbound links pointing to their site. So where does one begin?

Your first step is to pull up the list of competitors you made when doing the earlier keyword research steps and analyze their relevance through the eyes of Google. This is where SEO tools come in handy. The following SEO tools can help you determine how much authority Google accords them.

Page rank, in an overly simplified definition, is a numerical value assigned to a website that ranks it against other sites within that same category. A 10 is a perfect score. The higher the page rank the greater the authority.
PageRank Checkers: PRChecker, Smart PageRank, Dig PageRank

The age of your website is how long it has been live. More authority is given to websites that have stood the test of time.
Age checkers: Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, WhoIs

The amount of traffic your competitors are getting will indicate how popular and relevant their websites are. More traffic generally translates as more authority.
Traffic checkers: Quantcast, Compete, Alexa

Tip 2:
Once you have determined who your competition really is, the next step is “spying” on them. To do this you will use one of the many keyword discovery tools available. SpyFu, KeywordSpy and SEO X-Ray are some of the most reputable. These will give you an idea of the keywords that your competitors are focused on, and (if they are running pay-per-click ad campaigns) how much they are paying per click for those keywords within a narrow price range. Take note of the top keywords generated by these tools and you’re almost done.

Once you have a list of keywords, find out the search volume (how many times the terms are searched on) for each term. This can be done through the Google Keyword Traffic Tool. Keep track of what you find out in a spreadsheet so you can sort by volume, with the keywords most searched on toward the top. Note which of the most searched on terms are currently being targeted by your competition and which aren’t. Make sure you target any keyword phrases that your competitors have missed so that your website will have a better chance of showing up above theirs in the search results.

We’ll talk more about assigning keyword to your website’s pages in Day 9 of the SEO in 30 Days series, and provide a more in-depth tutorial on the Google Keyword Traffic Tool in Day 8.

With the volume determined and competitors’ keyword targets noted, simply map each targeted keyword that has search volume to an appropriate page on your website. For example, the keyword phrase “DUI lawyer in Manassas” should be mapped to your page discussing DUI, not to a general law firm overview page.

Keep in mind the importance of having one primary keyword phrase per page, unique to that page on your website. Make those primary keyword phrases ones that are most appropriate for your business or services, and that differentiate you from your competitors.

Tip 3:
For further your marketing research, you should do some reconnaissance on your competitors’ websites. Take note of what they are doing on their website, and what you can do better. Figure out how to differentiate your services further – this will also help you draw in more customers to your site.

In Day 8 of SEO in 30 Days we will discuss how to use the Google keyword traffic tool.

So far in the SEO in 30 Days Series we’ve presented keyword research in four parts: Why Keyword Research is Necessary (Day 3), Common Mistakes Made When Conducting Keyword Research (Day 4), and the Benefits of Targeting Long-Tailed Keywords (Day 5). Today we’ll continue this section with a discussion of how competitor research can help you uncover good keyword phrases for your own site.

A good tactic for expanding your target keyword list, and for monitoring the search marketing tactics of your competitors, is to compile a list of your competitor’s keywords. This can be done by scraping valuable information for key pages on your competitor’s websites. Specific information regarding the keywords they are targeting for each page can be found in the html code for each page.

There are several ways to check the keywords that your competitors are targeting on specific pages. The first way to do this is by right clicking on a page and selecting “View Source” (Command+U on a Mac). This will open the html code for the page in a new window. Once this is open, check the Title tag which should appear at the very beginning of the code. If the site has been optimized properly the title tag should contain the primary keyword phrase or phrases for that page. Also check the Meta Keywords tag, usually placed after the Title and Description tags. This should include any keywords being targeted on the page. While Meta Keywords do not affect search engine rankings, they could help you pinpoint targeted keywords.

Another way to find targeted keywords is to look at the keyword density on a page. This can be done through SEO X-Ray, an add-on that can be found on SEO Book’s Toolbar. This is available for free when you register online. The SEO Book site gives detailed instructions on the use of the tool.

You can also visit the websites of your competition and note which phrases they are using in the headlines and subheads of each page. Are these phrases being repeated within the body copy? If so, they are more than likely being targeted. Put the phrase into a search engine and see if the competitor’s site shows up on the first page for that phrase. These types of observances about your competition’s websites will tell you what keyword phrases they may be targeting, and which of them are being targeted successfully. We will take a more in-depth look at analyzing your competitor’s keywords and website in Day 7 of the SEO in 30 Days Series.

These three simple steps are a great way to get started on keyword research. Once keyword research is complete, you are one step closer to a successful online marketing campaign.

Up next is Day 7: Using competitor keyword analysis to differentiate your website

In the first two steps on Keyword Research covered Why It’s Necessary (Day 3) and Common Mistakes (Day 4). Now we’ll move on to the benefits of targeting longer keyword phrases (often called “long-tail keywords”) on your website.

The Benefits of Long-Tail Keyword Phrases

When compiling a list of target keywords for your online marketing campaigns, be sure to expand your list beyond one word search queries. The inclusion of long-tail keywords, those query strings include 2 -4 words, are important to ensure your campaign is well-rounded and profitable for your company.

While one word searches often carry large monthly search volumes, they often do not offer the best opportunities for optimization. This is due to the fact that these terms are often very competitive and lack clear focus from a searcher. This point is emphasized by recent research, which found that long-tail searches exhibit a higher conversion rate by up to 200% compared to short-tail (generic) keywords.

Long-tail terms often carry less overall search volume but, as the above statistic indicates, these searches are much more valuable because they are more targeted to your specific business. Also, as the query lengthens, gaining ranking for these terms becomes easier due to the specific instances of these strings around the web become less and less frequent.

As an attorney you can expand your list of long-tail keywords by including practice areas and the types of services that you offer, coupled with the city, county or state where your ideal client-base or business resides. Long-tail terms provide a greater chance to optimize pages around these topics and expand your business through online marketing. A law firm based in San Francisco, CA, wanting to attract more business for mediation services, for example, would be better served by the long-tail keyword phrase “San Francisco divorce mediation” than simply “mediation.”

Up next in the SEO in 30 Days series: we conclude our keyword research steps on Day 6 with competitor analysis.