Want to get your blog posts noticed online? Make sure you think about SEO best practices as you write.

For those lawyers who didn’t get enough of our tips in Best Practices for Blog Posts in 2013, here are a few more suggestions to put your blog ahead of the competition.

While our previous post focused on making blog posts attractive and readable, this one has our top three tips for how to help you get your posts noticed in the first place. You can use these content and HTML techniques to help your blog rank better on search engine results pages:

• Create interesting titles.
• Don’t overuse or geo-target internal links.
• Align meta tags and categories to create coherent themes within your blog.

Blogging is all about getting your name out there to people searching for relevant keywords. As a West Virginia auto accident attorney, you need to show that your brand is computer-savvy and readable. These tips will help your blog stand out from the rest.

Interesting titles

An interesting title is one that a viewer, when they see it in the search listings, wants to click on. Think about when you search for the answer to a query on Google. What sorts of listings draw your eye? What makes you intrigued and want to click? Learn how to write interesting titles by following your favorite legal blogs. Try different techniques if you’re still learning, then use analytic tools to see which of your blog posts get the most interest.

Avoiding overuse of internal links

While a few internal links to other articles on your website help to create cohesion, avoid using more than one or two per blog post. Too many internal links may be penalized by search engine algorithms, especially if you hyperlink geo-targeted phrases. Internal linking is a good idea in small quantities, but too many links may appear desperate to search engine crawlers and result in a drop in your rankings.

Creating blog cohesion with meta tags

By making use of the categories or meta tag features on your firm’s blog, you can help potential clients find other posts on similar topics. Readers often want to look at your blog posts related to their specific legal field to see if a.) you have anything helpful for them and b.) you seem like a trustworthy legal voice. By remembering to use meta tags and categories, you will expedite this process for clients, and they will be more likely to use your services.

Try out these best blog practices and let us know how they work out for you!

Want to improve your blog’s performance? Try following these visual tips.

Lawyers, are you looking for tips to get your blog noticed in 2013? Look no further; these best practices will draw visitors and get them to stay, bookmark your page and hopefully come to your firm for legal representation.

Writing a successful blog in 2013 is all about making the content interesting and easily digestible. There are millions of blogs to read, so you want to make sure that yours doesn’t turn viewers off from a visual perspective — if a post looks too long, many consumers will simply navigate away from it. The best practices include:

• Writing short paragraphs with subheadings
• Using images
• Writing short posts

Pithy is in these days when it comes to blog content, so organize your thoughts and get them on the page quickly. If you need to expand on a topic, just write another post!

Short paragraphs and subheadings

On the Internet, people often scan blog posts before actually reading them. You need to consider your post’s overall composition, rather than simply thinking of it as a linear block of text. Indeed, blocks of text are often seen as incomprehensible and skipped over in favor of a well-organized piece. Informative sub-headings are useful for viewers to understand the gist of each blog. If they like what your subheadings have to say, they’ll read your posts.

Using images

Include at least one image in each blog post to break up the text. This image could be as simple as an evocative close-up, such as a line of police tape for criminal defense attorneys or a stock photo of a hospital operating room for medical malpractice lawyers in Chicago. You could also go the other direction and use a complex infographic to explain your position.

Either way, viewers want something that breaks up the text, so they can get an additional level of nonverbal understanding from your blog. All the image has to say is “this is about criminal law” or “this is about corporate fraud,” but more creative images often provide better page view results.

Short posts

In today’s blogging world, short is usually the best way to go. If you want your posts to be read by all, make them fit within a 300- to 600-word limit. Any shorter, and it feels unprofessional or poorly planned, but any longer, and it might turn off your audience.

As an attorney, don’t fall behind your competitors’ blog traffic. Use the best practices, write interesting articles, and you’re sure to get plenty of Web visitors and client conversions.

Want to make the most out of your marketing materials? Try repurposing your content.

One marketing technique that many law firms are getting into is repurposing content. Unlike re-posting, which involves posting existing material on a new website, repurposing content puts a new spin on it by placing content on a different format. Not sure if this would work for you? Here are the top three reasons to give repurposing content a whirl.

#1: You’ll reach more of your demographic.

Perhaps the biggest reason to repurpose content is the fact that doing so gives you the ability to get content in different forms in front of more of your target audience. While Maui accident attorneys may have a successful blog, not everyone enjoys reading text-based content. By repurposing an original blog post into a slideshow, podcast or video, they could appeal to considerably more people. Consequently, it could help their firm gain additional exposure and generate more leads.

#2: You’ll save time.

Another advantage is the convenience associated with this strategy. As anyone who runs a blog knows, maintaining fresh content can be arduous and time consuming. Rather than creating something brand new for every post, repurposing content gives you the opportunity to expand upon topics you may have previously touched upon. This means you can extract the same core message from material on one platform, tweak it and use it on a different platform. It lets lawyers consistently provide valuable information to their audience without having to work around the clock.

#3: You’ll build brand equity.

Besides this, it’s a perfect way to brand your law firm. While you may have limited impact by simply running a blog, repurposing content can spread your marketing materials out across multiple mediums. This is important because potential clients have different preferences in terms of favorite websites, social media platforms and types of content. Regardless of where they go online, you can establish a presence. Over time, you can achieve a unique identity and build a sense of trust within the legal community.

Content marketing is a strategy that involves creating insightful content designed to connect with a target audience and generate leads. Some of the most common forms of content marketing include creating consistent blog posts, submitting articles to directories and posting on social media sites. Here are just a few reasons why it’s important and how it can benefit your law firm.

Build rapport with potential clients

Perhaps the biggest advantage of content marketing is that it can help you position yourself as an expert in your area of law. Lawyers in Lynchburg, VA who specialize in criminal law might create a series of blog posts about the legal process and break it down into layman’s terms for potential clients. Over time, this can build valuable rapport and motivate those who have been charged with a crime to contact that particular law office.

SEO boost

Another benefit is the increase in search engine rankings that may result after running a content marketing campaign. Since search engines value fresh content and quality backlinks, creating content like blog posts can give you a nice SEO boost. This should ultimately result in more organic traffic from highly targeted visitors who may end up as paying clients. It also gives your law firm an advantage over competitors in your area who have static websites that are rarely updated.

Trust

Finally, you should be able to gain trust and become a cornerstone of your community through content marketing. By consistently creating excellent content and responding to comments, it’s fairly easy to build long-lasting relationships. As long as you nurture these relationships, you can achieve some serious trust with your audience. The deeper the level of trust, the better it is for your law firm. Just like any business, trust is monumental for success, and it can position your firm at the forefront in your community. In turn, it’s common to establish brand ambassadors who will spread the good word, which can bring in even more business.

Twitter is only second to Facebook in popularity, and is a crucial social media tool for law firms.

Since its debut as a fledgling micro-blogging service in 2006, Twitter has become a powerful short messaging platform for meaningful social networking. As a social media platform, Twitter is only second to Facebook in popularity. The simplicity of its 140-character message length and the functionality of its message system have turned Twitter into a barometer for topic sentiment across the Internet.

While Twitter has managed to stay true to its 140-character roots, users are able to share a variety of content across the network. A common branding strategy that legal professionals on Twitter use is to compose messages that include a link to Web content that is relevant to their practice. Active legal bloggers can use Twitter to drive traffic to their websites each time they write a new post, but new research indicates that images, re-tweets and hash tags are more likely to achieve greater engagement.

Based on the findings above, a Chapter 13 attorney in San Jose who actively blogs about bankruptcy topics could reach out to trusted Twitter followers and ask for a re-tweet. Even if that attorney’s content is fresh, original and engaging, the sheer amount of Twitter traffic these days makes it easy for valuable content to go unnoticed. The same attorney could also share pictures of public companies that have undergone major bankruptcy proceedings and that have also made news headlines.

The fact that Twitter users are more likely to be engaged by photos should not be surprising. Other social networks like Instagram and Pinterest are based on the premise that pictures speak louder than words. The engagement factor of re-tweets is based on the principle of social worth. Twitter users are more likely to respond positively to messages they know have been re-tweeted by others in their social circles.

Social Media Mondays is a CaseDetails.com series covering different topics in the social media world on a weekly basis. Check back every Monday for more news on social media and useful information on how law firms can use social platforms to their advantage.

The basics of smart, internal linking boil down to writing content with descriptive anchor text in a manner that is contextual and mindful of the keywords relevant to the service being promoted. Advanced internal or deep-linking techniques include breadcrumbs navigation, monitoring existing links for quality and freshness, sticking to a constant and cumulative content marketing strategy that delivers true value for visitors, and making the most of using a Content Management System (CMS).

While our first post on internal linking covered basic information on best practices, this post focuses on ways to maximize the value of your internal links. Some of the practices below require the expertise of Web developers or SEO consultants for implementation. Legal professionals who create their own content and use CMS platforms like WordPress or Joomla can get to work on these practices right away.

Breadcrumbs navigation

This is a smart practice of user interface and Web design that involves placing links back to previous pages. This is a common feature in many modern website templates; it enhances the experience for visitors who enjoy following internal links without having to rely on their browsers’ “Back” button for navigation.

Checking the quality of internal links

This is something that legal professionals should really pay attention to. A West Palm Beach trusts lawyer who writes a blog about estate planning may want to keep his readers updated of any legislative changes made to the Florida Probate Code. This means reviewing all previous content and blog posts affected by the amendments and updating them as required so as to not send readers to outdated content.

Editorial calendars and content marketing strategies

Law firms who wish to not only attract visitors but also keep them glued to their websites and make them return should stick to a content creation strategy that includes a busy editorial calendar. The more content published on a legal site, the greater opportunities for internal linking.

CMS plugins

Lawyers using WordPress or other CMS platforms for Web publishing should look for plugins that provide internal linking enhancements such as sidebar tag clouds, related posts, automatic link creators and keyword checkers.

Internal linking, also known as deep linking, is one of the most valuable Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices. The crawlers and spiders that Google and other search engines send out to index and rank webpages are programmed to follow internal links and assign value to them. Following an internal linking strategy is simple, especially for legal professionals who practice content marketing.

The basic premise of internal linking is to provide contextual references to content that resides in a page hosted within the same website and domain name. Internal links form the basis of the site map structure recommended by Google. Sidebar, header and footer links are technically internal links, but they do not offer the SEO value of contextual links that enhance the experience of website visitors.

Here’s an example of a valuable internal linking strategy for a child custody law firm in Houston that maintains a blog for content marketing purposes. A blog post explaining Chapter 152 of the Texas Statutes, the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, is published in January. To give relevance to that post, the author can link externally to the official page of the statute. All follow-up posts that mention Chapter 152 should link internally and reference the January blog post for the benefit of readers.

The proper way to insert internal links for maximum effect involves the following SEO research steps:

1. Keyword research: Lawyers should have a list of keywords pertaining to their practice each time they sit down to either create content or place an order for articles from a content broker.
2. Follow the site map: Internal linking to important sections of the website can be part of a call-to-action. The anchor text for these links must flow naturally rather than blatantly directing visitors to “click here.”
3. Stick to HTML: Internal links that call up JavaScript and Flash are not seen as friendly by the Google search crawlers.
4. Don’t overdo it: Internal links should be limited to no more than 75 per webpage.

Form connections and build a community using social media channels.

Building a community of loyal followers and potential clients is possible by using social media online, helping to save costs while giving you a new platform to engage users on. Social media ranges from consistently updating your social network accounts to consistently engaging your users in communicating and connecting with your law firm and the types of cases the firm is capable of taking on.

How to implement social media for your law firm

When you are seeking a way to communicate with your audience on a consistent basis, you can use social networks to represent your firm or the services you have to offer. Choose a logo and site design for all networking pages you have to help build your law firm’s brand. This will also help to increase brand recognition when users view your logo on their own feeds and community updates. Having social media pages to represent the services you offer gives you the opportunity to connect with your audience by sharing track records and the types of services you can offer to the community, which helps to attract new potential clients.

How social media helps building a community for law firms

Using social media networks to represent legal services allows you to engage your users by asking questions about their own experiences and giving them a space online to speak with you or others about their own personal situations. (This is an especially effective technique a medical malpractice attorney can use; many victims of malpractice feel comforted talking about their experiences with others who have gone through similar circumstances.) You can also use third-party applications for social media on your law firm’s website to attract new virtual “likes” on Facebook or “tweets” on Twitter.

Find out more on implementing social media to build a community by visiting Roz K Walker’s official website.

Social Media Mondays is a CaseDetails.com series covering different topics in the social media world on a weekly basis. Check back every Monday for more news on social media and useful information on how law firms can use social platforms to their advantage.