Site Freshness
Keeping a website current is an important factor to your clients as well as any search engine. The reason for this is because people trust a website that has up-to-date information. This can explain why blogs and CMSs (Content Management Systems) have become so popular and why most of our website packages include them. They make it extremely easy for website owners to update their website quickly and easily.
Keywords
Choosing the correct keywords to focus the marketing on is the basis of the SEO strategy. Our marketing team uses keyword software, old fashioned
competition research and testing to find the best keywords that have the highest KEI rating. Basically the KEI rating gives a value to any given keyword. KEI gives a number value to a keyword. If the keyword has a high KEI rating it means there are a lot of people searching that keyword with little competition for ranking. Finding great keywords takes a good deal of time and research in the short term, but yields results long term if completed correctly.
Backlinks
Currently Google controls 80% of the search engine market. This staggering number stems back to Larry Page (one of the founders of Google) originally naming Google “Backrub”. The theory Larry had was that a site ranking should be heavily based on reference or votes from one credible website to another. For example, if IBM felt it important to put a link on their website to your website- your site must be important. Why else would such a large company risk their reputation in giving a reference link to a small company? Building a solid backlink strategy is among the most important aspects to your law firm
marketing strategy.
Load Speed
The time it takes to load your website is called “load speed”. There are several reasons this is important. The first is if it takes 15-20 seconds or more to load your website, visitors are going to leave. The second and rarely understood point is Google’s servers. Yes, I said Google’s servers. Let me explain. Google currently maintains 70 acres of servers. That is right, 70 acres. Now imagine if they could reduce the load on each server by 2%. That would mean that each server would run more efficiently and would save both resources and capital. When a website is built under the current standards of load speed and compatibility, Google will reward that site with better ranking.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is how long a client is on your website before leaving. If the bounce rate is below one minute on average, clients are not finding what they want on your site. It will require a major change on the website and reorganization of the content. Keeping the bounce rate above rate 1 minute will help your Google ranking but more importantly ensure you are meeting your client’s needs.
Competition
Research on a client’s competition is a vital part of the law firm marketing strategy. We research keywords, content, load speed and content trends. New competition in the marketplace makes it necessary to constantly review the competition. Staying ahead of the competition on Google is paramount to most of our competition. Our team reviews what keywords the competition is focusing on and reports their findings to you to ensure you stay on top of the market.
URL, Link and Page Names
The name of your website along with the name of the pages is important to Google as well as your clients. Having the URL www.AtlantaLawyer.com is better than www.jimwilsonattorney.com. Purchasing domain names for sale that have great keywords in the name is a service we offer. We also look at the age of a domain because the older the domain, the more credibility Google and the other search engines give it.
Naming internal and external links keywords is an important aspect of website ranking. For example, a website selling flashlights could name the page dedicated to flashlights page003.html, but it would be better to name the page worlds-brightest-flashlights.html. Naming backlinks is extremely important as well. The best example of this is “click here”. If you Google the word phrase “click here” the first page is Adobe Reader.
Now if you click the #1 site on that page you will get this page: Adobe Reader. But that page has no words “click here” on the page. It is ranked #1 because millions of websites have a link on it that reads: “Click here to download Adobe Acrobat Reader”. Because millions of websites name their link “click here” it is ranked number one. Now imagine those same websites had the link: “New York Lawyer to download Adobe Acrobat Reader”. The site that the words New York Lawyer links to would be #1 anytime someone Googled “New York Lawyer”.
Content
The content or text on your website is compared to the content on your competition’s site. More than just trying to beat the competition, we counsel our clients to make their site the best possible resource for their clients. Asking the actual users what they would like to find on your website will many times give you great ideas of what to and what not to include.
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If that is your main focus, as opposed to simply having high ranking, your site will stand the test of time. Most importantly, no matter what changes Google makes to their ranking methodology, your site will continue to rank high. Of course, you also can’t ignore the other important elements listed below.
