Local SEO is a growing field within online marketing. Yahoo indicated in a 2009 blog that nearly 20% of all searches have a local intent (Yahoo 2009). With other reports claiming between 20% to 40%, it is clear that searchers are looking for local results. Because of this, companies like Google, Yahoo, and Bing have focused on delivering local results to their visitors This can be seen in the prominent placement of Map boxes on various search engines.

With changes being made to the search results, it is important to perform some local SEO if your company wants to be displayed within the local results. Through our research, we have found that Google Maps has a completely different algorithm than their natural results. With such drastic differences, we have developed six local SEO tips.

1) Don’t use the company name field to stuff keywords.
2) Use appropriate categories for your company.
3) Use an actual physical address where your business exists.
4) Offer an incentive for customers to do a review.
5) Optimize your website so that it includes the same address that is shown in Google Maps.
6) Create local listings on other sites such as Yahoo, Bing, and Yelp.

For more information, please visit the Google Places Listing Guide.

photo courtesy of PhotoXpress

Google, Yahoo, Bing. How many times do you use one of these search engines every day? Yet many law firms miss out on this great (and often free) way to advertise. If you are spending marketing dollars on print media and not using the Internet to expand that reach, you’re leaving dollars on the table. Even if you have no marketing budget to drive referrals, you can claim your local listing and use Internet search engines to funnel more client traffic in your front door.

How and where to do this? Read on.

Local Search

Local media experts BIA/Kelsey estimate that by 2014, spending on digital local advertising will be $38 billion. This is because consumers now do their initial research online, even for products and services they intend to purchase locally. In 2009, there were more than 2 billion local searches monthly. Local businesses can no longer afford to ignore their Internet presence.

Local Listings: Get Them For Free

Google and other search engines add a “local listing” box of information to search results when it makes sense for the term being searched. So a search for “lawyer in Chicago IL” will display a map and list of local businesses related to that search. That’s where you want to be. Setting up your listings is fast, easy and … wait for it … free.

Where Do I Sign Up?

Google’s Local Business Center has just changed its name to Google Places. The site does a nice job of explaining exactly how to set up your business listing. Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing offer a quick form that registers your business and makes you eligible to appear in search results.

When filling out your listing, keep these tips in mind:

• Always use the exact name of your business in the “Business Name” or equivalent field, and use it the exact same way every time you sign up for an online directory. For example, if your firm name is “Power Rogers & Smith, P.C.” type it in exactly like that, not “Power Rogers and Smith Law Firm” one time and “The Law Firm of Power Rogers & Smith” the next. The search engines will reward your consistency.
• Describe your business in plain terms within the “Business Description” or equivalent field. “Chicago Truck Accident Attorneys Power Rogers & Smith” not just “law firm.”
• Include your address, web site, and phone number.
• Encourage people to “review” your business by posting the link on your site. Google rewards profiles with user reviews.
• Add photos and YouTube clips to your profile.
• Consider using the free coupon feature to drive traffic.

In all, the more detailed your listings are, the more likely your business will appear in local search results.

Geo-targeted Advertising

Supplement your organic local listings with location-specific pay-per-click advertising. When you turn on geo-targeting, you can specify a state or town and your ad will appear only to searchers who specify that area or whose IP addresses are located there.

The more relevant directory, portal and PPC listings your business has, the greater the opportunity for potential customers to find one of them. Spending an hour setting up local listings and doing a locally-focused PPC ad campaign could mean the difference between a client finding you versus them finding your competition.

Photo courtesy of sqback

On February 7, 2010 an explosion ripped through the Kleen Energy power plant in Middletown, Connecticut, killing five workers and injuring a dozen more. The blast, determined to have occurred while workers were purging a natural gas pipeline, caused property damage to the surrounding communities, and was heard as far as 20 miles away from Middletown, a southern suburb of Hartford.

Local police, fire fighters, search and rescue teams, and emergency crews were the first to respond, followed by forensic scientists, OSHA and other groups. This is fairly standard. But another, now-standard response also began – the response by some Hartford-area personal injury and workers compensation lawyers.

While more traditional methods of speaking with the families of victims and the injured were employed by the local attorneys, two Connecticut firms utilized online marketing to reach out to potential clients. How?

A search on Google for “Middletown explosion” brings up a local firm’s ad via Google’s “pay per click” keyword-driven advertising system. The ad headline: “Gas Explosion Cases – CT.” Clicking on this ad brings you to the personal injury law firm’s website.

Another firm created a series of eight videos about the explosion and posted them on YouTube. The videos are set up like news interviews, with the law firm partner answering questions on filing workers compensation claims and other related topics. Links to the law firm’s website are next to each video.

Without being able to see the number of click-throughs the ad is getting or knowing how many clients (if any) each firm has acquired as a result of these activities, we can’t know the specific outcomes of these firms’ online marketing efforts. The number of views of the videos on YouTube is not all that high, but, according to a Small Firm Business article, the firm does claim to have gotten one client via the videos.

Regardless, these attorneys have the right idea: a powerful way to reach the maximum number of people around a specific topic is under your fingers. Millions of searches are performed daily. For the cost of a few videos, or a modest budget for a pay-per-click ad, you can get your firm’s message out to hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of people. Even if it doesn’t result in a client right away, it does give you and your firm exposure, and a stronger online presence.

I’ve changed the title of this post to Class Action Legal Advertising to get around some filters focused on “light cigarettes” I seem to have encountered.

In Florida, it was recently ruled that light cigarette manufacturers are liable for misrepresenting their products as a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes. (I’m sure you’ve seen it on the news.) The class action lawsuit that’s sure to result has a pool of eligible plantiffs numbering in the millions, each with claims ranging from minor health problems to the wrongful death of a loved one.

So what’s the issue? My question: where are the buyers of light cigarette legal advertisements? Where are the PPC ads soliciting this group of potential plantiffs? In the recent Kentucky Comair crash as well as the (older) Florida tobacco ruling, there were paid ads in Google and Yahoo the morning after the decision with law firms offering sympathy and free consultations. Today, days after the light cigarette ruling, there are only one or two firms advertising for keyphrases such as “light cigarette class action” and “light cigarette lawsuit”. Is there more to this story? Let me know what you think.

“How do I effectively position my site to rank well for geography-based keywords like North Carolina injury lawyer and Memphis TN law firm?” The answer – it’s all about content. The search engines need to “see” that the firm is focused on cities X, Y and Z in a content-based manner. What are my top suggestions for optimizing legal websites for their target geography?

First idea: I would put a blurb in the footer that says something like “The Law Firm of John F. Jones, PC – DWI defense attorney serving Plano, Denton and Irving Texas since 19xx. ” By placing this copy in the footer, it will appear on every page, giving every page a little “bump” in their chance of ranking well for those geographies. Now don’t get me wrong; don’t put spam on your site. Accurately and succinctly describe your basic practice and service areas.

Next: something I’ve mentioned before, the firm’s address, including city/state, should appear in REAL text somewhere on every page of the site (not images of text). Having the primary address on every page further helps the engines associate the site with a geography and, thereby, rank it for that geography. Additionally, if the firm has multiple offices, these definitely need to be listed in full on the Directions or Contact page.

Physical location information aside, content developed about the attorney’s target geography is also an important piece. I suggest:

* content describing recent verdicts in those target geographies (and mention the town name once or twice in doing so) like a page presenting:

Williams vs. Town Hall
Metairie, Louisiana: Successful drunk driving defense
In this case, J Williams was pulled over on I-10 outside Metairie LA when the officer more text more text more text more text …

Smith vs. Po-Lice
New Orleans, Louisiana: DUI expungement
In this case, M. Smith was pulled over when the officer… Louisiana DUI law was cited in that more text more text more text more text …

* content about the firm’s involvement in the community, citing events, sponsorships, etc. the firm has supported. Pictures of the events are a great idea for adding interest to the pages – make sure you ask your developer to use the ALT tags to briefly describe the event & location.

* having links containing those target keyphrases pointing to those pages would be advantageous. In other words, on the homepage, it would be useful to have a few text links like:

Recent Verdicts:
2nd DUI Charge – Metairie man released
Roadside Test Arrest – North Slidell case dismissed
more…

* it’s tempting to want to write pages about “San Diego Personal Injury Lawyers”. Geography, area of practice, everything all in there. When it comes to AOP content, the way I think about it is this: mention your geography maybe twice but otherwise develop content focusing on information about the area of practice itself. Sparingly mention your geographies on those pages – let the search engines assign geography it has assumed from footer information & misc. mentions of the geography. Put links to those AOP pages on the homepage & in the footer. So, instead of the Recent Verdicts approach as above, your links could be:

Focused on:
Louisiana DUI Law
DUI Defense
DUI Expungement
Blood & Breath Tests
DUI Schools

Remember, the best converting traffic is local traffic. As search moves more and more to a local level (associating websites and end-users with a geography), capturing and converting that local traffic should remain a top priority. With a few items like I mention above, your site should be well positioned for this local market now and in the future.

[tags]geography targeting,keyword targeting,optimizing legal websites[/tags]

In the past, gaining high search engine rankings meant carefully manipulating on-page elements like META tags, keyword density and site structure. While these things are still important, top search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN are increasingly valuing off-page factors in determining which sites rise to the top and those that are effectively “demoted”.

Two of the most important [tag]off-page factors[/tag] are the number & quality of websites linking in to a firm’s site.  Incoming links (sometimes called “[tag]backlinks[/tag]”) are essentially seen as a “vote” for the firm’s site – the more “votes” a site receives, the more authority for a subject is conferred upon the firm’s site.  Bringing this full circle, when a site is seen as an authority on a subject, the search engines rank the site higher within its search engine results pages for related keyphrases.  This is the ultimate goal of this type of search engine optimization: increase your authority and you increase your rankings.

Ways To Build [tag]Quality Links[/tag]:

One of the surest ways to get one-way, incoming links to your site is to develop quality content.  Quality content brings visitors who, in turn, bookmark the articles, talk about them online and often create links back to your site in their discussions.  Keep in mind that quality content doesn’t have to be long, exhaustive articles about a subject (although this is the form it often takes). Quality content could be i) a topical blog; ii) an interesting game related to your practice area; iii) a light-hearted “top 10” list related to your areas of practice; iv) a brief presentation of recent verdicts; v) a calculator or other “math widget” related to your practice; vi) a reference list of popular online forums & resources … and the list goes on.   There’s a reason quality content is also called “[tag]link bait[/tag]”.

Taking the quality content idea one step further, the firm should consider posting articles to sites such as GoArticles.com, ArticleCity.com, ISnare.com and EZineArticles.com.  Article sharing services like this allow authors to put a blurb about themselves (with their firm name and URL) in the footer of their article. These articles are, in turn, published by others on their website, complete with the firm’s URL.

Another good way to establish one way [tag]incoming links[/tag] to your site is to post press releases to free online services like PRWeb.com, EMediaWire.com and PRLeap.com.  Anytime the firm hits a milestone, has an announcement or even a major verdict, they can publish to PRWeb and, from there, the press release is distributed and reprinted all over the web. This can be a very effective way of building one-way links. What’s great is that most of these services are FREE!

It’s a good idea for attorneys to post to topical message boards and blogs, giving advice or just chatting about the topic.  When they do, they should make sure they put their web URL in their signature line.  This will establish an incoming link every time the attorney posts.  Moreover, since the forum, blog or message board is topical, the incoming link will likely be from a site directly applicable to the firm’s website content.  This is even better than a simple link (return to the idea of quality instead of quantity of links.) This approach is often a very good way to get relevant incoming links online in the shortest period of time.

Another very, very important point: make sure the firm is listed in all of the local search databases – complete with their firm’s URL.  (Go here for an in-depth discussion and local submission links.)  These local databases are distributed to hundreds of directory and online yellow page websites and often supplement search engines’ “standard” natural listings.  Local listings are a great way to get a jump over your competition and, once again, these are mostly free submissions.

Keep an eye out for non profit organizations with websites… a tiny contribution can sometimes be an easy way to get your firm’s URL on their sponsors page. Since .org and .edu domains are valued a bit more than .com, .net and others, this is a good strategy no matter your level of link development.

The items I list above are strategies for gaining one-way, [tag]non-reciprocal links[/tag] since they are valued more highly than reciprocal links.  This doesn’t mean the firm shouldn’t/couldn’t solicit topical, related websites for a link exchange.  Usually, a brief email message introducing your firm, what you liked about the website you’re viewing and a copy and paste version of the link code you’d like them to add to their site is a good way to cultivate these relationships.

Notes:

Not all links are equal.  It’s best to avoid “Free For All” (FFA) sites, link “farms” (websites where there are nothing but advertising links) and services that promise thousands of links to your site within days.  Aim for quality rather than quantity.

It is best not to buy or purposefully gain a large number of links within a short period (weeks).  Search engines appear to have a “link aging algorithm” that watches for quick link building techniques and penalizes those sites perceived to participate. If you happen to have a large number of places ready and waiting to post your link, it’s a good idea to implement these in stages over a few months.

With natural search engine rankings, there are no guarantees of the placement a website will achieve and there is no explicit control of what copy the search engines choose to associate with a website’s listing. In other words, the search engines are ultimately 100% in control of these results. To a certain extent, you can craft your content and develop your links but will ultimately find yourself “at the mercy” of the engines’ ever-changing ranking algorithms. Work diligently, continually market your site and relax about the rest.  If a firm’s site is relevant, contains good content and hasn’t participated in any suspect SEO activities, good rankings will come in due time.

[tags]link development[/tags]

So what’s this “.mobi” top level domain name (TLD) I’m hearing about? The web works with a number of top level domains… like .com, .net, .org, etc. A new one was approved in July 2005 that establishes the .mobi TLD for websites coded to deliver content to [tag]mobile devices[/tag] like [tag]PDAs[/tag] and [tag]intelligent cell phones[/tag]. Sponsored by the Nokia Corporation, Vodafone Group Services Limited and Microsoft, this proposal certainly did have quite a few influential voices behind it… perhaps this is the reason why this TLD was approved while others have struggled for approval in the past. From what I’m reading, these are expected to be opened for public use “in the second half of 2006″.

Interestingly, I’ve also found an article from [tag]Tim Berners-Lee[/tag] of the W3C, the [tag]web standards[/tag] organization. In his article New Top Level Domains Considered Harmful, he states that, “There are specific ways in which the “.mobi” breaks the [tag]Web architecture[/tag] of links, and attacks the universality of the Web.” With this decision, his points are worth considering but essentially moot.

I’m a part-time [tag]domain name speculator[/tag] myself… having bought and sold hundreds of names in the past. I’m interested in seeing how this new TLD pushes the use of mobile devices forward, perhaps finally bringing them up to the ~world of tomorrow~ expectations given to us by the manufacturers. If .mobi catches on, the new “real estate” on the web will certainly be valuable. My name is on the list for a few choice [tag].mobi domain names[/tag]… we’ll see if I get them!

Relevant Resources

• Wikipedia article on .mobi
• ICAAN’s .MOBI TLD Agreement
• Tim Berners-Lee’s article against approving .mobi
• Latest Google News on .mobi
• Wall Street Journal article on .mobi

[tags].mobi,.mobi TLD,.mobi top level domain[/tags]

I’ve mentioned in the past that [tag]capitalizing on local search[/tag] is of the utmost importance to law firms that want to get a foothold in the [tag]search engine results pages[/tag] (SERPs). Yes, rising to #1 in the natural results among the thousands of web pages competing for your locality’s top search phrase is still one of the ultimate goals of [tag]law firm SEO[/tag], but wouldn’t it be great to “cut in line” and get to the top of the listings via supplemental, [tag]local listings[/tag] most [tag]search engines[/tag] now include?

So what are some of the ways to prepare your website to take advantage of [tag]local search[/tag]? We’ve already discussed the importance of submitting your firm name and address to the top local search databases, but there are also a few checklist items you should take care of.

1. List your primary office location’s physical address in real text somewhere on every page – usually in the site footer. I can’t tell you how many times I see websites with absolutely no physical address listed or where the physical address is in an image (unreadable to search engine spiders). Even though you’ve (hopefully) submitted your address to the top local database publishers, firms still should make sure their address is available for potential clients and search engine spiders to index.
2. List your primary office’s [tag]local phone number[/tag] in real text somewhere on every page – usually in the site footer. Yes, it’s great if you have a toll free number, but there are services that crawl the web gathering local phone numbers and using that information to geo-target results accordingly. (Consider putting your toll free telephone number “[tag]above the fold[/tag]” for easy reference and placing your local phone number in the footer with your address line.)
3. Make sure that you mention your target geography in your site’s copy… and include variations. In other words, if you’re a lawyer located in Tampa, make sure you talk about cases in the Tampa area you’ve handled. Talk about how your practice serves the Tampa community. Make sure you mention Tampa Florida and include “FL” in addition to “Florida” in your copy. Consider adding a note to the bottom of your copy that says, “…also serving the communities of City A, Town B, City C and the entire state of Florida.”

I’m sure that I’ll add more to this list in the future but these simple items are often forgotten in a site’s design. Make sure your site complies with these basics and you’ll be well on your way to getting your firm in front of interested [tag]local clients[/tag].

[tags]seo for law firms,lawyer seo,attorney seo[/tags]