So you've started using some form of link exchange, but now you're realizing that your links are hard to track.  The majority of marketers in recent polls rank link building as “somewhat difficult” or “very difficult,” and many say that it's the toughest part of their job.  Getting link exchange manager software is a great step to take toward improved link exchange management.  In this guide, you'll learn about some of the types of link exchange management software available to you.  You'll also find out how a link exchange manager can help you avoid Google trouble from your exchanged links.

Is Link Exchange Really So Tough?

If you've only recently gotten started with link exchange, you may think that downloading a link exchange manager is overkill.  Link exchange management really only becomes important once you have a large amount of links.

Let's say that you started by exchanging links with just a dozen websites, all of which are owned by people you or someone else in your firm knows personally.  You have no reason to believe that these links would ever be taken down intentionally, and you can easily check to make sure that your links are still up.  A law firm in this circumstance would probably find link exchange management to be a solution in search of a problem.

However, let's say that you've done things a bit differently.  You've used several different link exchange services so that you can exchange links with a wider range of websites than just those owned by your personal acquaintances.  You now have over five hundred links, and you also know that the people who are maintaining those links would just as soon delete your link and have a one way link from you.  For these law firms, a link exchange manager can make the difference between having a winning linking strategy and gaining no benefit from link exchange whatsoever.

What Law Firms Want Out of Link Exchange Management

Generally, law firms download a link exchange manager so that they can create or monitor their links on other websites.  Link exchange management tools usually include an automatic system that can check out whether the places that are supposedly linking to you actually are.  You may be surprised—some companies will intentionally try to turn your reciprocal link into a one way link, while others may accidentally delete your link during the course of a normal planned site redesign.

With the right link exchange manager, you won't need to think about link exchange as often.  A link exchange management tool can automatically generate your links, so that you don't have to build a new link by hand every time someone wants to exchange links with you.  Your link exchange manager can also create a Links webpage on your website that contains your list of reciprocal links.

Your link exchange management tools will also tell you some information about the websites linking to you.  It's good to know the Alexa ranking and Google PageRank for any sites giving you links, because these numbers matter to your overall search rankings.

Finding Good Link Exchange Management Software

It's important to keep in mind that there's no one right link exchange manager for every law firm.  The biggest question in deciding on a piece of link exchange management software is how familiar you are with computers, inbound link building, website design, and so on.

If you're already very familiar with the principles of link exchange and you want to be able to customize your exchanges heavily, you should get a more robust and sophisticated piece of software.  The more complex link exchange manager programs may require some knowledge of coding to be able to use their most advanced features.

For people who don't know as much about computers, it might be preferable to pick link exchange management software that focuses on having an easy to understand user interface.  This type of link exchange manager is less likely to allow completely custom managing of your links, but will be much faster to start using and to learn.

When Link Exchange Management Goes Wrong

If you've been using your link exchange manager to grow your inbound link base, you should know a few things.  Google doesn't like having links created by link exchange management software, and if it catches you in the act, you might not be able to get link authority from any of your reciprocal links.  This can have a devastating effect on a website, and make future link building efforts much more challenging.

If you're automating your link building too much, it's very likely that one day you'll get an email message from Google that advises you that you've been caught.  This email message will also contain information on how to have your website's rankings re-adjusted upward once you've gotten rid of the links that Google didn't like.  One of the nicest parts of link exchange manager software is that some of these programs also let you automate the process of notifying webmasters that you want your link taken down.

Avoiding Problems With Your Link Exchange Manager

Of course, it's best if you can avoid these kinds of link exchange management problems in the first place.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say.  But what's the best way to do that?  Link exchange manager software should not be used round the clock as your main (or especially as your only) link building method.  If you do this, you'll quickly be found out by Google and should expect your rankings to always languish.

You should also run some link exchange management software that shows you your ratio of reciprocal to one way inbound links.  If more than half of your links are reciprocal, you're definitely in the danger zone—stop building reciprocal links right away and start creating one way links before you get into trouble with search engines.

Millions of websites today are working on building an artificial link presence that isn't really based on quality content and fair play.  Instead, they're gaming the system and creating an artificial link structure designed explicitly to rocket them to the top of the search rankings.  However, every time you create an artificial link, you're leaving a trail that search engines may be able to detect.  In this guide, we'll take a look at how Google detects when law firms are using an artificial link structure.  You can use this information either to make an artificial link that looks natural, or—hopefully—to make a decision not to use artificial links as part of your search engine optimization strategy.

What's the Difference Between Natural and Artificial Links?

Natural links come about because of natural processes.  Anyone who links to your website because they know you in person, saw your link on a social media site, or just loved one of your blog entries is creating a natural link.

An artificial link is very different.  Artificial links are designed with search engine optimization as their biggest—and often sole—priority.  People tend to build these links by using automated link creation programs.  These link creation programs make for a very detectable artificial link structure, and Google and other search engine companies monitor the development of artificial link creation software heavily.  If you are believed to be engaged in creating artificial links, Google reserves the right to penalize your website by making it appear much later in search rankings.

If you're caught buying links, you can expect to be penalized for this method of artificial link building.  If you're caught selling them, though, expect your future to be even bleaker: Google is known to completely de-list websites caught creating artificial link structure for other sites.

Signs of an Artificial Link Structure: Bursts of Activity

One of the easiest ways to make sure that any artificial link creation you do remains undetected by Google is to make links relatively slowly.  Unless a website becomes a real viral sensation overnight, complete with traffic patterns that reflect virality, it's very unlikely that it will get one huge burst of links and then have barely any inbound links created for a month.

The only time that kind of pattern occurs is when an artificial link structure is being built.  This is a top sign of artificial link creation and remains the most common way that Google identifies websites using black hat techniques for search engine optimization.

Signs of an Artificial Link Structure: Identical Anchor Text

Because exact keyword match anchor text can make a bigger difference to your search rankings, some people make every artificial link they build have the same exact keyword anchor text.  But think about it: do websites that are creating links naturally use this kind of linking often?  Natural links might have anchor text like “over here” or “this” or “my favorite law firm,” rather than a specific keyword match that you designed for maximum search engine optimization.

Anyone trying to make an artificial link structure while avoiding detection needs to be careful to vary their anchor text substantially from link to link.  Yes, this will take longer—but it will also prevent your artificial link building from being noticed by Google.

Signs of an Artificial Link Structure: Links from the Same IP

When artificial link building programs put your links on many different websites, some of these programs can make a huge mistake.  If Google detects that too many of your links come from the same IP address, there's only one reasonable explanation: your artificial link building program is hosting your links on many websites that are all hosted on the same servers.

You should run an inbound link checker periodically to look for this sign of an artificial link structure, especially if you are using any kind of automated link building program.  If you see many, many links that all come from wildly different URLs but the same IP address, you need to talk to the people building your links about having some of them removed or changed.

Signs of an Artificial Link Structure: Too Many Reciprocal Links

Automated link exchange schemes were one of the biggest ways to create an artificial link presence on the web in the mid '00s.  Today, though, if you have too many reciprocal links, Google will assume that you're building them artificially, and can penalize you with its new detection algorithm, Google Penguin.

Instead, you should focus on building one way links for the most part.  Having a number of reciprocal links isn't necessarily bad, as long as they're built naturally and don't reflect your entire link presence online.  Just try to keep them a fairly small percentage of your overall links, and you should be fine.

Signs of an Artificial Link Structure: Poor Quality Links

If your links all come from blogs with bizarre, garbled entries and no comment moderation, it's very unlikely that Google is going to consider these links helpful to your search rankings.  You should try to build links from websites that have a relatively high Google PageRank, indicating that they have attained a level of high popularity and authority with Google users.

Signs of an Artificial Link Structure: Content Spinner Sites

One of the easiest ways for lawyers to build an artificial link presence a few years ago was to use so-called “article spinners” that posted the same article content in many different places all over the web.  However, these websites were easy to identify: they accepted any press release or article submission, and explicitly worked to create inbound links on other sites.

If you used one of these websites, an update called Google Panda likely negated the value of all of your link building there.  Google identified the top offenders and made their links worthless, so that now it's a very bad idea to waste your time with the same kinds of content spinner websites.  Get your content to spread naturally and virally, not artificially with automated programs.

If you're planning to improve your search engine optimization in 2013, you may want to become one of the over 50 percent of small law firms that maintains a blog.  Blogs are one of the best ways to increase your website readership quickly and to generate the inbound links that are the foundation of all contemporary SEO strategies.  One of the ways that you can generate inbound links with your blog is through blog link exchange.  While many types of link exchange are actually considered harmful for websites, there are ways to do blog link exchange right.  In this guide you'll find out how to link exchange with blog owners in a way that won't lead to penalties or regrets.

The Problem With Traditional Link Exchange

Link exchange has been one of the foundational principles of getting inbound links ever since search engines started using links to determine rankings.  However, as people got wise to the ways that search engines were creating their rankings lists, they started to game the system.  Some clever people working in search engine optimization realized that any time people created reciprocal links, both of them were getting “link juice,” or authority, that helped drive their rankings up.

Their solution was to automate link exchange.  Soon, blog link exchange was no longer a matter of finding other people with relevant interests—it was just about inserting a piece of code onto your website and watching the links roll in without your input or even necessarily your knowledge.  Instead of showing which websites you were actually interested in, this kind of automated link exchange with blog owners just led to sites filled with reciprocal link spam.

What's So Different About Ethical Blog Link Exchange?

Blog link exchange doesn't have to look like that.  Lawyers are in a unique position in terms of link exchange with blog owners.  Why?  Because law blogs are about very interesting events and news topics, and because many different law blogs have various subject matter intersection points.  This is a perfect environment to start link exchange for blog SEO.

When you do ethical blog link exchange, you're not doing a link exchange for blog optimization exclusively.  You're also doing it because you believe that your blog readers will be interested in what the writer of the other blog has to say.  Blog link exchange of this type will usually mean that the vast majority of blogs you have reciprocal links with are also about law, perhaps even about the same specialty of law that you're practicing and writing about.

How To Do Blog Link Exchange Right

If you want to link exchange with blog owners, you're going to need to get to know them first.  That means beginning to read law blogs.  Blog link exchange will only be ethical if you're picking places to exchange links based on the actual content and quality of the blogs in question.

When you decide that you want to link exchange your blog, you can send a brief but not generic email to the person who runs the blog you want to link to.  Ask them if they might be interested in doing a blog link exchange with you.  If they aren't interested, don't try to force the issue—there are plenty of other places to do link exchange with blog owners.  Usually, it will be much easier to get someone to agree to a blog link exchange if you've already commented on their posts and interacted with them once or twice, or if they already read and comment on your blog.

Instead of just doing a link exchange with blog owners, you may want to exchange the links through mutual guest posts.  By guest posting on someone else's blog and allowing them to guest blog on yours, you're not only generating blog link exchange, you're also making sure that your readers hear about another blog that you find interesting and worthwhile.

If you wouldn't want someone to guest post on your blog, you may want to reconsider the reasons that you want to do a blog link exchange with them.  Link exchange with blog owners is really only advisable when you're exchanging links with people you actually respect and want to read.

How To Do Blog Link Exchange Wrong

Usually, doing the wrong kind of link exchange with blog owners will involve sending mass emails to bloggers, requesting mutual links.  If you find yourself spamming dozens of bloggers in a single night, you can safely assume that you're doing blog link exchange wrong.  Not only is this an unethical way to do link exchange with blog owners, it's also very likely to lead to Google penalties.

The worst way to do blog link exchange is to try to get exchange with very low quality blogs or blogs that have little or nothing to do with the law or your practice area.  This is generally seen as a sign of desperation and won't look good on your blog when potential clients see it.

Use Caution: Don't Use All Links From Blog Link Exchange

Even if you're doing a great job and have managed to do link exchange with blog owners all over the country, it's not a good idea to have the majority of your links come from blog link exchange.  Why?  Because Google tends to assume that anyone with too many reciprocal links is actually using the unethical methods of link exchange.

You should try to keep your overall number of links made through link exchange with blog owners to a small percentage of your total inbound links.  If you do this, Google won't identify your behavior as potential evidence of over optimization, and you're much less likely to incur any penalties for your linking preferences.

Consider adding to your links from social networking websites, social bookmarking hubs, and directories in order to establish a pattern of developing one way links as well as reciprocal links.
 

As a lawyer, you're very familiar with the idea that when something looks too good to be true, it probably is.  You may have seen search engine marketers who talked about free link exchanges for attorneys, and you may be wondering whether a free link exchange could be the SEO answer you've been looking for.  Unfortunately for lawyers, using free link exchanges is usually a bad idea and will almost never give you a net positive result for your search rankings.  In this guide, you'll find out why free link exchange used to work—but also why today, it's a losing game.

What is a Free Link Exchange?

Free link exchanges exist because of the way that Google computes whose website is listed where in search rankings.  Because Google's search spiders aren't being assisted by humans who can tell them exactly which websites appear to be high quality and which are low quality, Google has to take some shortcuts.  One of the ways that Google tells whose website is better and more authoritative is by seeing how many different links there are to that website.

If a website has a huge number of inbound links, it's obvious that a large number of people respect—or at least are interested in—that website.  This means that Google will put it higher into the rankings.  Free link exchanges developed because website owners realized that, at least initially, Google didn't make much distinction between different types of inbound links.  When all links were valued similarly to each other, free link exchange was an idea that made sense and worked to lift many websites into the top page of search results.

Do Free Link Exchanges Really Work?

While it's true that free link exchange was a good idea several years ago, there are a few reasons that it doesn't work very well today.  Free link exchanges were identified by Google as being rife with abuse and inorganic link building.  Remember, the whole idea behind using inbound links in the rankings algorithm was to make sure that people could see the highest quality links first.  Now, with people gaming the search engines, low quality links created by free link exchanges were suddenly at the top of the heap.

Google didn't like this very much, and responded by figuring out some algorithmic ways to detect when free link exchange was being used in place of organic link building.  For example, when Google detects that you have a very high percentage of links coming from known link exchange websites, you may now incur penalties to your rankings so that those links are now completely without value.  

Can a Free Link Exchange Ever Help?

It is sometimes possible to do free link exchanges that will make your website rise in search rank.  However, you're not going to be able to just do free link exchange in huge, wholesale quantities.  Instead, keep your free link exchanges personal: try exchanging links with some bloggers or other attorneys that you know, and bring in some reciprocal links in this way.  You won't be penalized for a small number of reciprocal links, and this kind of linking is a good way to contextualize your blog and help it become indexed properly.

Why Do People Still Promote Free Link Exchanges?

Some attorneys are surprised to learn that free link exchange no longer works.  After all, if you search the web for information about link exchange, you'll find tips and hints about it on many websites.  However, you need to keep a couple of things in mind when seeing free link exchanges promoted online.  

First of all, many of the websites offering free link exchanges still want to promote themselves.  If you want to get unbiased advice, you can't get it from someone who has a stake in making sure you're using link exchange.  Second, many of the articles that are positive about link exchange were actually written several years ago, when free link exchanges were still potentially a good search engine optimization strategy.  The landscape of the web changes so quickly that you really shouldn't trust any marketing information that is even a few years old.

Help, I'm Being Penalized for my Free Link Exchange!

Some people don't find out that Google penalizes free link exchanges until their webmaster gets an email from the search engine.  If Google believes you've been using link exchange websites too much, you'll receive notification that your website is over optimized and contains suspicious links.  You'll be given an opportunity to have the links deleted in order to stop the penalties from occurring.

To get the links taken down, start by running a free inbound link checker tool.  You'll find out which websites are currently hosting links to yours, and can begin the process of emailing each webmaster.  This can be long and tedious, and it's possible that some or all of the webmasters you contact will be unavailable or unwilling to take down the links.  If this happens, you should alert Google and show them the paper trail you've built, indicating that you made a good faith effort to have the link taken down.

Will Free Link Exchanges Become Popular Again?

Occasionally, you'll see someone talking about a new system for creating free link exchange that is supposed to work better.  Sometimes these involve link exchanges only for sites with high PageRank values, or exchanging links in an automated way but only with contextually similar sites.  The truth is, all of these methods are still relatively indiscriminate, and are likely to be perceived as deliberate attempts to overoptimize your website.

Don't count on free link exchanges ever regaining their popularity.  If they do, it will only be because they've truly become “intelligent” link exchanges that only work to link websites that truly have common features and would have good potential for reader crossover.  Until this happens, it appears that like keyword stuffing and article spinners, free link exchanges have gone onto the trash heap of SEO ideas that used to work.

So you're considering link exchanges as part of your web strategy, perhaps because of reading an internet article about how when you exchange links, your search engine rankings go up.  When 90 percent of web searchers don't ever click through to the second page of search results, it's obviously critical to maintain great rankings.  But is link exchange the way to do it?  In this guide, you'll learn the basics of why and how people exchange links for search engine optimization purposes, and why link exchanges have been forced to change and even shut down due to new developments in search engine technology.

Why Do People Exchange Links?

Usually, when more people are linking to a website, it's a very good indicator that they believe it to be trustworthy and authoritative.  More people link to a prestigious, well known law blog like The Volokh Conspiracy than link to a relatively unknown law blog run by a personal injury solo practitioner in Ames, Iowa, and Google took notice of this kind of pattern.  It started awarding higher search rankings to websites that could show a large number of inbound links that were indexed by Google.

As people realized that the number of inbound links they had was critical—even more so than keyword density—to search rankings, they started developing strategies for deliberate link building.  However, it can be difficult to get links put up on websites by hand—it takes a little bit of time, and what are you giving back for it?  Since Google actively discourages the buying and selling of links (to the point of completely de-listing known link selling operations from searches), people came up with an ingenious idea: link exchange.

Link exchanges seemed like a win-win situation in the beginning.  Now, anyone could get as many links as they wanted.  It became even easier to exchange links when clever programmers began automating the process.  Automated link exchange, though, changed the game a bit.  Anyone—even a terrible spammer—could use link exchanges and suddenly have prominent search results.  This wasn't the result Google wanted to encourage, so it started using some policies to regulate how people exchange links.

Is it a Good Idea to Exchange Links?

Today, using link exchange is actually of very limited utility.  You can still use link exchanges on the web, but most of these no longer really work.  If you pass a threshold percentage for reciprocal (exchanged) links, Google will simply no longer count the additional “link juice” of more reciprocated links, no matter how many thousands of links you're building.

This means that more than anything, it's a big waste of time today to exchange links on an industrial scale.  You'd be much better off focusing on organic link building efforts and improving your content for people to link to.

Can I Still Do Link Exchange With Friends or Colleagues?

The one exception to the “link exchanges are now useless” rule is when you're reciprocating links with people you actually know personally.  Linking to other professionals and getting them to link to you is a good way to build your network of connections.  However, doing this type of link exchange isn't really geared toward getting you amazing search engine optimization results directly.  Instead, it's designed to make sure that you are connecting to more people who will then, in turn, want to supply you with much-needed organic, contextual one way links.

These links are much more valuable to you than the single tiny drop of link juice they initially give you.  If you're able to make your content go viral, it'll be much easier to get people to your blog or main firm website.

Analyzing Your Link Exchange Numbers

If you want to make sure that you're not using too many link exchanges, you may want to run a link checker that examines your backlinks and gives you a report about how many of your links are reciprocal versus one way.  If you find that a very large number of your links are from reciprocal link exchange, you have two different ways that you can fix it.

The first is to ask for some of your links to be removed.  Inform webmasters that you no longer wish to exchange links with them and are changing your search engine optimization strategy.  Even if they refuse, Google will generally accept proof of your good faith effort as sufficient reason to turn the link juice faucet back on for you.

The other way that you can reduce your percentage of link exchanges is, of course, to increase the number of one way links going to your website.  If you use this strategy, use extreme caution: increasing your one way inbound links too quickly can attract negative Google attention just as fast as overuse of link exchanges.

Finding Alternatives to Link Exchange

Once you start to exchange links as your primary search engine optimization method, it can be tough to find an alternative.  Instead of using a link exchange, you should consider focusing your search engine marketing on the biggest trends for contemporary websites.  Social networks like Twitter and Facebook have come to dominate much of the internet, and you will get a lot more link juice from using these websites appropriately than you will from an exchange of links.

Another way to make your SEO better without having to exchange links: social bookmarking sites.  These sites allow people to socially share, rather than exchange, links that they find interesting and relevant.  Anyone can post a link to these websites, and they are quickly taking on the role that link exchanges used to play.

Possible Penalties for Link Exchange

If you decide to persist in the exchange of links even after you are penalized by Google, several things may happen.  In most cases, Google will simply not allow you to generate more link juice, which will cause you to slowly slide down the rankings ladder.  However, if you're clearly abusing link exchanges, the links could actually start having a negative value.  It's better not to risk it.  It's no longer enough to just exchange links—and trying to exchange them is so unlikely to help that it's hard to see any value in doing it.
 

It can be really hard to get a straight answer today about what works and what doesn't work in search engine marketing.  So many different companies have a piece of software to sell that reliable information about link exchange, inbound linking, and reciprocal linking is incredibly difficult to come by.  Let's say you're considering using reciprocal link exchange services.  You can't ask a reciprocal link exchange service whether reciprocal links are still a good strategy—their business model depends on telling you “yes.”  This guide will give you unbiased, up to date information about whether it's a good idea to use reciprocal link exchange services in 2012 and 2013.

What is a Reciprocal Link Exchange Service?

Reciprocal linking refers to the “you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours” notion of trading links for mutual search engine optimization benefit.  Reciprocal link exchange services were some of the hottest properties for people wanting to do search engine marketing in 2005 to 2007.  However, they have recently declined in popularity, for reasons we'll get to in just a few minutes.

A reciprocal link exchange service works by automating some of the process to automate links.  Generally, the way that reciprocal link exchange services work is by having you put a small piece of code into the HTML of your website.  When that piece of code is used, it gives other people a way to automatically generate a reciprocal link to you.  A reciprocal link exchange service can sometimes be a way to generate dozens or hundreds of inbound links in a very short amount of time, which is why these services became so well loved by search engine marketing professionals.

How Do Lawyers Use a Reciprocal Link Exchange Service?

Some attorneys used reciprocal link exchange services a bit differently.  Instead of just using a reciprocal link exchange service that allowed for any links to be exchanged, some lawyers chose to do link exchanges only with other lawyers.  However, this still allowed links to be made that were automated and with low quality control.

The reason that attorneys used this strategy was to make their rankings rise higher.  With a higher number of inbound links, especially from contextually related websites, Google tends to assume that a site is trustworthy and should be included among the top results for a search string.

When lawyers were using reciprocal link exchange services, they were trading quality SEO for quantities of inbound links.  A reciprocal link exchange service could never generate the same level of link quality that you would get from carefully building links organically, but until a few years ago, there was just no reason to care.

Why Reciprocal Link Exchange Changed

In recent years, Google has gotten better at determining the quality level of an inbound link.  Now, the number of links you have from reciprocal link exchange services can actually sometimes harm your site.  That's because Google recognizes an excessive use of a reciprocal link exchange service is usually an indication of a low quality, high quantity link building strategy of a type that it likes to discourage.

Today, the amount of link juice that you'll get from additional reciprocal links dwindles to zero if you receive a high percentage of links from reciprocal link exchange services.  This means that using a reciprocal link exchange service went from being useful to being very nearly useless overnight.

What Do We Do Now?

If you were using reciprocal link exchange services before, you need to have a new strategy now.  Instead of a reciprocal link exchange service, you should be working to build effective, engaging one way links that will be of interest to real people.

Avoid any excessive automation in creating your one way links.  Placing identical links in a large number of websites will trip Google's over optimization detectors just as fast or faster than using reciprocal link exchange services.  You should strive for link diversity, which will serve you much better through any future search updates and changes.

Avoiding Penalties For Using Reciprocal Link Exchange Services

If you've already been using a reciprocal link exchange service, this article may be making you very nervous.  If you've been penalized or are worried about penalties to your search rankings from using reciprocal link exchange services, you need to take action now.  Run a backlinks checker online that can detect where your inbound links are coming from.  Then, when you find the backlinks that were generated by a reciprocal link exchange service, make a note of the URL and start emailing webmasters to have your links taken down.

Most webmasters today will be very understanding—after all, they were clearly using reciprocal link exchange services too, and may like you be learning just now about their disadvantages.  However, if a webmaster is reluctant to take down the link put up by a reciprocal link building service, the solution is easy: just take the link down from your website, and you now have a perfectly serviceable one way link.

The Future of Reciprocal Link Exchange Services

Of course, no reciprocal link exchange service wants to go down without a fight.  When reciprocal link exchange services were first made irrelevant to search engine optimization, many of them tried various tactics to stay in business.  A few are still functional today, but the truth is that the reciprocal link exchange service appears to be, for the most part, a dying breed.

What's more, it seems very unlikely that reciprocal link exchange services will make a comeback.  Reciprocal linking is just too easy to abuse for Google to ever encourage it again.  Changing your law firm's search engine marketing focus is absolutely necessary if you've been using a reciprocal link exchange service.  You can't hope that the new fads will go away and that reciprocal linking will come back—it's so unlikely to happen that it's not even worth planning for.

An online reputation manager is a person whose job description didn't even exist ten years ago.  In just a few short years, reputation management online has become a multimillion dollar industry with competitors popping up all over the United States and around the world.  Whether you're using online reputation management software to help you do the job yourself, or have hired an online reputation manager, this guide will make sure you know the biggest do's and don'ts for the next year.

DO Take Down Libelous Content

There's no reason that you should have to put up with defamation.  Online reputation management often includes sending takedown notices to websites that are hosting content that is libelous.  If you're not sending takedown notices to these websites, you won't be able to have the information removed and it may be one of the first things that potential clients see when they search for your website.

It's very common today for unscrupulous competitors to try to sabotage your reputation management online by posting negative reviews or otherwise defaming your company.  An online reputation manager can identify these negative posts immediately and will ask you whether they are true or not.  If they're not true, best practices for online reputation management call for an immediate takedown notice.  Obviously, truth is a defense to libel, so if your online reputation manager discovers that the negative review is true, they will have to use different tactics for your reputation management online.

DON'T Issue Takedowns For Honest Critique

Even though you may feel sensitive to negative things that people are saying about your company online, it's a huge mistake for your online reputation manager to issue a takedown notice if you don't really have legal grounds to.  If you're not really being libeled and send out a takedown notice as part of your online reputation management strategy, you could be ridiculed—even publicly—as a result.

If you see honest critiques or things that just involve people expressing a disgruntled opinion, sometimes the best response for your reputation management online is just to ignore them and work on building more positive links for yourself.  An online reputation manager who tries to make these go away with takedowns is attempting censorship, rather than real online reputation management.

DO Create a Positive Social Media Vibe

Using social media is a good tool for your online reputation manager.  By doing online reputation management through Facebook or Twitter, you can put your best foot forward and force any negative links about you to lower ranked search result pages, where they'll only be seen by the most dedicated researchers.

Having an upbeat, interesting personality on social media websites can help your online reputation management significantly.  It's important for your reputation management online that you make your social networking content engaging and easy for people to talk about.  This can lead to people sharing links, and your online reputation management posts becoming a virally shared source of new links.

DON'T Sound Fake or “Corporate”

Just because you come to the office in a suit doesn't mean that your Twitter and Facebook accounts need to be dull and ponderous.  Online reputation management is easiest when you sound like a real person.  Try to avoid sounding either too formal or too self-consciously casual for your reputation management online.  Either of these extremes is likely to come off as fake to your friends and followers, and you want to portray yourself as honest and trustworthy.

DO Improve Your Directory Listings

Your online reputation manager can do a lot of the heavy lifting for this one.  Online reputation management is significantly easier when you've created the listing for your website on directories.  Directory listings often remain largely blank until someone fills them out, and you could be missing out on a big tool for reputation management online if you're not using them.

Your directory listings can often include not only a text blurb about your firm and its mission, but also graphics that help you extend your brand awareness.  Since directories are often prominent in searches, this form of online reputation management also helps you to keep negative results off the front page.

DON'T Make Fake Websites or Reviews

One of the first thoughts many law firms have about online reputation management is: “if there's a negative review that's fake, why can't I make a ton of positive reviews that are just as fake but will drive new clients to my business?”  While this is indeed a strategy that is used by some online reputation manager types, there are several reasons that it should not be among your strategies for reputation management online.

First of all, do you really think you'll be able to keep the secret forever?  Many review websites are very sensitive to fake reviews for reputation management online, and will pull your reviews if they detect several from the same IP address.  Your online reputation manager will be in big trouble if you're caught out lying for reviews.  You could even run into ethics problems with your local or state bar association if you're not careful.  It's not worth risking your license to practice law over—use different techniques for your reputation management online.

DO Create Conversation with Critics

Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean you should be silent and just let them talk.  If you're willing to engage in open, honest communication with your critics, you'll be seen as reasonable and assertive.  If someone says something negative about your law firm in a blog, for example, you can make a comment on the blog that engages with their point of view but disagrees with it.

DON'T Shut Down All Negative Reviews

In some cases, a negative review can actually help your reputation management online.  How?  If your online reputation manager is taking down all or almost all negative reviews, people may start to suspect that you are somehow gaming the system.  By keeping at least some negative reviews—perhaps the ones with the most positive overall outlook on your firm—your online reputation manager can help you to present a more appealing and honest public face.