Search Engine Optimization

Most websites have a sitemap. Simply described, a sitemap is a list of all pages on a website. Although a sitemap is not necessary for a site which is well-organized with a straightforward structure, most webmasters will create one and submit it to the major search engines at the time of the site’s launch. This provides Google, Yahoo and Bing with a roadmap of the various pages in your site which should be accessed by crawlers to compile information for their respective indexes.

At Amicus Creative, all of our sites feature a dynamic sitemap. As part of our Foundational Optimization, we submit these maps to all of the search engines but we don’t stop there. We’ve implemented a sophisticated system which recognizes each time a change is made, automatically revises the sitemap and resubmits it to the search engines so they’re immediately notified of the change, speeding up the indexing process.

Contact us today to learn more about our advanced SEO strategies that have helped countless attorneys reach new heights.

Every year, Google makes hundreds of algorithm updates, changing the method by which they evaluate and rank sites for any given search phrase. Most updates do not have an immediate effect on the large majority of sites but the last one, Penguin 2.0, announced two weeks ago, is expected to impact millions. Should you be worried about your law firm’s website?

The law firms we work with often get notices from domain vendors offering to sell them highly coveted domain names for a small fortune. These attorneys generally call us to ask if the desirable domain name, which is supposed to be top-notch for SEO, is worth the investment. For many years, having a domain name that was an exact match to the search query essentially guaranteed top placement in the search engine result pages (SERPs). With this great SEO benefit, exact match domain for highly competitive searches like “Chicago Bankruptcy Lawyer” (chicagobankruptcylawyer.com) could easily be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

SEO, meta tags, SEM, cloaking, bots, latent semantic indexing, white hat, black hat, algorithms, PPC, keyword cannibalization…search engine optimization can be overwhelming and downright confusing to law firms trying to build a powerful online presence and increase site visibility. While you don’t need to master all of the optimization lingo to develop and maintain an effective website, it is important that you understand the basics of SEO to ensure you don’t fall victim to the many SEO scams pitched to law firms each and every day.

Every day we’re contacted by prospective clients.  Many ask the same questions like how well do your clients rank with Google? How long is the development process?  How extensive is your content management system? One consideration which is far too often overlooked when selecting a website provider is loading time. How quickly does the server respond when a visitor arrives at a new site?

A slow loading time can be harmful in a number of ways.

We meet a lot of attorneys at conferences and networking events. Of course, the topic of their firms’ websites always comes up. The most common reaction we hear from lawyers is “I have a website but it could be better.” After digging a little deeper, we often find out why it could be better. Often the graphics just aren’t great, the content was never completed, the site is outdated or it looks nice but it just isn’t bringing in business. In an effort to help attorneys better understand the potential of their marketing efforts, we’re pleased to offer free, no-obligation website assessments.

There are countless legal marketing scams out there. Companies regularly target law firms trying to sell them costly domain name renewals (when already set to renew with existing host), expensive yet ineffective directory listings, a mobile version of the firm’s website or engage them in a link scheme. We hear all about these rip-offs from our clients who call us to ask if it’s worth the investment or whether there is any merit to the claims that these sales teams are making. Recently, we’ve heard from many clients who have been solicited by multiple companies who make “landing pages” for the firms in hopes of increasing online exposure for a particular set of keywords. Before you decide whether or not this is a valuable strategy for your firm, it’s important that you consider how they work and why they’re generally ineffective (and may actually be harmful) marketing tools.

Last week one of our clients received a notification from Google stating that their firm’s site was in jeopardy of being removed from the search engine’s index because there were too many “unnatural links” to the site. You see, the firm had hired an “expert” to help optimize their site. In an attempt to game the system and increase the client’s PageRank, the “expert” had amateurishly added links to the client’s site from a variety of topically disparate and questionable websites. The large majority of the sites that contained these links were completely unrelated to the firm’s practice areas and included sites for car dealerships and photographers. And while this helped the site move up the SERPs initially, it ultimately backfired as Google caught on to the Black Hat-ish strategies being employed.

On our blog, we spend a lot of time highlighting ways you can help your website but equally important is an understanding of the tactics that can actually harm your site. Here are some top Black Hat strategies that you need to be weary of if you are working on your site or hiring a professional to assist you with optimization:

If you’re a lawyer with a website, you’ve been contacted by an “SEO expert”; it’s one of the inevitable annoyances of putting your firm online. If you’re a novice, or unsatisfied with your current site’s performance, you’ve probably listened to them and wondered if they can in fact pull off the miracle they’re promising—first page results in a matter of days. The answer is simple, they probably can’t and most reliable SEO experts will promise no such thing.

While SEO strategy seems incredibly complex and the promised tactics of the SEO experts may sound overwhelming, many search optimization tactics are really quite simple and intuitive when you think of the main goal of search engines; they want quality sites directly related to the user’s search to populate the first few pages of the search engine results.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve covered the key statistics (Content, Visitors, Traffic Sources) within your Google Analytics control panel and what they mean for your website. Despite the significance of these metrics and how they play into site success, many website owners fail to regularly monitor and analyze visitor trends.

We are often asked how this is best accomplished; after all, it can be a hassle to log into your Google Analytics control panel and navigate around to each page. Luckily, with just a few simple steps, you can have your Google Analytics report sent to you on a regular basis so these statistics come directly to your inbox.

A visually stunning website, although eye-catching, will not necessarily get your firm new business. Content is single-handedly the most important component of website success but, unlike an attractive design, it can be difficult to evaluate. How do site visitors perceive the information on your site and how is that perception affecting their decision to contact (and retain) you? Google Analytics can help you answer these questions with its statistics on website content.

Upon logging into your Analytics control panel, you will find that there is a whole section devoted to content analysis. Here are the key statistics which you should be actively monitoring: