It seems like every search engine professional today wants to get free backlinks, and that's no surprise.  Because Google and other search engines now use backlinking for up to 70 percent of your search ranking determination, you need to focus on getting free backlinks as often as possible.  In this guide, you'll learn nine easy ways to get free backlinks that attorneys can start using today.

#1: Blogs and RSS Feeds

Blogging is one of the easiest ways to get a free backlink, and it's not hard to see why.  After five to ten minutes of account creation, anyone with an internet connection can start a blog about any topic under the sun, and from then on, it's easy to create free backlinks on that blog.

Having your own offsite blog is a great way to get free backlinks, especially if you start interacting with the owners of other blogs and doing guest posts.  You can get even more free backlinks by syndicating your blog with an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed.

#2: LinkedIn Questions

Because LinkedIn is considered a very high quality website, any free backlink you get from LinkedIn is more influential in your search rankings than many other websites' free backlinks.  A great way to multitask your marketing is to start answering questions that have been asked on LinkedIn by other attorneys or people with legal issues.

Not only does answering LinkedIn questions help you to get free backlinks, it also puts your name out there in front of a lot of people who might want to call your office.  If you're answering questions for other lawyers, you can increase your odds of getting referrals while you're getting free backlinks.

#3: Facebook

Even if your law firm doesn't do much marketing to consumers, you should make sure to get free backlinks by filling out a Facebook profile for your firm.  Ignoring the free backlink potential of Facebook would be a mistake, because it's by far the most popular social networking website in the United States.

You can create free backlinks on Facebook in a wide variety of ways, both on your profile and in your public feed.  Make sure that your posts are set to “public” by default, so that every free backlink you create to your website can be detected and indexed by Google.

#4: Twitter

“Tweets” are limited to 140 characters long but can still include a link to your website.  Twitter links are generally considered to be high quality, so this is a great way to build free backlinks that will really generate results.  The most interesting part about using Twitter to get free backlinks is that several studies that have compared the efficacy of every social networking site at raising search rankings, and Twitter seems to come out on top.  This may mean that a free backlink from Twitter is worth more than one from Facebook or LinkedIn.

#5: Social Bookmarking

From Metafilter to StumbleUpon to Reddit, social bookmarking websites take a wide variety of forms.  All of them can be great for free backlinks, if you're willing to play by their rules.  You'll need to make high quality content that people really want to read—and then you can put a free backlink to that content on their websites.

If you try to get free backlinks using these websites but are linking to poor quality content or direct advertising, it's likely that your links will be deleted.  This is a waste of your time and effort, so make sure the content is good before you create a free backlink to it.

#6: Press Coverage

To get free backlinks from the press is often easier said than done, but it's still worth trying.  If you get news coverage, the newspaper or television station will often include a free backlink to your website as part of their content.  Free backlinks can also come from commenting on news stories and including a relevant backlink as part of your comment.

#7: Yahoo Answers

Yahoo Answers has a lot of answers (both good and bad).  You can help to improve the quality of those answers while simultaneously getting free backlinks.  To get free backlinks on Yahoo Answers that will be in answers rated as “most helpful,” make sure that your link pertains to the topic of the question and isn't just inserted randomly.

Make sure that you provide all appropriate legal disclaimers when you answer any kind of legal question online.  No free backlink is worth an ethics inquiry from your state bar, so take every needed precaution before you answer any online questions on Yahoo Answers, a blog, or anywhere else.

#8: Blog Comments

Posts aren't the only place where blogs can provide free backlinks.  Another easy way to get free backlinks is to make informative, relevant comments on blogs about legal topics.  Every free backlink you get in this way can also help you to make connections with bloggers. Those connections can lead to new business, either directly or through word of mouth referrals.

Make sure that you're only commenting on active blogs, preferably those with moderation policies for comments.  This type of comment gives you a higher quality free backlink according to Google than comments on unmoderated blogs.  In fact, if you have too many free backlinks coming from unmoderated blogs, you could see your blog incurring over optimization penalties.

#9: Directory Profiles

The last place we'll talk about to get an easy free backlink is in web directories.  These directories offer a great way to get free backlinks while making it easier for people to find your website.  Every free backlink that you get on these websites will generally be considered high quality, as long as the directory itself isn't full of spam.

You may want to consider getting free backlinks on directories that are specifically for attorneys, or just for local businesses in your area.  Investigate all of your options to get the best free backlink arrangements possible.

In 2011, Google released an update called Panda that sent reverberations throughout the internet community.  Affecting 15 percent of websites, Panda started looking at where backlinks were coming from, rather than just basing search rankings on the total number of backlinks.  All of a sudden, companies didn't just want any backlinks, they wanted high quality backlinks—and fast!  Read this guide to find out how your law firm can build quality backlinks that pass muster on today's Google, and why you don't need to buy quality backlinks to be successful.

#1: Use Your Real Life Connections

Because quality backlinks are a part of the online world, many people forget that they can build high quality backlinks just by using their in person social circles.  Before you decide to buy quality backlinks, think about your connections.  People working for your law firm have social connections both locally and nationally, and can leverage those connections to get the kind of backlinking you want.

For example, you may find out that one of your real life friends or acquaintances has recently begun to keep a blog.  After they tell you what their blog is about, if you can think of a topic for a guest post, you'll be able to get high quality backlinks by piggybacking on their blog.  This is a great way to avoid having to buy quality backlinks even if you don't have very much web presence yet.

#2: Complete Your Profiles

One of the best and fastest ways to get high quality backlinks is to complete all of your law firm's profiles on social networking websites.  If you don't have a fully filled out profile, you're missing several different opportunities to create a quality backlink with great anchor text.  If you buy quality backlinks, creating these profiles will be one of the first things that a service does.  You can save yourself time and money by making these high quality backlinks on your own instead of purchasing them.

Usually, these profiles take about an hour or so to set up completely, so there's no reason to buy quality backlinks of this type unless you really want to.  For the relatively small amount of time investment required, you'll get quality backlinks that didn't require you to create any new content at all.

#3: Keep Quality Levels Up

Whatever content you're producing to generate your high quality backlinks needs to be at a high level of quality on its own.  If you're not producing good content, no matter how good your quality backlinks are, and no matter how well positioned your backlinking has gotten, you'll never get the conversions you need out of your backlinking.  Keep in mind that the end goal isn't just increasing your page rank, it's growing your business.

Some services claim to allow businesses to buy quality backlinks, but not all of them deliver on that promise.  High quality backlinks are often difficult to purchase, and you may end up with lower quality backlinks that help you much less.  Ask to see samples of the work any company is doing before you buy quality backlinks from them.

#4: Use Social Networking

Don't just abandon your social networking pages once your profile has provided you with some high quality backlinks.  You can create additional quality backlinks by participating and posting on these websites.  While you shouldn't overload your social networking feeds with backlinks to your website, an occasional link is a great idea—especially if it's to some content that's interesting enough for your viewers to share, creating even more high quality backlinks.

When you buy quality backlinks, this kind of posting is often included as part of the package.  However, if you choose this route for building quality backlinks, be careful.  It can be obvious to your readership that you chose to buy quality backlinks instead of making your own content and participating yourself.  Often, it's easier to make your own high quality backlinks, which your readers will be able to see come from a real person in your firm.

#5: Participate in Comments and Questions

No one likes the person who just talks and never listens.  Consider having some of your high quality backlinks come from asking your readers questions, and making comments on people's social networking feeds and blogs.  Note that this does not mean to make low quality backlinks by spamming blog comments with irrelevant links—you need to be really responding to what's being said, and participating in a two-way conversation.

#6: Talk to the Press

Why buy quality backlinks when a great public relations campaign can get them for free?  One of the best ways to get high quality backlinks on websites your competitors can't even touch is to get media attention.  If you've recently won a case that you think a local television station or newspaper might be interested in, get the publicity.  When they post quality backlinks to your website, you'll see your rankings skyrocketing.  Media sources are among the best places to position your high quality backlinks.

Now, unlike the kinds of links you get when you buy quality backlinks, you won't be able to set your own anchor text.  However, because these are such difficult high quality backlinks to get, they'll count for a lot in your search rankings even without great anchor text.

#7: Audit Your Backlinks

Every once in a while, you'll want to check to make sure that your backlinking is still effective and that the backlinks you've received still direct people to functional URLs.  This is even more important if you buy quality backlinks—without checking up on the backlinking, how do you know if you're really getting what you paid for instead of spammy backlinking attempts?

Many free web tools can help you examine your backlinks.  You can easily sort your backlinks by PageRank so you can find which are high quality backlinks and which are lower quality backlinks.  Quality backlinks will have a higher PageRank number (the maximum is 10), while lower quality ones will have lower numbers, all the way down to zero.

Is your firm having trouble learning how to get high PR backlinks for free?  Have you been considering a deal to buy high PR backlinks, because you don't know how to find them for yourself?  Don't worry—it's not nearly as hard to get high PR backlinks as you think.  Keep reading this guide to find out some creative ways to obtain high PR backlinks without needing to pay a service for every link you get.  You'll also learn why it can be a bad idea to buy high PR backlinks, and why this strategy can backfire dramatically on websites foolish enough to use it.

What Are High PR Backlinks?

Before we get started on how to get high PR backlinks, we need to take a look at exactly what they are.  PR stands for “PageRank” (all one word).  PageRank is a number on a 0 to 10 scale that is, essentially, a guide to how popular and high quality a website is considered to be.  The very most popular websites on the internet have a PR of 10, while a brand new website or one with very few connections to anyone else online would have a 0.

Backlinks are links to your website from another website.  If the website has a high PageRank, these are said to be high PR backlinks.  It's not always easy to get high PR backlinks, especially from websites that have very regulated submissions.  Because of this, many services exist to help people buy high PR backlinks.

Why Does PageRank Matter?

PageRank matters because not all backlinks give the same amount of ranking value to your website.  High PR backlinks are weighted significantly more heavily than low PR backlinks when Google decides where your website should appear in someone's search.  Because the vast majority of web users pick a website from the very first page of results, rather than going through many pages, it's critical to get high PR backlinks.

The reason that Google gives more weight to high PR backlinks is because these links give much more authority.  Typically, in order to get high PR backlinks, you'll need to have some type of relatively high quality content.  On the other hand, people can much more easily buy low quality backlinking services, so these lower PR backlinks are considered to be substantially lower quality.

Why is it much harder to buy high PR backlinks than low PR ones?  Mostly because there are far fewer high PageRank websites in total.  Before Google based a website's search rankings in part on the PR of its backlink sources, it was very easy for companies to use “article spinning” services that gave them hundreds of backlinks in just a few hours.  Now, with the changes to the search algorithm, it's considered much harder to get the kind of high PR backlinks you need to make your rankings rise.

How Do I Get High PR Backlinks to My Site?

Just because it can be difficult to get high PR backlinks doesn't mean it's impossible.  You definitely don't have to buy high PR backlinks in order to have them.  Some of the highest PageRank websites allow for public posting, and as long as your content meets quality guidelines, you can give yourself the links you want.

For example, one of the highest PageRank websites that you can post to quite easily is Youtube.  If you record some video content for your website and host it on Youtube, you can create backlinks in the description of your video.  These backlinks will come from a very high PageRank website, so they will be worth much more than if you had just gotten low quality links.

It's worth keeping in mind that Google's new algorithms also reward diversity.  If you buy high PR links exclusively, or just focus your energy on getting high PR links, you may end up having a backlink arrangement that appears suspicious to Google.  Generally, you should get high PR links as part of a comprehensive backlinking strategy, rather than working only for these links and not other types.

Should I Buy High PR Backlinks?

Even if you're struggling to get high PR backlinks, buying them isn't always a good answer.  While some services that allow you to buy high PR backlinks are on the level and offer good, contextual linking, others will post low quality items on as many high PR websites as possible.  Keep in mind that Google doesn't like it when businesses buy high PR backlinks.  Their search engineers have been getting better and better at identifying when people get high PR backlinks by buying them instead of earning them with great content.

If you do decide to buy high PR backlinks, use a lot of caution and check out the services carefully before deciding on one.  You don't want to get high PR backlinks, pay for them, and then find out that they haven't actually helped your website because it's now designated as “over optimized” by Google.  Only buy high PR backlinks from services that can show you a track record of success even after Google's new Penguin and Panda algorithms took effect.

Can I Get High PR Backlinks for Free?

There's definitely no real reason to buy high PR backlinks instead of making them yourself.  You can easily get high PR backlinks just by blogging, then linking to your blog entries on various Web 2.0 sites.  If you're making good content, you'll quickly have high PR backlinks without needing to buy a single one.

If you've already tried to get high PR backlinks in this way but haven't been successful, you may think you can buy high PR backlinks as an alternative.  Think about it, though: if people aren't coming to your website when you linked in those places before, could it be that your content quality was simply too low?  Consider making better quality content before choosing to buy high PR backlinks.

With over 100,000 law firms in the United States, making your firm stand out on the internet can seem like a superhuman feat.  One of the best ways to get your website noticed by Google and other search engines is by creating a comprehensive backlinking effort.  If you're still asking, “what are backlinks?”, don't worry.  This guide will take you step by step through the backlinking process.  You'll learn not only about the basics—like “what are backlinks”—but how to use backlinks effectively to improve your rankings on search engines.

The Basics: What are Backlinks?

Before we can go into specifics, we'll start with some backlinking vocabulary.  What are backlinks?  Any time someone links to your website, the link on their page is called a backlink.  Backlinks can appear on a huge variety of websites.

Getting beyond the simple question of what are backlinks, we can look at a few other terms as well.  “Nofollow” links are links that don't give their “link authority” to the person they're linking (more on that in a minute).  Backlinking also requires understanding the idea of anchor text.  Anchor text is the text on the link—with luck, it'll be a keyword that you want people to find your website with.

Why Are Backlinks Important?

Most of what makes the internet tick is the connections between people using it.  Linking to a website is a good way to show that you believe the website is important, interesting, or authoritative.  Because the most popular websites tend to be the ones that are linked by many other pages, Google takes the number of your backlinks into account when it decides where to rank your website in search results.

Originally, Google and other search engines looked only at the quantity of links that a particular website was receiving.  This made many people start asking “what are backlinks?” and using services that promised huge backlinking numbers.  In late 2011, Google released an update with the code name Panda that started to change all that.  Panda shocked the search engine optimization world by devaluing backlinks that came from websites that gave backlinks freely (and often to spam websites).

After that came Penguin, Google's 2012 code-named update to its ranking algorithm.  Now, instead of asking “what are backlinks?”, search engine optimization professionals are asking about high quality backlinking.  Penguin penalized websites that it believed were over optimized.

The Importance of Diversifying Your Backlinks

What are backlinks that will generate an over optimization penalty?  Typically, Penguin notices when a website has too many backlinks that are all of one variety, especially if it's a variety of backlinking that is easily abused by low-quality websites.  In order to avoid any penalties, you'll want to keep your backlinks extremely diverse.

What are backlinks that will raise red flags?  If Penguin notices that a huge proportion of your backlinking comes from low traffic websites, or that your website is quite low traffic itself, it may see this as a sign of overoptimization.  If the anchor text of your backlinks is always the same, rather than being very diverse, Google will notice this and consider you over optimized as well.

Where Should I Start Backlinking?

Now that you've learned the basics, like what are backlinks, you may want to get started on creating backlinks to your website.  A great place to start is by creating a law firm profile on all the major social networking sites, like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.  If you're already a part of those websites, make sure that your law firm profile includes a link back to the firm's website.

If you read any legal blogs, a great way to start backlinking is to talk to blog owners about guest posting.  If you can think of a topic that would dovetail well with something another lawyer is talking about, you may be able to get a guest posting spot along with some great backlinks to your website.

Don't worry about creating backlinks too fast.  Remember, Google is now more careful about identifying when backlinks come from paid for sources, and can even penalize websites that build backlinks too quickly.

Analyzing Your Backlinks

So what are backlinks actually doing for your law firm?  There's only one way to find out: with analysis.  If you analyze your backlinks thoroughly, you'll be able to see which links are still working, which ones go to invalid URLs, and which are coming from low quality sites.

A number of free backlink checker tools exist to help businesses understand where their backlinks are coming from and how much of an impact they're having.  You may want to check into one of these tools if you've been making a good effort to build backlinks but have met with only modest success in your actual search engine rankings.

How are Backlinks Changing?

One of the biggest questions on the mind of backlinking professionals is this: what are backlinks going to look like in the future?  The current trend, and one that shows no signs of slowing, is a trend toward quality linking.  Quality has become the single biggest buzzword for backlinking in 2012 and 2013, and given Google's mission, it's likely that this emphasis on quality will continue.

This means that it's a good idea to avoid any backlink services that produce anything but the highest quality backlinking.  Even if a particular service seems to follow the letter of the rules, but is still generating a lot of what you know to be low quality links that you didn't have to work for, you may face problems in the future.

However, as long as you keep the quality level of your backlinks up, you can usually assume that they'll continue working for you far into the future.  As other law firms with lower quality backlinking are penalized in rankings, you'll keep working your way up.  This kind of long term strategy can have big payoffs for your firm for years to come.

Have you been considering hiring backlink services?  When law firms start to think about using a backlinks service, it's often because their search engine optimization efforts just haven't yielded the results they want.  However, a backlink service isn't a one size fits all solution.  Before you decide to hire backlink services, read this guide—you'll learn both why you may want one of these services, and also why you might prefer to keep your backlinking work in-house.

Advantage: Spending Less Time On Your SEO

The single biggest advantage that a backlinks service can give to your law firm is that it frees up a great deal of time.  Backlink building can be extremely time-consuming, especially if the links you're getting are very high quality links.  A backlink service takes these chores out of your hands so that you can focus on your actual legal practice and building your business in the offline world.

Spending less time on backlinking means that you can devote more time to other aspects of your search engine optimization efforts.  For example, if you're keeping a blog (something you should be doing whether or not you hire a backlinks service), this leaves you with substantially more time to actually create new entries and do research for other entries.

Disadvantage: Less Control Over Your Backlinks

When you use backlink services, you're also giving up a substantial amount of control over exactly where and how your backlinks are placed.  This means that in some cases, your backlinks service may create backlinks that are on irrelevant websites or that otherwise don't meet standards that you would have set for yourself.

To avoid this problem when you hire a backlink service, you should make your expectations and guidelines very clear from the outset.  Your backlinks service should be willing to accept your guidelines—after all, it's your business, and backlinks services are changing the way that your business is portrayed to other people.

You should also make sure that you're periodically checking up on the work done by your backlink service.  You need to know enough about backlinking to be able to understand whether their methods appear to be working.  If you don't know enough about backlinking to capably check up on backlink services, read a few more backlinking articles on lawfirms.laws.com.

Advantage: Backlink Professionals Handle Your Account

Odds are, if you're working for a law firm, you've never been part of a backlinks service or done backlinking as your full time, year round job.  The people working at backlink services have done so much backlinking that it has become second nature to them.  That gives your backlink service a much greater efficiency in creating new links and finding new resources for backlinking.

Disadvantage: Some Backlink Services Lack Adaptability

This isn't a disadvantage of every backlink service, but it's a problem with enough of them that you should be aware of it before you make a decision.  The internet is changing every year, and as it does, search engine algorithms are evolving.  Someone who has done backlinking the same way for a long time may not be as adaptable if their favorite tips and tricks no longer work.  You may want to ask your backlink service about their adaptability and how they have changed in the past to meet new search engine guidelines.

Advantage: Get More Backlinks Faster

Some backlink services advertise that they can get you dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of total backlinks within a short period of time.  This type of backlinks service was substantially more common before 2012.  In 2012, new updates to Google made it so that this type of backlink service was now more likely to hurt your website than to help it.  Even with these changes, there are still a few backlink services advertising big total link numbers.

Disadvantage: Less Backlink Diversity

When a backlink service promises high quantities of links to every client, it's usually at the cost of quality and diversity.  Both quality and diversity now matter very much to your search engine rankings, so you should be taking these factors into account even if your backlinks service isn't.  It can be very short-sighted to hire a backlink service that uses a lot of low-quality links: even if you see short term gains, it's very likely that you will lose all of those gains and more when the next search engine algorithm update comes out.

You're better off looking for a backlinks service that offers a smaller amount of relevant, high quality, contextual links.  These links, even when they're created by backlink services, will always help you to climb the search rankings ladder.

Advantage: Easy Profile Creation

One of the most mind numbing tasks associated with link building is creating new profiles.  Because so many of these profiles ask for the same types of information, this is a great job to give to your backlinks service.  Backlink services can make profiles for several social networking sites and directories every day.  This is one of the ways that a backlink service can dramatically shift your web traffic in a fairly short amount of time.

Generally, you'll need to tell backlink services the basic information that you want included, but your backlinks service can also create a great deal of the actual content for these profiles.

Disadvantage: Where Does the Data Go?

Not every backlinks service will keep your data for themselves, but some will.  As a law firm, you probably don't want all of your data being used later on to aid your competition.  You should seek out only backlink services that have a history of keeping their clients' data safe and secure, and which have clearly stated privacy policies.

One of the biggest advantages of keeping your link building efforts in house is the ability to keep this data.  Give data security at least some thought before deciding to hire backlink services to handle your backlinking, or you could end up with a privacy breach on your hands.

Building backlinks is the foundation of any strong search engine optimization effort in 2012 and 2013.  However, as nearly every search engine marketer knows, it's not easy to build backlinks that get noticed, get indexed, and work to bring your search rankings up.  New changes to Google have made it important to look not only at what backlinks you're bringing in, but where they come from and what they look like.  Keep reading this guide to find out how your law firm can start building backlinks that work—and why you may not need a backlink generator to do it.

Building Backlinks 101

The more websites that link to a site, the more trustworthy Google usually assumes that website is, and the higher its search rank climbs.  This makes a lot of sense: think about the kinds of websites that are typically linked by huge numbers of people.  Facebook, Youtube, CNN and other news websites, Wikipedia, Google, and so on are all websites that people search for quite frequently.  When these appear earlier in search results, people searching don't have to spend as much time looking for what they want and can use the web more efficiently.

While the traditional way of building backlinks is to create exciting or informative or humorous content, then wait for it to spread into the web (perhaps after giving it a little nudge by getting linked by people you know), for some marketers, this wasn't fast enough.  These marketers created backlink generator software that was capable of creating backlinks all over the web much faster than any human beings could.

How a Backlink Generator Works

In order to start building backlinks at breakneck speed, backlink generator software works by having a large database of websites in its programming that are easy to post to.  When you start using one of these pieces of software, it starts writing automatic comments on blogs and making automatic posts to many different websites.  Some generators work by submitting an article you've written to large numbers of websites that allow for unmoderated submissions.

By building backlinks in bulk, the idea behind a backlink generator is that it can bring a website from being relatively new and unlinked to being on the front page of keyword searches within a very short period of time.

The Problems With Using a Backlink Generator

While that's how generators work in theory, building backlinks in practice is actually a bit more difficult.  There are several different reasons that you might want to avoid the use of a backlink generator completely.

One of these problems comes from the nature of the work a law firm does.  People are already reluctant to trust most law firms, and it takes much more time to gain trust than it does to lose it.  If your law firm starts using so-called “black hat” techniques that produce large volumes of low quality content in order to promote your website, people will see it.  When they do, is that the kind of reputation your law firm is hoping to achieve, both in your community and—keeping in mind that the internet is a public space—around the world?  No attorney passes the bar just to become a spammer.

The other problems with using a backlink generator come from just one new search engine algorithm: Google Penguin.  Building backlinks after Penguin was activated in April of 2012 has been much tougher and much more quality focused.

Penguin Kills Most Backlink Generators

Google had no love for backlink generator programs.  They were regarded as something akin to web smog, obscuring the view of the websites people really wanted to see.  To get rid of this method of building backlinks, they released Penguin, a search engine update that stopped many of these generators cold.

How did they do it?  By penalizing websites that met any of several criteria for being over optimized.  For example, because automated backlink generator technology isn't very good at varying keywords and keyword phrases, websites that used the same anchor text over and over with no variation have been hit hard in search rankings.  When you start building backlinks, you need to be careful to make a natural-seeming variety of anchor text keywords.

Another way that Penguin changed building backlinks was by penalizing websites that have backlinks exclusively from low PageRank websites.  If your backlink generator worked by spamming articles on hundreds of low quality domains, you've now got a mess on your hands.  Because Google sees this as evidence of building backlinks artificially, you'll have to ask the webmasters of those domains to take down the mentions of your website.  If they don't, you'll have to show Google the documentation that shows you tried.  It's a long, tedious process, and you're better off building backlinks of high quality from the start.

Do Any Backlink Generators Still Work?

It's true that there are still some programs that do currently help with building backlinks.  Many of these are still using very spammy techniques, but have found loopholes and end runs around the Google engineers' detection of low quality link building.

However, even if you think you've found a good new way to run a link generator without running afoul of Penguin, use caution.  It's very likely that Penguin is just the first in a series of updates designed to improve backlink quality and decrease the prevalence of link spam.  Plan for the future, and get backlinks the way they were intended to be gotten: by giving people content so interesting that they can't help but share it with others.

Building Backlinks Without a Backlink Generator

There are hundreds of resources—many of them right here on lawfirms.laws.com—on how to build backlinks without using any kind of automation.  You can build backlinks using blogs, social networking, videos, even traditional media coverage.

The important thing about these links is that they're developed in accordance with the content of the website they're on.  These aren't links that are about making it harder to get where you want to go—instead, they make it easier.  Those are the types of links you need to think about making, and when you do, you'll never find yourself in trouble with Google again.

Online Affiliate Marketing without a Website

Is Affiliate Marketing Online Possible without my own Website?

Although the majority of online affiliate marketing occurs with attorneys that have their own website or blog, it is possible to perform affiliate marketing online if you don’t have your own website or want to have a campaign away from your legal website to maintain a degree of professionalism. 

If you’re thinking about legal affiliate marketing without a website, you’ll want to make sure the company even accepts such marketing in the first place.  A large percentage of Fortune 500 companies do not offer compensation to marketers without a website, and some don’t even offer affiliate services at all. 

Step 1: Find an Affiliate Network

There are different networks that can offer affiliate services for different kinds of attorneys.  A simple search over the internet can put you in touch with networks, and there are even networks completely devoted to  legal services as well.  Many of the legal network offer services for “white papers” and similar documents. 

Step 2: Pick the Best Advertising Technique

Most online affiliate marketing services only offer compensation if the client ends up being a lead and actually makes a purchase.  However, there are a few networks out there that still operate under a pay per click (PPC) service.  

Even if you can find an affiliate marketing online service with PPC advertising, you may not make more money using this technique.  For example, PPC campaigns often generate a very small amount of revenue for a writer.  Even if you do find an online affiliate marketing service with PPC advertising, you may still want to stick to pay per sale campaigns. 

Step 3: Start Writing!

There are specific websites on the internet the focus strictly on freelance writing and affiliate marketing online, and a simple search over the internet can bring you in touch with these types of websites.  You have several options for online affiliate marketing without a website, and these options are listed below:

1. Article Writing

As mentioned above, you may have several freelance opportunities within online affiliate marketing.  These services ask you to write virtually anything about a legal product or service, but some of the services may ask you to write product reviews as well.

You’ll usually have the option to place the affiliate marketing at the end of an article, or you may have the option to include the marketing within the context of your article.  If you’re embedding links within your text, make sure to describe the services in depth, how the clients can relate to the services, and so on.  After you’ve described the product, provide a link with the affiliate marketing online. 

2. Email Marketing

This is one of the best affiliate marketing online services you can use without your own website.  The trick to using this type of online affiliate marketing is making an advertisement look professional, appealing, and creative without the client thinking the email is spam.  You can find information on this website about email marketing. 

The only problem with this type of affiliate marketing online is that a large amount of servers use filtering for this type of marketing.  Even though your email is not acting as spam, a filter may classify the email as spam automatically anyway.  There are design techniques you can use to bypass such filters.

3. Writing Forums

Some online affiliate marketing services allow you to post a link to their website within a writing forum.  The trick to marketing within a forum is receiving enough attention and responders in order to increase your chances of the clients clicking on the link.  You usually need to place affiliate links at the end of a post within a forum. 

4. Write an e-Catalog

Another strategy you can use for affiliate marketing online without a website is to write a short e-catalog with related services that might interest your friends or peers.  You can send these catalogs through emails as well.  The catalogs should be informative and state how the services can relate to their needs. 

The Social Media Option

Facebook

Many companies have business pages or product pages on Facebook that allow fans to review their information and travel to the website.  However, some affiliate marketing online services allow you to post affiliate comments about the company or services in order to point clients to the business page or even the main website. 

Twitter

Twitter is a great way to get people following your comments about certain legal products, and some online affiliate marketing programs will compensate you if you draw clients in through Twitter.  The more people you get to follow you and the more you information you broadcast about certain products, the more compensation you can receive from affiliate marketing online without a website.

YouTube

YouTube is a great option for affiliate marketing online without a website because you can create your own channel.  If there are certain legal products that you want to interest people in, you can post videos about those products and similar products as well.  You can also make comments about the legal products, and some online affiliate marketing services highly encourage using YouTube. 

Conclusion: Online Affiliate Marketing without a Website

As you can see, you can definitely engage in affiliate marketing online without a website. In some cases, it’s even a good idea for an attorney to keep affiliate marketing away from their main blog and website. Online affiliate marketing without a website is a good way to get adjusted to the operations involved in such marketing techniques before starting your own website though. 

Some of the Best Small Business Marketing Blogs Available Today

The Challenges of Small Business Blog Marketing

If you own a small firm, you likely have a small budget to expand your small business marketing blog, hire marketing staff, or buy software to help monitor your results along the way.  There are numerous small business marketing blogs available to help you increase the expansion and overall success of your blog within a small budget. 

List of Blogs for Small Business Blog Marketing Strategies

Each small business marketing blog listed below offers great content and has received numerous positive reviews over the internet.  There are other blogs for tips on small business blog marketing, but the blogs below are on the leading edge of the market in providing great advice to attorneys:

1. Small Business Mavericks

This small business marketing blog is updated every day and offers some of the best small business blog marketing tips out there.  Some of the popular trends within her small business marketing blogs offer information on Yahoo, techniques to test web pages within every type of browser, and blogging features on Facebook.  There is also a large amount of information on YouTube video optimization, SEO, and the costs associated with social marketing. 

2. Small Business Search Marketing

This small business marketing blog has thousands of followers on Twitter, and most of the posts offer easy reading along with visual graphics to help attorneys in various subjects.  Some of the best small business marketing blogs involve topics on SEO, the risks and benefits of Google, building strong links, title tags, Twitter, and social networks in general. 

3. Search Engine Guide

This blog on small business blog marketing offers a variety of topic on marketing for legal professionals.  Some of the popular topics on this small business marketing blog involve analytics, conversion, AdSense, link building, local searches, mobile marketing, vertical searches, and much more. 

4. The Marketing Spot

This small business marketing blog provides a large amount of information on how a smaller firm can increase their efforts in a competitive market.  Some of the more popular small business marketing blogs contain information on choosing the best possible logo to reach across multiple platforms and adjusting your website to generate more leads. 

5. Duct Tape Monitoring

This is one of the most popular small business marketing blogs on the internet today for attorneys.  This small business marketing blog receives a large amount of attention on Twitter as well.  Some of the more recent posts include using various Google applications, stages for building a small business marketing blog, generating organic SEO, email marketing, and much more.  The blog on small business blog marketing updates the website almost every single day. 

6. VerticalResponse Marketing

This small business marketing blog offers a large amount of information on email marketing and other types of marketing as well.  Some of the recent posts on this blog for small business blog marketing have focused on the following topics:

·         how older corporations have made changes within the digital age

·         adding video to increase the effectiveness of small business marketing blogs

·         using Instagram as a reliable tool

·         using images and adjusting images as an effective marketing tool within your blog

7. Small Business Trends

A large number of experts within the field use this website to provide tips on small business blog marketing.  The blog offers a large amount of

information for small business apart from blogs, but it still offers a large amount of information on design for your legal website, emerging technology, and financing.  This small business marketing blog also offers a large amount of updated statistics and facts. 

8. AllBusiness.com

This website offers a specific section for small business marketing blogs and advertising as well.  Some of the best recent posts on small business blog marketing have focused on branding, content, social media, SEO, technology trends in 2012, how Google can actually hurt small firm, and more. 

9. Small Biz Survival

This is a great small business marketing blog for small business within rural areas.  Some of the recent posts have centered on managing your email, adjusting for mobile viewers, and establishing a blog post planner.  Some of the most popular posts have provided strategies to compete with large firms in your area of law in online marketing.

10. Web Marketing Strategies for Small Business

This is one of the best small business marketing blogs available today because it integrates techniques for small business blog marketing along with web design as well.  Although recent posts have focused largely on social media, it still offers a great deal of information on the following:

·         how to keep subscribers reading your newsletters

·         how small business marketing blogs are a better tool than social media

11. Awareness Inc. Social Media Marketing Blogs

This small business marketing blog offers a large amount of information in the form of interviews, tips, reviews, and more.  The small business marketing blog offers a large amount of information on how to incorporate social media into your legal blog, and it offers great information on measuring the success of the social media and more. 

12. Small Business Brief

This blog offers some of the most updated news and articles on small business blog marketing.  Some of the more recent small business marketing blogs have focused on creating how-to videos as well as information on small business blog marketing with the help of social media. 

13. YoungEntrepreneur.com

This small business marketing blog was started in 1999 and has continued to provide great material for small business blog marketing strategies that attorneys can use. 

Conclusion: Small Business Marketing Blogs

The small business marketing blogs listed within this article are not the only blogs that can help you gain helpful strategies; they are only some of the more popular blogs for attorneys trying to promote their small firm and compete with larger firms.  When researching how you can expand your small business blog marketing, perform as much research as possible.