seo - avvo ignite
TRANSCRIPT
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