Seo - Avvo ignite

Lawyernomics Conference 2013April 26-27, 2013

Bellagio Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas

Early Bird tickets on sale now: www.lawyernomics2013.com

SEO Best Practices for Lawyers

July 12, 2012

Lawyernomics Conference 2013April 26-27, 2013

Bellagio Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas

Early Bird tickets on sale now: www.lawyernomics2013.com

Started SEO back in 1999

Freelance web design firm from 2001-2007

In 2008, small business SEO and Wordpress

design

In the recent past, SEO consultant for:

Intro

Jake MartinSEO Nerd

Extraordinaire@jmwebdev

4.7+ billion searches are done everyday on

Google by more than 500 million unique users

in over

130 countries.

Paid (PPC)

Organic (SEO)

G+ Local Map(Local SEO)

Searching for “Seattle DUI” will give results similar to this:

But how does the ranking work?

SEO Fundamentals

SEO is…

SEO is ensuring that your website shows up in the organic search

results of search engines (such as Google and Bing) and drives

visitors back to your website.

SEO is…

SEO is ensuring that your website shows up in the organic search

results of search engines (such as Google and Bing) and drives

visitors back to your website.

HOWEVER….

SEO is…

SEO is ensuring that your website shows up in the organic search

results of search engines (such as Google and Bing) and drives

visitors back to your website.

HOWEVER….

1. The tactics and strategy in SEO has evolved as the way that people

interact with social media channels has matured.

2. The roles and responsibilities of an SEO consultant/practitioner have

dramatically changed, and will continue to evolve.

SEO = a form of inbound marketing

1. IndexationSearch robots crawl and build indexes based on collected

and provided data. The faster your content is indexed,

the quicker it can begin to rank and generate traffic.

2. RankIndex is served to users who search the search engine.

3. VisitorsVisitors view website but are not guaranteed to take action.

4. ConversionsTrust, quality, convenience and emotional website

elements convert visitors into clients.

Four Main Benefits of SEO

The 2013 SEO Process

Discovery

Content Development

Technical Development

Social Implementatio

n

Measurement

Optimization

It all starts with planning your success!

• Business objectives

• What does it mean to be successful to you?

• Market research

• What are your local competitors doing?

• What are parallel firms doing in larger markets?

• Audience research

• Segment your audience into personas. Who is interested in your

site?

Keyword research

• Who is searching for what on the search

engines internet?

• Who are they? Demographics and

psychographics

• What terms are they searching for in your

industry?

• Is this a transactional search or an

informational search?

• How often are they searching?

• What search engines are they using?

A few content ideas:

1. Tell your story

2. Answer questions

3. Tell your client’s story *

4. Share photos

5. Recent news

6. Events

7. Create a blog series

Content generation (and promotion)

If your content is bad…

NO SHARES FOR YOU!

OK, SEO is really confusing…

I prefer elaborate, but yes, it is confusing.

Disclosure for full transparencySEO is an intensive process that involves many different disciplines.

If you know what you are doing, it can take months to years to rank for

highly competitive terms. It doesn’t happen over night, even for

‘gurus’!

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. At a minimum, you will need:

1. A domain name

2. A website design

3. Content (text, images, video) to go on the website

You will need help!

Preferably, you will also get the help of:

1. A web design firm or consultant

2. An SEO consultant or SEO firm

3. A copywriter with legal experience

4. A dedicated resource for social media

freeTOOLTIME

Measuring Keyword Efficacy

Free demo has all the keyword research tools you need:

marketsamurai.com

The best free keyword research tool

Measuring Website Usage

The web’s de facto analytics solution

google.com/analytics/

Useful stats include:

• Unique and total visitors

• Most visited pages

• Where the person came from (referrer)

• How long they spent on-site

• How likely would they leave the page? (bounce rate)

Measuring The Competition

The fastest deep dive tool

netpeak.net/software/netpeak-checker/

Actionable Tips

Five things you can do today to improve your SEO

game

In three easy steps you can have a lot of great ideas to write about:

1) Go to http://www.avvo.com/free-legal-advice/all-topics

2) Click a topic in your practice area, then click on “Questions &

Answers”

3) Profit! Look for trends of recurring questions, then write a deep-

dive article on the question!

Easy keyword research via crowd sourcing

• Easy way to generate traffic

- Map Results

- Google+ Results

- Mobile Results

• Free to use and setup

• Important for reviews

Claim Your Google+ Local Business

Pro-tip: The new changes to Google+ Business pages have been great for SEOs. Be sure to build quality links to your G+ business page to gain more exposure through Google Maps results!

http://bit.ly/nPubrA

• Provides visual enhancement of search results

• Results in higher click-thru regardless of SERP

rank

• Takes 5 minutes to setup

• Watch the step-by-step video

Setup Rel Authorship

Which result do you think gets more clicks?

Submit Yourself to Review Sites

Here’s 15 top sites you absolutely must be on if you

want to rank highly in Google+ Local / Maps!

Download the list here.

Yelp, Yellow Pages, Superpages,

Citysearch, Angie's List, Judy's

Book, Manta, Merchant Circle,

Service Magic, YouTube and more!

• No one wants to read yet another DUI article that states the obvious

• Pictures and videos will help with SEO ranks and diversifying traffic

channels

• Use authority site’s such as Avvo to reference / promote your epic

content

Create epic content frequently

Learn how to be a great legal blogger here

Things to AVOID(unless you want to ruin your website)

Copy other people’s content verbatim

Keyword stuff

Cloak or mask content

Buy links from other websites

Free-for-all links

Link exchanges

Comment spam

Article spam / spun articles

Forum or QA spam

… or hire SEO firms who do the above!

Don’t Do These Things, Ever:

www.Avvo.com

Questions? Comments?

@jmwebdev

Lawyernomics Conference 2013April 26-27, 2013

Bellagio Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas

Early Bird tickets on sale now: www.lawyernomics2013.com