Web traffic can seem fickle if you're not paying attention to the best ways to get it.  A few years ago, social media didn't matter—today it matters more than almost any other single factor for website traffic.  Keeping up with the changes can be tough, but the truth is, most ways to get web traffic have been around for a long time, although many have evolved significantly from their original forms.  Here are 8 of the best ways to build website traffic and attract new clients through the internet.

#1: Search Engine Pay Per Click Advertisements

One of the biggest tried and true standbys of the legal world is the pay per click ad.  This kind of ad makes it so that you only pay for web traffic that actually goes all the way through to your website, rather than paying for every pair of eyes that could see your ad.  There are a number of big advantages to building traffic through pay per click ads.  For one thing, new targeting systems are better than ever at getting clicks from the people who are most likely to be able to actually start a lawyer/client relationship with your firm.

This kind of advertising does also have a few drawbacks.  Depending on what your legal specialty is, it can be fairly expensive to drive each click of website traffic to your site.  What's more, when you stop paying for pay per click ads, you'll likely see a drop-off in the amount of web traffic you receive.

#2: Search Engine Optimization

Of course, you can also bring in website traffic by making sure that your website appears high in search results.  In fact, studies show that about 85 percent of total web traffic in searches goes to organic, rather than paid, results.  However, as many law firms have found out, getting your law firm on page one to get more website traffic is more easily said than done.  It can be extremely difficult to out-compete the people who are already at the top of search results, because these are often large firms with copious resources to dedicate to getting website traffic from high value keywords.

You may do better by search engine optimizing for so-called “long tail keywords” that have more detail and bring fewer overall results.  These keywords are more likely to put you on the top page, and as long as you do keyword research first you'll be able to find plenty of new business from this type of SEO.

#3: Social Media Profiles

There's an unfortunate tendency among legal professionals to dismiss social media as superficial or a fad.  It's unfortunate because many Americans do take social media seriously, and it has grown into a real force for web marketing.  You should make sure that you have frequently updated, up to date profiles on a wide variety of social networking sites in order to drive web traffic to your website.  This can be some of your best conversion rate website traffic, because the people coming to your site from social media have often heard about you from people they know and trust.  Think of social media as the new form of the old fashioned word of mouth referral.

#4: Social Media Paid Advertising

Social media offers several opportunities to buy website traffic in addition to all the ways that you can get free web traffic there.  One of the most effective sites for attorneys to buy website traffic on is Facebook.  If you purchase web traffic there, you can actually target it specifically at the people who know people who've already “liked” your site.  This means that they'll actually see the “like” when they see the ad, giving you instant credibility that you can't get with a simple paid advertisement on a web search.

Social media offers some of the most innovative and newest methods for targeting clients.  If you have a good idea for a niche market to increase website traffic from, starting your marketing on social media is a great way to make sure your paid ads are reaching the exact niche you're thinking of.

#5: Attorney Directories and Profiles

A great deal of website traffic for law firm sites still comes from directories—they're just not paper directories any more.  Many websites maintain directories and profiles for attorneys, and these can be among the best ways to find new clients and more web traffic.  The reason that attorney directories and profiles are so useful is that anyone who's going through lawyer listings in this type of directory is typically ready to start making calls.  These are exactly the kind of high value clicks that you want for your website traffic.

#6: Attorney Client Review Websites

Some websites go even further than just having listings of attorneys.  You can also increase your web traffic by getting your name on client review sites.  When real clients review attorneys positively, it can have a major difference on the amount of website traffic you receive and your eventual conversion percentage.  It's so easy to research for client reviews on the internet today that many clients will do this before they even make the call to your office, even if they've already looked through your website.

#7: Viral Content

One of the best ways to get website traffic in the 21st century is to go viral.  This means that other people do the hard work of getting your website out there for you, by spreading some type of content that is interesting and worth sharing with friends or family members.  Youtube videos are one type of content that is likely to go viral, as are “meme” pictures.  However, you should make sure that if you make something like this, it links back to your website so that you can get the credit and the web traffic from your efforts.  Humor's a great tool for viral content, but don't cross over the edge into offensiveness or you could lose more clients than you gain.

Website statistics for traffic are some of the most important stats that you can record.  You probably already know that you're getting less hits than Facebook (which gets over 24 million unique visits per day) and more than a brand new blog.  But where you are in that spectrum can be tricky to know, unless you're keeping track with a website traffic statistics tool.  In this guide, we'll take a look at why you might want to check up on your website statistics for traffic, and how you can improve your traffic numbers if you feel that they are lackluster.

What Are Website Traffic Statistics?

If you've been on the internet for a while and haven't changed your marketing techniques much lately, you may think that the only website statistics about traffic that matter can be kept track of with a counter.  While counters were one of the first good tools for checking out your website traffic statistics, they're far from the only tool that is available.

Today, you can find out some basic website traffic statistics by using websites like Alexa and Compete.com.  These websites can give you a basic overview of the website statistics on traffic that affect your website most.  But let's say that the basic website traffic statistics you find on these site aren't enough for you.  How do you get to see the numbers that could matter to you more, including things like bounce rate and how many pages a site visitor looks at?

How Do I Find My Website Traffic Statistics?

Because these detailed website statistics on traffic are even more useful to you as a site owner than the basic statistics, you should consider using a program that can help you find and analyze them.  One of the easiest ones to get started with is Google Analytics.  The best part about Google Analytics is that it's not only a robust tool to help you look at your website traffic statistics, it's also totally free for all users.

In order for you to see your website statistics on traffic with Google Analytics, you'll need to insert a small piece of code onto your website.  This helps Google monitor people's activities on your website so that you can better analyze the traffic flow and how best to help the clients who are looking at your site.  It's usually a good idea to monitor these website statistics on traffic for at least a month or two before really making any decisions based on fluctuations.  Keep in mind that some fluctuations in your website traffic statistics are to be expected and don't necessarily reflect poorly on your business or any of the marketing techniques you're currently using.

What Are Good Website Traffic Statistics?

One of the first things many attorneys—who are, of course, given to competitiveness—want to know about their website statistics on traffic is this: “is this where I should be?”  That question's answer is always completely up to you.  What might be fantastic website traffic statistics for a four person personal injury firm in a small town would be a disaster for an IP boutique firm.  There are no easy tables that can tell you what to expect for your website statistics for traffic.

That doesn't mean there's no way to tell whether your website traffic statistics are, overall, good or bad.  But the website you should be comparing yourself against is your own.  Instead of looking at your website statistics on traffic for a particular day or week, look at them on a comparative basis with this time last month or last year.  Do your website traffic statistics seem to be heading in the right direction, or do you seem to have reached a plateau?  If your website statistics on traffic show that your traffic numbers are dropping, you need to do something quick to stop the drop.

How Do I Improve My Website Traffic Statistics?

Once you know that your website statistics for traffic have leveled off, you'll undoubtedly want to get them back on the right track again.  Improving your website traffic statistics starts with reading up.  Read all the articles you can about how ti improve your website statistics for traffic, and keep in mind that any articles that are more than about a year old may not be useful to describe current trends any more.

You may, for instance, want to try improving your website statistics for traffic by using social networking platforms.  Social networks are often great ways to connect with people who can act as brand ambassadors, helping to show your well thought-out content to friends, family, and neighbors.

You can also improve your website statistics for traffic by makings ure that your website displays correctly on mobile browsers.  If it doesn't, you're losing a major piece of the pie: website traffic statistics show that by 2014, more web pages will be downloaded from mobile devices than from desktop computers.

Analyzing Changes To Your Website Traffic Statistics

If your website statistics on traffic have changed significantly in recent weeks or months, you need to look to see what's going on.  If you're experiencing a higher than normal bounce rate, for instance, check to make sure that your website is still correctly displaying in several different browsers.  You should also see where your traffic is coming from—there's a chance that you're accidentally appearing in searches for topics unrelated to your firm's actual business.

You should also investigate what's going on if you have a sudden and unexplained improvement in your website statistics for traffic.  This can help you figure out which of your marketing techniques have been most effective at raising traffic numbers on your site, so that you can plan future campaigns with maximum efficiency.  If a website has been particularly effective at driving traffic to your site through advertising, you know that you may want to advertise more on that site or other websites like it.  If, on the other hand, a paid advertisement has yielded almost no result, it may be time to scrap that particular campaign.

Performing a website traffic check isn't the most glamorous part of internet marketing, but it's also one of the best ways to make sure that the techniques you're using are actually working in the way you intended.  When you check website traffic, you can learn things about your website that would be impossible to tell just from navigating the site itself.  Most of the time, performing a free website traffic check that tells you anything beyond the basic numbers will take copying and pasting a piece of code into your website's HTML.  In this guide, we'll look at why you may want to check website traffic, and some information on what to do with what your website traffic check reveals about your site.

Why Should We Check Website Traffic?

Performing a website traffic check is something that you should consider doing every week to two weeks, but up to half of smaller law firms literally never check their website traffic.  If you haven't done a check of website traffic in longer than three months, you really need to get in there so you can look at what's going on.  Without running a website traffic check at least periodically, you'll have no idea if your website is really bringing in new site visitors, or whether your traffic numbers are being created by unique visitors or just the same people checking the site repeatedly.

Checking website traffic regularly also makes it much easier to experiment with different types of marketing and advertising campaigns.  By watching the differences to traffic to different landing pages (which should be different for each ad, to help you track results), you can determine what phrasings are most effective and what kind of ads seem to get you the most conversions or the most overall clicks.

Performing Your First Website Traffic Check

Even if you haven't yet installed any code on your website to help you do a detailed check of website traffic, you should be able to do a basic traffic check using Alexa or Compete.com.  These sites can not only help you see what your website looks like in terms of traffic, they can also help you compare your traffic numbers to a website of a competitor or a similar website.

Keep in mind that websites like Alexa and Compete.com do have a slight delay in their statistics.  If your website is brand new and most of its pages aren't yet indexed by Google, it's not going to help you much to use Alexa or Compete.com.  However, if you have a well established website, these sites can give you a good idea of where you're starting.

You should also put Google Analytics code onto your website.  This code can ensure that you are able to check more than just the big, raw numbers about who's visiting your site.  By using Google Analytics, you'll also be able to examine the more detailed numbers that are relevant to your website traffic, like bounce rates and how long people read each page on your website.

Why One Website Traffic Check Isn't Enough

If you check website traffic once, it's kind of like taking a single snapshot.  Trying to extrapolate about what's going to happen next or what came before is very difficult when all you have is just one image of one moment in time.  Once you start putting images together, though, you can start to see movement—the more images, the more clear the movement becomes.  That's why you should check website traffic fairly frequently.  By using a tool like Google Analytics, you'll actually have continuous monitoring done, so any time you do a website traffic check you'll be able to monitor smaller increments of time as well.

Getting The Most Out of a Website Traffic Check

In order to really get a feeling for what's going on when you check website traffic, you should take a look at what numbers are available for you.  See how long people tend to spend on each page of your site.  If there are pages that seem to be making people leave, you need to check up on those pages.  They may contain broken links or content that is not really well targeted toward the market most likely to contact your offices.

You should also see whether any particular phrases or keywords are generating the most traffic for your site.  In some cases, it'll be exactly what you expect, but in others, you may find when you check website traffic that you're actually getting a lot of hits from a niche keyword you didn't expect.  Consider making a specific landing page targeting that type of client to better draw them into your law firm's website.

Finding More Sources For Website Traffic

If you check website traffic and are disappointed in what you find, you may want to start bringing in traffic from more diverse sources.  For example, if you're not already active on social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, you should become part of those social networks and then do a website traffic check after you've figured out how to effectively create content and share it on those websites.

You'll also get better results when you check website traffic by making sure that your website is search engine optimized without being spammy or over-optimized.  Search engine optimization means not just doing keyword research and a website traffic check, but also making sure that your hosting is fast and reliable and that the code for your website is optimized effectively.

Outsourcing Your Website Traffic Check

While some companies may offer to do a paid check of website traffic and then give you an analysis, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to do it yourself.  This ensures that you can keep all the data that you mine, rather than leaving it in the hands of some other company.  It also ensures that you are the one keeping up with the latest trends and what those trends are doing for your law firm, rather than a company trying to sell you on a particular method of advertising.

Let's say that you have a new website, and you're in a classic catch-22: you can't get traffic until your PageRank puts you higher into search results, but you can't get a higher PageRank until you have established some web traffic.  One answer to this problem is traffic exchange.  One of the oldest solutions to the problem of “you've got to have traffic to get traffic,” free traffic exchange shouldn't be your only tool for traffic building for your law firm site, but it can be an invaluable addition to your arsenal for kick-starting a website's search engine marketing potential.

Where Traffic Exchange Comes From

Of course, when you want to start using free traffic exchange, you're not the only one.  Other websites have wanted to solve this problem since the early days of the internet, which is where traffic exchange began.  In those days, there were several reasons to do free traffic exchange, but search engine optimization was not even the biggest one—one of the biggest reasons was in order to make sure many eyes were on your website.

Today, traffic exchange is just another SEO technique, and should be implemented alongside other techniques to optimize your website.  It's much more effective if you already have ideas for how to bring in other types of traffic that will be more likely to lead to conversions.

How Free Traffic Exchange Works

When you start using a traffic exchange website, you'll initially have to sign up for an account and start visiting the websites of other users.  Every website that you visit will give your website credits.  These credits mean that other people, in order to gain credits, will go to your site.  In this way, you're essentially trading visits with the other people in your exact same situation.

Different types of traffic exchanges require different ratios.  In general, you'll want to use a traffic exchange that gives you the most site visits per visit you make.  If the ratio is too low, you may find that it's simply not worth it to you to make the site visits in order to build your traffic.

What Can Traffic Exchange Do For My Site?

One of the ways that free traffic exchange can be particularly effective is in getting your website, or other websites your site gets inbound links from, higher in Google's PageRank algorithm.  PageRank is based on the number of visits and links you've received, and Google tends to punish sites whose inbound link ratio is suspiciously high compared to their overall web traffic.  By using free traffic exchange, you make your web presence look less suspicious to Google, ensuring that you can rise in search engine rankings even while using a lot of different techniques to optimize your site.

Traffic exchange can also help your ranking numbers on websites like Alexa.com.  You can greatly improve your reach and visibility by increasing your traffic numbers with free traffic exchange.

What Can't Traffic Exchange Do For My Site?

While free traffic exchange is really useful, it can't take the place of real marketing and advertising campaigns.  It's very unlikely that any of your visitors from a traffic exchange program will actually need your legal services, so until you actually are able to get conversions, the exchange will only actually affect numbers on your website.

Don't expect for free traffic exchange to bring you visits by the thousands or the millions.  Because you have to actually visit the websites of other people, it's very hard to get a great deal of traffic without having several people working on it full time—and with those kinds of expenses, you may be better off just paying for targeted traffic instead of trying to get it for free with a traffic exchange program.

You also can't expect your free traffic exchange program to work once your website is already at a large scale.  If you're a small, new firm, traffic exchange can fill the gaps in your traffic.  However, larger firms are not going to be able to get a significant percentage increase in their traffic, making it so that the bigger your site gets, the less effective you'll find free traffic exchange to be.

How Do I Effectively Use Traffic Exchange?

The best way to use free traffic exchange is to already have an idea when you start using it of what your goals are and how you'll transition away from it.  By the time you've been using a traffic exchange for a few months, you should have some ideas about moving into the social media sphere or some other kind of marketing that is more likely to bring you real, targeted traffic.  Don't make the mistake of thinking that the high numbers of hits you're getting mean much for your overall web presence—you'll see much more meaningful results and many more conversions when you start marketing on social media and doing search engine optimization in combination with free traffic exchange.

You should also make sure that if you start using traffic exchange, you're doing it every day and taper off smoothly.  Google's search algorithms find it suspicious when websites have sudden traffic spikes and sudden lapses—you're much more likely to find yourself high up in search results when you don't make too many sudden moves.

Alternatives to Free Traffic Exchange

If you're tired of getting the high-bounce traffic from traffic exchange programs, you may want to look for alternatives.  For example, one good alternative to free traffic exchange is to purchase targeted website traffic.  This traffic will be based on your desired keywords and is much more likely to lead to actual conversions.  If you're not targeting any of your traffic, it's very likely that you're throwing a lot of your marketing budget away.

You should also consider the free features available from social networking hubs.  These popular websites give you an unprecedented audience for any content that you want to put out onto the internet, and make it easy for your content to go viral and find new audiences all over your area or even around the world.

Attorneys don't just want random traffic coming to their website, most of the time.  Instead of just getting higher traffic numbers, attorneys want targeted traffic.  As few as 1 in 1000 general web users may have a legal issue at any particular time.  This means that you want to get the eyes on your ads who are most likely to be in your target market and most likely to call your offices after reading your website.  Targeted traffic is traffic that is designed to convert, and this guide will teach you everything you need to know to get a targeted traffic strategy started to help market your law firm website.

Targeted Website Traffic: What Is It?

Targeted traffic describes the kind of traffic that for some reason or another is coming from people you view as likely to use your law firm's services.  For example, if you're a Social Security Disability attorney, you may want to get targeted traffic from people who are using websites that offer mobility assistance devices or prosthetics.  If you're an attorney who specializes in tax law, you may want to get targeted website traffic from people who are searching for information on particular tax forms or documents.

Without targeting, legal advertising offers an incredibly low rate of return.  With targeting, you can increase your conversion rate by up to 1000 percent.  Because there are so many different services offering targeted traffic as a paid service, you should do your research before you decide on a specific service to provide you with targeted website traffic.

What Kind of Targeting Do We Need?

In order for you to figure out the best targeted traffic ideas for your firm, you need to think about what your client base is thinking right before they contact you.  What are the kinds of websites that people who use your firm are using when they first have legal trouble?  What kinds of research might they be doing in order to figure out where to find an attorney?  What kinds of sites do people like your clients use for fun?  What do they have in common that would help you reach them?

There's no one right answer that will get the right kind of targeted website traffic to your site.  Often, there are dozens of potential answers that unite some or all of your clients.  Figure out several of those answers, and you can start working on campaigns.  Alternately, you can use a service to get targeted website traffic for your site started today.

Targeted Website Traffic Services

If you need targeted traffic in a hurry, and can't wait around for a long research process, you may want to contact a service that can provide you with targeted website traffic. These services will examine the types of keywords that your website is bringing in with searches, and will also attempt to find other keywords and keyword variants that can bring better targeted traffic to your site.

Not all targeted website traffic services work equally well.  If you plan to get targeted traffic with this kind of service, you should make sure that you have gotten positive reviews on their service from other attorneys specifically.  The legal market is different than other markets, and a targeted website traffic service that works well for other types of businesses may run into trouble when trying to build traffic for a specialty law firm.

Getting Ready For Targeted Website Traffic

Targeted website traffic can mean a lot of new traffic and a lot of conversions in a relatively short time, especially if you're putting a great deal of money into it all at once.  Don't let that money go to waste—make sure that your website is ready to convert your targeted website traffic.  If you're not giving potential clients your best possible, professional looking website, they have no reason to contact you.  Keep in mind that there are a lot of attorneys, and that kind of competition means you should have a website that can already stand out from the crowd before you start working on targeted website traffic building campaigns.

You should also make sure that your web hosting package can handle the additional targeted traffic.  Overages can cost a great deal of money, and in some cases if your hosting provider can't handle the new targeted website traffic you may experience downtime right when you're funneling the most money into marketing.  This is obviously a mistake no law firm wants to make, so make sure that your host knows you're about to bring in more traffic and that your site won't suffer from it.

Monitoring Your Targeted Traffic Results

It's not enough just to buy targeted website traffic.  The only way that you can really know whether your targeted traffic is bringing in money or not is to do an analysis.  Google Analytics and other similar statistics trackers can help you see where your traffic is coming from and which of your advertisements has been most effective.  You'll also see things like your bounce rate (the number of people who leave your website after just a few seconds, or just visiting a single page), which can tell you whether the content of your website needs improvement.

Modifying Your Targeted Website Traffic Plan

If you're not seeing the kind of results that you were promised by your traffic provider, you may want to look for a new advertising program or a new type of targeting.  If a particular demographic target market didn't seem to work, try using a different demographic or doing keyword based advertising instead.  The more creative your targeting is, and the more based in your actual client base, the more effective it will be.
 

6 Lessons for Law Firms from Game of Thrones

What can law firms learn from the bloody fantasy epic, Game of Thrones?  It turns out that the answer is: plenty!  While the real world may be a bit short on dragons and warring kings, the characters in Game of Thrones are acting in ways that professional services firms can get a lot out of.  Read these tips and be glad that the White Walkers will stay far away from your office.

#1: Know Who Really Holds the Power

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in Westeros is to think that power rests solely with the people who have crowns on their heads.  In truth, the economic power often lies somewhere else, and several kings are really led by their advisers rather than coming up with most of their ideas on their own.

In Stannis Baratheon's kingdom, for example, approaching Stannis himself will get you nowhere—you need to be smart enough to approach the priestess Melisandre instead.  In much the same way, law firms that mostly do B2B work should know who the right person is to talk to at the companies you're trying to do business with.  Knowing the power behind the throne is a much more effective route to a new client than just trying to start with the points of contact that everyone else knows about.

#2: Winter is Coming

The Stark family's words are “winter is coming.”  These words are a reminder that hard times are always ahead, and you should always plan for more difficult days.  Many law firms started doing bankruptcy business when times started getting tough in 2007 and 2008.  Some of those firms found that business was so good that they transitioned to doing mostly bankruptcy work.  Now, bankruptcy filings are dropping and continuing a slow slide downward, and those same firms are scrambling for business when they had a boom just recently.

Keep in mind that the economy changes, technology changes, and the state of legal services will continue to change in the years and decades to come.  While it's important to specialize and to try to do business where the business is, you shouldn't ever act like the good times will last forever.  Don't overextend yourself or make the assumption that your current success is guaranteed to last into the future.

#3: Own Your Weaknesses and They Become Strengths

In the first season of Game of Thrones, the dwarf Tyrion Lannister says to the illegitimate Jon Snow: “Never forget what you are.  Others will not.  Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.”  Being honest about who you are and what your weaknesses are will help you to market yourself in a way that will be authentic and effective.

For example, if you're a practitioner who prefers not to go to trial and who would rather negotiate out an agreement, that would be considered a weakness if you market yourself as a litigation firm.  Instead, though, you can choose to market yourself as a negotiation specialist who mediates agreements between parties for people who don't want to go through the expensive and difficult process of going to court.

#4: Make Your Own Destiny

Some of the characters in Game of Thrones make their own destiny, striking out on their own and using their unique talents and strengths in a way that benefits them.  Others allow fate to just take them wherever it may, and these characters very often end up in difficult circumstances or dead.

For example, the two sisters Arya and Sansa have very different outlooks on life.  While Sansa tends to do what is expected of her, even at great personal cost, Arya strikes out on her own and tries to survive on her wits alone.  While Sansa still lives in great material comfort at the palace, she is also at the mercy of everyone there.  Arya, on the other hand, is making her own fortune and has even managed to be a leader herself several times.

In professional services, your marketing shouldn't just follow the crowd and do what you “should” do based on what your competitors have already done.  Try something new and different, something people aren't doing in droves already.  Make your own destiny, and live by your strengths rather than by what is expected of you.

#5: Keep Your Promises—Reputation Matters

This season in Game of Thrones, viewers were shocked when Robb Stark's decision not to wed one of Walder Frey's daughters led to the “Red Wedding,” where Robb, his mother, and his wife were brutally murdered.  The gruesome Red Wedding was a reminder in the most dramatic way of how badly breaking a promise can backfire.

While it's unlikely that your rivals will engage in cold-blooded murder, consider another example of reputation in Westeros.  “A Lannister always pays his debts” is a saying known throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and because of this saying, Lannisters are able to negotiate their way out of problems by promising later payment.  When you have a good reputation, you can bank on it—and that kind of reputation is critically important for attorneys who want to market their services successfully.

#6: Be Careful Who You Trust

“Not trusting me was the smartest thing you did since setting foot in King's Landing,” says Lord Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish to Ned Stark in the show's first season.  One of the biggest things that veteran attorneys say that new attorneys need to know is that it's okay to trust your gut feelings about clients that may not be trustworthy.  Often, attorneys say, these are the clients who can eventually lead to problems when they fail to make needed disclosures or do something that causes more trouble than the case was worth.

When creating a video cast for lawyers, professional video companies tend to mainly let the attorneys make their own decisions about how to portray themselves.  This, unfortunately, leads to a lot of very bad video cast marketing from attorneys.  A good video cast for lawyers can be one of the best marketing tools in your arsenal, boosting conversion rates up to 200 percent.  To do the best video cast marketing possible, keep the following do's and don'ts in mind—they'll help to keep you on track when you're making choices about how to present yourself and your law firm.

DO Put Your Best Face Forward

If there are several attorneys at your firm, consider carefully which of them you want representing you when you make a video cast for lawyers.  If all of your attorneys are equally good at talking to clients and are photogenic, you may want to consider having several different lawyers represented in your video cast marketing.  However, if some of your attorneys work best “behind the scenes,” so to speak, don't make the mistake of making them the face of your firm!

Picking the best representatives of your firm means being receptive to what your clients want.  If you're working in an area that brings in a large number of Spanish-speaking clients, for instance, you may want to make a video cast for lawyers that is in English, and another in Spanish.  Having both men and women represent your firm in video cast marketing makes you look more progressive and more relateable for women clients.

DON'T Make Videos Too Long or Too Short

If you make a video cast for lawyers that is only thirty seconds long, what can you really communicate?  It takes time to get a point across to an audience, and if your video is less than a minute long you won't be able to do very powerful video cast marketing.  At the same time, the number of people willing to tune in for the entire duration of a half hour video is relatively low.  Generally, you should try to keep your video cast for lawyers to approximately 2-7 minutes, with more complicated topics receiving times on the higher end of this scale.

DO Keep Your Audience In Mind

If you're making a video cast for lawyers and expect only other attorneys to watch it, it's fine to use a certain amount of legal jargon.  But if your video cast marketing is primarily consumer focused, you need to make sure to use consumer friendly vocabulary.  If consumers aren't able to understand what you're saying, they'll turn off your video and find another that answers their questions in a way that's easier for them to comprehend.

Try to keep your points simple and well organized.  If you want, you can even put a link to a small page of notes in the description of your video.  This lets people print out the notes and keep them for later perusal.  If you're making a video cast for lawyers, you should make sure not to talk down to them in any way or make them feel like you're addressing consumers.  Try to make sure that you're engaging in a way that speaks well of your professionalism and the professionalism of your firm as a whole.

DON'T Make Your Videos Look Like TV Ads

Does anybody really enjoy watching television ads for lawyers?  No?  Then why would anyone want to watch a video cast for lawyers that looks exactly the same?  Even though video cast marketing is a form of advertising, that doesn't mean it should look just like another boring attorney ad.  Try to make your video cast for lawyers really interesting, in a way that makes people not just want to watch, but also to share with their friends.  When people share your video, it creates viral buzz that can get you new clients from places you never expected.

DO Use Humor In Your Video Cast Marketing

What makes a video cast for lawyers memorable?  Humor is a great strategy, if you use it well.  People don't usually think of attorneys as being particularly funny, but if you have a great sense of humor about your profession you can use it well in your video cast marketing. For example, let's say you're doing a video cast for lawyers that shows some do's and don'ts about how to behave and what to tell a police officer during a traffic stop.  You can make some of the “don'ts” funny or a bit over the top in a way that will make the video more easy to remember for viewers.

Using humor can even be useful when you're talking to other attorneys.  Every year, legal blog Above the Law has a parody video competition for law school students, and that competition makes it so that parody law music videos get searched for on Youtube—and that means yours can go viral if it's funny enough.

DON'T Use Humor Inappropriately

However, there are several ways that using humor can backfire in a video cast for lawyers.  If you're using humor inappropriately—for instance, if you make use of any offensive stereotypes that catch the attention of the web in a negative way—you're going to see a very different result than if you had used humor successfully.  As a professional, you do not want to your firm become known as the firm that went viral for doing something shocking on Youtube.

You don't have to shock to be funny and genuine.  Just plan your material well in advance and make sure that it's actually working first.  Ask people who you know will give you an honest critique before you premier that legal sketch show idea you've been thinking of.  The best comedians are the ones who can revise their material for the better after they realize a joke isn't playing like they'd hoped.
 

85 percent of your link authority can be passed on to other web pages through your links.  Did you know that the higher your Google Page Rank is, the more link juice each of your links will be able to pass on?  Did you also know that there are several strategies that can increase your Google Page Rank substantially, so that you can bring in more advertising revenue?  Keep reading to learn how to increase your Google Page Rank starting today.  You'll find out tips that you can put into action right away, often without a significant increase in advertising spending.

How to Increase Google Page Rank Tip #1: Be Social

Social media is at the forefront of most tips on how to increase Google Page Rank.  There's a reason: it's much easier to increase Google Page Rank using social techniques because it puts your content in front of exactly the people who are most likely to respond to it—people who are local, and often, those who know you in some way personally.

Because your PR value is based primarily on the total number of inbound links you're receiving, you can increase Google Page Rank fastest when you can have people create new links to your site fastest.  People who are already following you on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter are much more likely to generate a new inbound link to your content than random strangers.

How to Increase Google Page Rank Tip #2: Go Viral

The other reason that you can increase Google Page Rank through social media is that social content has a tendency to get passed around.  The first “layer” of your social connections, the people that you actually know and are directly connected to, will show your link to successive layers when they link your content.  If you've made something that people want to link, you can get thousands or even tens of thousands of links from a single piece of viral content.

If you're planning to create viral content, don't go into it without understanding what exactly makes something go viral.  You could end up with a public relations mess on your hands.  The message you're communicating with your viral content is a message that can be broadcast to a huge number of people—potentially even audiences you had no idea would see it.  This means you need to be particularly careful not to create viral content that is potentially offensive or could be perceived as hateful.  If you do, you may increase your Google Page Rank, just not through positive exposure.

How To Increase Google Page Rank Tip #3: Get Faster

Many people don't realize that there's an incredibly simple way to increase Google Page Rank and your search results without ever creating a new inbound link.  The faster your website runs and the lower its latency is when serving up pages, the faster your search engine rankings will go up.  Google Page Rank will only be given to websites that are indexed by Google properly, and if your website has a great deal of downtime, it may take much longer for your pages to be indexed at all.

Having a good hosting solution is critical if you want to learn how to increase Google Page Rank.  You'll have a much harder time trying to increase Google Page Rank if your hosting is unresponsive or has intermittent downtime frequently.

How to Increase Google Page Rank Tip #4: Site Index

If you want to increase the total Google Page Rank of your overall website as well as your individual pages, you'll need to create a working site index.  A site index helps Google, Bing, and other search engines more easily crawl through your directory structure, indexing all of the links and pages you've included as part of your site.  Without a valid site index submitted to search engines, it can take weeks or months to increase your Google Page Rank or even have your pages listed when people make searches.

Creating a site index can be somewhat tricky, so if you don't already have a site index and want to increase your Google Page Rank this way, you may need to ask for help from the same people who coded your website.  This service is often included in packages when you purchase web services from agencies that specialize in search engine marketing.

How to Increase Google Page Rank Tip #5: Quality Content

You'll never succeed in getting a sustained increase in Google Page Rank if you're not committed to producing quality content on a regular basis.  The key to how to increase Google Page Rank today involves having original content—yes, Google will check, and you'll end up with a lower search ranking if they think that you're just repeating content that you found elsewhere.

Quality content can take many forms, but generally you shouldn't just have content that's advertising for yourself.  Remember, building inbound links often means actually giving something away, whether it's a pamphlet on how to start divorce proceedings or a video about what not to do after you get stopped by police.

How to Increase Google Page Rank Tip #6: Press Releases

By creating press releases to talk about your latest victories or some new aspect of your website, you can frame the discussion that goes on about your site.  This is a great way to increase Google Page Rank, because you'll be able to build links on both press release websites and potentially in the local media near you.

How to Increase Google Page Rank Tip #7: Blogging

Attorneys in just about any area of practice can blog in order to increase their Google Page Rank.  There's a reason that this gets included in just about any list of tips on how to increase Google Page Rank for lawyers: blogging works!  Not only can you get links by putting your blog entries into the social media stream, but you can also use your blog to connect with other lawyers who can provide you valuable referrals now and into the future.

Online brand marketing presents a challenge for any law firm, but in 2012 it's been tougher than ever to get a brand marketing strategy that works.  Online brand marketing was changed significantly in 2012, due to changes in Google's search algorithm that affected nearly 1 in 5 searches.  Developing a brand marketing strategy for 2013 will require you to understand the changes that have already taken place and the trends that are affecting how search will be handled in the future.  Keep reading to find out what changes are having the biggest impact on law firms, and how to keep up with these changes in your online brand marketing efforts.

Changes in 2012: Search Algorithm Changes

Some of the biggest changes to the brand marketing strategy world happened when Google rolled out two sets of changes to their search engine in a period of just over six months.  The first of these changes, Panda, was rolled out in late 2011—but businesses really didn't understand the implications for online brand marketing for several months.  Panda changed the way that Google assigned “link juice” from certain types of websites, mostly those that would publish any kind of content that was submitted to them.

This kind of low quality content was seen as detrimental to search results, so links from these sites no longer counted toward inbound linking totals for websites.  Online brand marketing was made a great deal harder for law firms that could no longer use search engine optimization through these article spinner services as a primary brand marketing strategy.

The second of the changes was codenamed Penguin, and it was designed to eliminate over-optimized sites from the first several pages of results.  Since most legal clients will only see the first page of results, that could be a death knell for some websites.  Brand marketing strategy changed significantly when low quality inbound linking and inbound linking with suspicious and automated patterns could be easily detected.  Google “sandboxed” these sites, a term for when web pages are penalized in search results for the content they contain.

Changes in 2012: The Explosive Growth of Social

A few years ago, a lot of people felt that social networks were to be a brief-lived fad.  Today, most of that attitude has collapsed, as Facebook use continued its upward swing and other services like Twitter and Foursquare have seen extensive growth throughout the year.  There's no reason to ignore social media today in your brand marketing strategy.  In fact, your firm may be able to do much more in social media on a tight budget than you can with other forms of online brand marketing.

That doesn't mean that you should just get a profile on a social media site or two and leave it for weeks or months at a time.  Consistent updates that show your personality as a firm are important to show that you're actually invested in making social networking connections.  You should be posting updates that are of general interest to the kinds of audiences you might have on the sites, not just whatever links interest you personally.

Changes in 2012: The Continued Rise of Video Advertising

The cost of video advertising has been decreasing, and that has led to an explosive growth in the number of videos on popular video uploading services like Youtube.  Consider having a professional online video production company help you implement your online brand marketing with video.  Video should now be a part of any law firm's brand marketing strategy—it's the type of marketing that is most likely to be viewed by new clients.

You should make sure to review some articles about how to best use Youtube as a lawyer.  Strategies that may work for other businesses can seem unprofessional when a law firm does it, so make sure that you're not harming the reputation of your firm with the videos you create in the hopes of making the next viral hit.

Changes in 2012: Improved Location Targeting

One of the other biggest changes 2012 has seen for online brand marketing is the increase in location based services.  Location based marketing helps you to craft a brand marketing strategy that targets the exact clients who are most likely to be able to take advantage of your services.  For example, Foursquare now lets you target your online brand marketing to people who are inside a boundary on a map that you draw yourself for maximum effectiveness.  This puts you in control to a degree never before seen in brand marketing strategy.

Expected Trends For 2013

There are already some glimmers of what might lie ahead for 2013.  One of the biggest reasons that you should change your brand marketing strategy for 2013 is that the biggest search engines have now started developing large scale projects that put human raters in charge of rating pages for particular searches.  This means that the best way to get ahead in searches now is to emphasize in your pages the kind of information that actual people would be most likely to use—to build the relevance and authority of your website and keep high quality standards for all of your content.

Keeping Up With Brand Marketing Strategy for 2013

While 2013 progresses, it's likely that we'll see a broad variety of changes to search engines and the way that online brand marketing works.  Brand marketing strategy is a continuously evolving field, which means that you should always try to look at relatively recent articles about online brand marketing before developing a strategy of your own.

Whatever you do, the worst possible thing in today's market is to be generic.  People no longer respond to the kinds of attorney advertising that were the stock of the trade twenty years ago.  Adjust your strategy so that you're actually using what works in the 21st century, not the 20th.  The sooner you do, the sooner you'll start seeing business come in from the 90% of customers who shop for lawyers online.

It's official: after Google Penguin punished over 5 percent of websites for using so-called “black hat” techniques for building links, not all backlinks are equal.  Today, a website that uses exclusively low page rank backlinks will not be able to compete—it will quickly be considered spam by Google and will stay very low in search rankings no matter how many links are built to it.  Because of this, high page rank backlinks are more valuable than ever.  If you want to get higher page rank backlinks than you're currently getting, this list will help you find new sources.

#1 Source for High Page Rank Backlinks: Twitter

In recent studies, Twitter posts were shown to be some of the most effective high page rank backlinks at creating traffic for websites and raising them in the search rankings.  If you don't already have a firm-wide Twitter account, you should get one today—it's quick and easy.  Before you start building higher page rank backlinks using Twitter, though, you'll need to understand how the site works.

Essentially, you'll only get a very small amount of Twitter's value if you don't follow other people, get followed, and become part of conversations.  If you're very much involved in Twitter, you are likely to get a large number of high page rank backlinks.  Don't try to just spam people with advertisements—you're much more likely to get higher page rank backlinks and more re-tweets when you post links or comments that are genuinely compelling to your followers.

#2 Source for High Page Rank Backlinks: Youtube

Law firms that use video on their websites see conversion rates that are up to 100% higher than websites that rely only on text and static images.  Youtube is a great way to have your videos hosted completely for free, and will be a great source of higher Page Rank backlinks for your website.  In the description of your video, you can include high page rank backlinks for your website.

Youtube videos should ideally be longer than a minute but shorter than five minutes.  This length seems to be the ideal length to capture viewers and get higher search rankings in Youtube's own internal searches.  These high page rank backlinks from Youtube can be a great way to balance out lower page rank backlinks from other sources, so that you don't run the risk of being penalized by Google for using artificial links.

#3 Source for High Page Rank Backlinks: Facebook

The largest resource for B2C social media, Facebook is a resource that more lawyers should be exploiting.  You can build higher page rank backlinks more rapidly using Facebook than almost any other service.  Also keep in mind that your Facebook high page rank backlinks can actually be shared through several layers of people.  This means that even if you only have 100 or so “fans” on Facebook, really terrific content could be viewed by thousands or tens of thousands of web viewers.

#4 Source for High Page Rank Backlinks: StumbleUpon

This website works by finding new websites that users are likely to enjoy based on their interests and other favorite websites.  If you have created some content that is interesting either to potential clients or to other attorneys, you may want to post the content on a web page, then submit the web page to StumbleUpon.  This is a great way to let people see your link who aren't from your social circles—something much more difficult to accomplish with many other kinds of social media.

#5 Source for High Page Rank Backlinks: Reddit

Reddit is one of the internet's biggest social bookmarking websites.  You can get higher page rank backlinks on this website when your link receives a large number of “upvotes” from the community.  In order to get upvotes and your high page rank backlinks, you'll need to post content in the right subcategories, or subreddits.  Posting to the wrong subcategories can get your posts deleted.

Keep in mind that if your link does rise to the front page of Reddit, you'll have very high page rank backlinks—but it'll also put a big load on your web servers.  Make sure that you have the ability to handle traffic before trying to get higher page rank backlinks on Reddit or any other social bookmarking website.  It won't help your reputation when people try to click on your website and are given an error message instead of the content they're looking for.

#6 Source for High Page Rank Backlinks: Digg

Much like reddit (in fact, Reddit was originally a Digg offshoot), today this website is waning in popularity but can still be a good place to include your high page rank backlinks.  You'll also need to get community approval for the link to become popular on Digg.  Boring content, or content that is very clearly an advertisement, will be either deleted or simply ignored by community members.

#7 Source for High Page Rank Backlinks: Slashdot

This website is really only a resource for attorneys working in tech oriented fields.  However, if you're interested in talking about a legal issue in the intellectual property world, Slashdot can be a great place to get started.  Slashdot has been around for a long time and has a dedicated audience of very influential tech people, so having your link seen here will often generate many higher page rank backlinks.

#8 Source for High Page Rank Backlinks: Tumblr

One source that can give really fast results—but one that most attorneys have to date completely ignored—is Tumblr.  This is a blogging system that combines many of the best attributes of a blog hosted by WordPress or Blogger with many of the social features and easy sharing that make it so simple to build higher page rank backlinks through Facebook or Twitter.

Most of the time, tumblr blogs are set up for very specific niches.  Unlike most other types of blogs, they also have a tendency to be intentionally temporary—many of them last for only a few months of active updates.