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How to avoid being caught out by Google

April, 18 2013
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Jo Stephens
Website Design

There is no doubt that law firm web design is a complex process. With the advent of Google’s Panda and Penguin updates, the days of the wild wild west SEO have long since been over. Those who thought they could get away with black hat – or ethically questionable methods to stay at the top of the all-knowing search engines are sadly mistaken. The penalties are stiff for those who entertain even taking a chance these days. Consequently, Law Firm Sites wants to help you avoid receiving any penalties.

Attorney websites can be affected by Google penalties based on competitive key phrases that put them at the top of Google – when there is a perceived violation. The situation is characterized by the loss of nearly all of the site’s rankings and traffic. It can be devastating, since this means that business is being lost to competing firms every minute. Below are some methods that are typically used to prevent and remove Google penalties.

How to Prevent Google Penalties

1. Establish a Google Webmaster Tools Account if one does not exist. Then run its programs to identify where the traffic links are coming from.

2. Clean up all of spam links. This can be very time consuming, but it is very necessary.

3. Review the link building strategy and create a new plan. Further, going over login information for profiles, comments and forum posts is essential to get and keep out of Google jail.

4. Identify and remove spam backlinks. This will be an ongoing process, since it is almost impossible to manually remove all of these links.

5. Continually create and distribute fresh, useful content that uses keywords sparingly. This is the only way for the site to be legitimately recognized by Google.

There’s really no way for attorney websites to be absolutely certain that they will never incur penalties from Google. Just as a layperson should not be handling their own legal matters, law firms need professional web design and SEO experts to prevent Google penalty situations.

With the services of a good SEO and marketing firm, there is a much better chance that the site will not incur penalties, since experts keep up on trends and understand how to use law firm web design best practices to avoid these conundrums in the first place. Having a professional SEO expert on your team is like having a get and keep out of Google jail card.

If you are interested in SEO and Marketing for your law firm website, contact Law Firm Sites today!

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