With 400 million tweets being sent every day in 2012, Twitter and its “hashtag” system are becoming more important to law firm marketers all the time.  Among the tools in your Twitter marketing arsenal should be at least one good Twitter hashtag directory.  Learning to use a hashtag directory can be a little tricky at first, especially if you haven't used many hashtags yet, but with a little guidance you'll get the hang of it quickly.  This guide starts with the very basics of how a Twitter hashtag directory works, then looks at how law firm marketing professionals can make use of several online hashtag directory resources.

How a Twitter Hashtag Directory Works

On Twitter, anyone with an account can create whatever hashtag they want.  This amounts to millions of different hashtags being used in any given day, and can make it very hard to identify what hashtags you want to use.  Using a Twitter hashtag directory can help you to narrow down your choices for hashtags so that you're only using tags that will be effective and relatively popular.

Most of the time, a hashtag directory won't be compiled by one person.  Considering the number of new hashtags developed every day, it would be impossible for one person to create all the new entries in a Twitter hashtag directory.  Instead, a hashtag directory will usually depend on submissions from users.

Types of Twitter Hashtag Directory

Because there are different things that you might want to know about your hashtag, different hashtag directory systems have been developed on different websites.  One of the most basic of these websites is Hashtags.org, which is a Twitter hashtag directory providing users with basic information on the popularity of any hashtags of their choice.

By using Hashtags.org, you can check up on a graph of a hashtag's long and short term popularity.  But what if popularity isn't what you're looking for?  You may know that you've seen a particular hashtag a lot lately—let's say you've seen five different people you follow use #yolo—but you don't know what it means.  Before deciding to use it on your own Twitter feed, you should definitely check up with another Twitter hashtag directory, TagDef.  

Tagdef is a hashtag directory that keeps a listing of as many hashtags as have been submitted by users, and the definitions of those hashtags.  By using this Twitter hashtag directory, you look up the hashtag #yolo and find out that it means “you only live once”—not necessarily the sentiment you want your law firm to be expressing in an official tweet.  Using a hashtag directory for definitions can prevent unneeded embarrassment.

A third kind of Twitter hashtag directory involves geolocational cross referencing of Twitter hashtags.  If you want to see what a hashtag directory shows as being the most popular tags in your area, head over to TrendsMap.  This Twitter hashtag directory can display popular tags on a map, so that you can zoom in as much as you want and find out what's trending locally.

Finding the Right Twitter Hashtag Directory

If you're not happy with the results you're getting from a hashtag directory, keep in mind that there are dozens of competing websites out there.  As trends on Twitter change, it's very possible that some Twitter hashtag directory tools will fall out of favor or become less useful.  When you stop getting the kinds of results from a hashtag directory that you need, check some other directories out, and monitor blogs about Twitter marketing to find out what new directories have recently come on the scene.  Often, the newest tools offer the most sophisticated and up to date functionality.

Using a Hashtag Directory Correctly

If you're using a Twitter hashtag directory, make sure that you're using the right one for the right purpose.  You'll have much better luck getting geographic information from a hashtag directory that specializes in this information, for example.

It's also important not to use a Twitter hashtag directory of popular hashtags as a list of tags for your own Twitter feed to use.  Often, these extremely popular hashtags are so popular that your post will quickly “disappear” from being visible to people watching the hashtag for new posts.  If you're going to use a popular hashtag, try to do so at a time when you'll actually be seen by large numbers of people—you can often use a Twitter hashtag directory to find out when those times will be.

Beyond the Hashtag Directory: Making Your Own Tags

After you've watched Twitter hashtag directory listings for a while, you might want to try your hand at making a unique hashtag that no one else has used.  If you're doing this, you should check a hashtag directory or two first just to make sure that your tag hasn't been used before.  You may have to try several tag variants before finding one that will be exclusively yours.

If you're using a tag that is exclusively yours, you can then use some tracking tools to see where it spreads to and how its popularity changes.  Hashtags.org is a great tracking tool to see whether your hashtag ever catches on beyond your immediate circle of followers and friends.

Submitting Your Hashtags to a Twitter Hashtag Directory

Of course, once you make your own hashtags, you should also try to submit them to any hashtag directory that you think might be useful.  Some hashtag directories actually allow you to categorize hashtags so that you can put them into a useful category (for instance, law and legal issues).  If you're not submitting your hashtags to a Twitter hashtag directory, it will be harder for other people to find out the definition of your hashtag and how it has been used.

Some hashtag directories do keep track of hashtags automatically.  You won't need to submit a hashtag to these.  However, places like TagDef only list hashtags that have been submitted by users, so you'll need to write out a tag definition and post it there if you want the definition to be easily accessible by others.

One of the newest ways to interact with the rest of the web is with social bookmarking.  But what is social bookmarking, and how is it affecting the way people use the internet and find new websites?  Can your law firm actually make use of social bookmarking, or is it a fad that will fade away quickly?  What is social bookmarking going to look like in the future, and how can you plan for it?  This guide will answer all of your questions about social bookmarking so that you can start planning out which websites to post your social bookmarks on.

What is Social Bookmarking: History and Definitions

When web browsers started appearing in the mid-1990s, one of the first features they added was bookmarking.  Bookmarks allowed people to come back to a favorite URL again and again without needing to write down or memorize the web address of a particular website.  These bookmarks were stored in a file on your computer that was kept with the browser application you were using.  That bookmarking functionality stayed basically the same for about a decade.

In the mid-2000s, a new type of bookmarking appeared: social bookmarking.  Now, instead of just storing bookmarks on your own computer, you can actually store them on websites.  What's more, instead of keeping your bookmarks to yourself, these websites allow you to share them with other users.  Social bookmarking sites also often let users determine whether a submission is good or bad, and promote it or demote it accordingly.

What is Social Bookmarking Used For?

If you're going to start to use social bookmarks as part of your marketing strategy, you should know what is social bookmarking being used for by marketers.  One of the best parts about social bookmarking is that it can generate high quality, high PageRank inbound links that will make your search engine optimization efforts more successful.  Google and other search engines base your search rankings in part on the quality of your inbound links, so it's very important to have links coming from websites that are popular and authoritative—which many social bookmarking sites are.

Another answer to the question of “what is social bookmarking used for?” is that you can actually draw in new clients and business with social bookmarks.  If you're using the right websites and making contextual links to quality content, your linking could actually help you to score a new case.

Keep in mind that if you're not creating quality original content, it may not be very beneficial for you to use social bookmarking websites.  What is social bookmarking if not a way to show good content to others?  If your content could use improvement, work on that before starting to post your links to it.

General Social Bookmarking Websites

Some types of social bookmark websites are made to accept just about any type of link there is, and just about any legal practice can post links that would be relevant to their viewers.  For example, right now, there's no trendier site for social bookmarks than Reddit.com.  What is social bookmarking with Reddit?  After making an account on the website (a process that takes only a minute), you can start posting links to your content immediately to a wide variety of “subreddits,” each of which is related to a different topic.  You might want to use a subreddit like “law” for your post, or you might post it in a more general subreddit like “news” or “politics.”

Other general social bookmarking sites include Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious.  These websites are all different in their approach and interface, but serve the same purpose.  You can feel free to post the same content to several different social bookmark sites rather than just using a piece of content on a single website.

Specialized Social Bookmarking Websites

What is social bookmarking that is specialized, and what is it useful for?  Let's say that you work in the field of intellectual property litigation.  Instead of posting something to a general social bookmarking website like Reddit or StumbleUpon, you might want to try your hand at getting a story onto one of the most popular technology oriented social bookmarking websites: Slashdot.

Now, keep in mind, if you're able to get a story posted to one of these websites and it makes it to the front page, your website may get hammered—an effect originally known as the “Slashdot effect.”  Be sure that your web hosting provider is capable of providing the hosting you need before  you start making posts to social bookmarking sites.

Social Bookmarking Etiquette

What is social bookmarking etiquette?  In brief, every website that you use for social bookmarking will have its own way of doing things—and those ways can be very, very different.  Don't jump right in and post content onto a site that you've barely read or have never participated in before.  Get a personal account first, post a few comments, get comfortable with the website and the people on it.  Only then will you be properly equipped and knowledgeable about the etiquette that guides members of that website.  This will give you a much better chance of being listened to and having your link accepted as part of the community.

Why Social Bookmarking Is Here To Stay

One of the things many people don't seem to understand is what is social bookmarking's appeal?  Well, part of that appeal—and part of why social bookmarking sites have staying power—is that they become communities all of their own, with their own personalities, quirks, and moral codes.  This gives people a very strong sense of identity and belonging with the website.

This is why it's a good idea to choose a few social bookmarking sites and really get acquainted with how they do things.  It's better to post only to a few websites but to post with quality, relevant posts than it is to spam every social bookmark site that you can find with the exact same content, whether it's relevant or not.

Social bookmarks are such a new tool for most marketers that there haven't even been studies done on how many law firms use them.  Getting in on the ground floor of this new marketing technique is incredibly important for both your search engine optimization and just to improve brand awareness.  If you don't know a social bookmark from a social network, this is the guide to get you started.  We'll explore the world of social bookmarks, including how law firms can take advantage of this new tool to expand their inbound link presence and overall reach.

What is a Social Bookmark?

If you've ever clicked the star icon to bookmark a website, you know how convenient traditional bookmarking can be.  Social bookmarks put your bookmarks out into the public, on the web where anybody can see them.  Unlike traditional bookmarks, which are held in the configuration files of your browser software on your computer, social bookmarks are located on websites designed to be communities of bookmarkers.

Many, but not all, of these social bookmark communities allow users to not only submit bookmarks, but also to vote on submitted content.  If content is judged by a large number of people to be good, it will become more visible for more users.  If people think it's spam, it can be removed by a moderator or will just become basically invisible to users.

Most places with social bookmarks also allow for commenting.  Submitting your social bookmark to a website can be a great way to get feedback for a particular piece of content that you've worked on before you link it from your Twitter or LinkedIn accounts.

How Do Social Bookmarks Affect My Blog/Site Traffic?

By having a social bookmark that links to your website's URL or that goes to your blog, you can get more readers to your pages.  Depending on which site or sites you post social bookmarks to, you could see a very small increase to your traffic or—if it ends up on the front page of one of the bigger social bookmark aggregators—a tremendous increase.

If you suspect that your content has the possibility of “going viral” after you include it among your social bookmark submissions, check with your web hosting provider before putting links on social bookmarking sites.  If you don't, there is a chance that a huge increase in traffic will be too much for the servers to handle, leading your website to go down in what amounts to a non-malicious distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.  People who try to click on your website while it's down will just receive errors and won't be able to view your content until fewer people are trying to access it simultaneously.

How Do Social Bookmarks Affect My SEO?

The biggest reason that marketing professionals want in on the social bookmarking game is that social bookmarks have the potential to vastly improve your search engine ranking potential.  How?  Every time you create a new social bookmark, you're also making a brand new inbound link to your website.  What's more, since posting social bookmarks often requires only a very minimal sign-up process, it can be one of the fastest and easiest ways to make new links from high PageRank websites.

Keep in mind that you'll always need to have diverse links in order not to trip Google's over optimization detection algorithms.  If you're bringing in all your links through social bookmarks, you may actually end up being penalized.  If you use a social bookmark strategy as just one element of a larger SEO campaign, though, you'll have much better luck maintaining a rankings rise.

Where Can I Submit My First Social Bookmark?

One of the easiest places to start making social bookmarks is Reddit.  Part of the reason this is so easy is that the sign-up process can literally take as little as fifteen seconds—create a name, give your email address, and you can make a social bookmark right away.

When you create an account, though, don't try posting social bookmarks immediately unless you're already very familiar with the process.  Get a feel for the different communities within the overall website (they're called subreddits, and odds are there's one for your specialty practice area).  See how people are interacting, what they respond well to, and what seems to irritate them.  By doing this, you're getting valuable intelligence about what kind of social bookmarks are most likely to interest your target audience.

How Can Social Bookmarks Go Wrong?

When marketers first learn how to use social bookmark applications, they often start by posting some sort of advertising material.  If you haven't already learned this from social network websites like Facebook and Twitter, you need to learn it now: people don't want to see an advertisement unless it's very, very unusual and interesting.  Unless you have an ad that you know for a fact makes people talk, it's probably not good material for a social bookmark.  Some websites will actually delete your links if they think you are creating social bookmarks to benefit your own business.

It's also a bad idea to lie about who you are or who you represent if someone asks you about your connection to your social bookmark.  People who use these websites are very internet savvy, and if you're caught in the lie, it's unlikely you'll be able to create successful social bookmarks on that website for a long time to come.

How Can I Get the Most From My Social Bookmarks?

Making a good social bookmark is a lot like making a good blog post.  You want to have interesting content and a title that makes people want to read “below the fold”—or, in the case of social bookmarks, below the title.

You should also get a feel for the differences in each place where you put social bookmarks.  Check out the comments and community, rather than just using these tools to place your own social bookmarks.  If you're actively participating as a member of the community who's doing more than just advertising yourself, every social bookmark you make will have higher value and be read by more people.

Ten years ago, there were only about half a dozen active social bookmarking websites.  Today, there are thousands, and you may be considering getting social bookmarking services to help you understand the strategies you'll need to use them correctly.  Before you hire any social bookmarking service, though, you need to know about social bookmark etiquette and how your service should behave online.  If your social bookmark service is doing a lot of the “don'ts” and isn't doing most of these “do's,” you need to look for other social bookmarking services as soon as possible.

DO Use More Than One Social Bookmarking Website

Any good social bookmarking service will include submissions on several different websites.  This is one of the best reasons to get a social bookmark service, because multiple submissions can be time-consuming and very boring—exactly the kind of work that your firm might be very comfortable with outsourcing.

Social bookmarking services may post to just a few, or up to several hundred, different websites.  The value added that you get from these additional websites, though, may be not as much as you expect.  After the most popular fifty or so social bookmarking sites, the remaining sites have little traffic or activity.  You may be better off hiring social bookmarking services that give you better links on fewer websites.

DON'T Use Social Bookmarking Websites You're Unfamiliar With

It's important for your social bookmark service to provide you with a list of the websites they plan to submit your links on.  It's very possible that a social bookmarking service would want to submit a link to a website that you might be uncomfortable having a presence on.  If this is the case, you always have a right to tell the social bookmark service to remove that website from the list of websites they're posting to.

Additionally, social bookmarking services should be able to demonstrate for you that they have a knowledge of how these websites differ.  If a social bookmarking service is using identical headlines on all websites or is otherwise treating them as a homogeneous group, you need to find a better social bookmark service.  The difference between websites can be huge, and social bookmarking services that don't recognize and compensate for differing web cultures will be unsuccessful in driving traffic to your site.

DO Set Up a Personal Social Bookmarking Website Account First

Before you even choose a social bookmark service to work with, consider setting up your own account on a few social bookmarking sites.  This will help you do a better job evaluating social bookmarking services, because you'll understand more of what social bookmarks are all about.

DON'T Post Too Often on Any Social Bookmarking Website

If you notice that a social bookmark service is posting very frequently and that your inbound link number is increasing rapidly, you might be ready to praise them.  However, the truth is, you're likely to be penalized by Google if your social bookmarking service posts too many links too quickly.  Google is getting very good at detecting when social bookmarking services are automating posts rather than making new headlines for every new post.

DO Post Relevant, Interesting Content to Social Bookmarking Websites

No matter how amazing your social bookmarking service is, it doesn't matter a bit if you're not making good content.  Bad content won't draw in new people, and even if your search engine rankings go up, your conversion rates will remain dismal.  Content is king, even for social bookmarking services, and if you're posting interesting entries to a blog regularly you'll have a head start on all the firms that are just posting to their company website or attorney biographies.

The more unusual your content, the more likely it is that a social bookmark service can make it go viral.  This is the ultimate goal for the best social bookmarking services, because virality will mean you get a huge number of additional views and inbound links.  A good social bookmarking service can help you develop a viral strategy based on what has worked for them in the past.

DON'T Post Ads—Well, Not Most Ads

If you have your social bookmarking service post links that direct to URLs containing direct advertisements, whether in video or text format, you won't see an increase in site traffic.  In fact, your social bookmark service probably won't be able to help you keep the link, because many websites will delete it right away.  Most social bookmarking websites are ad supported, and if you're trying to advertise blatantly for free, the sites have a good financial motivation to remove your posts.

The only time you should ever have social bookmarking services submit an ad is if you've made a very creative, funny, or informative advertisement.  A very funny lawyer ad could have the potential to go viral, even if it's submitted through a social bookmarking service.

DO Tailor Your Submissions to Each Social Bookmarking Website

Your social bookmark service should know enough about each of the websites you're using that there will be subtle differences in the headlines associated with each page.  This not only helps your social bookmarking service to get more positive attention from the users of each site (because it's demonstrating an understanding of their values), but also to evade Google's detection algorithms.

DON'T Keep Using Social Bookmarking Services That Automate

If you find out that the social bookmark service you're using is automating content submissions, find another service.  There are plenty of social bookmarking services that use manual submissions, and this type of social bookmarking service is much more likely to get good results.  

Automation through a social bookmark service shows that you don't seem to care very much about the communities you're posting to—it shows that you'd rather spam them than participate in a conversation with them.  Would you want to do business with a law firm like that?  You need a social bookmarking service that doesn't make potential clients feel like they're being ignored.
 

It's a sad truth of the search engine marketing world: most of the people trying to talk to you about the Next Big Thing are trying to sell you something.  Almost every review of social bookmarking software online is being produced by people who have a financial stake in making you believe that their program is the best social bookmarking software on the market.  If you want unbiased information about both paid and free social bookmarking software, you've come to the right place.  In this guide, we'll talk about several different types of social bookmarking software.  You'll also learn that in many cases, the best social bookmarking software for lawyers is no software at all—something that most other websites will never mention.

What is Social Bookmarking?

Social bookmarking is a new way of sharing content with other internet users. The lines between social bookmark websites and social network sites has become blurred in recent years, but in general, a social bookmarking site exists mostly for users to share links to content.  This means that before you use any social bookmarking software, you'll want to have content to link to.

The reason that law firms have recently taken an interest in finding the best social bookmarking software is that these websites can generate inbound links.  Inbound links created with paid or free social bookmarking software can then, in turn, make it so that your law firm is more likely to appear on the first page of Google search results (where over 90 percent of searchers find the answer they're looking for).

What is an Automated Submitter?

One of the most common types of social bookmarking software—and probably the most controversial—is the automated submission system.  Because there are so many websites dedicated to social bookmarking, an automated submitter gathers them all and allows for mass posting.  Often, this is not free social bookmarking software.  Some of the best social bookmarking software in this category, like Bookmarking Demon, can cost in excess of $100.

What Are the Advantages of Automated Submitters?

Using automated submission social bookmarking software can save you hundreds of man-hours versus doing your submissions manually.  What's more, the best social bookmarking software in this category will be very likely to include listings for many more social bookmarking websites than you even knew existed (and most allow you to add more sites when you want to).

Another advantage that automated submitter social bookmarking software gives you is being able to quickly review your submissions.  It can be much harder to do this without downloading any free social bookmarking software, so many marketers are glad to have this part of their jobs fully automated.

What Are the Disadvantages of Automated Submitters?

The biggest disadvantage of using even the best social bookmarking software in the automated submission category is that Google is getting wise to these auto-submitters.  Google considers this kind of automation through paid or free social bookmarking software to essentially be a form of cheating, and will penalize websites they believe are using social bookmarking software.

Some of the makers of the best social bookmarking software for automating submissions claim that they have managed to find workarounds so that Google doesn't notice.  However, whether you're using paid or free social bookmarking software, loopholes get closed.  Workarounds are figured out and cut off at the source.  More than once already in 2012, Google has found listings that are being created by free social bookmarking software and taken away their link juice.

Other Types of Social Bookmarking Software

If you want to use the best social bookmarking software for the long term, automated submissions may be the wrong way to go.  Instead, you may want to consider using a piece of free social bookmarking software that just assists you with creating manual submissions.

Other social bookmarking software can help you to keep track of whether people are repeatedly commenting on or sharing your links.  By using the best social bookmarking software in this category, you'll find who your brand ambassadors are online.  There are both paid and free social bookmarking software solutions for tracking friends.

Where Can I Try Out Free Social Bookmarking Software?

There is very little fully functional free social bookmarking software that does submission automation.  Even if you were to find some, it would be far from the best social bookmarking software available.  If you want to use good social bookmarking software for free, try using Onlywire.  This is one of the few pieces of free social bookmarking software that allows you to partially automate your links, while allowing you to maintain a great deal of control.

Keep in mind that the best social bookmarking software tends to cost money because the research into developing Google-proof algorithms takes a great deal of time and effort.  Most software producers simply aren't willing to put that kind of work into free social bookmarking software, so freeware is more likely to be identified by Google, especially if it's fully automated.

Alternatives to Social Bookmarking Software

While social bookmarking software has certainly made a big splash in the search engine marketing world, questions remain about its efficacy in driving traffic to websites.  As a law firm, you can't afford to have your reputation or your search rankings damaged by using free social bookmarking software that later turns out to have been a bad idea.  Use extreme caution when picking your best social bookmarking software solution.

For many law firms, the best social bookmarking software is none at all—manual submissions are more personalized, more interesting, and less “canned” sounding than spamming many different sites with automation tools.  If you become a real part of just a few online social bookmarking communities, the people in those communities can do more to promote your website than even the best social bookmarking software on the market today.  People won't make spam go viral, but fantastic content combined with real community participation is the ultimate recipe for a campaign that markets itself.

Less than .1% of websites have a PageRank of 9 or 10, but those high PageRank backlinks are more valuable than any other type of link you can obtain.  The relationship between backlinks and Google's PageRank system can seem complicated, so this guide will break it down for you and help you understand the parts that really matter for law firms.  Keep reading to find out why it's a worse idea to buy high PageRank backlinks than to make them yourself, and why low PageRank backlinks can actually be worse for your website than no backlinks at all.

Why Your Law Firm Needs High PageRank Backlinks

In order to make sure that law firms were building backlinks from high quality, authoritative websites, Google started determining how much “link juice,” or authority, a particular website gives when it links to someone.  High PageRank backlinks give much more link juice, all else being equal, than low PageRank backlinks.

The reason that Google makes these distinctions isn't to privilege the most elite websites.  Instead, it's as a way of recognizing that usually, high PageRank backlinks mean that a website has established a certain amount of authority in its subject area.  Whether you buy high PageRank backlinks (we don't recommend it—see the section below about buying high PageRank backlinks), build them yourself, or get them organically, you will see your search rankings become higher after getting these links than low PageRank backlinks.

Sources for High PageRank Backlinks

Some of the best places to get great backlinks without needing to buy high PageRank backlinks are social networking and bookmarking websites.  You won't get low PageRank backlinks by circulating your message on Facebook or Twitter—instead, you'll get the kinds of high PageRank links that you might have thought you'd need to buy.

What's more, when you get links from these websites, you may be able to get additional low to mid PageRank backlinks simply through word of mouth.  This kind of viral spreading of your link is exactly why high PageRank backlinks are so valuable.  If you buy high PageRank backlinks instead of generating them yourself or having them created organically by interested web viewers, you will miss out on many of these benefits.

What Link Quantity Has to Do With High PageRank Backlinks

While it's true that low PageRank backlinks won't give you as much link juice as high PageRank backlinks when all else is equal, all else isn't always equal.  The biggest factor that can make a difference is link quantity.  When there are too many links on a single webpage, you'll get much less of the link juice from your high PageRank backlinks.  In fact, if there are hundreds of links on the webpage where your link is, you might receive less link juice from a very popular website than from low PageRank backlinks that you built organically on websites with few links.

Because of this, it's important to check how many other links are on any page where you create high PageRank backlinks.  If you buy high PageRank backlinks, make sure they aren't appearing in places where they'll have to share their link juice with too many other websites.

Can I Just Buy High PageRank Backlinks?

This is the first question of many marketing professionals after they realize how difficult it can be to get organic high PageRank backlinks.  While low PageRank backlinks can be quite easy to build just by talking to colleagues and friends, it's not always easy to build links on websites with more traffic and more name recognition.

However, even though it may be tempting to buy high PageRank backlinks, it's better not to.  For one thing, if you buy high PageRank backlinks, you'll usually be posting them in a pattern that appears non-organic.  These non-organic patterns can be detected by Google and lead to your website being penalized.  In the end, it might have been better for you to have low PageRank backlinks than to buy high PageRank backlinks.

What's more, you actually lose most of the benefits other than the search engine optimization benefits when you buy high PageRank backlinks.  When you grow your backlinks on your own, there's a much better chance that even a low or mid PageRank backlink will start your content going viral.  Purchased backlinks tend to look more like spam and have a much smaller chance of being picked up virally.

Are Low PageRank Backlinks Ever Worthwhile?

Before you decide to buy high PageRank backlinks, consider creating a new strategy for making more low and mid PageRank backlinks.  Why?  Because these links are actually the lifeblood of most law firm backlinking strategies that work, and they offer you the best chance of getting picked up organically by people who will post your content elsewhere.

For example, a low PageRank social bookmarking website like Metafilter might seem like it doesn't have enough users to make it as worthwhile as a StumbleUpon or Reddit.  However, upon closer inspection, you'll see that the users of this website are very likely to re-post content they find there on their own Facebook or Twitter accounts.  That kind of viral potential makes it much more worthwhile to build low PageRank backlinks.

Generally, you'll only be penalized for low PageRank backlinks if you're buying them and using automated techniques.  Organically built backlinks are unlikely to be penalized, no matter what website they're built on.

Finding New Places to Get High PageRank Backlinks

Since you probably won't buy high PageRank backlinks after reading this guide, how should you build them?  The best way is probably to start really using the internet to learn on a daily basis.  If you're keeping track of a dozen or more websites with frequently updating content relating to law or legal marketing, you'll find out the newest sources for building the best high PageRank backlinks possible.

There's no reason that your law firm should have exclusively high PageRank backlinks, though.  Keep trying to find mid PageRank backlinks as often as possible, which also helps Google to see that you're not gaming the rankings.

According to surveys, only 26 percent of law firms currently have a firm wide Twitter account that is being used for marketing purposes.  That's such a small number that any lawyer getting into the Twitter game still has a lot of room to define his or her brand and make a name for himself or herself.  One of the most difficult aspects of Twitter marketing to master is the hashtag.  Hashtags don't need to be mystifying—in this guide, you'll learn the basics of hashtagging and how to ensure that whenever you make a new hashtag, it's a winner with your audience.

What is a Hashtag?

On Twitter, hashtags are created by including the pound sign character (#) before a word or phrase.  They are used to designate a topic that a post is about.  For example, if you were tweeting something about the 2012 presidential election, you might use the hashtag #election2012.

Hashtagging doesn't just tell people what your post is about.  By clicking on a hashtag, you can see a realtime feed of all other people who are using the same tag.  Hashtags are one of the primary ways that people use Twitter and search for content that is relevant to their interests.

On some non-Twitter websites, hashtags will still be used to designate a topic, but won't be as easily searchable.  The audiences on some websites are friendly to the use of a hashtag to denote a topic, while others are hostile to it or accepting only when the hashtag is meant to be tongue in cheek.

How Can Hashtags Help My Law Firm?

By creating a hashtag that corresponds to a particular promotion you're having or a topic that you're discussing on Twitter or your blog, you can use hashtagging to help people identify other posts on the same topic.  In order to use hashtags this way, you'll need to make a new and unique hashtag that only is being used when you're discussing the promotion or topic—we'll talk more about how to create them in the next section.

You can also use hashtagging to help you get new clients or just build brand awareness.  By talking about hashtags that people are already using, you'll be able to get eyeballs on your tweets from anyone else who is searching for that hashtag.

Generally, you should be mixing it up: sometimes, use hashtags that you've created yourself, but don't be afraid to use a hashtag someone else made if you want to get in on a conversation.  If you overuse one hashtagging strategy or the other, you could miss out on viewers or even be regarded as spam.

Creating a Unique Hashtag

In order to make your own hashtags, you'll need to do some searches.  Usually, the first few things that you think of that are related to the topic you need a hashtag for will already have been used.  With so many Twitter users already and more joining every day, it's becoming very hard to find any dictionary word or simple phrase that hasn't been used at least a few times.

One of the great ways to get around this is to use your firm's abbreviation, if it has one.  Then, you can use the abbreviation before a dictionary word and you'll usually be just fine in terms of uniqueness.  What's more, if you're consistent about using the same abbreviation before topic keywords, it will be very easy for people to remember exactly what hashtag you're using and where any hashtagging with that acronym comes from.

Remember that hashtags should generally be kept as short as possible.  If your hashtag is too long, it will be more difficult to remember accurately and it's much more likely that people will change the tagging on your post.

Getting on the Bandwagon

The other hashtagging strategy that works is finding a hashtag someone's already using.  Usually, when you do this, you'll want to find hashtags that are actually trending, so that you can make sure you'll get the most bang for your buck.

If you want to get on the bandwagon for your hashtags, make sure that you're not jumping onto the wrong bandwagon.  Try to stick to topics that are at least somewhat related to the law.  This will help you define your brand and make sure that the followers you're building for your Twitter account are following you for all the right reasons.

Hashtagging Gone Right

The best users of hashtags are those who use a variety of tags, mix things up, and don't overuse the same exact hashtag with every single tweet.  A good tagger won't repeat content with the same hashtag a dozen times in a day.  Hashtagging works much better when each tag is confined to a few tweets daily from your law firm—mostly to catch people who weren't able to see your new post the first time it was posted.

If you do hashtagging right, it will seem to be a well integrated part of the post, rather than having a large number of hashtags at the end of a single tweet.

Hashtagging Gone Wrong

Several companies have seen firsthand how badly hashtagging can go.  If you try to jump on the bandwagon by using a popular hashtag, you may find that the hashtag you're using is being used in relation to a disaster or other negative event.  If this is the case, your use of those hashtags can be perceived as extremely insensitive and unprofessional.  Avoid using any hashtag that you know to be related to a disaster unless you have something to say about that specific issue.

If you're using more than one hashtag in a single tweet, you're also probably doing it wrong.  Two is the absolute highest number of hashtags you should use in order to avoid being seen as spam by other users.  You should also never use the same hashtag more than a few times a day, to avoid having people see identical or near-identical tweets.
 

It used to be significantly harder to create your own Twitter hashtag.  Just to make new Twitter hashtags, you'd have to follow @hashtags, and then start making your own.  Now, all you have to do is use the pound symbol (#) before a phrase, and it becomes a searchable Twitter hashtag all on its own without any further intervention from you.  Here are seven tips that can help you get the most out of Twitter hashtags when you're using them to market your law firm.

Tip #1: Use Twitter Hashtags Sparingly

Less can be more when you're making a new Twitter hashtag.  Sometimes, when people start learning how to use Twitter, they try to fill every last character in their message with additional Twitter hashtags.  However, this typically doesn't give the kind of results that you really want.  Why?  Because often, when people use several different hashtags in the exact same post, it seems more like spam than like a real message.  It looks—to put it bluntly—desperate.

Instead, use just one (or, very rarely, two) Twitter hashtags on each tweet.  If you want to use more than one Twitter hashtag, make a new tweet so that you can put one tag on one, and one on the other.  This will be a much more effective way to create a new Twitter marketing campaign than being repetitive and oversaturating your hashtag market.

Tip #2: Draw People In Using Trending Twitter Hashtags

One of the things people use a Twitter hashtag for is to see who else is talking about the same topic, and find out what is being said.  While you'll sometimes want to make Twitter hashtags that only you're using (more on that in just a minute), those unique hashtags won't usually attract new followers.

To get new followers, you'll want to find out what other people are talking about, and use the same Twitter hashtag they're using to tag your own content.  When you do this, anyone that is searching for people using those Twitter hashtags will find your post and be able to follow you.

If you're going to use this technique, it's imperative that you only use a Twitter hashtag that actually has some bearing on your post.  Using Twitter hashtags that aren't actually related to your post is a technique that is very unlikely to get you new followers—in fact, it's likely to make sure that people label you as spam, and stop listening very quickly.

Tip #3: Create Your Own Twitter Hashtags for Marketing Purposes

Having a unique Twitter hashtag when your law firm starts a new promotion can be a fantastic way to get the word out.  Start by searching Twitter hashtags for a few terms that are related to your promotion.  If you can find a combination of words relating to your promo that haven't yet been used as a Twitter hashtag by anyone else, you're in luck!  Otherwise, being unique is going to take some creativity.

Consider using a name or abbreviation from your firm as part of your Twitter hashtag.  That will usually make sure that there are no other Twitter hashtags that are identical to yours.  You can also simply create a new word, or make an acronym—just make sure that they're memorable enough that people will remember to keep using your new Twitter hashtags.

Tip #4: Notice Twitter Hashtag Trends as They Happen

You should be keeping an eye on Twitter hashtags, especially the ones that are currently trending.  If you aren't monitoring trending hashtags, it will be much harder to get the kind of new traffic that you're hoping to identify.

You should pay particularly close attention to any hashtags that have any connection locally.  A local Twitter hashtag is more likely to help you get local attention, which in turn will lead to more clicks and more conversions on your website.

Tip #5: Contextualize Your Twitter Hashtag With Social Networks

One of the best ways to make sure that people can understand why your Twitter hashtags are what they are—and to help them remember them after they're posted—is to contextualize them.  Write a short blog post or public Facebook timeline post about your Twitter hashtag and why you're starting to use it.  For example, if you're using Twitter hashtags pertaining to a particular case that is now in court, you can talk about those hashtags and the case that made you use them.

By contextualizing each Twitter hashtag you create, it becomes much easier for people to know why you're using the tags you're using, and this in turn makes it easier for them to be fully informed participants in the discussion.

Tip #6: Keep Your Twitter Hashtags As Short As Possible

Twitter posts are limited to just 140 characters, so obviously, every character really does matter.  What's more, studies show that people tend to prefer tweets that don't use up more than 100 characters out of that 140 character limit.  Because of this, it's absolutely critical to make your Twitter hashtag as short as it can be while still being memorable.

This means you should never make strange or esoteric abbreviations to make your Twitter hashtags shorter—this would tend to make them harder to remember, defeating the purpose.  What you can do instead is make each Twitter hashtag an easy to remember acronym, perhaps a “backronym” that uses an existing word in English to form the acronym.

Tip #7: Use Twitter Hashtags to Find New People to Follow

Just like other people can use a Twitter hashtag to find other posts related to yours, you can use hashtags to identify other Twitter users that could be valuable followers.  By tracking other people who are using your hashtags or a hashtag you have an interest in, you'll find people with common interests who may be posting about many of the same topics you are.  These people, in turn, can lead to new business leads in the future.