subject: Three Step Approach to Legal SEO [print this page] Three Step Approach to Legal SEO Three Step Approach to Legal SEO
In ourJDFinder.com blog articleSeven Legal Internet Marketing Ideas- What is Affordable? What is Effective?, we discussed different ideas in promoting your practice. Most of the ideas are straightforward and modern spins to traditional marketing. However, one idea that is completely unique to the Internet is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
It takes a lot time and energy to master SEO, but we will outline three basics to better understand SEO and help make your SEO efforts more successful.
One- Understand SEO
SEO is defined as the process of improving the visibility of a web site or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. (Wikipedia)
Search engines crawl your site, analyze it, index the terms, and then list it in their search results. The search resultscomparesthe words searched and with pages in the search engine index. The pages that most closely match the searched terms appear at the top of the search results.
There are numerous factors used in determining thesearch resultsranking. A few of the most important include the content of the page and the quality of back links, which are outside pages that link to the page. The back links should contain the rightkeywords(see below) and the page URL.
Second- Determine relevant and practical keywords for your website SEO
The more popular thekeyword, the harder it is to appear early in the search rankings. A good way to determine the popularity of akeywordis throughGoogle Analytics.
For example, if the average cost-per-click (CPC) for San Diego lawyer is $20.00 and is searched 50K times a month, then thekeywordis competitive and it is very difficult to be listed at the top of the rankings. However, it would probably be less difficult for Temecula lawyer, and even less tough for Temecula DUI lawyer. The SEO competition on thesekeywordsis presumably lower since the CPC and search engine searches are lower.
Thus, you have to find the realistic and effective keyword(s) that fit your goals, time, and budget.
Three- After you determine the keywords you want, promote your site with those keywords.
Make sure your siteis SEO friendly and hasTitles, Descriptions, Keywords, Meta-tags, etc. Once you do, you caninsert the rightkeywordsin the visible and hidden contentthat can be picked up by crawlers.
The more labor intensive SEO involves finding and broadcasting your site through quality back links. SEO specialists usually have a list of quality sites where you can broadcast your link and promote your articles. Ideally, people will feed off these links and mention your site elsewhere, which will contribute to your SEO growth.
Some places to begin to promote your site are through social networking, blog networks, blogs, article share directories, etc.
If you want a more detailed approach to SEO, try the SEOMOZguide athttp://guides.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization
