Ten years ago, most of your search engine rankings were just based on your keyword density.  Today, over two thirds of your overall rankings depend on how many inbound links you have.  Now that search engine optimization has moved beyond keywords, how are you going to change your inbound links SEO strategy?  You should be dedicating a solid majority of your optimization time to SEO for inbound links and building new sources for links.  This guide will help you understand why inbound links SEO has become so important and how to make great links with a high value to search engines.

The Anatomy of an Inbound Link

Before you learn the details of how to do up to date inbound links SEO in 2012, you'll need to know a little bit of terminology.  If you already know basic terms pertaining to SEO for inbound links, you can feel free to skip this part and go right to the next section.

Inbound links are links to your website from other websites, and they're important to Google and other search engines because a higher number of inbound links typically means that your website is important and well-regarded.  Anchor text is the text that a person will click on to go to your link, and can be of several types.  Some SEO inbound links will include exact phrase matches in this anchor text for keyword phrases in the article.  Other inbound links for SEO, called branded links, will be words like your law firm's name or an attorney's first and last name.

Crafting Your Content for Inbound Links SEO

The first thing that you need to do to make optimal SEO with inbound links is to make your content great.  Inbound links SEO that takes people to a poorly designed, hard to navigate law firm website is bad, and if its design looks like something straight out of 2002, you'll have a hard time being heard.

Make your content conversion friendly, not only for your inbound links SEO but also for your overall conversion rate.  When people like your website and find it easy to navigate, it's easier for them to share their experience with others and give you organic links back to your website.

You should also make sure that any time you do SEO with inbound links, you have a mobile website ready for anyone accessing the website from a smartphone or tablet PC.  This traffic is unusually eager to convert, but only if you're careful about making a mobile optimized website version.  You'll miss out on the great results of mobile inbound links SEO if you're directing mobile users to a desktop site with tiny, tough to click links.

Making Great Anchor Text for SEO Inbound Links

The anchor text that you use for your inbound links for SEO matters.  If you're using the wrong kinds of anchor text, or using the same kind too often, your SEO for inbound links could end up hitting a brick wall called Google Penguin.  Google Penguin is an algorithm designed to spot websites that have been buying inbound links for SEO or otherwise building a link presence unnaturally.  Penguin basically ensures that if your links are too low-quality or have the same anchor text, no matter how many more you add, you won't see any positive results.

To keep Penguin at bay, you'll need to focus on varying your anchor text.  Not all of your inbound links for SEO should look the same.  In fact, some of your SEO for inbound links should be ordinary phrases, rather than the exact keyword phrases you're hoping for people to search for.  Take a look at blogs and other websites that exhibit a natural-looking link pattern, and try to learn from their example when working on your own inbound links for SEO purposes.

Finding Places to Put Your SEO Inbound Links

Today, there are a multitude of websites that happily host many types of content and links from anyone who creates an account.  When building inbound links for SEO, you need to make sure that the websites you're using are considered authoritative and have a high PageRank value (preferably at least 3 or 4).  The higher the PageRank of your inbound links for SEO, the more your rankings will show results.

Before submitting your SEO inbound links anywhere, make sure that they are formatted correctly for the website you're posting to and that you're not posting anything that would be considered prohibited content.  If your content is very interesting, you may want to try making inbound links for SEO on social bookmarking websites and social networks.  If it's good enough, it will very likely be shared by a large number of users on these sources.

Keeping Your SEO Inbound Links Working

If you've made sure that your links don't violate any written or unwritten rules at the website where you're posting, you've got a good chance of having a link that lasts for years.  However, let's say that you redesign your website a year after building fantastic inbound links, and part of your site redesign included changing the URLs of some of your pages.

Initially, you might think that this means your inbound links for SEO won't work any more.  However, if you run an analysis tool to detect which links are now broken, you can find out exactly which pages are still being linked to.  Then, you can create a redirect page for these pages that will bring the viewer directly to the part of your content they were trying to access.  This creates a much more user friendly experience than a redirect to your home page, which may make it hard to find the right content again.

Monitoring the Success of Your SEO Inbound Links

Periodically, you should check your search engine rankings so that you can tell if you're actually going up in the ranks.  You don't need to check every day or even necessarily every week, because indexing by Google can sometimes be slow.  However, if you're not checking at least once a month, you're missing out on the valuable data that you've gathered by creating inbound links for SEO.

Having a strategy to increase backlinks to your website can improve your SERPs by leaps and bounds. However, only about a third of companies today are pursuing these strategies.  If you're not sure how to increase backlinks without spamming, or you're unsure what your backlink presence should look like, this guide is for you.  By the time you're finished reading this guide, you'll have learned how to increase backlinks in half a dozen ways—none of which require you to spend money or use spam content.

Warning: Trying to Increase Backlinks Can Backfire

Before you learn how to increase backlinks, you should know about the limits of backlink building.  If you increase backlinks too quickly or do so by using low quality links, you not only won't get an increase to your search engine results, you could actually see them decline.

That's because Google Penguin notices what appear to be unnatural link building efforts, and punishes websites that have clearly worked to increase backlinks by spamming other websites and using non-organic link building techniques.  Therefore, your emphasis should be on how to increase backlinks organically (or at least, in a way that seems organic to Google's algorithms).  You can do this by working to increase backlinks from high PageRank pages, and by building your backlink presence slowly.

The worst things you can do to increase backlinks include spamming blog comments and plastering the same articles everywhere.  These techniques may appear in some guides on how to increase backlinks, but they only worked before Google's algorithms became more complex and better at detecting over optimization.

How to Increase Backlinks With Your Blog

So with many ways to increase backlinks no longer working, how can you make sure you're getting the backlink presence your website wants and needs to be competitive in today's economy?  A great place to start is with your blog.  Attorneys have adoped blogging faster than nearly any other profession, perhaps because their jobs are already so focused on writing and explaining legal principles.

If you already maintain a blog, you also probably read other people's law blogs.  If there are any law bloggers that you admire, or even a few you just get along with really well, consider asking for a guest blogger arrangement.  This is a great way to increase backlinks with really high quality content—content that may drive web users to your website even without using a search engine.

Lawyers who don't have blogs yet can still learn how to increase backlinks using them.  Instead of guest posts, you will have to use the comments sections.  Make sure that any comments you make are direct responses to the things discussed in the blog post—otherwise, they will probably be moderated away and won't increase backlinks for you at all.

How to Increase Backlinks With Press Releases

Press releases can be a fantastic way to increase backlinks, as long as you've got something to talk about.  A press release that just looks like an advertisement for your firm, without a lot of meat or any angle for a reporter to really report on, is likely to be ignored.  It used to be that many companies would just increase backlinks with press releases by posting them to press release websites.  However, this kind of backlink strategy now fails most of the time, because these press release websites are viewed as very low quality link sources by Google's Panda algorithm.

Instead, work with your local media and see what kind of legal stories they usually run.  If you can fit your story into one of the kinds of pieces they often do, you'll be able to increase backlinks and get a lot of positive media attention focused on your firm.  When you learn how to increase backlinks with the media, you're doing double duty—not only will your search engine rankings improve, but you'll improve your reputation and prominence in your community.

How to Increase Backlinks With Reciprocal Linking

Now, before you start to increase backlinks in this way, a word of caution: it's okay to have some reciprocal backlinks.  However, if Google notices that all or almost all of your backlinks appear to be reciprocal instead of one way, it may view this as a sign of over optimization that draws a rankings penalty.

It's easy to increase backlinks through reciprocal linking.  All you need to do is approach another person running a website in a similar situation to yours.  By linking to them, and them linking to you, you'll both look more popular and have better search rankings.

How to Increase Backlinks With .Edu Websites

The hardest domains to increase backlinks from are .edu and .gov websites.  While it's very, very difficult for anyone—even attorneys—to get backlinks from a .gov website, it can actually be easier than you think to get backlinks from .edu domains.

Consider doing a profile or interview with a college newspaper or law school publication about what you do and how to become a lawyer of the same type you are.  These kinds of pieces often appear both in print publications at the school and online.  The online version can contain a backlink to your website that will be considered very valuable because it came from a .edu domain.

How to Increase Backlinks With Local Listings

Another way to improve your backlink presence is to think very, very local.  Don't dismiss local websites, even if they are relatively low in PageRank or seem like they were designed several years ago.  Google takes note of how many local websites you're receiving backlinks from when people do geolocational searches for lawyers.  With 20 percent of legal searches being local—and local searchers being more likely to convert right away—this means your local websites can be a great way to bump up your rankings and your conversions.

Some of the best local backlinks you can get are from local directories.  If you're in a relatively small city or town, they might have listings of local businesses on the local government website.  Other directories you'll want to become part of include chamber of commerce directories, your local Yellow Pages, and Google+ Local.

Backlink professionals have been pushing the idea of building .edu backlinks for a long time.  There are several reasons why this is the case, and as Google's search algorithms have evolved, these backlinks have only become more valuable.  But does your law firm really need .edu backlinks, and if so, how can it get the backlinks it needs?  Can you simply buy .edu backlinks, or is there a better way?  All these questions and more will be answered by the end of this guide.

What Are .Edu Backlinks?

Backlinks are just the links that go to your website from the websites of other people.  When these backlinks come from a .edu website, they're called .edu backlinks.  Unlike most other top level domain names, there are very few websites—less than 8,000 in total—that use .edu.  This is because you can't just use a .edu domain name for any website.  Instead, websites that want to use .edu must meet stringent requirements.

Since 2001, the .edu top level domain has only been able to be used by accredited institutions of postsecondary education located in or affiliated with the United States.  There are, however, still hundreds of websites from before 2001 that used the .edu domain and have been grandfathered in.  These websites include those for museums like San Francisco's Exploratorium and high schools like the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy.

Much like other backlinks, these are weighted by Google according to the authority level of the website that the backlink comes from.  However, there are some key differences, and it's these differences that make people want to buy .edu backlinks.

Why Would I Want .Edu Backlinks?

There are several different reasons that you might want to intentionally cultivate .edu backlinks, or that you might even think it would be a good idea to buy .edu backlinks directly.  First of all, these backlinks, more than those from any other domain (with the possible exception of the .gov domain, which is exclusively used by government agencies), are quite difficult to get and tend to carry a great deal of cachet.  Your competition is not very likely to be using .edu backlinks, at least not many, so it can give you a great competitive edge.

Additionally, Google considers .edu websites to universally be more authoritative than a website with a similar PageRank but a different domain name.  This means that if you can get free .edu backlinks or buy .edu backlinks for your website, you can actually increase your search ranking results dramatically, even with a relatively small number of added and indexed links.

Can I Just Buy .Edu Backlinks?

The short answer to this question is “yes,” but the long answer is “Yes, but why would you want to?”  In general, anywhere you buy .edu backlinks from is going to be getting the links themselves for free.  The only thing they're doing is spotting opportunities for posting on .edu domains, which is something that you can do for yourself.

Moreover, if you try to buy .edu backlinks, the service you use is unlikely to post quality content.  Most of the places that you can post .edu backlinks are moderated, which means that when bad quality content is posted, it will be deleted quickly.  Because it can take Google several days, weeks, or even months to index your new backlinks, just because you buy .edu backlinks from a service doesn't mean they won't be moderated out of existence before they ever get indexed.

Google is also employing increasingly advanced detection algorithms to help spot anyone who is clearly purchasing backlinks.  If you buy .edu backlinks and the service you hire leaves too clear a trail of breadcrumbs, Google might penalize your website or even de-list it completely.  As a lawyer, that's a fate you absolutely cannot afford to meet.  Use extreme caution if you decide to buy .edu backlinks, and the better idea is to develop your own .edu backlinks using organic marketing techniques.

How Many .Edu Backlinks Should I Have?

The number of .edu backlinks that you get isn't as important as the quality of each of the links.  If you're able to post very high quality and high relevance backlinks, especially if they're in keeping with the context of the rest of the .edu website, you may be able to do quite well.  Keep in mind that your amount of link juice is much higher for the same PageRank .edu website than it would be with a similarly ranked .org or .com website.

You should make sure that you don't try to build your .edu backlinks too quickly.  If you do, Google will take this as a sign that you may have tried to buy .edu backlinks and you will be penalized.  Especially when you're just beginning your link building efforts, try to confine yourself to creating just one or two of these backlinks every day.  As long as you're consistent, you'll still be able to build up a large number of links in a few months.

Finding the Best Sources for .Edu Backlinks

Lawyers have a huge advantage over other types of business professionals when it comes to building .edu links, because lawyers—unlike almost any other type of business pro—can get great backlinks from the websites of law schools.  Check with law schools near you to see if you might be able to give a talk in the evening sometime.  Often, these talks will be publicized on a page on the law school's website—a page which may link to your law firm's site or your biography on that site.

Another way to get these backlinks without having to buy .edu backlinks is to make relevant posts on forums that are hosted on .edu websites.  This will probably work better if you're talking about legal issues that are relevant to students at the postsecondary level of the forum posters.  Criminal defense attorneys, for example, may have good luck using .edu backlinks by talking about what to do if you're pulled over by a cop for underage drinking and driving.

Backlinking can account for up to 70 percent of your website's total search engine rankings.  When you're assembling backlinks to bring “link juice” to your website, you need to know how to get free one way backlinks.  One way anchor text backlinks are some of the best possible backlinks you can get to your website, and there's no reason to pay for them.  In fact, paid for one way backlinks may be a very bad idea.  Keep reading to find out why—and to learn how to get the best free one way backlinks possible for your law firm site.

One Way vs. Reciprocal Backlinks: Not Treated Equally

Why does it matter if a backlink is reciprocal (there are backlinks on two different websites to each other) or one way?  That has to do with web history.  Reciprocal backlinking was, for some time, the primary way that most webmasters and search engine marketers build their backlink presence.  However, this could easily be abused: imagine if 1000 different people, each with very low quality, spam websites, decided to put reciprocal backlinks to each other on their websites.  Would you want them to show up high in the search rankings just because of these links, even without quality content?

When search engines noticed this problem, they worked to fix it by weighting one way backlinks more than reciprocal backlinks.  This means that if you have a one way anchor text backlink, you'll get significantly more link juice from this link than you would from a reciprocal anchor text link.

Why You Should Only Have Free One Way Backlinks

Some businesses, looking to build their one way anchor text backlinks quickly, try to purchase one way backlinks instead of generating them organically.  However, these non-organic one way backlinks are likely to be penalized by Google.  Google has become much better at detecting paid one way anchor text backlinks, and you're unlikely to be successful with this strategy for long.  Since you have a professional business and aren't just a cheap online retailer, you can't afford to stake your reputation on one way backlinks that could backfire.

Besides, there are plenty of places to find free one way backlinks.  For example, you can get your own one way anchor text backlinks by making real, insightful comments on blogs, or by creating links on Youtube, social networking sites, or even directories of businesses that are maintained by your municipality or local chamber of commerce.  These opportunities for free one way backlinks mean that it's usually a waste of time and energy to pay for them.

Varying Your One Way Anchor Text Backlinks

Your free one way backlinks need to have some variance in their anchor text today if they're to help you get better search rankings.  When Google sees one way anchor text backlinks that all have the exact same anchor text, it assumes that you're using some sort of automated backlink creation method.  When those one way backlinks are detected, you're very likely to be penalized instead of seeing your rankings climb.

Because of this, it's very important to change up exactly what link text brings visitors to your website from free one way backlinks.  One way anchor text backlinks should have many different variations, including not just your brand keywords or exact keyword matches, but also a natural looking mix of other phrases and words.  Keep in mind that you can have some identical one way anchor text backlinks, just not too many as an overall proportion of your total backlinks.

The Best Ways to Get Free One Way Backlinks

Since you can't just offer to do a backlink exchange with another website when you need one way anchor text backlinks, you'll have to get creative.  A great way to get free one way backlinks is to include yourself on directory websites.  For example, if your local bar association or chamber of commerce has directories that include URLs, this is a great way to get one way backlinks—sometimes, though not always, for free (or included with the price of your membership).

You can also get free one way backlinks by posting to blogs in the comments section, or in web forums.  In order for your one way anchor text backlinks to stay up as blog comments or forum posts, you'll need to make sure that they're actually relevant to the content of the web page that you're linking from.  If you're posting irrelevant spam, you'll see your free one way backlinks disappear before Google can ever index them.

One way to get a huge influx of one way backlinks is to create an infographic.  While the initial infographic creation may cost money, you won't have to pay for your one way anchor text backlinks.  Infographics are a great way to increase interest in your website and improve your own PageRank fast.

Use Caution With One Way Backlinks Services

You may have seen services advertising their ability to build hundreds of one way anchor text backlinks in a few days or weeks.  While these services have been quite profitable for their proprietors, it's not usually a good idea to get your one way backlinks in this way.  Why?  Because usually, these services are creating low quality content that will only serve to hurt the reputation of your law firm.

What's more, most services of this type are using the exact same free one way backlinks resources that we've already discussed in this guide.  You can do the same thing that they're doing, while creating content that your law firm will be proud of instead of content that is likely to be disregarded by viewers or even that will lead to you being perceived as a spammer.  There's no need to pay for your one way anchor text backlinks when free one way backlinks resources abound all over the web.  Make the most of your social network and the blogosphere, rather than hiring a service to take a one way backlinks shortcut for you.

Once you've got good backlinks to your website, you may think that your backlink building work is done.  Not so—it can take weeks or even months for Google and other search engines to index your backlinks.  During that time, your search engine rankings will be the same as they've ever been, rather than reflecting the progress you've made on link building.  To get that link juice flowing to your website faster, you might be thinking about using a piece of software like Backlink Energizer or Backlink Booster.  In this guide, we'll take a look at these pieces of software and help you understand their pros and cons so that you can make an informed decision about using them for your backlinks.

What Is Backlink Energizer?

One of the ways that you can get your backlinks indexed faster by Google is to have backlinks made to your backlinks.  Backlink Energizer is a backlink indexing tool that is hosted on a WordPress blog.  Rather than hosting this plugin on your already existing website or WordPress installation, you set up “drone” accounts that are only designed to post backlinks to your backlinks.

According to the creator of Backlink Energizer, in initial tests, websites that weren't using any backlink indexer typically see 20% or so of their backlinks indexed within 90 days.  Websites that use Backlink Energizer, on the other hand, tend to see about 75-85% of their links indexed in the same time span.  Currently, Backlink Energizer costs about $50.

Keep in mind that you should only use this piece of software if you already have spent time building good backlinks.  If you don't already have a large number of backlinks to your website, you need to work on that before purchasing any kind of backlink indexing software like Backlink Energizer.

What Is Backlink Booster?

Another service designed to encourage Google to index your backlinks, Backlink Booster works in a similar way to Backlink Energizer.  In much the same way as with Backlink Energizer, you should probably not use Backlink Booster unless you already have a significant backlink presence on the web.

Instead of working from a WordPress install, Backlink Booster is a standalone service.  It is sold on a subscription basis, and can incorporate not only your blog backlinks but also any social media services that you use in order to better help with indexing your backlinks.

If you want to try Backlink Booster but aren't sure that you want to commit to paying the monthly subscription price (anywhere from $19 for a “Lite” account with limited functionality to $599 for the Enterprise package), you can do a five day risk free trial.  This allows you to “test drive” the backlink indexing tools offered by Backlink Booster and see if they're right for your website.  In some cases, you may find that you actually want to create more backlinks first before even starting to use this kind of indexing tool.

Are Backlink Booster and Backlink Energizer Effective?

Hundreds of people all over the web have reviewed Booster and Energizer.  Unfortunately, their results have been quite mixed.  While some people praise both pieces of software, it's more common for people to have a less than satisfactory result.

Several online reviews have noticed very similar results: after their search engine rankings initially climb substantially while using these tools, they later taper off or even start dropping.  Others noticed very little difference from what they might have expected without using any special backlink indexing software at all: for example, one review noted that after 6 months, only 23 percent of backlinks that were “boosted” by Backlink Booster had actually been indexed by any search engine.

These mixed reports may reflect differences in the nature of the original backlinks—for example, it wouldn't be surprising if these programs had more success in boosting or energizing high quality backlinks than low quality ones.  However, until more testing can be done to understand what makes the difference, it's unclear why the effectiveness varies so significantly from website to website.

Backlink Energizer, Backlink Booster, and Google Penguin

One thing that has had a significant effect on all backlinks and backlink indexing tools is an algorithm update called Google Penguin.  Google Penguin works by penalizing websites that are perceived as being artificially search engine optimized instead of relying on quality content and organic backlinks.

Because of this algorithm change, Backlink Energizer and Backlink Booster have gotten updates.  Each now claims to be Penguin-proof, using secret networks of high PageRank websites that Google has yet to detect are being used for artificial backlinking purposes.

Even with these changes, some webmasters have reported seeing their search engine rankings drop due to Penguin after using these tools.  What's more, it's very unlikely that Penguin will be the last update done to try to foil artificial search engine optimization.  What seems like a “safe” website to have backlinks on today may not be once new updates roll out.

Conclusion: Should You Use Backlink Energizer/Backlink Booster?

The mixed reports about the efficacy of Backlink Energizer and Backlink Booster should make you think twice about using either of these pieces of software.  If you're considering using any type of backlink indexing program, you should at a minimum ask for a trial period and try the software out for yourself first.  If you're not seeing significant increases in your backlink indexing within the trial period, you probably don't want to subscribe on a long term basis.

It may well be that the time of generating easy automated backlinks has just about come to an end, as Google increases its ability to detect and penalize any website that uses these techniques.  You may be better off focusing your attention on generating organic backlinks using high quality content and social networking.  This kind of backlinking is unlikely to ever result in penalties from search engines, so you can count on it as a long term strategy instead of just using it for now.

Creating and Adjusting the Perfect Twitter Marketing Campaign

Twitter Marketing Campaigns

Adjusting a Twitter marketing campaign should not rely on general statistics, but certain Twitter marketing with focus on international law should consider adjusting, especially if they’re mainly focusing on the United States at the moment. 

Valuable Statistics for Attorneys

Twitter and marketing is popular in the United States, but the only ranks 18^th in the world for Twitter influence.  If you need to adjust your Twitter marketing campaign internationally and within a field of law, the following regions (greatest to lowest) have the most influence from Twitter and marketing:

·         Venezuela

·         Indonesia

·         Brazil

·         Turkey

·         Mexico

·         United Kingdom

·         Ireland

·         El Salvador

·         Dominican Republic

·         Columbia

·         Paraguay

·         Philippines

·         Ecuador

·         Japan

·         Argentina

·         Malaysia

·         Guatemala

·         United States

·         Netherlands

·         Spain

·         Kenya

Apart from countries, the following cities are most influenced by Twitter and marketing:

·         Caracas

·         Jakarta

·         Sao Paulo

·         Istanbul

·         Rio de Janeiro

·         Mexico City

·         New York City

·         London

·         Los Angeles

·         Toronto

·         Madrid

A smart Twitter marketing campaign in law will also account for gender, age, income as well as education and how it relates to the services of your firm.  The following statistics provide valuable data for Twitter and marketing campaigns within different fields of law:

·         about 61% of all users on Twitter are women, while about 39% are men

·         the 25-34, 35-44, and 45-54 age groups are using Twitter the most

·         about 15% of users are 18-24, about 7% are below 18, and less than 10% are 55 and up

·         Twitter and marketing works best for users earning $25,000 to $49,999

·         Twitter and marketing works second best for those earning $50,000 to $74,999

·         over 60% of Twitter users have some college education, and just below 20% have their bachelor’s degree

Important Tips for your Twitter Marketing Campaign

Twitter marketing campaigns for a law firm need to consider statistics and their followers, but they also need to embrace the important steps listed within this section.  Successful Twitter marketing campaigns contain the following strategies and more:

1. Have Multiple Workers for your Twitter Marketing Campaign

You can address more problems within Twitter and marketing if you have more associates in your firm helping with the campaign.  The most successful Twitter marketing campaigns have several partners using Twitter on a daily basis to provide updates and respond to followers.  If followers realize there are multiple partners working together, they’ll recognize that the firm is devoted to helping their clients. 

 2. Implement Timing into your Twitter Marketing Campaign

The most successful Twitter marketing campaigns by law firms will post incentives informational tweets  during times that clients are most likely to view the updated information.  Generally, Twitter and marketing work best before followers go to work, during lunch, around 3 p.m., and multiple times during the evening hours. 

Additionally, a Twitter marketing campaign for a law firm should also adjust for days of the week and even times during the year. 

3. Promote Multiple Accounts for Twitter and Marketing

Many of the best Twitter marketing campaigns will encourage individual partners to use their own personal accounts to promote the firm as well.  This technique allows the firm to expand its presence past the followers it has already.  If a firm does encourage such Twitter marketing campaigns, they should establish clear rules for professionalism and responses concerning the company. 

4. Focus on your Content within the Twitter Marketing Campaign

The best way to combine Twitter and marketing for your firm is to only provide information that can inform and help your potential clients.  Report important events within the news that relate to your services; report certain events that your firm is holding; report certain projects that individual partners are working on; and provide information about incentives and discounts your firm may be offering. 

5. Focus on Keywords

If you’re just starting your Twitter marketing campaign, you’ll want to perform keyword searches within Twitter that relate to your services.  How can you integrate those keywords into your profile, your bio, and your tweets?  The most successful Twitter marketing campaigns will use keywords to appear higher up within search results and gain more followers. 

6. Don’t Underestimate Hashtags

One of the most effective tools for Twitter and marketing for a law firm is the use of hashtags.  Your firm should encourage employees and followers to use hashtags for the firm itself.  Additionally, a Twitter marketing campaign should research hashtags to promote in order to try and bring in more followers.  Twitter marketing campaigns should create new hashtags for new updates. 

7. Use URL Shorteners as much as Possible

Using a URL shortener can have great results for yourTwitter and marketing campaign.  There are different tools available on the internet to help you shorten URLs so you can provide longer links within the 140 character limit for tweets.  After you begin to shorten links, you should provide links to your blog, your official website, other social media websites, and helpful information for your followers. 

8. Track your Results

After your Twitter marketing campaign is under way, you’ll want to monitor a large number of information using the analytics on Twitter as well as outside tools.  All Twitter marketing campaigns need to make adjustments—especially in the legal sector—and it’s hard to make adjustments without real time results. 

Conclusion: Twitter and Marketing

No campaign is perfect, and adjustments are needed constantly in order to maintain awareness and potential leads through Twitter.  Twitter marketing campaigns can greatly improve not only profit, but brand awareness and reliability from clients as well.  

The Best Twitter Marketing Tips for Success

Twitter for Marketing

Most studies suggest that Twitter is more successful than press releases for a law firm.  Some firms are still hesitant in using Twitter for marketing, but the results often increase awareness and leads for the majority of law firms. 

The Best Twitter Marketing Tips

If you want to start using Twitter for marketing your firm’s services, the following tips have proven successful:

#1 Portray Content in a Personal Tone

If you use twitter for marketing, the last thing you want to do is write content in a professional tone with a bunch of jargon.  Readers may skip by the content and even feel intimidated in some cases.  Make sure the tone matches your services as well.

#2 Provide Helpful Links

If you’re using Twitter for marketing, make sure you’re providing links that can expand on the subjects you’re discussing.  If you can provide links to content on your own legal website, this would prove ideal.

#3 Use Keywords within your Tweets

You can greatly improve your strategy within Twitter for marketing if you adjust your content for search engine optimization.  One of the most important factors to consider is your keywords for both searches within Twitter and over a search engine.  One of the best Twitter marketing tips is to write down a list of the most important keywords for your firm and place these terms within different tweets and your profile.  For more information on keywords and SEO for social media, consider viewing the blog under the blog called SEOmoz.

#4 Tweet with the Right People

It’s one of the most simple and effective strategies in using Twitter for marketing.  It’s all about who you know.  You need to start finding people within your geographic location who are interested in your legal services.  After you start following them, you’ll want to tweet with them and provide useful advice if they’re asking questions within their tweets.  Showoff your knowledge and people may rely on your service in the future. 

#5 Find Trending Topics

If you use Twitter for marketing, you need to find trending topics that you can help answer.  Tools like HootSuite can help you find related conversations, and then you can offer advice for the common questions.  Using Twitter for marketing in this way can guarantee leads in the future. 

#6 Start the Relationship off Right

This is one of the best Twitter marketing tips for your law firm within social media.  If you’ve been following someone and notice they need some information, consider Twitter for marketing just like marketing in person.  Start off by saying something positive about their post and then provide information they may find helpful including posts you’ve written in the past with helpful information. 

#7 Make the Readers Active

One of the best Twitter marketing tips is to write tweets that are both informational AND fun to read.  You’ll want to follow traditional rules while using Twitter for marketing like sharing information and writing information that is useful within your field of law, but you’ll want to ask your readers for advice and input as well. 

#8 Manners in a Desensitized World

If you use Twitter for marketing, some of the best advice this article will address involves being polite.  Many Twitter marketing tips talk about content and updating your material, but what about manners? You can thank a follower over a @message, but you can also thank a follower more personally through a direct message (DM).  If they provided helpful insight or received your services, thank them and they will spread the word about your ethics. 

#9 Showcase your Transparency

While using Twitter for marketing, never try to cover up your lack of experience in a certain subject.  If you use Twitter for marketing your legal services, you need to gain your followers’ trust by showing you credibility in certain subjects and proclaiming your lack of skill in a certain area.  One of the best Twitter marketing tips: ask for suggestions if you need to improve your skills in a certain area. 

#10 Offer Incentives

If you’re using twitter for marketing, one of your main goals is to drive followers to your actual website.  If you offer incentives on your website, you’ll want to use Twitter for marketing the deals on your website.  If followers know your website often contains good deals, they’re more like to keep visiting. 

#11 Use Hashtags

Simple yet effective Twitter marketing tips for bringing more people to your profile include using hashtags.  If you have a follower on your website, use twitter for marketing and retweet about them or display their tweet on your website.  These tips for using Twitter for marketing will encourage more people to come to your profile. 

#12 Integrate other Social Media

This is one of the most important marketing tips as well.  Not only do you want to connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts, but you want to connect your LinkedIn account while using Twitter for marketing.  If you install the LinkedIn tweet application, you can use Twitter for marketing to your professional contacts if they have Twitter accounts as well. 

#13 Use other Tools to Enhance Twitter for Marketing

If you’re using Twitter for marketing, you can use a large list of tools to monitor activity, sort through tweets, and provide other Twitter marketing tips as well.  As mentioned above, HootSuite will track a large amount of activity on Twitter.  Summify will also help you identify news and tweets that relates to your services. 

#14 Rely on the Younger Generation

One of the best Twitter marketing tips is relying on your younger associates for help.  If you’ve just started using Twitter for marketing your law firm, ask your young attorneys in the firm for help.  They are much more likely to be more experienced and literate with the technology.

Twitter for Marketing: Conclusion

If you’re using Twitter for marketing, the service holds a massive amount of potential.  Consider the Twitter marketing tips within this article and do some more research to find out areas you can improve upon. 

Accessing the Power of Twitter Mobile

Twitter Mobile

According to recent statistics released by the The Social Skinny, about 55% of all individuals accessing Twitter do so through their mobile phone.    Mobile Twitter allows users to access updated information on the go, and the mobile features are usually simpler to use than accessing Twitter on a desktop. 

About 40% of users keep from tweeting, and this group uses the social networking platform for one purpose: to stay updated. 

Advantages of Twitter Mobile for Attorneys

Mobile Twitter holds several advantages for attorneys.  For one, an attorney can update information more quickly if they can’t use a computer in the office social networking.  This factor is especially important if you’re trying to post during peak hours.  Secondly, just like the non-tweeting 40%, many attorneys will use Twitter mobile to stay updated if they’re not in the office. 

Lastly, mobile Twitter can help an attorney identify a lead, respond to that lead, and close a deal as fast as possible.  About 34% of all marketers using Twitter will come across leads, and about 20% of those leads result in a deal.  If an attorney is using Twitter mobile, they can respond to a client as fast as possible and have more time to help the client. 

Easy Guide for Adding a Twitter Mobile Account to an Existing Account

If you want to add a mobile platform to an existing account, you need to take the following steps:

1.       Log in to your existing Twitter account and select the icon called “Person”

2.       Click on the drop-down menu and select “Settings”

3.       Choose the “Mobile” tab

4.       Choose your country and then add your mobile number (note: users in countries outside of U.S. will need additional steps)

5.       Start verifying your phone by selecting “Activate Phone”

6.       Mobile Twitter will send you a short code to respond to, and you’ll have to respond with the word “GO”

7.       After the text is received, your account is ready to go

Tips to Using the Mobile Twitter Website

If you to post a reply on Twitter mobile, you’ll want to take 4 basic steps:

1.       Find the tweet you want to respond to

2.       Click on the reply button (which appears as an arrow point toward the left)

3.       Write your reply and Twitter will automatically input the username

4.       Click reply

If you want to send a direct message on mobile Twitter, you can follow several steps.  A direct message will allow you to send a private message instead of a public tweet.  You can only send a direct message to one of your followers:

1.       Click on the “Me” tab

2.       Wait for the next screen to appear, and then click “Direct Message”

3.       Click on appropriate button to compose your message

4.       Start typing the username and Twitter mobile will automatically show appropriate recipients; click on the appropriate person

5.       Write your message and click “Send”

The more you access mobile Twitter, the more follow requests you’ll start to receive.  In order to accept followers, you can take the following steps after logging into your Twitter mobile account:

1.       Click on the “Me” tab and then select “Follower Requests”

2.       Once you arrive to the next page, you’ll see options to accept or deny individuals requests.  You’ll also have the option to accept all follower requests.

Occasionally, you may find that you want to block a follower on mobile Twitter.  The steps are quite easy:

1.       Go to the profile page of your follower

2.       Click on the icon called “Profile”

3.       Once the pop-up menu appears, click on the “Block” option

What is the SMS option for Twitter Mobile?

Mobile Twitter via SMS allows you to respond to tweets and post tweets by test message instead of using an app on your iPhone, Android, or feature phone.  Many attorneys use this option so they don’t have to log into their application.  Of course, users will have to login to their application to view what people are tweeting, but once you’ve responded or receive a new message, you’ll receive updated information through SMS. 

If you want to add your phone for SMS capability, you’ll have to regard the following steps after you’ve setup your mobile settings:

1.       You’ll have to respond to the short code provided for your country.  The short code for Twitter mobile via SMS for the United States is 40404.  

2.       Mobile Twitter will ask you if you already have a username or want to set up a new account. 

3.       Once you have a username, you’ll want to send your username without any other characters in the SMS

4.       Mobile Twitter will then ask you for your password, and you’ll want to respond with the password as well. 

5.       Once Twitter Mobile has verified the information, it will ask you to send the words “OK” to start the SMS feature. 

You can now post tweets by sending a text message to your Twitter code.  If you want to receive other updates through Twitter mobile via SMS, you’ll have to adjust the mobile updates with your phone.  In order to adjust your notifications for Twitter mobile via SMS, use the following options:

1.       A text message stating “OFF” will turn off all notifications.

2.       A text message stating “ON” will turn on all notifications.

3.       If you text message “OFF” [username], “FOLLOW” [username], or “UNFOLLOW” [username], you can receive or adjust these options. 

4.       If you want to deactivate your Twitter mobile via SMS, you can send “STOP”, “Quit”, “END”, “CANCEL” or “UNSUBSCRIBE”

Twitter Mobile: Conclusion

There are multiple other SMS commands you can use on Twitter Mobile.  Mobile Twitter is a great option if you’re on the go and need to stay updated. 

If you're working on internet marketing for your law firm, you may need contextual homepage backlinks that help to give your website more authority in Google's search rankings.  Contextual backlinks are one of the best ways to make sure that your rankings rise steadily, and have many advantages over non-contextual links.  In this guide, you'll learn about your options for building contextual homepage backlinks, including organic link building techniques and hiring a contextual backlink service.  Keep reading to find out what strategy your law firm should employ for 2013 while building contextual backlinks in 2012.

What Makes a Backlink Contextual?

Simply put, there are two types of backlinks: contextual backlinks and non-contextual.  In a non-contextual backlink, a link goes from another website to your website, but the website the backlink is on doesn't need to have much relation—if any—to your practice or even your location.  For example, let's say your law firm purchased a large number of non contextual homepage backlinks.  These backlinks might appear on websites advertising products ranging from prescription drugs to work from home opportunities.

Contextual backlinks, on the other hand, rely on the context of a website.  When you build contextual homepage backlinks, they'll come from websites that discuss some of the same topics as your site and use some of the same keywords.  A contextual backlink service is a service that exclusively works on getting these types of backlinks for law firms or other companies.

Why Are Contextual Backlinks Best?

In the internet search world, contextual homepage backlinks are king.  Whether they're built by a contextual backlink service or organically grown, contextual backlinks make the web make more sense than a non-contextual link would.  When websites about similar topics are linked together via contextual homepage backlinks, it makes information more available to consumers.  Non-contextual backlinks, on the other hand, are much like email spam: website visitors didn't ask for them, and odds are, they never wanted them.

Contextual backlinks also help you to build more than your SERPs.  While your search engine rankings are important, it's also much more likely that someone will actually use contextual homepage backlinks to visit your website.  This is one of the biggest advantages of these links, whether you're getting them from a contextual backlink service or doing it yourself.  If you're using exclusively non contextual backlinks, you'll probably never (or at least, very rarely) see actual web traffic coming in from all of those backlinks you purchased.

Should I Use a Contextual Backlink Service?

There are advantages and disadvantages to getting your contextual homepage backlinks through a contextual backlink service.  On one hand, you'll get your contextual backlinks more quickly, helping you to build your rankings faster.  You'll also have the freedom to do other marketing tasks instead of painstakingly building individual contextual homepage backlinks.

However, giving up that control can make it so that your contextual backlinks aren't as high quality as you would like.  You'll want to make sure that your contextual backlink service makes only high quality links before using them.  It's also more expensive to use even the cheapest contextual backlink service than it is to just build backlinks organically, because most organically built contextual homepage backlinks are completely free.

Do Contextual Backlinks Work Right Away?

Whether you make them yourself or have a contextual backlink service make them for you, you can't expect for your contextual homepage backlinks to work immediately.  This is because before they can have any impact at all on your Google SERPs, they will need to be indexed by the search engine.  Sometimes, the process of indexing can take days, weeks, or even months depending on how deeply embedded in a website your contextual homepage backlinks are.

In some cases, your contextual backlink service will “tier” your backlinks, linking to your already existing contextual backlinks.  This can help them to be indexed more quickly.  If you're not using a contextual backlink service, some pieces of software also claim to do this kind of tiering automatically.  However, use caution: not all users of these pieces of software have reported positive results, and your mileage may vary.

Does Google Penguin Punish Contextual Backlinks?

One of the biggest questions many internet marketers have about any method of building links is whether it's Google Penguin safe.  In most situations, a contextual backlink service will guarantee that their links are Penguin proof (and if they won't, you should find a different service to provide your contextual homepage backlinks).

As long as you're building quality links, it's very unlikely that Google will punish you for any contextual backlinks.  After all, these are the kinds of links that tend to make the web better, by making it easier to move from one piece of information to other relevant websites.  Any contextual backlink service should be able to help you understand how your links are relevant and why they won't trip any red flags for over optimization when Google indexes them.

How Many Contextual Backlinks Should I Build?

When you start to work on building contextual homepage backlinks, don't go too crazy all at once.  If you build too many links in very short succession, it's very likely that Google will believe your website is over optimized and may take action against it in the search rankings accordingly.  Ideally, your backlink presence should be just a step or two beyond your real web presence—one of the main metrics that Google looks at is how many backlinks you have compared to your overall website traffic.

Consider starting by just making one or two new contextual backlinks per day at first, then working your way up to three to five per day.  This is an easy pace that you can easily continue on for the indefinite future.  What's more, if you're only making a few backlinks a day, you can make sure that they are the highest quality backlinks possible.  This ensures that your strategies will continue to be effective long into the future, not just until the next search update changes how Google looks at your links.