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.

When you outsource search engine optimization, you want the best SEO service you can afford.  But how can you tell if a particular SEO service is great—or whether they're just pretending to be?  Here, we'll take a look at some different indicators that you might see when you look into the best SEO services.  You'll find out whether these indicators add up to say that the service you're using is the best SEO service available, or whether you should consider looking for different services.

SEO Service Good Sign #1: Quality Links Over Quantity

The best SEO services today know that great links are more important than just having an abundance of links all over the internet.  Quality links are much more likely to help your website rise in its search engine rankings.

What's more, a single quality link can organically generate several other links when people see your website and re-link it.  The best SEO services today will never just generate inbound links to your website by posting them on spam pages full of other links (also known as “link farms”).  The best SEO service also won't just join link networks so that you can have a larger quantity of links.

Instead, the best SEO service will help you to create relationships with other bloggers, local directories, and even local news media so that you can use quality link building techniques.  The best SEO services will always build your links organically—that is, they won't pay for the results they're getting, but rather will get them from having good content.

SEO Service Red Flag #1: Lazy Link Building

It's an old saying that what's right isn't always easy, and that what's easy isn't always right.  This is very true when it comes to the best SEO services.  You know that you're not dealing with the best SEO service when you hear that they can get you onto thousands of websites within just a few days.  Think about what that would actually entail, if those links were actually high quality—and now think how low quality those links would have to be to generate them so fast.

Search algorithm updates mean that the Google of today focuses on links that took hard work.  There's no longer an easy way to simply get links without having to provide real content.  The best SEO services work hard for you, rather than taking the easy way out.

SEO Service Good Sign #2: New Techniques

In the SEO industry, which seems to change almost from day to day—and certainly, sometimes, from week to week—it's important for the best SEO services to keep up to date in their use of search engine optimization techniques.  For example, you may have recently heard of a new technique called latent semantic indexing, or LSI.  If you haven't heard of it, don't worry: the best SEO service you can find already knows exactly what it is.

Under the principles of latent semantic indexing, the best SEO services will use many different variations of a keyword rather than just one or two keyword phrases over and over.  Why does this work?  Because Google now includes similar words to the ones you searched for when you perform a search.  For example, if you look up “houston tx dui attorney,” you'll also get results that include the word “lawyer”—which will be highlighted just as if you had searched for that term.  The best SEO service knows this, and takes advantage of it to produce natural-sounding copy that also reads better to search engine indexers.

Understanding how to use new methodology is one of the things that sets the best SEO services apart from the merely good ones.  The best SEO service should be able to tell you about several new techniques that they are currently evaluating, and several techniques that have already been proven to work.

SEO Service Red Flag #2: Old Solutions

If the agency handling your SEO sounds like they walked out of a search engine optimization guide from 2006, it's time to send them back and get the best SEO service you can.  Keyword stuffing is a long-dead strategy, and none of the best SEO services use it any more.  If your service's keyword density seems really high, it may be time to look for a new one.

Another solution that worked in times past (even for the best SEO services) but no longer is “article marketing.” This, in its most spammy form, meant spamming hundreds or even thousands of websites with identical or near-identical content packed full of keywords, along with links back to your website.  The abuse of article marketing services led to Google changing the way it ranks search results, so the best SEO services don't use anything like article marketing today.

SEO Service Good Sign #3: Slow and Steady

It's crucial for everyone involved with SEO at your law firm to understand that results can sometimes be slow to come.  Even the best SEO service won't be able to get you onto the first page of results in a few days if you're currently on page thirty.  Good search engine optimization takes time, and the best SEO services know it.

What you should see, if you're using the best SEO service you can find, is slow but steady and trackable progress.  If you don't seem to be making progress after some months have elapsed, or if you're backsliding, it's possible that you're using a subpar SEO service.

SEO Service Red Flag #3: Promises Instant Results

It's just about a guarantee: if a service promises to give you a guaranteed amount of traffic or instantly boost your website's search rankings, it's probably lying.  The best SEO service won't promise anything instantly.

These kinds of promises are often signifiers of an agency that is great at self-promotion, but not much else.  You'll want to get the best SEO service for law firms, and that means making sure that whatever service you hire understands the likely pace of the results you'll get.

As more Americans use the internet as part of their daily lives (282 million at the last count), more of them have started learning how to effectively use search engines.  Part of effectively using search engines to effectively search for products and services is using local search terms.  Attorneys, due to the local nature of most law firms, can benefit tremendously from understanding how to use local search SEO.  In this guide, you'll learn seven easy to use local SEO tips.  Each can help your law firm get on the path to local search SEO that actually works to make your SERPs better.

Local SEO Tips #1: Picking Your Keywords

It's a mistake to think that just because your law firm is located in a city, you can't also market to people in the suburbs.  In the same way, if you're located in a rural area or a cluster of smaller towns/cities, you may feel that geographic searches and local search SEO actually hurt, instead of help, your business.

You can fix that feeling by choosing keywords that represent more than just the area where your office is.  You can include the names of several other cities in your webpages, and most local SEO tips will suggest including suburbs or neighborhoods as long as those Google searches are being made.

Local SEO Tips #2: Claim Your Profile

On many local search SEO directory websites, your law firm may already have a listing.  For example, it's very likely that as long as you're listed in the phone book, you'll have already been listed by Yelp and Google+ Local.  However, the automated systems that input these entries are limited.  They will usually only be able to identify the name of your law firm, its location, and its telephone number.

That's where these local SEO tips come in.  By starting an account at these websites, you can claim your profile and begin to work on providing more information through this profile.  This enhances your local search SEO by showing that you are located in the area, and that you are active locally.

These local SEO tips won't just help you to appear sooner when people search for terms relating to your law firm.  They'll also get you new customers, just like an advertisement.  An increasing number of consumers are turning to ratings websites and directories for attorney recommendations.  Local search SEO is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the reasons for making one of these profiles.

Local SEO Tips #3: Check Your Website

What if you've followed all the local SEO tips you can find and nothing seems to be happening in terms of your bottom line?  Have you made sure that you're actually seeing an increase in traffic due to your local search SEO efforts?  If traffic is up but conversions are down, you may need to alter your content accordingly.  Conversion-ready content will include direct calls to action for the consumer, as well as clear and engaging copy that isn't littered with legalese or jargon.

You should also make sure that your website is running fast.  Google now includes this metric to determine, in part, where your pages will be displayed in search results.  If your website is running too slowly, you may be sacrificing search engine results pages just because of some poorly optimized code or a bad hosting provider.

Local SEO Tips #4: Use Google Instant

Have you noticed how when you start to type a search term into Google's search field, Google actually tries to guess what you're searching for?  This is called Google Instant, and it's designed to get better at anticipating web needs based on extensive user data.

By playing with Google Instant, you can find your own local search SEO tips.  How?  Just type in your location and a search term people might use to find your law office, then see what else comes up.  You may also want to include these terms in your local search SEO to get more clients, because apparently people are already searching for those exact terms.

Local SEO Tips #5: Use Local Directories

Asking for a listing from the Chamber of Commerce may sound like an antiquated marketing strategy.  You may be surprised to learn that many local SEO tips suggest taking this exact course of action.  Why?  Because local search SEO depends on being linked not only by other websites, but by other local websites.

When a listing for your website appears on a large number of local directories, you'll show up as a better match for people who are looking for a law firm in your area.  While many directory listing services are no longer worth it, local search SEO still requires local directory use to be truly effective.

Local SEO Tips #6: Update Your Profiles

If your law firm changes names, locations, or focus areas, you need to make sure that your local search SEO has been updated accordingly.  An outdated profile can lead to major SEO trouble.  Make sure that somebody at your law firm has been assigned the responsibility of updating these profiles routinely.  You may also want to consider adding new information along with your updates, like photos of your firm or links to videos.

Local SEO Tips #7: Get Reviews

One of the biggest ways clients today use local searches to find lawyers is by using Avvo.com, Yelp.com, Google+ Local, and other rating and review websites.  It's easy to see why: these websites make it easy to compare past client reviews quickly.  When looking for a lawyer, the vast majority of clients will choose the lawyer with reviews instead of the lawyer without them.

This means that in order to make your presence known with local search SEO, you should be encouraging your clients to leave reviews for you.  Even issuing a call for reviews from clients who are LinkedIn connections or Facebook friends can help you to get the extra edge you need.

Small firms can often feel invisible, especially in markets with thousands of other attorneys competing for clients' business.  The internet can be a great way to level the playing field—if you know how to use it right.  SEO for small business can vault your firm into the top page of search results for searches that bring in real, paying clients.  Using SEO in small business is one of the biggest trends for internet marketing today.  What's more, there are now affordable small business SEO options that can help even lawyers who are just starting out.  This guide will cover all this and more about SEO for small business, so keep reading—you need this information today.

Why Search Still Matters

Not everyone believes that creating SEO for small business strategies is still a useful way to spend time for marketers.  These detractors point to a decline in using SEO in small business marketing plans, and an uptick in the number of clients finding attorneys in ways that don't involve using search engines.

However, those detractors are largely focused on retail industries.  Businesses which emphasize services, like law firms, are still often searched for by consumers and find SEO for small business profitable.  It's still three times more likely that you'll get a new client from a web search than any other way of generating leads.  This means that investing in affordable small business SEO is still a great idea for small firms.

What's more, there are more ways than ever to help propel yourself to the top of the SEO for small business heap.  With so many ways to use SEO in small business strategies, there's almost always at least one way that will appeal to your way of doing things.

How Searches Are Changing

Even though search is still important, to be successful with your SEO for small business, you'll need to know about current trends in web searches.  Searches today are increasingly mobile, and increasingly global.  Not all affordable small business SEO packages take this into account, so you should always make sure that your provider of SEO for small business is aware of these changes.

When searches are more mobile, SEO in small business strategies becomes even more important.  Why?  Because mobile searchers are more impatient and less willing to click through multiple pages of web results.  This means that your SERPS (and therefore, the role of SEO in small business) will be much more important for mobile customers.

It also means that your web pages now need to be optimized for viewing by mobile browsers.  Even if your affordable small business SEO works well and puts you in the top page of search results, it will only help if your website draws them in.  Don't waste time and money on SEO in small business marketing strategy if you're not going to make your website capable of generating conversions from clicks.

Local searches are also becoming more common, especially for people who hire attorneys.  Any affordable small business SEO package you purchase will need to optimize your business's web pages for local search as well as more general search terms.  

Direct Ads vs. SEO In Small Business Techniques

Many law firms currently do most or all of their online marketing through direct pay per click advertising services, like Google AdWords, instead of using SEO for small business.  If that's what you and your competition are doing, this means that there's more room for SEO in small business marketing in your area.

Direct ads do have some advantages over using affordable small business SEO.  For one thing, while SEO for small business can take several months to really become effective at generating new business, ads work right away.

However, for every click made on direct ads, you'll have to pay a (sometimes quite exorbitant) price.  When you use SEO in small business, you'll keep reaping the benefits for months or even years.  SEO for small business costs a little more money upfront but does tend to have larger payoffs over the long term.

Is Affordable Small Business SEO Possible?

When attorneys start trying to use SEO in small business, they're often flummoxed by the countless rules (many contradictory) that are given by different self-appointed SEO “gurus.”  Because of this, they turn to outsourcing their SEO in small business needs.    But affordable small business SEO can seem hard to come by.  Why?  Because good SEO for small business takes time.

You should be wary about affordable small business SEO if you see a price that seems substantially lower than anyone else's for similar services.  Is it because the person who's doing the SEO for small business isn't a native speaker of American English?  Is it because your affordable SEO service is employing a slew of overseas workers?  

It's not worth it to sacrifice quality for affordability when it comes to SEO in small business.  Affordable small business SEO may generate some short term gains, but if any of it is regarded as spam by search engines, you could lose even the SERPs you had before you started.

Prioritizing Your SEO for Small Business Goals

One way to make it easier to find affordable small business SEO is to make sure that you have clear priorities.  This allows you to pay your service for some elements of your search engine optimization, without needing to pay for a complete package that includes many things you don't need.

For example, maybe you're already quite familiar with making your blog search engine optimized, but you have no idea how to bring mobile traffic to your website.  Affordable small business SEO could focus on your mobile-friendly redesign, while letting you handle your blog content completely on your own.

Decide what parts of the search engine optimization process you're comfortable doing, and then do those parts.  This will not only save you a great deal of money with your affordable small business SEO service, but will also make you more comfortable with gradually doing more search engine optimization in-house.

What is SEO marketing going to look like in a few years?  You don't need a crystal ball to look into the future and know that SEO search engine marketing will keep changing.  While a few years ago, many search engine optimized pages looked clunky, over 50 percent of today's online businesses are using seamless organic SEO marketing.  Keep reading this guide to find out how SEO search engine marketing changes have created new techniques you can use every day.

What is SEO Marketing, and What Makes it Organic?

In the early days of the internet, SEO search engine marketing was extremely primitive.  In 2000, organic SEO marketing was basically unheard of, and most business marketing professionals would have asked you “what is SEO marketing?” if you even mentioned the concept.

When people started to get used to the idea of SEO search engine marketing, they were dealing with relatively simple search algorithms.  These simple search algorithms looked, in large part, for keyword density to tell whose results should be on top.

You've probably seen some of the web pages that this kind of SEO search engine marketing was used on.  Far from being organic SEO marketing, they're clunky, with keywords jammed in every which way.

Now that most people in marketing have advanced beyond asking “what is SEO marketing?”, changes are still afoot.  Organic SEO marketing means that your copy looks natural, rather than having ungrammatical keywords crammed so closely together that it becomes barely readable.

Do I Need Paid Ads When I Use Organic SEO Marketing?

Some of the confusion over what is SEO marketing and what it's useful for comes about because there are many different types of advertising and marketing on the web.  While organic SEO marketing is certainly a great technique, it's also a technique that takes finesse.  Some attorneys prefer to skip SEO search engine marketing and rely entirely on direct advertising, usually on search engines.

What is SEO marketing going to do to your paid ads?  Eventually, it can probably replace them.  Because about 80 percent of internet users simply do not click on sidebar search advertisements, you're reaching a much wider audience with organic SEO marketing.  SEO search engine marketing will take a little while to get off the ground, so you may want to continue running ads while you wait for it to work.

What is SEO Marketing Doing For Law Firms Today?

Whether you're a solo practitioner or part of a larger firm, you're probably wondering: what is SEO marketing going to do to impact my bottom line?  The best thing about organic SEO marketing is that it doesn't have to make your website copy look very different to your existing clients.  This type of SEO search engine marketing, because it looks natural, won't risk scaring new potential clients away or hurt your reputation for having good information online.

Of course, just altering copy isn't the only answer to the question “what is SEO marketing.”  Today, because Google now ranks link quality and weights that in deciding where to put your results on the search page, many things fall under the SEO search engine marketing umbrella.  For example, your social networking websites, as well as Youtube and other video sites, can contain examples of organic SEO marketing that will help to bring in new clients from all over the web.

How Do I Segment Audiences With Organic SEO Marketing?

Segmentation is one of the best ways to make sure that your SEO search engine marketing campaign succeeds.  Instead of trying to talk to everyone with the same organic SEO marketing copy, you can adapt your copy and keywords for each type of client that you're trying to target.
 
You can also segment audiences by actually making different websites for each of the areas of expertise at your firm.  While this may initially sound like a lot of work, what is SEO marketing without work?  If it didn't take any effort, every other firm would already be optimized as much as possible.

How Do I Analyze My Organic SEO Marketing?

Even people who have a very good understanding of what is SEO marketing can be stymied by attempts to interpret the results of their marketing campaigns.  Often, the data you get can seem confusing, or there may just be too much of it for you to guess at what it means.  When this happens, it may be a good idea to have a professional consultation with an analytics consultant.

Analytics professionals can help you learn how to interpret your own data and start taking your SEO search engine marketing into your own hands with split tests and constant analysis.  If you don't intend to do this analysis in-house, many of these professionals will do the analytics work for you.  They'll find out what is SEO marketing doing for your firm and reporting the results to you.

Finding More Organic SEO Marketing Resources

One of the best resources to learn more about SEO search engine marketing best practices is actually Google's website.  This a completely free resource, accessible to everyone on the internet.  Because Google is the biggest search engine in the world and decides how to index results, it's by far the most reliable place to start learning how to do SEO to attract new clients.

You can also keep track of websites like this one, as well as blogs about SEO search engine marketing.  When you follow blogs, it's important not to follow out of date information, as this can affect whether or not you will be successful with your SEO.  

If you have any questions, asking them on these blogs can be very helpful—after all, most SEO professionals are more than willing to share their thoughts and keep online discussions going!  SEO professionals with blogs are also likely to help you by pointing you in the right direction toward the specific SEO resource you need to complete your current search engine marketing project.
 

If you're looking for cheap SEO packages, you're in good company: eighty percent of law firms eventually outsource some or all of their search engine optimization work.  In the tough economic climate today, it's always important to save money, and many people look for the most affordable SEO package they can find.  However, just because affordable SEO packages are cheap doesn't mean they'll be worth your time.  How can you know what differentiates cheap SEO packages that work and the ones that don't?  Keep reading to find out.

Why “Pure” Cheap SEO Packages Are No Longer Enough

When law firms used search engine optimization in years past, they often focused exclusively or almost exclusively on the content of their websites.  Optimizing this content to maximize the likelihood that a page would be ranked well was called “pure SEO.”  Some affordable SEO packages today may still use pure SEO, but it would be a mistake to use these cheap SEO packages.

That's because pure SEO doesn't take into account the things that matter just as much or more to Google and other search engine indexers.  For example, if your affordable SEO package doesn't include anything that helps you optimize your website for mobile traffic, what will your law firm do to attract the 20 percent of web users who are now searching mostly on their smartphones?

Affordable SEO Packages: Link Building

A huge aspect of search engine optimization today is link building.  Any affordable SEO packages that don't include at least some work on link building are not worth your time or money.  Link building refers to the process of having other websites link to your site.

You should seek out an affordable SEO package that not only includes link building but also tells you upfront how those links will be built.  Backlinks that come from paid linking programs, reciprocal linking, or spammy, low quality websites will generally be regarded as neutral to negative for your search engine results.  Some cheap SEO packages that say they include link building services use these types of methods, so caveat emptor.

Some of the ways that high quality, affordable SEO packages might help you to link build include finding guest blogging opportunities for you to take advantage of, or building profiles in high quality directories on the web.  This kind of link building will take longer and may lead to having fewer links than if you had used other methods.  However, when your affordable SEO package uses ethical methods, you never have to worry that your SERPs will be negatively impacted by the next search algorithm update.

Affordable SEO Packages: Targeting and Landing Pages

Another way that an affordable SEO package can improve your search engine results is by helping you to direct your keyword-based pay per click advertisements.  These ads can help augment cheap SEO packages by giving you immediate results.  What's more, as part of your affordable SEO package, you can ask to actually see testing done to compare which keywords and copy pay off best.  You can then use that knowledge to refine your search engine optimization copy on all of your web pages.

Landing pages are pages that are specific to one ad and that address a client's keywords very specifically before they enter your main site.  This means that you'll be able to be able to target tiny niche audiences based on their exact interests.  An affordable SEO package can help you make these landing pages.  Most very affordable SEO packages will limit the number of landing pages you can have to a fairly small number—you may have to upgrade to less cheap SEO packages when you want to have more landing pages for more niches.

Affordable SEO Packages: Video

Not all cheap SEO packages include video recordings.  However, if you can find an affordable SEO package that does include video, it's a wise investment in your marketing future.  Some affordable SEO packages actually include many videos, all recorded in the same day or week, which you can then slowly share over the course of several months to a year.

Just because you're buying cheap SEO packages doesn't mean your video should look cheap.  If you see an affordable SEO package but the video looks bad, keep moving.  That's not the kind of impression you want cheap SEO packages to leave on your visitors, is it?  A well-produced video can still be made in the context of an affordable SEO package, and you'll get tremendous conversion rates compared to an amateur video.

Affordable SEO Packages: Content Management

If you already have a great deal of content for your website, cheap SEO packages can help you put it in front of the right eyes.  By search engine optimizing your videos, social networking posts, and blog posts, then putting it online, your affordable SEO package can save you from many hours of work every week.

Content management frees you from many of the administrative responsibilities of running a law firm website and optimizing it.  Even very cheap SEO packages will typically include this service.  If your administrative responsibilities are giving you headaches, an affordable SEO package may be exactly what you need.

Warning: Don't Get Blog Content From Affordable SEO Packages

One thing you should never accept as part of an affordable SEO package is blog writing.  Think about it: attorneys go to school for years to learn the law.  How can cheap SEO packages possibly provide you with real subject matter experts when they blog?  Subject matter experts cost money, and you won't get them with an affordable SEO package.

Instead, work on your blog content yourself, and learn some principles of keyword density, semantic indexing, and so on before you write your entries.  A well-written entry that is only partially keyword optimized will still look much better to potential clients than any entries that are so full of keywords your clients or colleagues can barely read them.

Valuable Tips on How to Use Twitter for Marketing

Twitter Marketing Guide

According to statistics released by eMarketer at the beginning of 2012, about 239 million people (75.6%) in the United States will qualify as active users on the internet.  Learning how to market on Twitter is essential because about two-thirds of those 239 US citizens will use social networking in 2012.

How to Market on Twitter: Important Actions to Take

If you’re wondering how to use Twitter for marketing with the legal industry, you’ll want to take the following actions as much as possible:

·         Keep track of how many people are tweeting about your content

·         Share only the most important content you can offer

·         Respond to every mention and every direct message

·         Try to keep your tweets related to your field of law as much as possible

·         Say thank you as much as possible

·         Unfollow all users that fail to offer tweets or offer an offensive tweet

·         Give credit to the person whose content you’re sharing

How to Market on Twitter: Things to Avoid

Some of the most important information in this Twitter marketing guide is listed within this section.  While learning how to use Twitter for marketing, your firm should avoid the following actions at all costs:

·         Don’t tweet negative comments about anyone, including other firms

·         NEVER use profanity

·         Avoid unrelated content or content that fails to engage the follower

·         Don’t tweet about politics or religion

·         Avoid sexual topics unless your firm specializes in protecting victims

·         Avoid saying anything you would not say within your workplace or in front of your partners

How to Market on Twitter: Tips for Beginners

This section of the Twitter marketing guide discusses tips that are useful to beginners, but the tips are important for a firm throughout any stage. 

1. How to Market on Twitter: Focus on the Followers, not the Money

This is one of the most important tips within this Twitter marketing guide for attorneys.  Your interest needs to focus on helping a follower instead of just trying to make money off of them.  Learning how to use Twitter for marketing will undoubtedly result in more prospective clients, but money shouldn’t be the key factor. 

2. How to Market on Twitter: Establish a Lasting Relationship

This tip is also another important factor in this Twitter marketing guide, as well as a key factor in all of business.  You try and maintain a relationship with past clients don’t you?  The same applies to your “clients” on Twitter.  Followers need to be able to trust you, and they need to know you know your field inside and out before they’re going to ask you for help. 

While learning how to use Twitter for marketing, you’ll want to make sure you have a reasonable amount of both professional followers and followers in the general public.  If the public notices you’re connected with other professionals, they’ll notice your credibility. 

3. How to Market on Twitter: Offer Services at the Right Time

One of the biggest factors on how to use Twitter for marketing involves offering your services not only at the right time, but at the right place.  Don’t hassle potential clients with an abundance of tweets, and don’t overload them with direct messages either.  These actions even border on malpractice within Rules of Professional Conduct. 

Instead, offer incentives such as free consultations to encourage clients to use your service when they’re good and ready.

4. How to Market on Twitter: Only Repeat Information Some of the Time

This is also another important within this Twitter marketing guide.  If you’re trying to advertise your services, one of the biggest mistakes you can do is repeat the same messages over and over.  This action can even get your account suspended if you’re not careful. 

If you do need to repeat material, you’ll need to learn how to use Twitter for marketing at peak hours.  Some of your clients will view more tweets in the morning, some more at lunch, and some more in the evening.  Repeat necessary information carefully and only at the right time. 

How to Market on Twitter: Tips for all Users

This section of the Twitter marketing guide is particularly important to every professional user.  Learning how to use Twitter for marketing in the following ways is proven to increase the reach of your services:

1. How to Market on Twitter: Find out about Local Events

You should find public events your followers are attending and try to attend those events yourself.  Making your presence known off the web is equally important and can even lead to more awareness in your social media. 

2. How to Market on Twitter: Compare your Profile with Other Professionals

The best way to learn how to use Twitter for marketing is comparing your campaign to other legal campaigns.  What techniques and services are they using that you have not embraced?  What techniques are they using outside of this Twitter marketing guide?  How can you offer better services within your marketing?

3. How to Market on Twitter: Keep Updated on News and Changes within your Field

This is one of the most important tips within this Twitter marketing guide.  If you can prove you are fluent on changes in your field and updated on related news, your followers will rely on your tweets in the future.

4. How to Market on Twitter: Monitor your Results and Connect to Other Social Media

Once you know how to use Twitter for marketing, you’ll want to connect Twitter to other forms of social media as well like Facebook and LinkedIn.  Monitor how many followers you’re gaining from social media and outside sources as well.  Monitor how all users are accessing your tweets. 

Conclusion: Twitter Marketing Guide

All of the tips within this Twitter marketing guide can increase the effectiveness of your campaign.  Research other tips and tools to further your knowledge on how to use Twitter for marketing. 

Potential Disadvantages and Dangers of Affiliate Internet Marketing

Weighing the Advantages and Disadvantages of Affiliate Internet Marketing

There are multiple advantages to internet affiliate marketing such as increased levels of revenue, a continuing and satisfied reader base, and the ability to increase the popularity of your website within search engines.  However, there are many potential dangers with internet affiliate marketing in the legal field, including the following and more:

·         vulnerability of brand

·         stacking and overload of advertisements

·         lack of contracts and permanency

·         fraud

·         harmful software

·         lack of control over ads

Potential Disadvantages of Internet Affiliate Marketing

1. Vulnerability of Brand in Internet Affiliate Marketing

The biggest potential disadvantage associated with internet affiliate marketing and a firm is the public recognizing your brand as unprofessional.  This is the reason you don’t see a large amount of advertisements on legal blogs and websites for attorneys.  If a firm is not careful with the types of advertisements they’re posting, the public may assume that the firm is mainly concerned with filtering in clients and readers for profit instead of educational purposes. 

There are steps to protect your brand while engaging in affiliate internet marketing though.  For example, if you’re an affiliate for Amazon, you should only advertise products that can supplement your services such as legal books and pamphlets for the areas of law you cover. 

2. Stacking of Advertisements in Internet Affiliate Marketing

The trick to internet affiliate marketing is using the least amount of advertisements as possible in order to generate the most revenue possible.  The key to such success includes choosing respectable merchants that offer reasonable amounts of commission for the legal publisher.  This can be hard though, especially for newer websites or blogs. 

An inexperienced legal publisher may try to overload their sidebars with a large amount of affiliate internet marketing advertisements in order to try and get their readers to click on at least one of the advertisements.  Not only can this technique in internet affiliate marketing damage the reputation of your brand, it can cause readers to visit your website once, notice the large amount of advertisements, and leave the website and never come back. 

3. Lack of Contracts and Permanency in Internet Affiliate Marketing

Just as a legal publisher can choose what affiliate internet marketing to post on their website, a merchant can decide what advertising to offer to whom.  In some cases, a merchant can choose to offer a website certain types of affiliate internet marketing, but some networks are allowed  to post such advertisements whenever they want and even take the advertisements off the website whenever they choose.  This is a major concern to many legal website and blog publishers. 

For example, let’s say a legal website just landed a great advertisement and they’ve been writing reviews about certain products and received success.  Then, the merchant and the network decide that they want to shift their internet affiliate marketing strategy somewhere else.  The website is left without future revenue and they have material that is now irrelevant. 

4. Fraud in Affiliate Internet Marketing in Internet Affiliate Marketing

There are two main types of fraud associated with internet affiliate marketing: CPC fraud and CPA fraud.  Cost per Click fraud can occur when competitors intentionally click on advertisements in abundance so the legal publisher is left to cover the cost without little return in revenue.  There is a large amount of protective software out there now to protect against CPC fraud, but some scammers can still slip through the system. 

CPA fraud, or cost per action fraud, is more of a concern for merchants than publishers, but the fraud has brought serious concerns within affiliate internet marketing.  This type of fraud may allow a publisher to earn large amounts of unearned commissions by a process called “cookie stuffing.”  This allows the publisher to gain revenue even though there was no real referral to a merchant’s website.  Such practices in internet affiliate marketing can land a firm in a huge amount of trouble. 

5. Harmful and Disadvantageous Software in Internet Affiliate Marketing

Although harmful software like spyware has been targeted and seriously reduced in the last couple of years, there is still a large amount of harmful software in affiliate internet marketing than can take away business from a firm.  For example, there is some software that will monitor other websites, see what techniques they’re using to bring in readers, and then target those very same readers in order to take away business. 

There is also software that can allow a person to receive promotional offers from a publisher without actually clicking on an advertisement.  The software places cookies within a client’s browser and then tracks the person’s navigation to a site offering good deals.  This type of software is still a serious problem in internet affiliate marketing. 

6. Lack of Control over Ads in Internet Affiliate Marketing

This potential disadvantage within affiliate internet marketing can be avoided by using a respected and highly rated network.  Networks that are less known and less respected can actually place ads within your sidebars and other areas of your website that may have nothing to do with your content.  This action within internet affiliate marketing goes back to the first and second points, which may cause damage to the image of your brand.

In order to find ratings and reviews for the best networks for affiliate internet marketing, refer to the recommended articles on this website. 

Conclusion: Internet Affiliate Marketing

You shouldn’t be scared off from internet affiliate marketing because of the potential hazards associated with the type of advertising.  Instead, let the potential disadvantages serves as a guide to let you set up the best affiliate internet marketing.  The disadvantages are avoidable if your take the right initiatives.  If you’ve taken the wrong initiatives, it’s never too late to revise your affiliate internet marketing campaign. 

Some of the Best Free Affiliate Marketing Tools on the Web

Why do I need to Use Affiliate Marketing Tools?

If you chose to go through an affiliate marketing network, they may provide certain tools along with their service.  However, many networks provide limited affiliate marketing tools, and it’s a good idea to access free tools if you’re already spending money on the network.  Some of the best free affiliate marketing tools are listed throughout this article.

A Free Affiliate Marketing Tool for your Campaign

If you’ve chosen to pursue your affiliate campaign, an affiliate marketing tool listed within this section or several tools at a time can help you make your campaign as successful as possible:

Google AdWords Affiliate Marketing Tool

This service provided by Google is one of the most widely accessed tools by attorneys in the internet today.  The affiliate marketing tools within this program can give you an estimate for a keyword’s search volume for the last month, and it can provide other terms that may be a better choice for your campaign.  You can search for search trends, local search volume, and most importantly, keywords in connection to advertiser competition. 

Google Alerts Affiliate Marketing Tool

This is one of the best affiliate marketing tools you can use for your campaign.  You can establish alerts by day, week or month and see what people are saying about the legal products on other websites.  The same applies to your marketing campaign.  If you have a website or blog that is used for affiliated marketing, you can see what readers are saying about your website. 

Firefox SEO Affiliate Marketing Tool

If you use a Firefox browser, this a great free tool for your affiliate marketing campaign.  The toolbar is plug-in and only takes a couple of minutes to download.  With this tool, you can analyze your own legal website’s figure and you can also analyze the statistics on competitive websites.  You can track things such as backlinks, projections, and much more.  This is one of the most popular affiliate marketing tools offered for free. 

Tynt Affiliate Marketing Tool

This is one of the most helpful affiliate marketing tools if you have a large amount of original content on your legal website or blog—especially if you’re writing product reviews and similar articles.  This affiliate marketing tool allows you to see if your content or original pictures were copied.  If so, the tool can provide links to redirect readers back to your legal website. 

This affiliate marketing tool also provides other services such as reports on where your readers are coming from, content reports, and even help with your SEO. 

Tracking202.com

This is one of the best free tools for an attorney in affiliate marketing that relies heavily on pay per click advertising.  The affiliate marketing tools offered by this website allow you to note conversions, but you can track campaigns across several different networks at a time.  You can also use the website to track your return on investment (ROI), and you can find more services as well. 

Traffic Travis Affiliate Marketing Tool

This free tool is highly regarded according to multiple user reviews and provides results comparable to some of the costliest software for SEO.  The tool can give you close estimates for keywords across several different search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and more.  You can also plug in a keyword and see how similar keywords will perform. 

Pingler.com Affiliate Marketing Tool

These tools along with pingomatic.com are some of the best for getting your content indexed and getting it indexed quickly.  For example, if you’ve just launched a new legal website or even a new post on a legal blog, these affiliate marketing tools allow you to alert other blogs and search engines that you’re content has been updated.  These tools will increase how fast readers travel to your website, and the more you update the page, the more you should use these affiliate marketing tools. 

Dropbox Affiliate Marketing Tool

This is a great tool if you you’re constantly traveling and want a secure place to save the things you’re working on during travel.  The service provides several options to the legal affiliate marketer, and the tool even allows you to share your Dropbox with other people if you choose to do so, such as other partners in your firm.  Some versions of this affiliate marketing tool require a fee, but there is a free version as well. 

GoGodes Affiliate Marketing Tool

This is one of the greatest affiliate marketing tools/plug-ins for adjusting your domain names.  If you have a large domain name, you can use this plug-in to reduce the length of your link in order to perform more efficiently on a search engine and look more professional overall. 

Affilorama Affiliate Marketing Tool

This website also provides a large amount of free affiliate marketing tools.  You have access to tools for research and other tools such as a domain locator, an earning calculator, a URL redirect tool, and more.  This service also provides free educational material on affiliate marketing and other advanced affiliate marketing tools for a fee. 

Conclusion: Affiliate Marketing Tools

If you’ve started an affiliate marketing campaign, sometimes the best choice is to start with free affiliate marketing tools and progress to tools that charge a fee once you become accustomed to the practice of affiliate marketing for legal products and services.  You’ll want to start off slow and adjust your content along the way, and the free tools listed within this article will help. 

If you’re going through an affiliate marketing network, they will usually provide you with a large number of affiliate marketing tools—especially if they charge a fee for the service.  If you’re not using a network, you’ll have to decide  the level of your demands.  What kind of things do you need to track, and what are you planning to do with the results?