15 Google Penalties & How to Avoid Them – Part 3

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

11. Penalty for Pirated Content

As a law firm, you are well versed in the troubles with hosting illegal (pirated) content. Don’t host such content on your site, even for demonstration purposes.

12. Penalty for Risky Subjects

If you list topics such as gambling, drugs, and other illicit content, Google could deem your site a poor quality location. Be careful with mentioning these activities too often.

13. Penalty for Front Loading Your Content

Don’t meander and take forever to get to your point with your articles and blog posts. If the user has to scroll too far to reach useful information, your engagement score will take a hit and you could risk a big penalty.

14. Penalty for Lack of Responsiveness

All websites today should be mobile responsive. This means that they adjust to the screen size of the device. Failing to do this can bring a drop in your rankings. A legal website design company such as Law Firm Sites can aid you in navigating this area and help improve your lawyer advertising.

15. Penalty for Cloaking

Cloaking is a method used by hackers to mimic IP addresses and redirect users to other sites. Imagine a user clicking to your website, only to be magically navigating another IP address in seconds. Not only is this poor practice from a user experience perspective, it can also be very dangerous from a penalty standpoint. Google assumes that you are cloaking your IP address for less than admirable purposes, and most of the time they are right. Because of the malicious acts associated with this, avoid this practice altogether.

Use a Professional Firm

Don’t risk letting your SEO rankings be threatened. Law Firm Sites (lawfirmsites.com) is a legal website design firm that can help you create a compelling, responsive, SEO-friendly, conversion-ready, and professionally designed website. Using their expert knowledge of internet marketing best practices, they can help you rank higher in the search engines without suffering penalties by using modern, legitimate practices. That way, you can focus on what you do best: legal work.

The art of lawyer advertising is getting attention and traffic to gain more clients. Without it, you will miss out additional opportunities to grow your firm. While it can seem overwhelming to deal with all the potential SEO penalties out there, it doesn’t need to be. Take the above strategies to heart, use the professionals, and you can enjoy more visibility without losing your hard-earned rankings.