Check your SEO campaign’s progress through these key performance indicators.

One of the most important questions when undertaking an SEO campaign — or indeed any marketing campaign — for your law firm is to define success. This is done through what are known as KPIs, or key performance indicators. You will need to define your KPIs and set up analytics tools to track how well your SEO campaign is going.

Common KPIs for SEO

By far the most common key performance indicator, especially for lawyers and legal marketers, is the position that your site ranks for targeted keywords in Google and other search engines. Your goal is to get on the first page of the SERPs (search engine results pages). This determines if potential customers see your name come up first when they type in a keyword phrase like “Tennessee estate planning attorney.”

However, for competitive keywords, it can take some time for you to break into the top SERPs. There are some indicators along the way to determine if your SEO campaign is in a healthy position to rank highly as it grows. These include:

• Number and quality of inbound links
• Search query traffic data
• Conversion rates
• Customer retention rates

In other words, if people are finding you from a variety of sources, seeing that your content is relevant enough to become a client, and coming back after using your services one or more times, congratulations! Your SEO campaign is going well.

In particular, inbound links can be an important KPI when waiting to improve your ranking for competitive keyword phrases. Measuring the amount of search traffic can also be useful, as visitors may use variations of your keywords to find your site. While these KPI metrics aren’t quite as precise as measuring the SERP ranking you have with your desired keywords, it can do in a pinch if you’re waiting for your listing to move.

As you develop your law firm’s website, the first thing you begin to notice is that you’re getting hits, or visits. Visits to your website are a sign that your SEO practices are working; however, unless those hits turn into leads, they are not effective. The next step in your web marketing efforts is to transform bounces, or hits that don’t generate new client connections, into leads.

Why do visitors bounce?

Visitors might decide to look elsewhere for services offered on your site for any one of a number of reasons: They may not be able to connect their needs with your services, they may be confused by your layout, they may be put off by an unprofessional presentation or they may simply not appreciate your aesthetic.

As an Arkansas debt collection lawyer or other legal professional, you may not have a background in marketing. You don’t need one: Simply try using these tools and you’ll improve your site’s lead generation potential in no time.

How to reduce bounce rates

Utilize these tips to get and keep customers interested in your services:

• Use quantifiable claims: By headlining numerical data supporting your business, you can convince people that your services are necessary. Common claims used by law firms include statements such as, “90 percent of cases ended in court wins or settlements” or “98 percent client satisfaction rate.”
• Employ A/B and multivariate testing: There are certain analytic tools like Google Analytics that allow you to compare different versions of your landing pages to determine which ones generate more click-throughs and leads. These tools can also help you analyze click patterns to determine where to place important buttons that will help customers connect with you.
• Incorporate benefits into the copy and aesthetic: Visitors want to know why they’re at your website. They clicked through because you were at the top of the list, but once they’re there, they want a clear sense of who you are and what you have to offer.

While getting hits is an important part of a successful website, it is only the beginning. By using these methods, you can improve your lead generation and client retention and reduce bounce rates, making your firm’s website the best tool it can be.

Want to improve your website’s SEO? Follow these simple tips.

The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) field seems intricate due to dynamic search engine algorithms and the fact that millions of websites are vying for the top few positions on an given search engine results page (SERP) at any given time. Even with the complexities surrounding SEO, there are a few techniques that legal professionals can almost effortlessly apply to their websites to attain a higher SERP rank.

The following techniques are simple and can be applied to the website of law firm or solo practitioner in an hour or less, and they follow Google’s recommendations for designing sites that conform to organic search standards.

Boost website speed performance

Sites that routinely rank high on the SERP tend to be optimized for speed. A fast web hosting company is important in this regard, but a caching plugin, which uses stored data to generate a readily accessible website, can also improve speed. Popular Web publishing platforms like WordPress call up many resources to display a single page; caching plugins further accelerate the process.

Make images search-friendly

Google and other major search engines have a lot riding on image search. Web traffic from image search results has increased significantly over the last few years and it is likely to continue growing, especially as social networks like Pinterest and Instagram continue to grow. It is imperative, then, that legal professionals optimize pictures on their websites in order to benefit from this growth trend.

The most important step in optimizing images is to use keywords as file names. If, for example, a Glendale truck accidents attorney uploads a portrait to his or her website and the file name is comprised of simple letters or numbers, the image will not rank high on the SERP. That picture, however, can easily be renamed to include the attorney’s name and the keywords “Glendale” and “lawyer.” Just make sure image titles are relevant to the photo and the subject nature of the page

Fix broken links

Links that go nowhere tend to be punished with low SERP rank. Fixing broken links is a simple matter of searching for an online tool to detect them, followed by corrective action and replacement.

Avoid these copywriting mistakes to have better content on your website!

As many lawyers know, SEO copywriting can be an extremely effective marketing strategy when done correctly. However, there are some common pitfalls that some firms fall into. Here are five things to avoid when writing SEO copy for your blog or website.

1) Don’t write solely for search engines. While it’s your obvious goal to rank for certain keywords, you should write for humans and not just search engines. Otherwise, your content can sound unnatural and turn readers off. Instead, try to strike a good balance and keep both your readers and search engines in mind.

2) Avoid keyword stuffing. One of the quickest ways to get penalized by search engines is by keyword stuffing and going overboard on your keyword density. Besides this, it can be annoying to your readers, so it’s best to write naturally and keep your density somewhere between one-and-a-half to five percent.

3) Don’t try to rank for irrelevant keywords. Some websites try to throw in keywords that are loosely connected to their niche but are irrelevant to a page of content in order to bring in more traffic. This should be avoided because the visitors you get are likely to leave quickly if the page they land on doesn’t have the information they are looking for. Ranking for irrelevant keywords is a waste of your time and your visitor’s time.

4) Avoid using keyword the same way all the time. When you use a particular keyword phrase numerous times in the exact same way, it often leads to an unnatural flow. To prevent this, you should use that phrase in different ways. Instead of using Des Moines criminal defense attorneys, you could break the term up into two sentences. An example would be, “There are numerous cases of criminal conduct in Des Moines. Criminal defense attorneys provide the accused with legal counsel.”

5) Don’t target misspellings. While it can be tempting to try to rank for misspelled keywords, it should be avoided because it can make your firm look unprofessional. Even though you know that you’re intentionally misspelling, your readers won’t know it. Since the last thing a potential client wants is a lawyer who can’t spell simple words correctly, you should stay away from this SEO technique.

Google has recently released a Disavow Links Tool that provides website owners with a way to ignore links from certain sites. The development of this tool stemmed primarily from the negative effects that many websites suffered in the wake of Google’s Penguin Update earlier in 2012. Here are some details about the tool and what it can do for your firm’s website.

According to an article on SearchEngineLand.com, Google’s newest tool works by first creating a text file using the Disavow Links Tool and listing your URL. You then list the domains that contain links to your site that you want Google to ignore. Typically, these will be low quality or irrelevant links that are hurting your SEO efforts. If a Charles County workers comp lawyer had paid for thousands of poor links months or years ago to boost their rankings, he could use this tool to ensure that Google ignores them when determining his website’s page ranking.

After you have created your file, you will then submit it to Google. Its effects will not be instantaneous — it can take anywhere up to a few weeks for your submission to be put into action. Once it does, any unwanted links that you listed will be disavowed when determining your website’s ranking in Google’s search results.

While law firms with high-ranking websites and quality links have no real need for this tool, you can benefit from it if certain links have resulted in lower rankings and reduced traffic. If you used any black hat SEO techniques in the past, like paying for links or having spam links created, you should consider using this tool. Also, if you suspect that competitors may have purposely created bad links that point back to your site, this tool can be beneficial.

Assuming the Disavow Links Tool does what it’s intended to do, this should help you firm’s website climb the rankings and pull in more organic traffic.

In previous videos, the SEO in 30 Days series taught law firm professionals how to develop a marketing plan, do keyword research, write content, map out a site, and do internal and external link building. This consists of most of the work you need to do to make a quality site for popular consumption. However, there are a few final touches that will help take a solid, search optimized site to the next level:

• Video advertising and multimedia content
• Social media outreach
• Pay-per-click advertising

These three techniques have the ability to improve any site’s dynamism and enable it to bring in even more additional visitors. They have been used by law firms like Leviness, Tolzman and Hamilton and have been met with great success.

Day-by-day breakdown

On Days 27 and 28, you learn how to add video to your site. This SEO in 30 Days video provides tips on how best to shoot your short clip as well as how to upload, title, tag and embed it in a central location on your website. Video content gives your site a multimedia appeal that often helps it out in the search rankings. If the video itself is popular and touches upon your audience’s interests, it can spread through social media channels as a form of viral marketing for your firm.

On Day 29, you learn how to implement social media strategies for your firm. The video provides helpful suggestions for how to get started. It focuses on the networking aspects of social media and building relationships with potential clients by providing useful, regularly updated content. This can be done through blogs, profile sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, or micro-blogging services like Twitter. The video goes into detail about how to get followers and network contacts and what sorts of content will be most effective.

Finally, the video discusses PPC advertising for the 30th day. It explains PPC advertising in clear language and takes you step by step through the process of developing and releasing your own PPC ad campaign. It talks about how PPC enables greater outreach to potential clients and how to leverage programs like Google AdWords to improve your site’s SEO.

For more information on each of these subject matters, read through the text version of our SEO in 30 Days series. It offers free advice for legal professionals seeking to improve their website’s profitability. Additionally, it breaks down the complexities of modern web design into processes that even the busiest attorney can find time to do.

The second-to-last video in the SEO in 30 Days series details site mapping and link building — two very important elements of any search optimization solution. The previous videos went through the process of planning, keyword organization and content creation. By now, you should have the bones and muscle of your law firm’s website. The work is only half done, however, and days 16 through 26 involve some heavy lifting on the design front as well as all-important networking to acquire links.

The importance of link building in SEO

The text and video versions of the SEO in 30 Days series both do a good job of stating the importance of link building. In essence, the link building process consists of linking to other established websites and getting them to link to you. This underscores the fact that the Internet is, in part, a popularity contest. If other high-ranking sites link to you, search engine algorithms will rank you higher for it. Whether your firm employs truck accident lawyers or bankruptcy lawyers, linking to sites that match your audience and keywords will improve your position in the ranking.

Internal link building is also an important part of what is known as site mapping. Once you have your content, organizing the navigation structure and user experience is not only important for improving the quality and value of your Web service — good internal linking can help to improve your site’s visibility in search engine rankings.

Day by day

The two main goals in Days 16 through 26 are internal link building and external link building. You develop internal link building solutions by following the instructions for days 16 through 21, using SEO techniques like sitemaps and ALT tags. This is very useful for you to determine how to use hypertext links in the content you created on days 10 through 15 as well as how to structure your site’s sidebars and topbars. You will be optimizing both search engine readability and human navigability.

Days 22 through 26 consist of the all-important task of link building. There are many different techniques you need to use to build links, including asking other webmasters, posting links on blogs or message boards, offering to guest post content or creating other relationships with established and up-and-coming sites in your legal field.

With this penultimate video, the SEO in 30 Days series continues to impress with step-by-step solutions to improve web visibility. Try out these techniques today on your law firm’s website!

If you’ve gotten through the first nine days of the SEO in 30 Days series, you may be wondering when you can start actually putting your site together. Previously, the work has been all about planning, first setting a Web marketing plan in motion and then making an organized list of keywords to incorporate and distinguish yourself from the online competition. The next six days will consist of the nuts and bolts of building a website.

The Law Offices of Gary P. Field has used these techniques to great success. As a lawyer working for yourself or with a firm, you can do so too. The SEO in 30 Days series offers step-by-step explanations for comprehensive SEO practices, enabling you to put together your own website to get high levels of targeted Web traffic.

Days 10 through 15, day by day

The overall focus of days 10 through 15 is on choosing a domain name, content creation and meta tags. This will be the meat of your site’s SEO solution and will be founded upon the work you’ve done with keyword research and marketing plans.

Day 10 consists of choosing your domain name. The video goes over important details for how to make your name memorable and contain your keyword. Certain hints, such as not to use hyphens, are shared as is the use of domain name tools to see if certain names are available.

Days 11 and 12 consist of mapping the website’s content structure. The purpose of the work being done on days 11 and 12 is to match keywords to the site’s structure, and various techniques for doing so are analyzed in detail. You can make thumbnails, site maps and other design elements, or you can use Web design programs described in the video.

Days 13 through 15 consist of actually writing the content on your site. With a proper foundation in keywords and audience research, you will produce written content that draws viewers to your site and keeps them interested in your firm. The video also details how to include meta tags, an important part of any SEO campaign.

Whether you have a New York City criminal defense law firm or a probate firm down in Florida without much time, you can benefit from the SEO in 30 Days video series. Watch it today and learn how to take your firm’s Web presence into high gear, or read through the full text series for an in-depth outline of how to structure your SEO campaign!