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.

Backlinks are one of the best ways to differentiate yourself from your competition when it comes to search engine optimization.  According to the most recent American Bar Association survey, there are over 1.2 million licensed attorneys in the United States.  If you don't know what a backlink is or how to get backlinks, keep reading!  You'll find seven rules that will help you become a backlinks pro in no time at all.

Backlink Rule #1: Backlinks are Different Today

Until 2012, the answer to how to get backlinks was very easy: you bought them, and you could buy them very cheaply.  Many services existed that would charge you on a per backlink basis, and these services often charged extremely low rates even for thousands (or tens of thousands) of backlinks.

Today, many web marketing professionals are wishing they never bought those links.  That's because new changes to Google have changed how to get backlinks that work.  If you have paid-for backlinks or are obviously using the same text on many websites, Google will now consider your website “over optimized” and drop its rankings accordingly.  Every backlink that those web marketing professionals paid for, they're now having to ask to be removed—a time consuming and tedious process that no one wants to have to do.

Instead, today's marketers want to focus on getting smaller numbers of better backlinks.  By making sure every backlink you build is high quality, you'll be able to make your search engine optimization better without taking any unnecessary risks, like the risk of being seen as a spammer.

Backlink Rule #2: Variation is Key

Okay, so you learned how to get backlinks a few years ago, and you've now got a mess on your hands.  All that identical anchor text that used to raise your search engine result pages (SERPs) is now detected as possible over optimization by Google Penguin.  In order to avoid this problem, you need to learn how to get backlinks that have more variation.

Try mixing up your anchor text a little bit.  Using the exact same backlink phrases over and over will make search engines see your backlinks as fake or low quality.  Brainstorm some variations of your keywords and you'll have an easier time knowing how to get backlinks that won't get you blacklisted.

Backlink Rule #3: Tough Links are Better

While shortcuts like link buying used to predominate the backlink market, today, people know that you're more likely to have a high ranking website if you get the backlinks that are harder to get.  Learning how to get backlinks from high quality websites is a little trickier than just buying links by the thousand, but you'll end up with much better results as well.

For example, let's say that you work very hard on press releases about some recent cases that your firm has taken on and won.  These press releases, if they're circulated to the right media sources, could lead to a major news network like CNN talking about the cases or asking you for a quote.  Backlinks from reputable media sources like this will be much better for your website than a backlink from a random blog that often has guest bloggers.

This isn't to say that you should turn down any linking opportunity that's easy.  It just means that effort is worth it, and that Google has decided to reward the businesses who are putting the most effort, rather than the most money, into their backlinking efforts.

Backlink Rule #4: Work Your Connections

There's nothing wrong with leveraging your social networking connections for some backlinks.  This is one of the most tried and true methods for how to get backlinks, especially for a new website that hasn't yet built up much of an online reputation or presence of any kind.  

If you're using social media, make sure that you're posting regularly about the new website.  You should have user friendly content that will draw people in and make them want to share your message without any prompting from you.  If you're successful in creating this kind of content, you may not need much more advice about how to get backlinks—the backlinks will just come to you from your website visitors after a while.

Backlink Rule #5: Never Spam

The internet can sometimes seem like a vast and wild place where it's difficult to find the right answer to a question.  Don't make it worse by putting up misleading backlinks or otherwise creating spam.  Anyone who learned how to get backlinks in the earlier days of the web may have learned some bad techniques that led to spam creation.  However, if you're learning now, there's no excuse—any guide that encourages spam-like techniques can be safely disregarded in the post-Penguin era.

Backlink Rule #6: If It Looks Too Good To Be True…

Beware of any services that say they know how to get backlinks for much cheaper than anywhere else.  It's possible that they're still using the same kinds of methods that are getting webmasters in trouble today.  These services are often not particularly ethical, and will try to obtain backlinks online wherever they can, regardless of whether the websites linking you have any relevant connection to your business.

Check the fine print, and ask to see other websites that the service has search engine optimized.  If they'll only let you access case studies that came from before the Penguin update, you should find a new provider of backlink building services.

Backlink Rule #7: Audit Your Backlinks

Periodically, it's a good idea to check where your backlinks are coming from and whether they are of good quality.  If you see a backlink that appears to be from a spam website or other type of negative SEO content, it's best to ask promptly for its removal so that you don't face consequences from Google or other search engines.

A backlink audit can be made much easier using free web tools.  Google provides a number of these tools for free to users, as do a number of other websites, each offering different functions to help you decide which of your backlinks should stay and which should go.

Every website inbound link that Google indexes contributes to where your website appears in search rankings.  If your law firm, like 2/3 of businesses in the United States, isn't already working to build website inbound links, you need to start thinking about the future.  Website inbound link numbers now account for more than half of your overall search ranking placement, and you don't want to lose out on the huge percentage of legal clients (pegged in some studies as over 80 percent!) who do research online before deciding on which attorney to hire.  Keep reading to find out some easy ways to build website inbound links that work without taking up all of your time.

Sources for Website Inbound Links: The Blogosphere

Many attorneys at small law firms are already using blogs.  Of those attorneys, over half report that they've gotten new client business as a direct result of their blog entries.  What they may not know is that they may have gotten even more new business as an indirect result of those same blog entries.

That's because blogs are great ways to get your website linked by other attorneys and professionals in your community and beyond.  Every website inbound link that you are able to build on another person's blog will help to make your search rankings better, and because most people who use searches don't search beyond the first page of results, those rankings are absolutely crucial to your firm's success.

Comments aren't the only way to get website inbound links in the blogosphere.  You can also get a very high quality website inbound link by talking to a blog owner and arranging a guest post.  To get a guest post, you'll usually have to be able to prove you know your stuff, either with your professional qualifications or a blog of your own.  Guest blogging may prove a more difficult strategy for website inbound link building for brand new attorneys who haven't yet been able to make a name for themselves.

Sources for Website Inbound Links: Local Websites

Today, it seems like search engines haven't just gotten more complex—they've gotten smarter.  That means that Google can actually tell whether your website inbound links are coming from websites that are local to you or ones that are from around the world.  It might surprise you to learn that a local website inbound link is actually considered more valuable than those that are from far away.  This is because Google assumes that local links are less likely to be purchased and more likely to be built through traditional networks of contacts.

If you're working to build website inbound links locally, talk to your local bar association and your local chamber of commerce.  Both of these organizations are fairly likely to have some online resources for you to include a new website inbound link on.  You can also talk to your local contacts, especially those with existing blogs or websites, to include you in their link directories.

Sources for Website Inbound Links: Directory Websites

If you're in need of a quick and easy way to build a website inbound link that won't require a lot of new content creation, consider posting your profile to a directory.  Not all directories are high quality, and you should generally only use directory pages that have a high PageRank.  If Google believes you are spamming directories, even low quality ones, with your website's address, they'll generally consider this a sign of over optimization and work to penalize your search rankings.

Sources for Website Inbound Links: Q&A Sites

Just by answering basic legal questions online, even without giving direct legal advice, you can build a number of high quality website inbound links.  Question and answer websites can be standalone sites, or can be incorporated into another website, like Yahoo Answers or the Answers feature on LinkedIn.

You should use caution when answering questions on these websites, because you don't want your answer to be misinterpreted as specific legal advice.  You don't want to find yourself in any legal trouble over your attempt to get a new website inbound link to help your search rankings.

Sources for Website Inbound Links: Media Coverage

As a law firm, any time you have a significant victory you should consider building a website inbound link through press coverage.  You don't need to settle for fake “press release” websites that don't really have any good media contacts.  Instead, build your own media contacts with daily newspapers, weekly community newspapers, community magazines, radio stations, and television stations.  Every time you do an interview or a profile piece for one of these media outlets, you're likely to be able to build a website inbound link.

Because website inbound links from media sources tend to have a fairly high value compared to those coming from low to mid traffic blogs, it's worth investing some real time in getting press coverage.  Besides, the benefits to your SEO aren't the only benefits you get from the press—you'll also be able to convert people directly from the website inbound link.

Sources for Website Inbound Links: Viral Buzz

One of the best ways to generate a fantastic website inbound link presence is to just get noticed by enough people that the links essentially build themselves.  By creating really unique, interesting content on your own website or in the form of an infographic or app, you can get the buzz going.

Of course, it can be harder to create viral buzz than to use some of the other strategies for website inbound link building.  However, viral buzz looks organic because it is organic.  The links that you get from a viral marketing campaign will be natural and high value.  The reason that viral buzz can work so well for attorneys is that not many other law firms are really trying viral content yet.  If you're able to get in on the ground floor and really design content people want to see, you'll be streets ahead of the competition.
 

You can increase inbound link traffic on your website in a huge variety of ways, but Google now has some detection algorithms that can throw off your plans.  Google doesn't particularly like when websites increase inbound links inorganically, and has in the last year penalized over 15 percent of web pages for appearing to be over optimized.  If you want to increase inbound link traffic today, you'll have to be very careful to make the increase appear natural and organic.  If you don't know how to do that yet—keep reading, and you'll find out before this guide is over.

What Are Inbound Links—And Why Do I Need Them?

Any time a website links to your website, it does so in the form of an inbound link.  When someone clicks on the anchor text of the link, they'll arrive at your website and be able to look at your content.  In the early web, it was relatively common for most websites to have few links, except the ones that went to the websites of personal friends or websites that pertained to an interest or related industry.

Today, inbound linking has become big business.  That's because when you increase inbound link numbers, your search engine rankings get better across the board.  Search engines make an assumption that when you increase inbound links, it means that your website has more authoritative and trustworthy content.

If you're working hard to increase inbound link numbers for your website, though, you should know that Google has created some red flags.  If you increase inbound links in the wrong way, these red flags get tripped and your website's rankings go right back down to where they started from.  Knowledge is power—by knowing exactly what kind of inbound links will lead to trouble, you can avoid common pitfalls and keep your rankings rising.

Why You Should Increase Inbound Links Slowly

When a company starts trying to increase inbound link traffic using inorganic techniques, it shows.  One of the first ways that it shows is in a sudden increase in the sheer number of inbound links appearing for a particular website or specific web page.

When this sudden spike happens, search engines red flag your website.  Even if you're in a rush to increase inbound links, you can't do it too quickly or you'll be wasting your effort.  Increase inbound link numbers gradually, preferably in concert with any traffic that you've gained.  The more traffic that your website gets, the faster you can increase inbound links coming to you per day.

Where Your Links Come From Matters

A link coming from Joe Schmo's Discount Legal Blog isn't going to be worth as much as one that comes from Above the Law or The Volokh Conspiracy.  They're all blogs, so what's the difference?  The difference is in a number that Google calls PageRank.  

If you increase inbound link numbers at a good clip, but they're only coming from websites that are low visibility, Google may not take kindly to this.  While it's possible for an organic link building effort to yield these types of results, the more usual reason is that someone has tried “black hat” link building techniques—things that spam other websites and make the internet less usable for most users.

Because of this, Google weights rankings much more highly if you increase inbound link traffic from high PageRank websites.  By increasing inbound links in this way, you'll build better quality links—even if they're more difficult to obtain initially.

Increase Inbound Links With Your Blog

By using your blog in the right ways, you can increase inbound link numbers in a variety of ways.  One of the most obvious ways is in generating publicity for your firm organically.  As long as you're creating great content, even if you're not sharing it all that often, it's likely that your blog entries will be noticed and linked by at least a few other bloggers.

Of course, if you want to increase inbound link traffic even more, you can help the process along.  By talking to other blog owners, you can get put onto their blogrolls, which will give you new inbound links.  You could even get a guest posting gig, which is a great opportunity to increase inbound link traffic.

If you're not using blog comments for real discussions, you should start.  Some of the best ways to increase inbound links involve using blog comments.  As long as you're making relevant comments on other people's blogs, and as long as your link is at least somewhat relevant, a new inbound link usually won't be removed from a comment section.  Don't just spam post to blogs with no moderation.  Google can easily detect this method, and will know you are trying to increase inbound link traffic with black hat techniques.

Increase Inbound Links on Social Bookmarking Sites

Social bookmarking websites, including Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit are great ways to build new inbound links and get more attention to your website.  However, while these sites can increase inbound link numbers, it's actually somewhat uncommon for a lawyer to get much new business from them.  This is because you'll have tried to increase inbound links on a website that is being used by people worldwide, rather than just in your community.

This doesn't mean that it's worthless to increase inbound link numbers on social bookmarking websites.  On the contrary, these websites have high PageRank values and can make your rankings soar.  Just don't expect to get direct conversions—you'll see your results coming through in the changes to your SEO results.

Increase Inbound Links with Local Websites

The other strategy you can employ to increase inbound link numbers is to go local.  Instead of using only big, high PageRank, global websites, focusing on sites that matter to your community can be a great move.  First of all, there isn't as much competition for links at these websites.  Second, Google can identify when you're being linked by local sources, and will dramatically increase your rankings in geolocational searches for law firms.

The reputation of website owners often depends on the reputation of their website.  With tens of thousands of new attorneys graduating in 2012 and hundreds of thousands already working, you need to keep your website reputation great to stay competitive.  But how do you maintain a great reputation in website listings?  Keep reading this guide to find out 8 simple rules for protecting the website reputation you've worked so hard to build.

Rule #1: Think Like a Client

Your reputation for website quality depends largely on your ability to give clients what they need, when they need it, in an easy to understand format.  If you want a great website reputation, you can't spend a lot of time with jargon and posturing.  Instead, a reputation for website quality will come from having quality narrative and good information that helps potential clients come to a decision to talk to an attorney for the first time.

Thinking like a client also means that you should avoid risking your reputation of website quality just to get some extra links.  If clients find that your links are posted all over the web like spam, your website reputation will undoubtedly suffer and you may see your search rankings take a plunge.

Rule #2: Skip Out on Shortcuts

It's easy to automate the linking coming in to your website, but how will it impact your website reputation if you do?  The reputation of website quality you're trying to build isn't based on fooling people, it's based on being able to give real, quality information.  Forget trying to use automation to game the system.  Google will find out, and you'll end up wishing that you had tried to secure a reputation for website quality in some other way.

Rule #3: Accept Responsibility

At some time, every website and every business makes a mistake.  The thing that will determine whether your reputation of website quality remains the same or takes a nosedive is how you respond to that initial mistake once you learn about it.  The worst website reputation you can get is as a company that lies and fabricates new data.  Some people give up on any pretense of a reputation for website quality by using “astroturfed” comments and blogs to make it look like their position is stronger than it really is.

Instead of hiding from your mistakes, embrace them as learning opportunities.  If you show that you are sincerely sorry for the mistake, the reputation of website quality you've built will not just stay—it might even improve.  Website reputation tends to be quite high when companies take decisive responsibility for their actions and are honest about the factors that led them into making the initial error.

Rule #4: Know Your Marketing Contractors

Your reputation for website quality can be tanked faster by a bad web marketing contractor than just about anybody.  If even one of the companies you're outsourcing marketing services to decides to use a spammy marketing tactic, you could find that your website is suddenly being penalized and you're in a lot of trouble.

Make sure that any contractor you're using for marketing is reputable and comes with several firm recommendations from other professional organizations.  Law firms simply can't afford to risk their website reputation on an unproven contractor.  To maintain a reputation for website quality, you'll need to get people on your account who are understanding about your need for consistently high quality content and inbound links.

Rule #5: Go With the Flow

If you're trying to maintain your website reputation with a website that is basically doing things in the same way you did them ten years ago, you're barking up the wrong tree.  The web is changing from year to year, and a reputation for website quality is much easier to build when you change along with it.

For example, in 2012 and 2013, the mobile web is really coming into its own.  If you're not watching your website reputation for mobile customers as well as desktop ones, you may be missing out on a big target market that is ready for conversions.  If you're not going with the flow, you could be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Rule #6: Have Good Hosting

One of the fastest ways to lose a reputation for website authority is to have your website start failing to load.  If your hosting provider is inconsistent or has been having too many technical difficulties, it may be time to migrate to a new hosting provider who can give you the service you need.

Google actually bases some of its rankings and quality ratings on the speed at which your website is served to viewers.  Because of this, it's absolutely critical for you to make your speed fast if you want to be on the first page of search results.

Rule #7: Update Your Links

Periodically, in order to make sure your website reputation stays good, you should check the outbound links that lead away from your website and the inbound links that bring people to it.  If any of these links aren't working, you can update them with redirect pages or by changing the URL your outbound link is directing to.

Having outdated or missing links looks very amateur hour to seasoned web users, so be aware that poor linking practices can be one of the easiest ways to give yourself a poor website reputation.

Rule #8: Keep Content Fresh

You won't maintain a great reputation for website quality if your site maintains the same content year after year with no meaningful changes.  A constant flow of fresh content that uses links and sources from across the web will make it much easier for you to build a website reputation with authority.

Consider adding new content to your website at least on a weekly basis—two or three times a week may be an even better target if you're wanting the very best for your website reputation.

Before social media and other types of Web 2.0 sites became the norm on the internet, it wasn't really necessary to check your website reputation.  Today, however, a website reputation check has become a critical tool in the web marketing arsenal of many law firms.  If you haven't tried to check your website reputation yet, this guide will teach you why you need to and what you might find out.  Keep reading to learn why a website reputation check can be very valuable for search engine optimization, and how to check your website reputation in several different ways.

How a Web Reputation Check Can Prevent Problems

It's important to know what people are saying about you before a few isolated comments become the dominant narrative.  Understanding your online reputation gives you an advantage in talking to critics and fans.  By performing a website reputation check, you ensure that you're able to anticipate when, for example, a negative review might be impacting your site negatively.

When you check your website reputation, you're likely to find out that some areas of your reputation are already doing quite well while others could use more help.  A website reputation check can make it much easier to prioritize your expenditures of both time and money.  What's more, you may be able to identify defamatory information and make sure that it is taken down before it has a significant negative impact on your web traffic and conversions.

If your website is currently being blocked by antivirus software because the software has detected a problem, you need to know right away.  Only by choosing to check your website reputation can you actually find out what is causing the problem.  A website reputation check can help you improve the safety and security of your website so that it can be trusted by your clients.

Can I Check Website Reputation For Free?

Yes!  One of the best parts about doing a web reputation check in 2012 is that many of the resources to help you are completely free of charge.  Some of the best tools to check your website reputation actually come from the same companies that produce anti-virus software.  These companies, like AVG and PC Tools, can help you run a web reputation check completely free of charge.

However, if you want to check your website reputation beyond just whether your site is trusted to be free from viruses or security threats, you'll need to dig deeper.  Some programs that help you understand exactly what your website's reputation is can cost money.  You'll need to decide for yourself whether the features they offer are worthwhile for your firm.  Many of these tools are more important for retailers and others dealing with high volume sales transactions.

Doing a Website Reputation Check For the First Time

The first time that you check your website reputation, you can find out several key pieces of information.  Let's say that you start with Trustedsource.org, a website created by McAfee virus protection to help people do a website reputation check.  When you check your website reputation with this website, you'll find out not only whether the site considers your website to be the possible victim of fraud or malware, but also what kind of patterns your links are showing.

If you are seeing a pattern of fraudulent links or links that appear artificially created, you may want to use new strategies.  Your web reputation check may also reveal many older links that no longer work to take people to a valid URL on your website.  Knowing this can help you revise your site in a way that will make it more user friendly to future users.

Why One Website Reputation Check Isn't Enough

Just because you check your website reputation and it comes up clear doesn't mean that you're out of the woods.  You should make sure that you run a website reputation check at least once a month.  This will alert you very quickly if any virus or malware should ever take over your website, or if some program began to use your website as a place to create automatic links.

Doing a consistent check of website reputation statistics can also make sure that you're tracking trends in your website.  If you're not keeping track of how your website's traffic and trust levels are changing, you're missing out on valuable data that could help you shape your website for months or even years in the future.

Help!  My Reputation Is in the Gutter!

It's all well and good if you check your website reputation and it comes up green.  But what if there are alerts all over the place?  How do you clean up the mess that has been left behind by viruses or malware?  It's true that in some cases you may need to contact a professional to do this cleanup after running a website reputation check, but you may also be able to do it yourself.

Some website reputation check programs, especially those that require some payment up front, will actually help you to remove any problematic pages from your website.  These programs to check your website reputation can work automatically so that you don't have to worry about the details of how to remove each piece of offending software.

Reputation Management and Services

Sometimes, running a website reputation check can be a good reminder of just how hard it can be to keep your reputation online looking as good as it can.  If you're having trouble, consider showing the results of your website reputation check to a reputation management service.  These services can check your website reputation so you don't have to, and can make sure that any problems are taken care of immediately.  Because these services specialize in reputation management, you can rest assured that your reputation is being monitored more frequently and more closely than it would have been if you had handled it personally.

Your website reputation should be one of your most prized business possessions when you work in a law firm.  Having a great reputation can get you new clients on a consistent basis—but if you lose that reputation, the clients will dry up.  It's no longer enough to sit back and take a passive approach.  Website reputation management services work with you to make sure your website is working and looking great for everyone who uses it.  Here are seven reasons that website reputation management services can be great for lawyers and legal marketing professionals.

#1: Keep Bad Reviews From Killing Your Business

One of the ways that a website reputation management service can help you is by keeping an eye on review websites.  Client reviews are a big way for people to find attorneys today, and you'll do well to make sure that you're listed on several different review websites.  Studies have shown, however, that consumers tend to pay significantly more attention to negative reviews than positive reviews—perhaps due to the perception that a complaint is generally honest while a compliment could be from a biased source.

Website reputation management services know that bad reviews aren't always a sign that you're doing poorly.  In some cases, they may be planted by your competition to drive more clients toward their offices.  Depending on what state you live in, this may or may not violate ethical rules for attorneys.  If you do find that a review has been posted fraudulently, your website reputation management company can help by requesting that it be taken down.  Most websites with client reviews are sensitive to these issues and can make sure that negative reviews are removed promptly.

#2: Manage Your Social Media Presence

Another way that a website reputation management company can make your life easier is by taking the reins on your social media strategy.  Many reputation management companies specialize in making social content for businesses.  Your website reputation managers can help you design a strategy for your social media websites that takes into account your unique brand image and your performance goals.

Many attorneys don't want to spend a lot of their day posting to Facebook, making connections on LinkedIn, and putting up links on social bookmarking websites and Twitter.  Why not let a website reputation management firm take care of it for you?  You'll get most of the same benefits as if you had done it yourself—without all of the hassles.

#3: Correct Missing or Incorrect Directory Information

Speaking of hassles, is there any bigger one than looking through dozens of directory websites for potential errors?  This is one of those chores that is perhaps better when it's just done by someone else.  If you want your directory entries checked, updated, and corrected, you need to talk to a website reputation management agency.

By using reputation managers, you ensure that your directory information will be changed any time your web address, company name, phone number, or physical address changes.  Having these changes made by your website reputation management company is much less tedious than doing it yourself every time the phone extension list changes.

#4: Keeping Search Results You Want On Top

Maybe there are some reviews of your law firm that are so glowing, you want them to be the first thing that people searching for your firm see.  A website reputation management firm can help you get your favorite results into Google's top pages when people search for your brand name.

In addition, you can actually generate good content that can drive out bad content.  For example, if someone has started a website that says your law firm is terrible and unprofessional, you can create new websites and web pages to simply outperform the offending page.  Since most web searchers don't look past the first page, it's unlikely that many people will see the negative result after it has been driven to page two or three.

#5: Finding Out What People Are Saying

If you've recently had a public relations issue, hiring a website reputation management company is a great idea.  Your reputation manager can investigate what the “buzz” is about your company and whether you seem to be improving or declining.

In some situations, your website reputation management agency will also try to actually influence that buzz.  If negative things are currently being said about your firm, your agency can help you find a way to spin them positively.

#6: Submit Takedown Requests for Defamatory Content

Of course, if someone insists on defaming you online, you have legal recourse.  Your website reputation management company can help you to distribute cease and desist letters to anybody promoting content that is defamatory or libelous.  As a lawyer, it is much more likely for you than most other people marketing online that your takedown request letters will be followed, so you will usually see results with just a letter.

If you've tried unsuccessfully to have defamatory content removed, you may have to sue for defamation in civil court.  This can get even trickier—or impossible—if the website defaming you is in another country.  If this happens, the best thing that your website reputation management company can do for you is to help you post more positive content to drown out the defamatory accusations.

#7: Create a Better You

By giving you a better understanding what people already think of your reputation, your website reputation management agency can help you to better establish your brand.  Your reputation can give you a very good idea of what distinguishes you from your most similar competitors.

Once you have a very strong brand awareness and identity, you can create marketing campaigns that take advantage of that confidence.  Being the best you that you can be is much better than trying to do everything that your competition is doing.  What's more, by having continuous monitoring of your reputation, you ensure that you hear what's being said about your newest marketing moves as soon as they take effect.

Now that 90 percent of the United States uses the internet either at home or at public terminals, search engine optimization has gone from a neat tool to an absolute necessity for remaining competitive.  You know from experience if you've used one that a link popularity check tool is one of the most valuable tools in your web marketing arsenal.  But what if you're not already using a link popularity checker tool?  Do you need one now?  In this guide, we'll explore the basics of using a link popularity check tool and help you come to an informed decision about whether to use one as part of your search engine optimization strategy.

What is a Link Popularity Checker Tool?

Also known sometimes as a backlinks checker, a link popularity check tool is used to identify which websites are linking to your site and some characteristics of those links.  Depending on which link popularity checker tool you use, you may be able to find out information about your inbound links, like “what is my anchor text for each link?” or “which links come from the same IP address?”

Using a link popularity checker tool has become very important because Google now bases most of your search engine rankings not on keyword density, but on your inbound links.  By using a link popularity check tool, you ensure that you know where you stand with Google.  Because Google also bases your link rankings on whether your links come from high quality websites, you may also want to monitor the quality of the sites your links are coming from—something that many of the biggest popularity checker tools do.

Which Link Popularity Checker Tool Should We Use?

There's no one right link popularity check tool that works equally well for all applications.  In some cases, you may find that you actually want to use two or more different tools in order to get a better variety of information about each link.  A good place to start finding a link popularity check tool is Google.  Doing a search for “link popularity checker tool” will give you myriad websites, each of which has its own check.

It is very unusual for a link popularity checker tool to require downloading onto your machine.  Usually, a link popularity check tool works completely online and will be hosted by the website of some other company.  How do these companies make money by giving away a free link popularity checker tool?  Easy—they are hoping that you'll be so impressed with their link popularity check tool that you purchase some of their less easily automated, more costly services.

Can a Link Popularity Checker Tool Improve SEO?

On its own, a link popularity check tool can just help you identify the sources of your inbound links.  However, if you're interested in using these results to improve your search engine optimization, there are several things you can do.  

First of all, you can make your search engine optimization efforts a bit more like the ones your most successful competitors are using.  That's because information about inbound links is totally public, so you can use the same link popularity check tool to look at your competitor's website that you can use to look at your own.  When you use the tool, let's say you find that many of your competition's highest value links come from having accurate and detailed information on various directory websites like Google+ Local.  If this is the case, then you need to make sure you're also on those directory sites so that you are a little more evenly matched.

You can also use a link popularity check tool to learn which linking areas you're not really doing much in yet.  Maybe when you run your check, you find out that there are only three or four links to your website coming in from social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.  If you see this pattern, you can use your knowledge to start building new links on social networking sites—the lowest hanging fruit for your particular linking needs.

Alternatives to Using a Link Popularity Checker Tool

If you don't have many inbound links, using an inbound link popularity check tool won't necessarily help you very much.  The data that these websites can give you is more accurate and more meaningful if you have a fairly large number of links.

For people just getting started out, a link popularity check tool can be substituted with a tool for identifying your competitors and finding niches for your content.  If you find niches for your law firm using a niche market finder, you'll be better equipped to create pages that will get the attention of linkers.  However, you should make sure to return to checking your link popularity once you've done several weeks of niche marketing and inbound link building.

Analytics and Your Link Popularity Checker Tool

Tracking your link popularity results through a long period of time is a great way to see how changes to your website's focus and design have affected your inbound links.  The process of using data you've gathered to figure out the next step your website should take is called analytics.  By using an analytics program like Google Analytics, you are using proven mathematical methods to understand what's going on when people visit your website and where they're most likely to come from.

You can do analysis of your link popularity check tool results relatively easily.  Do you ever see a sharp spike in your inbound links, or a decline?  Check what changed in your website or inbound link building strategy at that time.

You can also use analytics on your competition.  By monitoring when they see spikes in their inbound links, you can see what strategies they're using and whether they're automating link submission.  Keep in mind that your link popularity check tool can only see links that have been indexed by search engines—if you or your competition is having a tough time getting your links indexed, you may not be seeing the full inbound linking picture.