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.

Accidents happen when you work on managing your reputation online.  If you've done something that you now know was a mistake, it's probably not the end of the world—options still exist for online reputation repair.  In this guide, we'll take a look at seven different lessons for websites trying to do damage control.  Whether your website has been taken over by hackers, you've had a serious compromise of information security, or you just goofed up and said something that angered people online, this guide can help you understand what your next steps should be and how to mitigate the damage you've already done.

Lesson One: Be Professional, Be Courteous

Lawyers are actually in a worse position than some other professions when it comes to managing their reputation online.  Why?  Because people tend to already have a somewhat negative preconceived view of attorneys, and because any attempt at online reputation repair needs to be done with an understanding of that view.

Don't try to weasel out of mistakes in a way that will make people scoff and make lawyer jokes.  Those aren't the stereotypes you want to live up to when managing your reputation online.  Online reputation repair for law firms involves keeping all of your actions completely above-board and transparent.  If people think you're lying or stretching the truth, you won't succeed in managing your reputation online.  You need to be very courteous, even to your most harsh critics, in order to prevent your problems from multiplying.

Lesson Two: Takedown Notices

Don't be afraid to send a takedown notice to content that you believe is libelous.  Managing your reputation online means knowing what other people are saying about you, and you may find that your competition isn't being ethical when it talks about you.  Do you see reviews that you know are obviously fake when you're managing your reputation online?  Part of online reputation repair for you probably involves sending takedown notices making it clear that these defamatory statements will not be tolerated.

If your takedown notices don't work and webmasters continue to display the defamatory content, you can talk to the service provider that is currently hosting their website.  Generally, these hosting companies are more than happy to remove offending content in order to avoid getting sued.  As a lawyer, you'll have an advantage in this part of online reputation repair: unlike most businesses, it isn't difficult for yours to send cease and desist letters.  

Lesson Three: Social Media Updates

One of the best ways to fight a campaign of negativity is to start sending out positive messaging.  Managing your reputation online will be substantially easier if you already have accounts on major social network websites.  You can monitor your website reputation by seeing what people are saying about you on these websites, and then you can do online reputation repair by contacting dissatisfied people and responding with empathy and concern to their complaints.

Lesson Four: Action and Distraction

Any time that you need online reputation repair, you can try managing your reputation online through strategically designed distractions.  For instance, let's say that you have been hacked recently and your clients' information including addresses and some brief information on their legal problems (sent through your contact form) was compromised.

If this is the case, your first strategy for online reputation repair should be to immediately be honest about the damage and report it as quickly as possible.  This show of good faith on your part goes a long way to managing your reputation online.  Then, you should try to create some positive buzz for your company by releasing press releases and creating inbound links that illustrate your prowess with the law.  Distractions should never be your only method of dealing with managing your reputation online, but can be a great online reputation repair tool when you're out of ideas for directly addressing the problem.

Lesson Five: Showing Your Best Side

Don't try to do online reputation repair that directly contradicts your brand image.  While this may seem like a relatively obvious lesson, it's clear that many people who work on managing their reputation online haven't taken it to heart.  Many firms go into a shut down, bunker mentality when online reputation repair kicks in.  They start talking in vague generalities and using boilerplate language, when that's actually the worst way to go about managing your reputation online.

Instead, you need to make sure that your brand image still shows through so that your online reputation repair actually enhances your reputation overall.  Be yourself, and don't let consultants tell you that the best methods for managing your reputation online involve defensiveness or trite language.

Lesson Six: Enlisting Your Past Clients

Your past clients can be some of your biggest allies in online reputation repair.  If you're having problems with a disgruntled client causing trouble and giving you many negative reviews, consider talking to happy clients and asking them if they would be able to post a positive review for you.

By drowning out the negative results, your clients can make your online reputation repair job much easier.  Most people won't pay much attention to a single negative review if there are dozens of positive reviews on the same site—people are smart enough to know that this is more often a reflection of the complainer than the person being complained about.

Lesson Seven: Tell the Truth

No matter what, you should always tell the truth about what happened when you're managing your reputation online.  It's easier than ever for clever internet denizens to identify any misinformation and distribute it widely.  You'll have a much harder time managing your reputation online if you become known for lying about what happened on your website and why it happened.

Even when the truth is hard—perhaps especially when it's hard—you need to say it.  People don't always expect integrity from attorneys, and they respect heartfelt apologies and immediate owning up to the problems your website has caused.

Less than a third of marketing professionals are currently using a backlinks checker.  Using one of these tools can be the best way to make sure that your website will be safe from changes to Google.  With so many options for a free backlink checker, finding the right one can seem tough.  Keep reading this guide and you'll find out not only how a backlinks checker can make your life easier, but also how to choose a backlink checker that will solve the right problems for your firm—possibly even a free backlink checker.

Why Do I Need Backlinks?

In the very earliest days of search engines, the biggest factor in website rankings was keyword density.  While websites that used a keyword over and over would see their search engine rankings decrease, attaining a good keyword density made it much more possible to be seen by anyone searching the web.

As time passed, the biggest factor for ranking websites changed.  Now, backlinks account for more than half of the total ranking that your website will receive in searches.  If you don't have any backlinks coming to your website, or have very few, you will appear far too low in searches for anyone to find you with a reasonably sized search string.

What Is a Backlink Checker?

A backlinks checker works by looking all over the web for websites that are linking to your domain.  You can obtain a free backlink checker either as a standalone program, an add-on or extension for Firefox or Chrome, or even by just loading up a website.  There's no one right kind of backlink checker, and usually, any individual backlinks checker will miss some links.  You may want to use more than one free backlink checker just to make sure that you're seeing all of your backlinks instead of just a small selection of them.

A backlink checker can't help you with other SEO tasks, like telling you which keywords to insert more frequently in order to get better search rankings.  Usually, each free backlink checker is designed for only one task, and should generally be used only if you know at least a little bit about what you're doing and how to differentiate high value and low value links.

What Can a Backlink Checker Help With?

Depending on what kind of backlinks checker you're using, you can use these tools for a wide range of purposes.  The most common reason that people want to use a free backlink checker in 2012 is that new Google updates have caused their website to fall out of favor in the search rankings.  These users usually want a backlinks checker that will analyze the quality of the websites where their backlinks come from.  

If a website appears to be low quality based on the analysis of the backlink checker, internet marketing specialists can send an email to the webmasters of the websites where the bad links are hosted and ask for them to be taken down.

Another way to use a free backlink checker is to find one that allows website comparisons.  You may want to investigate, using a backlinks checker, where your competitor's backlinks are coming from.  If the free backlink checker reveals that you have a competitor who appears to be doing much better than your law firm at getting search rankings, this kind of backlink checker tool can be your ticket to working on an equal footing.  Often, you can use the same kinds of websites they're using to build your own backlink presence.

Another reason that you may want to use a backlinks checker is to make sure that all backlinks leading to your domain still work.  If you've recently changed the layout of your website, it's possible that a number of your backlinks now just give 404 errors to would-be visitors.  By running a free backlink checker that monitors whether these backlinks are functional, you can tell which webmasters to ask to update your links.  If a webmaster is unavailable or refuses to edit the link, you can always add a redirect page for any links flagged by your free backlink checker.

Is a Backlink Checker Still Important?

In some ways, a backlinks checker is a more important tool than it has ever been before.  Because free backlink checker tools abound, there's no reason not to get one.  Backlinks are now the single most important factor for your search engine rankings, and what's more, search engine rankings count more every day.

Why is that?  Because mobile traffic is driving more and more of the web today.  Mobile customers, even more than traditional desktop users, are likely to click on and convert with one of the very first results they see.  Because their screens are smaller and scrolling can take longer, it's very unlikely that mobile traffic will come to your website if you're on even the second page.  This means that even though Google is penalizing “over optimized” websites, you need to optimize your backlinks as much as possible without incurring this penalty—and a backlinks checker is the best way to do that.

Finding the Right Backlink Checker For the Job

You've read the writing on the wall and decided you need a free backlink checker.  But which backlink checker will do the best job for you?  First, you need to decide what it is you're trying to do with your backlinks checker.  If you want to find out which of your links work currently (and which now direct to invalid URLs), ScrapeBox (www.scrapebox.org) can help.

For those wanting a tool to just show them all of their current backlinks, try backlinkwatch.com.  This online tool can help you to understand exactly who's linking to you, what their Google PageRank is, and what the anchor text is that is bringing people to your website.  Just identifying these trends can make it much easier to avoid any unnecessary loss of search rankings on Google.

If you're not ranking as high as you'd like to be in search engine results, you may have already started doing research on how to purchase backlinks.  Before you buy a backlink, though, there are a few things you'll need to consider.  For one thing, many old methods that made it profitable to buy backlinks no longer have any positive effect on search engine rankings.  Second, if you buy a backlink, you may end up actually seeing a negative impact on your website.  We'll explore why both of these things are true in this guide, so keep reading to get the real scoop on whether it's a good idea to purchase backlinks.

Why Law Firms Buy Backlinks

When you're just getting started on the internet, it can seem very difficult to bring in web traffic.  If you don't have a very well defined niche market, drawing in new site visitors is tough because 95 percent of web searches never even go to page two—and 99 percent don't go to page 3.

One of the biggest ways that Google uses to decide which websites are ranked on that high value first page is to look at backlinks, or links to the website from other websites.  Why are backlinks considered more important?  Think about it: any time people link to a website, they're usually designating that website as some sort of authority—or at the very least, as being interesting enough that people will want to visit it.

To increase their backlink numbers, many law firms buy backlinks.  There is a very large price range for people wishing to purchase backlinks, depending on the level of quality of the links and the methods used to obtain them.  To buy a backlink can be risky, though—search engines don't like it, and some have started to take action.

Why Search Engines Crack Down on People Who Purchase Backlinks

If you've kept up with search engine marketing news in 2012, you probably already know that Google has come down hard on websites that buy a backlink presence.  The reason that Google and other search engines don't like when people buy a backlink is simple: they're trying to give web searchers the results that they are most likely to want.  When you buy backlinks and game the system to artificially inflate your own rankings, you're making it harder for searchers to get the results they actually wanted and could have used.

How Search Engines Detect When You Buy Backlinks

Search engines are getting smarter every year at noticing when someone has decided to purchase backlinks instead of getting them organically.  Several ratios can indicate to Google that a website is overoptimized and that its marketers may have tried to buy a backlink presence instead of creating one through marketing buzz.

These ratios include how many backlinks you have to how long your site has been around (can anyone really get ten thousand backlinks in a few days on a brand new website without trying to buy backlinks?).  You can also see your search rankings decrease whenever Google detects that you have a high ratio of backlinks from unmoderated blog comments.

By monitoring many of these ratios (and updating their algorithm with new ones as they find them), they can tell if you buy backlinks and how many you've bought.  If you purchase too many, your webmaster will receive warnings from Google with tips on how to get the links removed.

Is it Ever Safe To Buy Backlinks?

There are so many issues when it comes to trying to buy a backlink that you may be starting to reconsider.  In general, you probably don't want to buy a backlink directly.  It's technically against Google Webmaster guidelines (although for the most part this remains unenforced) and it won't usually generate any additional traffic to your website.  However, there are limited circumstances where it may be reasonably smart to purchase backlinks.

In order to buy backlinks and have them work, you'll need to look for link building services that offer contextually based backlinking.  This means that they look for websites with similar content to your law firm's website so that they can build natural looking backlinks on these websites.  Usually, this will mean you don't buy a backlink directly, but rather hire a service to scope out free opportunities for backlinks.  This is a great way to get around Google's prohibitions and still essentially purchase backlinks.

Is it Ethical to Purchase Backlinks?

Attorneys in particular may be interested in the ethics of whether or not to buy a backlink.  When you purchase backlinks that artificially inflate your search results, you may be able to bring in more business, at least temporarily.  However, you could also be making it harder for people to find the information they want.  What's more, you could actually get in trouble if you try to buy a backlink that looks like it goes to a competitor's site while really directing people to your own.

In order to maintain high ethical standards when you purchase backlinks, you should only use reputable contractors.  Using a fly by night contractor that advertises a certain rate for a certain number of backlinks will almost never lead to the kind of results you really want.  You may also want to buy backlinks only from services located in the United States, as these services are more likely to understand the context of your website and how to make keyword text that appears fluid and natural to an American audience.

If You Don't Want to Buy Backlinks

If you're not comfortable enough to purchase backlinks based on what you've read, there are still other ways to build your link presence and get to the top of search results.  For example, instead of trying to buy a backlink, why not look around for guest posting opportunities on blogs run by your friends, colleagues, or even former law school classmates?

Additionally, better niche marketing can be a good alternative if you don't want to purchase backlinks.  This can make your website more visible on long tail searches with many keywords, and may help you build up your web presence even if your backlinks can't compete with the biggest and most web savvy firms in town.

Today, backlink building has become riskier than ever before for marketing pros.  If you want to get backlinks, it can be tough to do without tripping Google's new detection algorithm for over optimized sites, called Google Penguin.  Penguin is designed to keep websites that are using spammy backlinking techniques off the front pages of search results.  Keep reading this article to find out what is a backlink quality score, and how to get backlinks on the post-Penguin web.

What is a Backlink?

First, let's start with the basics.  What is a backlink?  It's when another website links to yours, which is then noticed by search engines.  There are many different ways to get backlinks, but first, you'll need to understand some of the basic terminology.

Anchor text is the text of the actual link itself.  This text can sometimes just be a single word, but more often it's made of relevant keywords that will attract someone to click on a link.  Often, when businesses have just started learning what is a backlink, they'll try to create numerous backlinks with the exact same anchor text.

Some ways to get backlinks are considered positive SEO—that is, they tend to add to the web experience rather than detracting from it.  However, other types of backlinks are considered negative SEO.  What is a backlink that would be considered negative?  Usually, one that appears to be paid for or otherwise is not relevant to the page it's on.  If you get backlinks that have nonsense text around them, it's very likely that this will be considered a negative SEO backlink.

What is Google Penguin?

In order to stop people from trying to get backlinks regardless of whether the links were of good quality, Google released an update in April 2012.  This update did several things to check the web for sites that showed signs of over optimization.

Over optimization, the way Google explains it, just means websites that are too optimized for their level of overall traffic and their online brand reputation.  These websites were appearing too early in queries and had often become over optimized through less than ethical methods.

While Google Penguin only affected about three percent of total search queries, it changed how marketing professionals get backlinks.  Penguin now judges websites according to a quality score (which you can check with backlink audit tools), and high quality websites do better for backlinks.

What Do “Over Optimized” Sites Look Like?

Some websites have seen what happens when an overly enthusiastic marketer goes wild with buying backlinks.  You may get backlinks, but the links won't really generate much traffic, because they're not usually very good links.

What is a backlink strategy that Google will usually recognize as over optimization?  Things like buying large quantities of links when your website is brand new will always set off red flags.  Google knows that people don't just go from asking “what is a backlink” to generating hundreds of organic backlinks in just a few days.  If your site is picking up links too fast, expect to see Penguin squash it.

If your anchor text all appears identical on a huge variety of websites, this is also a Penguin red flag.  In the same way, if you get backlinks by posting a large number of comments on unmoderated blogs that accept any comment made, you'll be identified as a spammer and see your search engine rankings drop accordingly.

Usually, any time you get backlinks from a low quality website, you should be a little bit worried about the prospect of over optimization.  A few of these links won't hurt you, but unless you balance them out with some high quality links, you could be looking at Penguin trouble.

What is a Backlink From a High Quality Site?

Ideally, you'll want to get backlinks from the highest quality sites you can.  But what is a backlink from a high quality website going to do for you that one on a mid-ranked blog can't?  Simple: it'll raise your search engine results by much, much more.  That's why it's a great idea to focus at least some of your attention on this method to get backlinks.  Because attorneys are legal professionals with highly prestigious businesses, it can be much easier for lawyers to get press coverage from high quality websites than other types of businesses using SEO.

What is a Backlink Tier?

If you're so backlinked that even your backlinks have backlinks, congratulations—you're using one of the best new techniques to get backlinks.  This is called “tiering,” and can make Google consider your website even more high quality than it already is.  By backlinking to backlinks that connect to your website, you give those backlinks more credibility and help your own in the process.

For the truly serious web marketing professional, three tiers (linking to backlinks of a backlink) is not out of the question.  If you're new to backlinking and are just beginning to ask “what is a backlink,” this technique may not be for you, but otherwise it's one you should consider.

What is a Backlink Strategy for 2012 and 2013?

The best strategy to get backlinks in 2012 is to focus yourself completely on high quality.  Low quality links won't bring in new clients, and they're becoming increasingly bad bets when it comes to search engine optimization.  Make sure that your website's quality level is kept high and that you are regularly auditing your backlinks for any issues with links from bad sources or irrelevant, out of context links created by spambots.

2013 looks like it will be the era of no shortcuts for most people who want to get backlinks.  Instead of creating explosive growth by spending a lot of marketing dollars right away, slow and steady will win the race.  Slow, high quality growth is growth that you can depend on for the future, and that will only serve to enhance your reputation.  Don't make the mistake of using old strategies—use new resources that take Penguin into account before you decide how to build links in 2012.

Over 92 percent of internet users in the United States use search engines, according to Pew Internet Research.  That means search engine optimization needs to be an integral part of your internet marketing strategy.  With new algorithm updates from Google called Panda and Penguin, doing an occasional backlink check became more than just a good way to do analysis.  For many websites, it's now absolutely critical to check backlinks if you want to avoid negative consequences.  Keep reading this guide to find out why doing a backlink check is one of the best things you can do to improve your search rankings.

#1: Getting Rid of the “Unnatural Links” Warning

If you've already received an email from Google that warns you about a high percentage of what it calls “unnatural links,” you need to do a backlink check as soon as possible.  Every so often, since rolling out its new Penguin update to decrease the prevalence of “over optimization,” Google will check backlinks for your website.  If too many appear to be from dubious sources—for example, low quality article marketing websites—Google will send you this warning and may penalize your search rankings.

When you perform a backlink check on your website, you may see a wide range of links.  In some cases, if that range is too wide, Google may see these backlinks as being artificially created.  If you check backlinks to your website and find that many of the sites linking to you have very little to do with the topics covered by your site, you may want to ask for the links to be removed.

Often, when law firms get the unnatural links warning, it's because they violated Google's Webmaster Guidelines by paying for backlinks.  In order to avoid this kind of situation, it's very important not only to check backlinks, but also to make sure you're following those guidelines in the future.  Don't purchase huge numbers of backlinks for cut-rate prices—you'll get what you pay for, in the form of low-quality links that Google ignores or worse.

#2: Getting Rid of Bad Backlinks

Even if you have never purchased a backlink in your life, it's still possible that your website has bad backlinks that could look like paid for or irrelevant linking.  Performing a backlink check shows you where those links are and what percentage of your total links they constitute.

While you check backlinks, you may discover that you have a huge number of links to websites you didn't even know were linking you.  Some backlink check tools will help you to assess whether the links you've gotten are high or low quality, and whether you should ask the webmaster who controls those backlinks to remove them.

Keep in mind that there's no reason to be afraid of Penguin if your backlink check reveals just a few bad backlinks out of many good links.  Google's algorithm already takes into account the fact that just about any website could have some bad links.  It's only if you check backlinks and a significant percentage of your links are already poor quality that you need to worry.

#3: Understanding Your Reach

Sometimes, law firms don't even understand exactly where their reach extends to.  With a backlink check, you can see who's linking your website and how far your reach really goes.  You may find when you check backlinks that you are being linked by many websites with a particular focus, or that something you wrote generated a huge number of backlinks in a short time—even on high prestige websites.

Once you've looked at your reach, it's much easier to figure out where you need to advertise and what kind of advertisements might work best.  This is a great way to use your backlink check to inform other parts of your marketing and advertising strategy.

#4: Creating New Backlink Opportunities

If you notice during your backlink check that you've had a great deal of success getting backlinks from  a particular type of website or blog, that's great news.  It means that after you check backlinks, you may want to try talking to the owners of other websites or blogs that have similar content.  This can help you to generate new, high quality, contextual backlinks.

For example, let's say that you notice several different articles on your website (for a law firm of divorce attorneys usually representing wives) being re-linked on many different domestic violence information websites mentioning restraining orders, temporary restraining orders, and how to leave an abusive situation.  This lets you know that you may want to specifically seek out other sites like this, for guest posts or new backlinks.

#5: Checking Your Anchor Text

One of the other things that you may want to look for when you check backlinks is how similar the anchor text is for your various links.  When Google sees a huge number of links that all have identical anchor text, this is considered to usually be a sign that someone is engaging in link buying or other shady link building practices.

Some backlink check tools allow you to spot when too many links have the same anchor text, while with others you'll have to check this manually.  If you see a lot of identical text when you check backlinks, ask webmasters to change the link text on some of these websites.

How To Get Bad Links Removed

If your backlink check gives you a pile of bad links to have removed, you're going to have to contact a lot of different webmasters.  Often, webmasters will take down a link that is negatively impacting your search engine performance without another word.  However, some will outright refuse, won't acknowledge your message, or will demand payment.

If any of these things happen after you check backlinks, don't panic.  Instead, document your correspondence including dates and times of emails and send it to Google.  Google can actually review your documentation and may allow your website's rank to increase again even with a large number of bad links if this happens.

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.