If you're trying to increase your visibility on Google and other search engines, you probably already know that link building is one of the fastest routes to search engine success.  In recent studies, though, 75 percent of marketers said that link building is either very difficult or somewhat difficult.  If you've been having any difficulty with finding an affordable link building strategy, you're in the right place.  Keep reading this guide for information about affordable link building, including why cheap link building services may sometimes have hidden costs you never thought about before.

Affordable Link Building: You Get What You Give

In the early days of computing, there was a popular acronym, GIGO, which stood for “garbage in, garbage out.”  It meant that if the code you were programming was simply no good, or your data was bad, you wouldn't get the results you were hoping for.  In the same way, affordable link building strategies are garbage in, garbage out: if you're not putting in any effort, odds are that you won't be very successful.

This is probably the biggest of the reasons that affordable link building (and cheap link building services) can be hard to come by.  Remember, if there was one easy solution, everyone would use it—and if everyone used it, it would no longer be useful.  In order to do affordable link building, you can't just do what everyone else is doing.

Instead of looking to cheap link building services as a guide for what to do, find free guides to affordable link building online, like this one.  You'll get more unbiased information that isn't about selling you on a particular service for affordable link building.

How to Do Affordable Link Building in an Hour a Day

Small law firms and solo practitioners often just don't have enough time to do a lot of different marketing activities.  By just focusing on affordable link building for an hour a day, you can avoid having to hire cheap link building services.

Your hour should mostly be devoted to answering questions around the web or pitching some aspect of your or your law firm's expertise to people who may be able to interview you for a blog, a podcast, or even a radio or television show.  While you won't get as many links this way, the links you do get will be from quality sources and will usually be regarded as significantly higher quality than the links you build with cheap link building services.

Of that hour, consider spending about half of it not writing your own blogs or even pitching for new inbound links, but actually looking for new blogs, podcasts, and so on that might create linking opportunities later.  Then, you'll be able to spend the remaining half hour sending a few quick pitch emails to potential linkers all over the web.  Most cheap link building services won't do this kind of quality affordable link building.

Not All Affordable Link Building is Reputable

A great many cheap link building services cut a lot of corners when they're trying to make link building quick and affordable.  Instead of really creating quality links from quality websites, many of these services just use reciprocal links that won't get you the same kind of results from search engines.

Cheap link building services also tend to use older forms of search engine link building, like article spinning services that post your article in many places simultaneously.  While this may seem like a good strategy for affordable link building, search engine indexers know what this kind of marketing looks like.  You can actually drop in the rankings if the cheap link building services you hire do this.  Avoid any article marketing services like the plague, because 2012 and 2013 Google ranking algorithms just aren't fooled.

Not All Affordable Link Building is Ethical

When you hire cheap link building services, you'll also want to avoid any practices that have been characterized as unethical by your state bar association.  For example, if you're using affordable link building strategies that involve making it look like someone is going to a competitor's website or finding out information about a competitor, when in reality they're being directed to your site, this could be a significant ethical issue.

The internet has definitely created some new grey areas in advertising for attorneys, so it's always best to check with your bar association before deciding to use cheap link building services.  Affordable link building could be very costly indeed if it causes your reputation to suffer needlessly.

Can Cheap Link Building Services Be Useful?

In some cases, it's possible to get the kind of affordable link building you want by outsourcing.  While many cheap link building services are using outdated techniques, there are still some that are building reputations affordably.

In order to learn whether a service is useful, you'll need to ask a lot of questions about their methodology.  Cheap link building services that rely on links that will be seen rarely, if ever, aren't really helping you very much.  If, on the other hand, they help you to find new places to guest blog or can place relevant links in directories, that can be quite helpful to your affordable link building efforts.

When in doubt, ask for results: cheap link building services should be happy to provide you with real data and case studies illustrating the effectiveness of their methods.  Make sure these case studies are relatively recent before relying upon them.

Analyzing the Results of Your Affordable Link Building Campaigns

The effectiveness of a particular campaign style is impossible to predict with complete accuracy.  You, or the cheap link building services you've hired, will have to analyze whether or not the campaign you've established is working according to plan or whether it needs alterations.

What defines “success” in your link building venture is completely up to you.  In some cases, your firm may just want to increase brand awareness, while in others you may need new business and will base your metrics completely on key performance indicators relating to new client conversion.

If you've been paying attention to recent Google updates, you'll know that link building strategies have changed for good.  Now that Google bases much of its weighting for inbound links on whether those links are from good quality web pages, you may be considering your options.  Whether it's hiring an effective link building service or doing it yourself, 2012 and 2013 offer a huge range of choices for law firms that want to engage in quality link building.  Keep reading to learn more about those choices and whether your firm is link building aggressively enough for the current market.

Why Links Aren't All the Same

Not so long ago—in fact, as recently as the beginning of 2011—Google didn't take quality into account when looking at your backlinks.  The more backlinks you had, the better your search engine results would be, even if those backlinks were from very low-quality websites.  

The problem with indexing search results in this way is that the system was rewarding people for making the web look and work worse.  Any marketing company could become an effective link building service at that time, because it didn't take much: all you needed was to spam copies of articles and links on as many pages as possible.  It wasn't quality link building, but it did the job.

Why Google Penguin and Panda are Good For Lawyers

If your marketing practices are ethical, there's no reason that you should be afraid of the new Google updates, Penguin and Panda, that changed how links are weighted.  Instead, law firms ought to generally be pleased with how these updates have worked.  They mean that if one of your competitors is spamming instead of using quality link building, they won't appear near the top of search engine results.

While some link building services with low quality links are still hanging around, it's now much easier to find an effective link building service that is focused more on helping you with directory listings, networking with peers, and getting your voice heard by social bookmarking sites.  All of these things are possible to do with quality link building, and none of them require any kind of spam methods to make them work.

Are Paid or Reciprocal Links Quality Link Building?

Google's webmaster guidelines, which govern all websites indexed by Google, explicitly prohibit webmasters from paying for links.  Paid linking is actually a reportable offense, and if someone (like one of your competitors) figures out you're doing it, you could be busted and see your pages de-indexed.  

Excess reciprocal links are also frowned upon by Google's search engine robots.  Why?  Because it's simply too easy to do this kind of quid pro quo with another person online, all without even really knowing (or caring) what the content actually looks like.  

While it's certainly fine to link to some websites that also link you back, this should generally be limited.  You should only engage in reciprocal linking when your firm has a genuine connection with another person or company's website, not just because they said they'd give you a link back in exchange.

Signs That Your Existing Links Are Low Quality

Unfortunately, if you hired what you thought was an effective link building service even just last year, you may have found your SERPs dropping precipitously after Penguin or Panda came out.  If this happened to you, that's one of the best signs that you've done low quality link building.  An effective link building service can help you turn this problem around, even if your pages have plummeted in the search results.

Another indication that you may have low quality link building is if your links were very, very easy to come by.  Quality link building takes time and consideration—you simply can't do it effectively when you're trying to build hundreds or thousands of links in just a few weeks.

Quality Link Building: Easier Than You Think

The fact that no effective link building service can do your link building overnight may seem like a disappointment.  However, even if you're working on getting backlink traffic without any help from a service, it's possible to do quality link building.

Some of the easiest link building you can do that is still considered legitimate involves directory listings.  While some directories (typically those that accept literally any website) are considered low quality link building, many are high-quality websites in their own right.  For example, you should try to be listed on DMOZ, as well as avvo.com and your state bar association's website (if it offers backlinks to firm websites).

If you already spend time on social bookmarking websites and already know the lay of the land on one or more of these sites, you can do quality link building there.  Similarly, even if you don't already have a blog, you may want to ask someone who runs a popular blog whether you can do a Q&A session or a guest blog entry.  If you're lucky (and good), these kinds of posts can even end up shared repeatedly in social media feeds all over the web.

Hiring an Effective Link Building Service

Today, finding the right link building service can be tricky.  Because the recent Google updates are so new, many of these services are scrambling to find new strategies that work.  Usually, the most effective link building service will be one that didn't have to scramble, because it was already dedicated to building quality, reputation-enhancing links rather than creating spam.

An effective link building service can help you to get the best inbound links possible by looking at who you're connected to and how.  What's more, because there are so many different kinds of link building activity to engage in, you can augment these efforts with your blogging or social media updates without overlapping.  An effective link building service will look at what you're already doing well and where you could stand to gain the most with the least additional work.
 

Search engine optimization today requires a lot more than just using good keywords.  With Google Penguin affecting one in six websites, now is the time to learn about best practices for link building SEO today.  Law firms face unique challenges when it comes to SEO link building, because of the nature of their business and because attorneys have historically been very competitive for search engine results pages.  By the end of this guide, you'll have a better handle on how you can use link building SEO to cement your online reputation and leave your competition back in the 20th century.

How Is SEO Link Building Changing?

Today's link building SEO doesn't look like the strategies employed just a few years ago.  The reason?  Panda and Penguin.  What may sound like two lovable zoo critters are actually changes to the way that Google ranks search engine results.  Both of these updates were designed to stop types of SEO link building that Google felt was leading to some users receiving spammy or irrelevant search results.

Many of these irrelevant results were caused by link building SEO services that worked by spamming links and content over and over.  This content decreased the overall quality of Google's search results, and made it tougher for search users to find the kinds of content that they wanted within the first few pages of results.

As a consequence of these new algorithms, SEO link building now works differently.  Instead of just doing link building SEO by accumulating a very large quantity of links, the focus today is on building links that come from quality websites.  These changes are likely not complete.  Even today, some search results still appear that use article marketing spam services to repeat content.  However, as the algorithms at Google keep improving, it's likely that this SEO link building strategy is on its way out.

What Still Matters in SEO Link Building?

Stop thinking about link building SEO as an attempt to maximize the number of locations where your website is linked.  Instead, SEO link building today should be an attempt to maximize the number of quality links you're receiving from quality websites.

What makes a website high quality?  Several things.  First of all, high quality websites are linked to often, by a wide variety of other sources.  Second, high quality sites tend to carry a great deal of original content written by professionals.  The more you can get your links to appear on these types of sites, the more productive your link building SEO efforts will be.

Google bases some part of its link quality rankings on how many other links are on the website.  If there are two links to your website on a high quality webpage that only has 400 other links on the whole website, this counts for more than if you had two links on a webpage with over a million links.

What SEO Link Building Techniques Don't Work Today?

While some link building SEO techniques are quite ethical and can make your reputation improve by leaps and bounds, other techniques will cause clients to go to other attorneys.  For example, some attorneys have tried SEO link building by posting links to their blog on other law blogs which may or may not be related.  While this kind of link building SEO may seem like a good idea initially, it's likely to be deleted by the blog's owner unless your response actually contains real quality content, not just a generic message and a link to your website.

You won't be able to do SEO link building by using article spinner services any more, either, or press release websites.  These services have largely been disregarded by Google's new search algorithms, because too many people were abusing link building SEO by posting this kind of content.  

SEO Link Building With Law Blogs

One way that you can do legitimate link building SEO is by building a blog.  In addition to bringing you new clients directly (as over 50 percent of attorneys with blogs report that they do), blogs can help you get inbound links to your website.  

Not only will other people repost entries from your blog on their blogs, or link them from their social media feeds, but they may also invite you to do a guest blogging stint.  Guest blogging is a terrific way to get inbound links back to your firm's website, especially if you're guest blogging on a very popular blog.

SEO Link Building With Youtube

In addition to blogging, you can also create videos, upload them to Youtube, and make sure that their descriptions include a link back to your website.  This form of link building SEO is totally ethical, as long as the content you're posting has something to do with your legal practice, and firms that are using video as part of their marketing strategy often see their conversion rates double or even triple.

What's more, Youtube videos are more likely to be viewed by mobile customers, who are more likely to convert than their desktop using counterparts.  Youtube SEO link building is a strategy that should be in every law firm's arsenal for 2012 and 2013.

SEO Link Building With Social Bookmarking Sites

When people are looking for something new to read online, they often turn to social bookmarking websites, which crowdsource the newest content and allow users to decide which types of content should appear most prominently.  Sites like reddit.com and digg.com are currently huge players in the social bookmarking world, and using these sites before other attorneys in your area do can help you stay relevant in a fast-changing online universe.

Whenever you post to a social bookmarking site, the quality of your content is absolutely critical.  The users of these sites will almost always reject anything that looks like advertising (unless it's outrageously clever or very, very innovative—think the kind of advertising that wins national awards).  You need to provide some good information to be able to compete with the other links that are already being posted to these websites.

If your law firm could use more clients (and what firm couldn't?), the answer you can expect to hear from many marketers is “find your niche.”  Instead of competing with tens of thousands of attorneys working in a broad legal practice area, you can become an expert with a particular type of case or client.  Keep reading this guide to explore how the right niche market idea can change your law firm, and for some fast niche market ideas based on your own strengths.

How to Create Niche Market Ideas: The “Double Narrow” Technique

Often, attorneys seeking out a niche market idea initially just can't narrow down their ideas enough.  It's time to stop thinking about the law in terms that your bar association or law school might have thought of.  Instead of thinking about a huge, broad topic—like “personal injury law”—think of some specific facet of personal injury law that has held an interest for you and that you have excelled at.

Got it?  Great.  Now narrow it even further for better niche market ideas.  Personal injury attorneys are a dime a dozen, even car accident attorneys are kind of a snooze, but what if you become a specialist in car versus train accidents?  This is a “double narrow” niche market idea: it is narrowed twice from the broad legal field it occupies.

You can do the same kind of “double narrowing” in any legal field to generate niche market ideas that work.  Patent attorneys, because their work is already so specialized, often need a double or even triple narrow niche market idea to excel.  The more that you narrow your parameters, the more expertise you can obtain in that niche field, so try to be inventive with your niche market ideas.

Find Niche Market Ideas in Your Existing Clients

Of course, no niche market idea will be successful if it goes against your personality or your existing client base.  One of the best ways to get a great niche market idea is to think about the clients you already have, especially the clients who bring the most value to your firm.  What do those clients have in common?

Sometimes, what clients will have in common is a particular type of legal problem.  This means that you should be gearing your niche market ideas towards specializing in those legal problems.  However, maybe that's not what your clients have in common.  Maybe what they have in common is that they all work for a particular industry or employer, or maybe you're best with clients who are over age 60.  Whatever it is, the right niche market idea for you can come from these thought experiments.

Use the Demographics of Your Community

In the current economy, many newly minted  attorneys are attempting to find niche market ideas even before they've had their first client.  If you don't yet have a client base to help you form a great niche market idea, all hope isn't lost: you can still come up with ideas by looking at the people in your community and where their unmet needs are.

Odds are that your community has some demographics that are significantly different than other places in your area.  Once you find out what those demographic differences are, you can begin to work on niche market ideas that target those specific demographics.  Let's say you live in a town with a heavy military population due to a local base.  Instead of just specializing in family law, you may want to narrow your niche market idea to military divorce law or military child custody cases.

Put Your Non-Law Knowledge To Work

In many cases, the best niche market ideas for attorneys come from thinking about communities, not dry legal topics.  For example, if you're an attorney who speaks a foreign language fluently or nearly fluently, you may want to consider a niche market idea that would put you into a neighborhood of people who primarily speak that language.

Similarly, if you have a child who is receiving special education services and you've had to duke it out with schools over accommodation plans, you may turn into a great specialist if you focus on a niche market idea for a special education boutique firm.

Advertising Your New Niche Market

Of course, the best advantage of developing a niche market idea is that it's much cheaper and more effective to advertise to smaller markets.  Once you've narrowed down your niche market ideas and decided on the one that is right for your firm, you can start thinking about your advertising options.

Not every niche market idea will require the same kind of ad campaign.  For instance, if your client base is made up primarily of people who are senior citizens, you probably won't want to focus as much of your advertising strategy on online marketing but will want to maintain a presence in magazines targeted toward your local senior population.

When you use keyword advertising for your new niche market idea, you'll be able to use “long tail” keywords—long, sentence-like keywords that are narrower the longer they get, like “tampa truck accident attorney.”  These long-tail keywords are often substantially cheaper to market than more generalized keywords, so you'll be able to save money right away with niche marketing online.

What If Your Niche Doesn't Work?

There are a few reasons that your niche marketing idea may end up dead in the water.  If you're not really an expert at the area of law you're trying to practice, many clients may see through the ruse and ignore your firm.  Also, if your niche is poorly targeted toward your community, you won't reap the benefits of niche marketing.  A rural area in Arkansas probably doesn't need an IP attorney specializing in copyright infringement, and you won't get a lot of work if you're advertising a farm accident niche in an urban region.

If you're convinced that your niche really isn't working and that you won't change that fact any time soon, consider changing your niche.  There are so many great niche market ideas out there that there's no reason to stick with one that isn't working after you've given it a try.

For a long time, Google and Twitter have had some problems with each other.  Twitter, in 2011, accused Google of deliberately quashing some social media search results in favor of Google's own Google+ social networking platform.  In turn, Google said that Twitter had made itself extremely unfriendly for search engine optimization in many ways.  As of October 2012, that has changed.  With the new Twitter profile directories on the website, you can now actually search for any profile you want.  This guide will help to familiarize you with the new Twitter profile directory system so that you can start using Twitter profile directories as part of your law firm's search engine optimization strategy.

What Does the Twitter Profile Directory Show?

Currently, Twitter is working on getting all of its profiles listed in the Twitter profile directories on the website.  It can be relatively difficult to crawl all of the profiles to create the Twitter profile directory, so the directory system itself should be considered a work in progress, at least in the beginning while it continues to populate with profiles.

Twitter profile directories are listed in alphabetical order both by account name and the “real name” listed on the account.  Currently, the Twitter profile directory includes millions of entries, and will include millions more by the time it is finished indexing.

While Twitter said that it would only include public accounts in Twitter profile directories, so far that has not seemed to be the case.  Many writers online have noticed that there are many entries for protected profiles in the Twitter profile directory, but if you attempt to click on any of these accounts you still won't be able to see the content that is being posted to them.

Why Did Twitter Want a Profile Directory?

It was very important for the website to create Twitter profile directories because Twitter had started having some problems with Google and other search engines.  The reason for the problem?  Without some kind of indexing structure or a Twitter profile directory, it was very difficult for search engines to help people find the Twitter accounts most relevant to their search results.  Because Twitter has a very high Page Rank and popularity level, just adding Twitter profile directories has helped Twitter results climb even higher in Google search engine rankings.

It's likely that it will still take some time for Google to fully catch up with the new Twitter profile directory structure.  Bing is taking even longer—a full week after Twitter announced the new Twitter profile directories, Bing had only indexed one page from the results.

Even though the Twitter profile directory is a bit late on the scene, it's better late than never for the social media giant.

How Can I Use the Twitter Profile Directory for Search?

Let's say that you want to find some other profiles for users on Twitter you know.  You might think that Twitter profile directories would make this task a great deal easier.  However, the Twitter profile directory actually only gives browsable results, rather than allowing for individual users to search.  Why?  Because adding its own search capacity would be a huge burden to Twitter's servers and would make the website much more likely to go down because of too much traffic.

However, Google can do much of the heavy lifting of search instead of Twitter.  Because people's Twitter names appear next to their profiles in the new directory, you can now actually use a search query on Google to look for Twitter profiles: “site:twitter.com/i/directory/profiles” followed by your search term.  This will restrict your search results to profiles found on public Twitter profile directories.

How Do I Get New Followers with the Twitter Profile Directory?

Twitter profile directories mean that it's more important than ever to have your firm's name listed as the official name on your Twitter account.  Too often, businesses try to get clever with their naming, but your firm name and a very brief description will make it easier for people to do a search of the Twitter profile directory and find your firm.

Part of the way that Twitter profile directories work to help you get new followers is simply by making Twitter more popular with Google.  Having user directories and a more easily indexed site means that Google will now rank Twitter results even higher than it currently does.

Which Search Engines Have Indexed the Twitter Profile Directory?

The truth is that Twitter profile directories are actually so new that no search engine has yet successfully indexed every page of results.  However, the search engine that has done by far the most indexing of Twitter profile directory pages is Google.  Both Bing and Yahoo, as well as the search engines with less market share than the “big three,” are running quite a bit behind in the race to index the entire profile directory system for Twitter.

At last count, Google had indexed over 500,000 results through the Twitter profile directory.  If you want to find any Twitter profiles through a search engine, it appears that Google will be your safest bet for the foreseeable future.

What Does the Future Hold for the Twitter Profile Directory?

As Twitter profile directories become more accepted by search engines, you can expect your Twitter links to be worth even more.  What this means is that you should try to emphasize inbound links coming in from Twitter in order to make your search engine optimization efforts more successful.

It's possible that at some point in the future, the Twitter profile directory will become user searchable, rather than just making itself available for indexing by search engines.  If this is the case, expect for there to be some growing pains while Twitter gets used to the search traffic and makes it easier to search for profiles that belong to people you'd be interested in following or having follow you.

Hiring an SEO link building service can seem like a good idea for law firms trying to stand out on today's internet, where over 2/3 of U.S. legal clients look up attorneys online.  However, SEO link building services aren't for everybody, and if you're not careful, you could get in trouble with your bar association for unethical advertising techniques.  In this guide, we'll take a closer look at what sets a good SEO link building service apart from a bad one, and how to decide whether you need these services at all.

Reasons to Use an SEO Link Building Service

SEO link building services have exploded onto the scene in recent years to solve a problem.  It doesn't help to have a website if no one knows how to get there.  The vast majority of internet users simply click on one of the first few results for their search, rather than doing extensive research over dozens or hundreds of pages.  If your law firm appears too late in the search results pertaining to your legal field, you'll have to pay for advertising to increase your website's visibility.

However, paid strategies have weaknesses.  Many people don't read contextual sidebar ads, the type that attorneys are most likely to use.  Instead, people prefer to use the “organic” search results—the non-ads.  Today, search engine optimization to get to the top of the search heap involves a great deal of link building.  This means you'll need to get your website linked by other websites.

But what if you don't know a lot of owners of other websites or blogs?  How can you do the link building you need to get the search engine results you're looking for?  SEO link building services are staffed by experts who can help you understand several different link building strategies and make a good decision about which one to pursue.

When you use an SEO link building service, you won't have to learn much about SEO or link building yourself.  SEO link building services can be crucial to the success of some small firms where no one is able to take on additional web work.  Instead of hiring a full time staff member for your link building, hiring an SEO link building service helps you save money.

Reasons to Avoid SEO Link Building Services

Even though it may sound like hiring an SEO link building service is win-win, this is only true for certain services.  Some SEO link building services can actually harm your online reputation by associating your website with spammers or worse.  If you aren't good at vetting online services, you may want to avoid looking for an SEO link building service unless one has been recommended by another lawyer you trust.

You may also want to avoid SEO link building services if you're trying to keep tight control over your content and how it is used.  Some services tend to post your content on many different web pages, which is often of limited use.

There's also the fact that today, no SEO link building service has really figured out exactly what Google's looking for when it comes to website quality.  Google's own answers are vague, and SEO link building services are generally having to simply use their best guesses.  While it's possible that an SEO link building service in 2012 can help you build your business, it's also possible that you'll throw money at the problem without seeing a solution.

Finding the Best SEO Link Building Services

Your best chance of making a profit by using an SEO link building service is if you can find one that has already been recommended by other attorneys.  SEO link building services that haven't yet tried optimizing websites for law firms should be avoided at all costs.

You'll also want to get a handle on some basic new trends and SEO concepts, as well as which concepts are considered outdated (like press release submissions).  Any time an SEO link building service uses out of date strategies, it will come straight out of your bottom line.

While the most expensive SEO link building services aren't necessarily the best, the cheapest are unlikely to be worth using at all.  A cheap SEO link building service may build your links by posting them in irrelevant places or with misleading blurbs.  This is sloppy, and should never be part of the SEO link building strategy for a law firm or any other group of professionals.

Alternatives to SEO Link Building Services

You don't necessarily need to hire a high priced SEO link building service to improve where your website shows up in search results.  Instead, consider doing your own link building by building a quality blog.  There's really no substitute for the creation of your own, high-quality content that really matters to the kinds of clients your law firm brings in.

You can also direct your link building attention toward social media websites.  Social media search engine optimization can be a much better way to have your content “go viral” and increase the visibility of your website than SEO link building services.  Websites like LinkedIn and Facebook make it easier to share links than ever before.

Monitoring the Progress of Your SEO Link Building Service

SEO link building services will generally be of use for your mid to long term marketing strategy.  In the short term, it's unlikely that an SEO link building service will be very helpful—Google's indexers will take time to notice the increasing quality of your website and the number of inbound links you're receiving.

Just because it takes time, however, doesn't mean that your SEO link building services can make you wait forever for results.  No matter what, you should be able to see a difference to your bottom line after six months.  If you don't, your service may not be using the best techniques, or you may be having conversion issues that are preventing you from making the most of your new higher search results.

If you're at all invested in getting new clients through search, you need to work on your SEO page rank.  Studies show that today's internet users will only click through to the second page of search results one time in every ten.  This means that you need your SEO page ranking to be on the front page for as many high value and niche keywords as possible.  Actually bringing up your SEO page rank has gotten harder and harder, as Google has cracked down on some of the easiest ways of bringing web pages into the front page of search results fast.  In this guide, you'll learn how SEO page ranking is determined and how you can bring your search engine rankings up as fast as possible without making anyone at Google suspect you of artificial link building.

What is an SEO Page Rank?

The term “page rank” can refer to many different things.  In this guide, we'll use SEO page ranking to refer to the actual ranking that your web pages are able to achieve in search results.  In some cases, you may see SEO page rank used to refer to Google's PageRank system.  When this is the case, the P and R in Page Rank will usually be capitalized.

The SEO page ranking of your website depends on many different factors.  One of those factors, which used to be much more important but has gradually lost much of its relevance as time has gone on, is keyword density.  Typically you will want for your web copy to have a keyword density of between .5% and 1.5% in order to maximize your SEO page rank for that keyword.

More important than keyword density to SEO page ranking today is the number and quality of your inbound links.  Every inbound link made to your web page will give a small amount of its “link juice” to that page, and the page in turn can pass about 85 percent of that link juice on to other web pages on your site.  

How Is My SEO Page Ranking Calculated?

It would be great if this was the spot in the guide where we could give you a handy SEO page rank formula, complete with several variables and coefficients, so that you could maximize your SEO page ranking in a mathematically rigorous way.  Unfortunately, that's not possible—the details of the Google algorithms that create SEO page rank are incredibly secret, and the only thing that Google is willing to say on the subject is that over 500 million variables go into ranking results for every search.

That's not the kind of calculation you can do on the back of a napkin!  So if we can't figure out exactly how to optimize websites automatically, how do we know what makes SEO page ranking go up?  Studies have shown that the most important factor today for building SEO page rank is inbound linking, but we now also know that with too many low-value or low-quality links, your website can actually be penalized and accused of trying to game the rankings.

Many of the 500 million variables in Google's SEO page ranking calculations are actually built in because of scammers, spammers, and just plain unethical webmasters.  In their drive to get to the top SEO page rank for a keyword, many of these people will build links artificially, using programs that spam comments with inbound links to their website on hundreds or thousands of blogs at once.

Whenever Google notices that people are artificially manipulating their SEO page ranking numbers, they make attempts to update their algorithm to ensure that these tactics don't work in the long term.  In 2011 and 2012, up to 15 percent of web pages were affected negatively by algorithm updates that were designed to reduce the incidence of artificial links and encourage webmasters to work on more natural linking patterns.

Use Caution When Improving Your SEO Page Rank

One of the other things that Google has noticed about websites that are building their SEO page ranking artificially is that their inbound link numbers stay steady for a while, then spike up, then go back to not increasing much or at all.  If your links are gained in a pattern like this, it probably won't be long before Google penalizes you and reduces your SEO page rank.

How do you avoid falling prey to this telltale sign?  Simple.  Make sure that you're having links built every day—not just one or two days a week, or every weekday.  Every day, steady link building is a good sign to Google that your SEO page ranking is following a natural pattern.  Slowly raise the number of links that you build in a single day, and you'll have a winning pattern within weeks or months.

Using Social Media To Improve SEO Page Rank

Social networks are the single best way to make your SEO page ranking rise in a completely organic way.  By posting a link to one of your web pages (perhaps a blog entry or a new video about a legal topic that might be of interest to your social network connections), you give yourself one new inbound link.  But what happens to that link after?

In many cases, you'll find that the people you're connected with in social networks will actually share the link for you, adding additional inbound links.  In some cases, people may add an inbound link to your site to their blog or other social media page if they're particularly interested in what you have to say, which makes it so that their social networking connections can also see and share your link.

As you get better at social media, you'll start learning what kinds of posts tend to generate the most links and therefore the biggest gains for your SEO page rank.  If you don't see your SEO page ranking improving after a concerted social media effort, you may want to bring in professional help to identify what is holding your search engine optimization project back.

Today, many legal professionals already know why to advertise on Facebook.  Advertisements on Facebook reach a billion people worldwide.  Instead, most legal marketing professionals have moved on to asking how to advertise on Facebook.  Keep reading to learn how to get your advertisements on Facebook and in front of the right people.

Facebook Advertising Step 1: Get Your Website Ready

Before you start launching advertisements on Facebook, you need to think about your website.  Why advertise on Facebook, only to lead potential clients to a website that looks like it could have been made years ago with very few updates since?  Even if you learn how to advertise on Facebook very well, you won't get conevrsions without a website that is designed to look clean and modern.

You should also make it so that any blog content you have is shareable.  This blog content can then become Facebook advertisements of sorts.  If they're popular enough to be passed on, you may enjoy viral popularity.  Why advertise on Facebook exclusively with paid ads?  Make the free features of Facebook work in your favor, not against you.

You should also create your landing pages at this time.  Why advertise on Facebook to a broad market when you can niche market and receive more traffic for your website?  Landing pages are an important part of learning how to advertise on Facebook.

Facebook Advertising Step 2: Click to Create Advertisements on Facebook

When you've decided that your website is good enough and you want to know how to advertise on Facebook, you can click on the “advertising” button and create your first ad.  One of the best parts of the intuitive Facebook advertising interface is that even beginners can use it.  You shouldn't have much trouble figuring out how to advertise on Facebook using the tools provided.

Of course, these steps on how to advertise on Facebook assume that you already have a Facebook account.  If you don't, you're going to need to create one in order to post advertisements on Facebook.  Why advertise on Facebook if you don't even have an account?  This part of the process is actually quite easy, and Facebook will all but hold your hand during registration.

Facebook Advertising Step 3: Pick Your Images and Text

Once you've entered the ad creator, you're ready to learn how to advertise on Facebook.  Advertisements on Facebook come in two basic forms, sidebar ads and sponsored stories.  When learning how to advertise on Facebook, you probably want to start with sidebar ads.

Why advertise on Facebook with sidebar ads?  Because they're the easiest advertisements on Facebook to get started.  All you'll need to do to learn how to advertise on Facebook with these ads is just add your text and an image that will capture your audience's attention.  The text should often have questions, or a call to action, that will make audiences more likely to click your advertisements on Facebook.

Facebook Advertising Step 4: Target Niche Audiences in Advertisements on Facebook

Why advertise on Facebook to huge numbers of people who have no reason to use your services?  In this step, we'll learn how to advertise on Facebook only to the types of people who are most likely to need the services that you provide.  For example, let's say that you want to have advertisements on Facebook for your law firm, which primarily handles child support modifications for fathers.  If this is the kind of firm you're running, why advertise on Facebook to women or people without kids?

Narrowing your audience is a vital part of learning how to advertise on Facebook.  As you test several different niche marketing tactics, you'll find out which kinds of advertisements on Facebook tend to get the most clicks and conversions.  This will help you plan out how to advertise on Facebook in the future.

Facebook Advertising Step 5: Scheduling and Pricing Your Advertisements on Facebook

This is the part of Facebook advertising that can involve some tinkering.  In order to put advertisements on Facebook, you'll need to schedule your ads, decide on a budget, and price every click or every 1000 impressions.

In order to decide whether to pay by the click or by the impression, you will have to choose what to optimize your advertisements for.  Choose to optimize them for clicks, not for visibility.  Why advertise on Facebook and pay for a lot of impressions from people who don't actually need legal help right now?  Attorneys in particular are much better off using advertisements on Facebook on a pay per click basis.

Facebook Advertising Step 6: Check Your Work

Before any of your Facebook ads go live, you'll have a chance to review them.  Don't just click through the review process as fast as possible to start making the next ad.  Carefully take a look at your potential ad and proofread it meticulously.  Why advertise on Facebook if you're not willing to put your best foot forward?

You should also verify that your budget and pricing look correct.  As long as everything looks good, you can make your advertisements on Facebook go live quickly.  Within hours or days, you should start seeing data that will let you know whether you've engaged your audience sufficiently.

Facebook Advertising Step 7: Monitor Your Results

Why advertise on Facebook?  To get results, of course.  So why advertise on Facebook if you're not going to keep track of those results and make sure that you're getting what you need from your ad campaigns?

Facebook offers a wide range of testing and analytics tools that let you arrange split tests of ads and compare your results for several different campaigns at once.  If you're not using these tests, you're not getting the most you can out of your advertisements on Facebook.  Try testing not only different content (for example, ad fatigue sets in after a day or two—start changing up your images frequently!) but also different targeting.  You may find that a new niche of people is interested in the kinds of services your law office provides.

Understanding Google page ranking is critical for any search engine optimization work at a law firm.  Knowing how to check Google Page Rank and what a PR value actually means can make your job much easier when it comes time to decide on marketing plans. You'll find out how to check your Google Page Rank, and how to use your knowledge of Google page ranking to your advantage.  One of the best parts of Google page ranking is that these ranks are publicly available—you'll also learn about using a Google Page Rank checker on your competition.

Why Should I Check My Google Page Rank?

Is using a Google Page Rank checker overkill?  Some people certainly think so.  Google itself has gone on record saying that Page Rank is no longer really all that important.  This is something of a misrepresentation.

While Google has maintained for some time that search engine results do not depend on Page Rank, scientific studies involving linear programming for many variables showed that in fact, your Google page ranking is the #1 most correlated factor with where your results are displayed in searches.  This means that it's absolutely critical to check your Google Page Rank, at least periodically.

You should also check the Google page ranking for your competitors in your market.  It's a good thing to know what you're up against and how far you'll need to raise your PR to be truly competitive with their search engine rankings.

Google Page Rank Checker Software: Google Toolbar

The tool that most people start with to check Google Page Rank is the Google Toolbar.  Because this toolbar is created by Google, you can expect a user friendly interface and excellent support and tutorials.  Using the Google toolbar as a Google Page Rank checker is actually incredibly easy.  All you need to do is hover your mouse over the Page Rank part of the toolbar, and you'll find out the Google page ranking of the page that you're currently on.

Of course, this may not be exactly what you're looking for in terms of functionality.  You may want to check Google Page Rank for several different pages, and using this Google Page Rank checker won't do that.  You may also want to compare the Google page ranking of your pages and your competitors' pages.  The toolbar isn't the Google Page Rank checker you need for these more heavy-duty tasks—it's more of an introduction to checking your Google page ranking.

Google Page Rank Checker Software: Other Toolbars

If you need a more robust tool to check Google Page Rank on many different websites, you should consider a toolbar that offers extensive SEO data.  Currently, no other toolbar offers quite as much information in a relatively easy to understand format as SEOQuake.  In addition to letting you know the Google page ranking of every website you search for, SEOQuake can tell you Alexa ratings and many other important details about a website's popularity levels.

Google Page Rank Checker Software: Non-Toolbar Solutions

If you don't want to have a toolbar taking up your screen real estate while you surf the web, there are other ways to check your Google Page Rank.  For example, let's say that you want to find out the Google page ranking of every different page on your website.  If this is the case, you should consider installing a Google Page Rank checker tool on your site.  Many different websites offer tiny variations on this theme, and which variation you prefer is largely a matter of personal taste and aesthetic preferences.

Check the Google Page Rank of Inbound Links

For a long time, the Google page ranking of the inbound links you built didn't actually matter very much.  Today, you should check your Google Page Rank first, but then you should turn your Google Page Rank checker on the pages where your inbound links are coming from.  Why?  There are two reasons.

First of all, Google actually bases your popularity and your search rankings on the overall link authority given to you by your links.  If you check the Google Page Rank of those links, you'll find that your “link juice” from each one depends on the page's Page Rank as well as the number of outbound links on the page.  For example, even a web page with a Page Rank of 8 (extremely high) would give very little link juice if it had 10,000 links on it.

Second, if you have too many inbound links coming from very low Page Rank sites, you could actually find your inbound links becoming valueless.  Google sees this as a sign of trying to game the system, often with automated link building, and your site could crash and burn in the rankings if you don't check the Google Page Rank of the websites you're using to build your inbound links.

Increasing Your Google Page Ranking

After you check your Google Page Rank, you may be disappointed in the results, especially compared to your larger competitors.  Remember, though, everyone had to start from somewhere.  If you want to increase your Google page ranking, you're going to need to start creating original content.  Original content is recognized as such by Google and is ranked higher in quality.  It's also more likely to get you quality backlinks.

Avoid trying to change your Google Page Rank through automated systems and “get PageRank fast” methods.  Often, these are scams or things that will work only in the very short term, but at great potential cost to your website in the long term.  Professionals like lawyers can't take chances with their reputations—it's better to have a more conservative strategy for link building that offers a better chance of lasting results.

It's also important to keep in mind that page rank simply isn't everything.  If you're still building quality inbound links and are able to build referral traffic through social networks, you may be able to do successful internet marketing even without increasing your Page Rank.  As you enhance your other marketing campaigns, your Page Rank will often go up even if you don't try to make it do so.