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.

282 million Americans—nearly the entire population of the country—will be using the internet at some point this year.  Today, more than eighty percent of consumers report doing research on products and services online before deciding on one.  Finding the best link building service for your needs can make the difference between mediocre search results and top results.  Keep reading this guide for six easy to use tips that can help you compare link building services and pick a good link building service for your law firm.

Tip 1: Not All Links Are the Same

When you're starting to use a link building service, you need to keep in mind that search engines don't rank all links in the same way.  Building inbound links is part of the puzzle that link building services can help you solve, but the best link building service will help you to create quality links, not just any links at all.

What does a quality link look like?  A quality link is from a website that generally is considered to have a great reputation—people tend to post links from that website and it is generally popular.  However, the more outbound links that a website has, the less weighting any individual link will give you.  

For example, a website like Youtube has a good reputation online and used by many people.  However, with so many links on Youtube, each new link to your website only helps your search engine results pages a little bit.  On the other hand, if your law firm's website was linked by a major online magazine that only has a few links every day, you might see a significant jump in SERPs.

Tip 2: Not All Link Building Services Are The Same

Because links are weighted differently by quality, the best link building service will always emphasize quality over quantity.  You should be wary of any link building service in today's internet world that tries to tell you about the sheer number of links that will be generated for you.  Many of these link building services fall under the old “article marketing” category, which reposted articles on many websites.

A link building service that wants to just copy your articles and put them all over the web isn't the best link building service you can use.  You should be on the lookout for link building services that offer innovative ways to build your web presence, like setting up guest blogging opportunities or other ways to trade links with other real attorneys.

Tip 3: Know How Link Building Services Can Hurt You

While the best link building service you can hire will certainly help you to improve your SERPs, using a bargain basement link building service can actually harm your website's rankings.  Why?  Because many of these link building services are actually using seriously unethical ways of posting your links.  Some of them will post links as comments to completely unrelated articles on completely unrelated blogs—a terrible way to bring in new web traffic, and a tactic likely to get your website labeled as spam.

In some cases, if your link building service is trying to include terms about other attorneys in your website or links, you could even be subject to disciplinary action.  State bar associations are still working out their rules for advertising online, and link building services have periodically come under fire as unethical.  You should consult with your state bar association if you have any questions about best link building service practices or any practices that may be prohibited.

Tip 4: There's No One Best Link Building Service

While of course there are higher and lower quality link building services, the only best link building service is the one that is best for your law firm.  For example, the first link building service you contact may be able to show you great case studies that make you feel confident that you'll improve your SEO results.  However, if they've never done link building for lawyers before, they may not know how to make link building work in a legal services context.

The best link building service for you will usually be one that can show you some real results from other law firms or similar service-oriented industries (for instance, a link building service that has worked extensively with CPAs or medical professionals).  Link building services without this kind of experience may be more focused on selling products, not services, and are unlikely to give you good results.

Tip 5: Track the Progress of Your Link Building Service

Don't just take the word of your link building services that their package is working.  If you've gotten the best link building service available, the people working for the service will usually show you an analysis of your web traffic, as well as the search engine results pages your website now displays on, and how those two things have been influenced by the link building efforts they've handled.

While link building services can't give you overnight results, you can expect to start seeing changes within a few weeks or months.  Keep in mind that even the best link building service won't be able to increase your conversion rate—keep your website content high-quality so that the people driven to your website by your new link building efforts are impressed.  If your link building service hasn't delivered within six months, it's time to try a new strategy or a new service.

Tip 6: Find Link Building Services That Use Best Practices

One way to find the best link building service, whether it's 2012, 2013, or beyond, is to investigate the current state of best practices for link building.  Because these best practices are constantly changing, understanding the latest state of the art link building techniques can help you decide which link building service is best for you.  Keep in mind that any link building service using techniques that are even a few years out of date is sacrificing your web traffic.

Today, the world wide web contains about 9 billion pages—about one and a half for every man, woman, and child on the planet.  In that kind of crowd, standing out can be tough.  Building a link presence on the internet isn't easy, but it can bring incredible financial rewards to your firm.  Whether you are just beginning to ask “what is link building?” or you've decided to change your law firm's link building strategy, keep reading this guide to learn about today's best practices.

What is Link Building?

It's not easy for search engines to determine which website should be ranked #1 for a particular search.  The first, primitive web searches used information like keyword density to determine how early a page would appear in search results.  The problem with using keyword density metrics is that they're easy for spammers and other unethical web designers to game.

Now, keyword density is one part of where search engines put your results.  However, a more important factor is building a link presence online.  What is link building?  In the most general sense, it's simply the act of getting more inbound links to your website.  However, just asking what is link building won't get you to the real heart of the matter: building a link presence of real quality links.

Why does quality matter, and what is link building quality?  Quality has to matter, because if it didn't, all you'd need to do to get top-page results would be to have a service generate millions of links on bogus, barely-used web pages (some services still do this exact thing—more on that later).  When you start building a link presence online, today's best practices include making sure that your content is shared by as many quality websites as possible, not just as many websites as you can.

What is Link Building Good For?

Effectively building a link presence online will make it much more likely that your web pages will appear early in search results.  That's good news, because more than 95 percent of web searches never even result in the searcher looking at the second page of results.  Mobile searchers are even less likely to continue past the first page of results, so as mobile traffic gets more popular, it's important to learn what is link building and how to use it effectively.

If you're building a link presence in an organic way, you'll also be able to bring in people with your link building efforts who aren't coming from search engines.

Unethical Forms of Link Building

When they hear the question “what is link building?” some SEO firms today groan.  Why?  Because many early efforts of law firms to start building a link presence were based in paid article marketing services.  These link building services preyed on companies that didn't understand what is link building or what makes a quality link.

Building a link presence online with article marketing is cheating and spamming—it's making the web fundamentally worse.  As an attorney, you should never use an SEO firm that answers “what is linked building?” by directing you to an article marketing service.

Ethical Link Building: Social Media

Just because not all answers to the question “what is link building?” are ethical doesn't mean that there are no ethical options.  Most law firms today are already using social media websites in some way, but have you considered using your social media presence to help you with building a link reputation for search engines?

When you're trying to implement a link building strategy on your social media pages, you should include a number of links back to your website.  However, if you use too many links, you're no longer really link building, just spamming your Facebook friends and fans—and Google is likely to take notice.

What is link building looking like in the Facebook world?  Mostly like “shares.”  When people share your link, they're also posting it to their feed and will contribute to your number of inbound links, especially if a large number of people follow the link.

Ethical Link Building: Guest Blogging

What is link building with guest blogging?  Essentially, this is the nice guy's version of spamming your links in people's blog comment sections.  Instead of looking like spam (and being disregarded by people who might otherwise have been interested in your services), a guest blog post can help you with building a link presence.

One of the most common ways for attorneys to use this kind of link building is to trade guest blogging spots.  If you and another attorney have blogs about things that occasionally overlap or have an interesting intersection point, you may want to work on building a link to their website with a guest post in exchange for guest blogging on their site.

If you really want to get creative and collaborative, you might even begin a guest blogging series, in which you invite several different prominent attorneys to write on your blog.  This will also help to attract new readers to your blog who previously read these other bloggers.

Ethical Link Building: Getting Press Coverage

Now that most media has gone online, building a link presence doesn't have to be done with exclusively online sources.  Instead of just talking to other bloggers, try writing real press releases about interesting legal topics.

Your blog can also help you to do this kind of link building.  Often, when a reporter is trying to find an attorney to interview for a legal perspective on a news story, they'll come across law blogs.  If your blog seems articulate and intelligent, you might be tapped for a news story quote—and your firm may be linked from the story when it's published in the online version of the newspaper.

Getting real press coverage of this kind is great, because press websites already have a good reputation.  For the very same reason, you shouldn't release your article on fake press release websites.  While these websites offer a very low barrier to entry, they're also regarded as spam havens with little redeeming value and very low overall quality.

When you've started the process of website link building, you'll need to know which link building strategies actually work and which ones you can leave behind.  Today, Google Penguin (the search engine's new ranking algorithm) determines your SERPs based not just on the number of your links, but also on their quality.  This guide will go over link building strategies, starting with the best strategies and working our way to one strategy that most law firms are probably better off avoiding.  Keep reading to find out whether your existing website link building strategy is a great idea or if you should consider other alternatives.

Law Firm Website Link Building Strategy #1: Produce Great Content

The first and best of the link building strategies, and one that almost any SEO specialist will tell you, is to create content that people want to read.  If your content isn't good, it's unlikely that you'll be able to do the kind of organic website link building that leads to the best search engine page results.

Great content doesn't just mean one thing, and it doesn't have to just come in one form.  Your link building strategies may rely on, for instance, producing a blog.  If you're blogging, you can do a lot of website link building just by creating interesting and informative blog entries.  If you're creating blog entries that are using good search engine optimization, you can attract blog visitors relatively quickly and some of them may pass your entry along.  If you make Youtube videos, people can watch and comment on those videos, as well as share them.

Essentially, producing great content puts your best foot forward when you're doing website link building.  It shows that you're willing to go the extra mile in your link building strategies, and that you're not opposed to giving away real, informative content for free.  Don't think of your content as a giveaway—think of it as an investment in your website's future.

Law Firm Website Link Building Strategy #2: Make Something Different

With the market so saturated with legal blogs, it can sometimes be difficult to get attention when you're trying to use blogs as part of your link building strategies.  Instead, consider doing website link building with some other type of medium.

Today's computer use studies show that a large number of users are currently spending more time using mobile apps than they are browsing the web.  You may want to make a mobile app of your own that could help your typical clients.

Even just changing the structure of what you're doing can make your website link building more successful.  For example, while many link building strategies call for using blog entries, why not make a blog that's about some different topic in the law—or even a blog for other attorneys that uses a lot of humor?  That kind of content is likely to be reposted, which is the biggest rule for link building strategies.

Law Firm Website Link Building Strategy #3: Use Social Media

In 2012, social media is one of the biggest question marks in designing link building strategies.  Why?  Because most of the major search engines, including Google, are keeping quiet about how much weight they're assigning to links made from major social media websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

While some website link building professionals believe that social media links will help your SERPs dramatically, and can point to examples of firms with good search engine placement and good Facebook pages, this correlation doesn't confirm that the Facebook links caused the high SERPs.  Even so, link building strategies today would be incomplete without at least some social media presence.  Whether or not this is one of the best link building strategies today, you should learn it for future use.

Law Firm Website Link Building Strategy #4: Media Coverage

It can sometimes be difficult to get bona fide media coverage for law firms, but incorporating press coverage into your link building strategies can be a great idea.  One of the biggest reasons for this is that typically, daily newspaper websites are considered a relatively trustworthy source with high quality content.  This means that when your website is covered by a local newspaper, you're more likely to rise in Google rankings.

The bigger the coverage you can get, the better your results will be.  If, for example, your intellectual property law firm was able to get name-dropped and linked by a blogger on Wired.com, you would very likely see your search engine results skyrocket.

Law Firm Website Link Building Strategy #5: Local Directories

Since over one fifth of searches today include a local geographic search term, you'll want to do some link building with local directories.  An example of a local directory that is easy to get access to is a chamber of commerce directory.  Once you've been linked by several local directories, Google will associate your website more with your local area, and your search engine results for people making those geographic searches will become higher.

It's also key to include a complete profile on Google+ Local to make this website link building strategy work.  It will be much easier for your website to appear early in local search results when you take steps to increase your local visibility.

A Website Link Building Strategy To Avoid: Article Marketing Services

A few years ago, many law firms started using article marketing services, or article “spinners,” as part of their link building strategy.  These services took one piece of content and either copied it completely or copied large pieces of it to reuse on hundreds of unrelated websites all over the internet.

Needless to say, these sites weren't really producing quality content, and Google has recently made several algorithm changes to crack down on this form of search engine optimization spam.  If you use an article spinning service today, at best, you'll be wasting your money.  At worst, Google will think that your website is spam and lower its page rankings accordingly.

More than three in four Americans have used the internet at some point in 2012, and even the most technophobic lawyers are getting on board with search engine optimization strategies.  Link building, or the practice of getting new links going to your website, can help to improve your search engine results.  Legitimate link building is harder than ever today, but there are still many link building tools that can help you to get your links online fast.  Here are ten that lawyers can use today.

Link Building Tool #1: Blogs

If you're a lawyer without a blog, what are you thinking?  Almost any attorney can start a blog—it's free, and it's fairly fast to set up, especially if you're not focused on making your blog's visual appearance completely unique.  Blogging is one of the best link building tools that you can use, and what's more, it brings in new clients all on its own.

The topics of your blog are limited only by your practice areas and your imagination.  You can comment about publicized cases happening right now in the court system, or about the likely effects of a new or proposed law.  You may also want to talk about the process of hiring an attorney, or the costs of attorneys, if you often seek cost-conscious customers.  This makes blogging one of the most versatile link building tools, as well as one of the most effective.

Link Building Tool #2: Press Releases

Press releases are link building tools that can help you garner media attention and new website viewers.  However, not all press releases are equally effective.  To make good use of press releases as a link building tool, they need to be from a legitimate public relations source and announce something genuinely interesting.

Many “press release websites” aren't actually public relations companies.  They're just places where anyone can post an article online.  While these link building tools may seem easy to use, they're also not particularly effective.  They contain a high amount of spam and other low quality content, and aren't really read by web users.

Link Building Tool #3: Facebook

Facebook—the one thing that unites your great aunt, your co-workers, and your third best friend from high school in addiction—can be more than just a time sink.  Because it's so easy to share links on Facebook, this social media website has become one of the best link building tools of 2012.

To use Facebook as a link building tool, you'll want to have more than just generic status updates.  Try doing something creative, or linking to a blog entry.

Link Building Tool #4: LinkDiagnosis

If you want to see how your linking stacks up to the competition, one of the best online link building tools you can use is LinkDiagnosis.  This tool lets you run reports to analyze the biggest inbound links that are affecting the traffic of your website and the websites of your competitors.

LinkDiagnosis is a great way to see how the other law firms in your area are handling link building, and whether they're using any link building tools that you haven't started using yet.

Link Building Tool #5: Ratings Websites

Whenever you have a client talk to someone else positively about your legal services, you're getting a good recommendation.  But what if you could make sure that your clients' reviews were seen not just by their friends and family, but also by anyone looking for information about your firm or your website?

Ratings websites are great link building tools because they not only give you a new inbound link, they give you new ways to show potential clients what you're capable of.

Link Building Tool #6: Local Directories

Don't neglect local chambers of commerce and city government websites when you're looking for link building tools.  These websites often have local directories of businesses, and if your law firm is included among them your website can bring in more traffic.  These link building tools may be of limited effectiveness in some areas, but particularly in smaller towns and cities they are one of your best link building tool options.

Link Building Tool #7: Youtube

Videos can be fantastic link building tools that also work hard to drive conversions.  Youtube is one of the easiest video platforms to use as a link building tool.  Youtube makes link building easy by helping you to get your video hosted and providing an easy to use form so you can enter a search engine optimized description and title for your video.

Link Building Tool #8: Social Bookmarking Sites

Using “bookmarking” sites doesn't just mean adding a website to a personal list of favorites.  Rather, it refers to the process of posting a link for viewing and user comments.  On many social bookmarking websites, like reddit and digg, users determine which links are most prominent and which ones will be seen only by a few people.

Link Building Tool #9: Forums and Question Sites

By entering internet forums or question websites and answering questions for other people, you'll be able to build inbound links while providing a valuable service.  For example, you may want to try using Yahoo Answers as a link building tool.  Try answering a few questions that are very closely related to your expertise.

When you answer questions, make sure that you're including a link back to your website.  This is what makes question sites effective link building tools—without a link, you'll be wasting your time and effort.

Link Building Tool #10: LinkedIn

To round out this list, we have to talk about the link building tools available on LinkedIn.  Not only can you have links to your website in your profile, but you can also use LinkedIn Answers to answer the questions of other real professionals and build networking connections locally, regionally, and globally.  Using LinkedIn as a link building tool is particularly powerful for law firms that primarily have a B2B focus.  If you're B2C focused, Facebook and Yahoo Answers may provide you with better leads and link building.

SEO has become a huge industry in recent years, and today, most law firms report that they are using some type of search engine optimization strategy.  If you've been having difficulty implementing these strategies and are on a budget, you may be thinking of hiring a cheap SEO service to help you figure out what else you can do to enhance your web traffic.  While not all cheap SEO services are worth the money, hiring the right service can greatly enhance your ability to drive new clicks to your website.  Keep reading to find out how to tell the difference between a cheap SEO service that works and one that doesn't.

Does “Cheap SEO Service” Mean Poor Quality?

It doesn't necessarily have to, but the truth is, you should be very careful about the quality of cheap SEO services.  Remember, those cost savings have to come from somewhere.  Because of this, you should always be skeptical about any cheap SEO service that is offering a much lower price than you've seen advertised anywhere else.

Of course, you may think, if you can get such cheap SEO services, it may be worth the risk—after all, isn't the worst that could happen that your traffic stays the same?  The sad truth is that this isn't even close to the worst that could happen.  If your cheap SEO service decides to use practices that violate Google's terms of service or their quality guidelines, you could actually see steep declines in your traffic.

Where Can a Cheap SEO Service Save Money?

There are places where cheap SEO services can reasonably be expected to conserve some money without having it affect their quality of service too much.  For example, your cheap SEO service probably should avoid paying for any links.  In addition to costing additional money, paid links are usually considered to be low quality links by search engines.

You may also be able to save money by writing a lot of your own content instead of having cheap SEO services draw your content up from scratch.  Even if your cheap SEO service has to edit and rephrase some of the content you've written, this will usually take less time and money—and your words will have what is unmistakably your voice.

Don't Skimp on These Parts of Your SEO Strategy

No matter what, though, there are some parts of search engine optimization that are much tougher for a cheap SEO service to manage.  For example, if you do want original content created for your law firm's website, cheap SEO services may be a really bad idea.

Why?  Because in order to get such inexpensive content, a cheap SEO service is very likely to be using non-native speakers of English who are writing your content from halfway around the world.  Cheap SEO services can't usually afford the rates of professional writers who can make polished, error-free content.  While some types of websites might be able to get away with internationally outsourced content, attorneys are expected to present a very professional image at all times.

Mobile is an increasingly big part of SEO strategy.  If your cheap SEO service hasn't learned much about mobile and isn't planning to help you implement mobile search engine optimization, you should consider looking for a better service.  Great SEO services today are focused on the mobile traffic revolution, which will be responsible for over fifty percent of total web traffic in less than 18 months.

Signs A Cheap SEO Service Isn't Worth It

Cheap SEO services can be very different from one another, but there are some signs that should tell you that your working relationship wouldn't be very productive.  One of these signs should be whether they're aware of new changes to Google and other search engines, and how those changes will affect search engine optimization strategies for 2012 and 2013.

You can also tell that a cheap SEO service isn't worth your time if the people working for the service are unwilling to provide you with case studies showing how their search engine optimization strategies have benefited other law firms like yours.  SEO for law firms is substantially different than SEO in other industries, and it's critical that the cheap SEO services you're looking at know how to get legal clients clicking.

Finally, a cheap SEO service should probably get crossed off your list if they focus their work on creating reciprocal linking.  This “you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours” philosophy helped a lot of cheap SEO services create links that got search engine attention, but new algorithm changes have limited how helpful reciprocal linking can be.

Monitoring the Progress of Your Cheap SEO Service

When you hire cheap SEO services to handle your search engine optimization account, you should have a regular schedule for updates.  Your cheap SEO service can help you understand the data that has been gathered by your website for the purpose of analysis, and what the trends in those data are saying now.

If you're not happy with how much progress cheap SEO services are making after several months have passed, you may want an analytics professional to take a look at your website's data.  The analytics pro can tell you whether what's failing you is your content itself or your search engine optimization strategies.

Is Doing It Yourself Better?

With some cheap SEO services having definite negatives, you may be wondering if you should just buckle down and study on your own.  While this may seem like a good idea initially, even a cheap SEO service is putting a great deal of time into research into techniques.  Keep in mind that any time you're spending (or having an employee spend) looking into SEO is time that isn't being spent attending to other firm business.

Doing it yourself should usually only be attempted if you haven't been able to find a cheap SEO service that meets your needs.  You should also have a strong background in computers or statistical analysis (and preferably both) before you start handling all of your search engine optimization needs.