A few years ago, most law firms didn't even need to think about getting a mobile advertising platform.  With over $5 billion being spent on mobile ads in 2012, though, it's time to get serious about mobile ads and look at the best mobile advertising platforms for your firm.  No one mobile advertising platform works for every law firm (at least not yet).  This guide will help you out in making your decisions so that you can start using the best mobile advertising platforms for you.

Mobile Advertising Platforms for Publishing Mobile Sites

In order to get the best results for your mobile ads, you'll want to publish a wide range of mobile landing pages so that you can target customers using best practices.  That means you may have a much larger number of websites to run than you're used to.

Your mobile advertising platform can give you dashboards that will control mobile site publishing.  Let's say you want to change the phone number indicated for your office on your landing sites—all of them.  Without having a mobile advertising platform to help you with your mobile site publishing, this could take a long time.  Mobile advertising platforms make it quick and easy to change things across all your websites with a few mouse clicks.

What's more, this kind of mobile advertising platform will generate sites already optimized for mobile displays.  No more squashed text, no more disappearing images—ever.  Using mobile advertising platforms to publish your mobile landing pages will ensure that you have the best chance you can have of getting conversions with every click through.

Mobile Advertising Platforms For Ad Buying

Sometimes, the mobile ad world today can seem like the Wild West, with so many companies competing for such a new audience.  Until the mergers and acquisitions start leading to a standard mobile advertising platform, you may need help buying ads across a wide number of mobile media networks.

When you need to stay in budget for your mobile ads, this kind of mobile advertising platform can help you control costs and keep your bids low.  Using mobile advertising platforms to help you advertise with several networks also means that if one network changes its policies or otherwise becomes a worse fit, you can easily transition your ads to another network that suits your needs better.

Mobile Advertising Platforms for Targeting

If you've been placing Facebook ads or Google AdWords already, you may know something about using a mobile advertising platform to better target potential clients.  While desktop targeting is, by its very nature, a bit imprecise, mobile advertising platforms give you the incredible ability to narrow down exactly where your desired clients are right now.

Using a mobile advertising platform for targeting can help you zero in on the tightest local areas where you'll be likely to get the highest number of clients.  If your existing mobile advertising platforms aren't giving you the targeting choices you want, pick another piece of software—there's too much competition for it to be worth using anything that isn't doing exactly what you want.

Mobile Advertising Platforms for App Building

Let's face it, there's not a lot of overlap between attorneys and computer programmers.  Even if you have no previous programming experience, though, you can still build apps using a mobile advertising platform.  Some mobile advertising platforms include easy to use, intuitive app building tool kits that can make your custom apps dreams a reality within hours or days.

Remember that if you want to build an app using a mobile advertising platform, you'll want to see which mobile operating systems the app works with.  Usually, you'll only be able to create an app for one of these operating systems at a time.  You may need to use the creation tools from your mobile advertising platforms several times to make the same type of app available for people using different types of phones.

You might want to try brainstorming at your firm, especially if you have several firm staff who already use a lot of apps, for an app idea that you could use for marketing your firm.  The kind of app you create should be representative of your firm personality—a firm that markets itself as being fun and hip would have a better chance of success with an entertaining app.  More traditional law firms may just want to stick to informative or organizational apps.

Mobile Advertising Platforms for Analytics

Even though mobile ads are such a big deal for many law firms and other small businesses right now, it can be tough to find the right mobile advertising platform to do advanced analytics work.  Doing analytics is important if you want your mobile ad campaigns to continue to succeed.  It's still possible to find a mobile advertising platform for analytics, but you may have to use several different platforms to get all the information that you want out of your mobile traffic results. 

Data mining with the geotargeted new mobile web can give you a richer and more detailed supply of information than ever before about your potential customers.  It can also be tough to interpret, so having analytics tools that work intuitively is very important if you're better with case law than CPM.

The Future of Mobile Advertising Platforms For Lawyers

As mobile advertising evolves and some companies come out on top for distributing mobile ads, it's likely that businesses will see more platforms that are designed to create a one-stop dashboard for all of your mobile advertising needs, whether you're focused on creating new ads or targeting old ones.

Because mobile targeting is getting easier than ever, it's also likely that you'll see a shift away from total outsourcing of mobile advertising.  Instead, law firms may shift toward self-managed ads that are adjusted easily with a user-friendly mobile advertising platform.  This gives firms more control over both their brand image and their campaign results, while being easy enough to use that outside help isn't required.

Everything About PPC Services

Law firm PPC ads can be some of the most expensive clicks on the web.  The cost per click for many common legal terms has gone up by as much as 30 percent in the last five years.  What this means for many law firms is that it's no longer enough to just use the PPC services available on Google or Yahoo.  Instead, you may want to hire a PPC service to outsource your ad campaign.  Read on to learn when it's time to have someone else take over your PPC ads—and why not all PPC services are created equal.

Keeping Your Data

When you begin to run PPC ads, you may not realize it, but you're generating a great deal of data about who clicks, when they click, and how often they become a paying client.  You may be interested in paying for a PPC service that can help you optimize your bids or your content—but make sure that any PPC services you use let you keep access to your hard-earned data.

A bargain basement PPC service may seem like a good idea when you start outsourcing your pay per click advertising.  However, that same bargain basement service may seem like a much worse idea a year later.  If you haven't been getting the results you want from your PPC ads, but your service doesn't give you access to your data, you can be left blindly guessing why your strategies have failed.

What's more, if you decide to switch PPC services, that data could have been invaluable.  Your next PPC service could have used the data gathered by the previous service to make your PPC ads significantly more cost-effective, but instead, they will have to start over from scratch.

Choosing Your Keywords

One of the biggest things that PPC services can help with is choosing your keywords.  Finding the right keywords for your PPC ads can reduce your costs by 20 percent or more while maintaining the same conversion rate or even improving it.  An experienced PPC service can review your current campaigns and ad groups, helping you replace dysfunctional keywords with ones that will bring in new business.

The right kind of keyword strategy for your law firm will depend on your national/regional reach and your firm's size.  Smaller, more local firms may want PPC services to help them focus on hyperlocal keywords.  Hyperlocalizing your ad copy, as well as your keywords, can increase click rates: studies have shown that people are significantly more likely to click on ad that contains their location.

Bid Management Strategy

Because some of the most expensive PPC ads are sponsored by law firms, you may think that you need to spend a lot of money on your bids.  However, a PPC service can help you figure out keywords and campaigns that will bring you clients without costing more than you can afford.  

Many lawyers overpay for their clicks, bidding using the tools offered by search engines or trying very hard to be the top bid for their keywords.  What PPC services know, however, is that being the top bid won't necessarily get you more clients.  Sometimes, PPC ads are just as effective or almost as effective even if they're significantly lower in sponsored search results.  

A PPC service can experiment with different bidding techniques to determine which one will be most cost-effective for your business: if you're a personal injury attorney who specializes in car accidents, maybe you'll want PPC ads that are higher placed after high-traffic holiday weekends.  PPC services can help you identify the trends that matter for your firm so that you aren't spending more than you have to.

Landing Pages and Conversions

PPC ads aren't pay per client, they're pay per click.  That means that getting clients to click on your ads is only half the battle.  Many law firms find that even with excellent placement for their ads, they're simply not getting the clients they want.  A PPC service can help you work out a strategy for turning your clicks into billable hours.

A few years ago, it was fairly common for law firms to send potential clients to their home page when they clicked on an ad.  If you're still doing this, PPC services will change your mind.  A PPC service can organize landing pages that are different for each of your targeted ad groups.  Instead of seeing your home page, a client who looked for “Seattle criminal tax attorney” might see a landing page that has information on defending yourself from prosecution for tax evasion.

Having landing pages is very important for all PPC ads.  PPC services know that without a landing page, many clients will simply get frustrated looking for the information they want, and will go back to their search results.  Every time this happens, you've lost a potential client—and until a PPC service has designed a good landing page, this could be happening every hour of every day.

Feedback and Optimizing

The best PPC services won't just settle for raising your click or conversion rates once.  Ideally, you want your PPC ads to become more effective every year, as your data mining pays off and you begin to better understand your client base.  

Finding a PPC service that understands how to interpret results and use them to fuel further improvement can make the difference between a PPC campaign that helps a little and one that brings in a huge percentage of your firm's business.  You may want to ask any PPC service you hire about their past experience with helping law firms continue to improve beyond the first few months of a new campaign.

Some PPC services can even help you expand beyond PPC ads.  You may want to look for a PPC service can also help you optimize your law firm's website to help you rise higher in organic search results.  Having your website appear prominently in both sponsored and organic results can ensure that you are maximizing the number of client eyes on your content.

Avoiding Bad Twitter Affiliate Marketing Strategies

Affiliate Marketing: Twitter

According to a report issued by Marketing Land on December 23, 2011, it is estimated that about 120,000 affiliate tweets occur every week, and about 47% of all affiliates rely on Twitter affiliate marketing as a valuable tool. 

If you’re thinking about affiliate marketing, Twitter users need to know what techniques can have a negative result and which techniques can create the most success. 

Bad Techniques for Affiliate Marketing on Twitter

Bad Twitter affiliate marketing may not only affect the reputation of the follower, but it may affect the reputation of the firm’s brand as well.  Companies will keep a close eye on their affiliate marketers to make sure they do not pose a threat to the company’s reputation.  If the follower shows signs of bad affiliate marketing, Twitter merchants will generally unfollow the person. 

The following techniques for affiliate marketing on Twitter are considered bad techniques:

1.       Don’t expect to try and promote a product with one tweet that is 140 characters long.  A product review needs to be longer than 140 characters long.  Affiliate marketing on Twitter needs expanded over multiple tweets, and links need provided to outside resources as well.

2.       DO NOT try Twitter affiliate marketing through direct message (DM).  If you engage in this type of affiliate marketing, Twitter will likely suspend your account, and this method can seriously damage the credibility of a brand along with the reputation of your firm. 

3.       Don’t promote a product or service that tells people they can make money on Twitter by using the product.  This type of affiliate marketing on Twitter is worthless.

4.       Do not use spam in Twitter affiliate marketing.  Spamming tricks followers into clicking on a link they would not otherwise click on.  For example, a type of spam in Twitter affiliate marketing will occur when a firm mentions a popular follower and then provides a link that is unrelated to that person.  If you engage in this type of affiliate marketing, Twitter will likely suspend your account as well.

The Best Techniques for Affiliate Marketing on Twitter

The following techniques are some of the most ethical and effective techniques for Twitter affiliate marketing.  If the firm engages in the following types of affiliate marketing, Twitter followers will likely respect the brand and show high clickthrough rates: 

1. Develop a Theme for your Twitter Account

If you’re promoting a bunch of different products that are unrelated, your readers will assume you’re just trying to make money.  However, if you engage in affiliate marketing on Twitter for similar products, or even maintain updated marketing for the same products, your readers will know that you’re truly concerned about promoting a quality product.  Relevancy is the key to any affiliate marketing, especially Twitter affiliate marketing. 

2. Personalize the Affiliate Marketing on Twitter

If you’ve has success with a certain area of affiliate marketing, Twitter users should ask the follower to tweet something about the marketing they went through and how happy they were with the product or service.  If the user tweets about a product they received because of your firm’s Twitter affiliate marketing, you can mention the follower in future tweets.  You’re basically tweeting a mini-review using this method. 

3. Provide Links for Twitter Affiliate Marketing Indirectly

If you’re considering affiliate marketing, Twitter users should not post a link directly to the product or service they’re marketing.  Instead, write a longer a detailed review about the product or service on your blog, and then provide a quick statement about the product or service with a link to your blog.  This type of affiliate marketing on Twitter will increase traffic to your blog and make followers respect your reviews as well. 

4. Use Casual Language while Engaging in Twitter Affiliate Marketing

If you want to use affiliate marketing, Twitter users want casual language.  The last thing a follower wants to hear is a marketing statement that sounds like telemarketing or something you’d hear off of television.  Avoid using sales pitches because followers will assume you’re just trying to make money.  If you use conversational language within your tweets, followers are more likely to respond and engage in affiliate marketing on Twitter for legal products and services. 

5. Market Products you have Used or have a Large Amount of Experience In

If you’re thinking about affiliate marketing, Twitter users should only consider products they’ve used in most cases.  An exception is when an associate in the firm has used or recommended a great product and service and you want to promote it through affiliate marketing on Twitter.  If you try to promote products through Twitter affiliate marketing of which you have little knowledge, followers will likely see through the writing. 

6. Track Results from your Followers

If you want to start affiliate marketing, Twitter users need to monitor how their followers are responding in real time.  For example, if you post information about a certain product or service, how many people are retweeting?  How many people are mentioning your firm’s profile? How many people is your firm bringing to the blog after advertising a certain product or service?  All of these measurements and more are important in affiliate marketing on Twitter.

7. All Marketing on Twitter is Better in Moderation

This has been a common yet important theme throughout this article.  You don’t want to overload your followers with a large amount of Twitter affiliate marketing or else they’ll assume you’re just trying to make revenue.  One quality review is better than a number of simple and uninformative reviews. 

Conclusion: Affiliate Marketing on Twitter

If you want to start affiliate marketing, Twitter is a great option as long as you use the social networking service ethically and professionally.  .  Remember to keep track of your data and make adjustments to improve the campaign for your firm.

One of the Best Affiliate Marketing Opportunities for Attorneys

An Affiliate Marketing Strategy to Highly Consider

Out of all the affiliate marketing strategies for attorneys, perhaps no other service is better or convenient than the Amazon Associates Program.  The program offers you a dual opportunity if you have material on Amazon such as a book on legal advice, and other relevant material as well.  This article will discuss several affiliate marketing strategies offered by the Amazon Associates Program if you’re an attorney and writing a blog. 

Affiliate Marketing Opportunities with Amazon: #1

Amazon offers one of the best affiliate marketing strategies for attorneys because of the huge amount of traffic the website brings in.  Also, the website offers more objects that any other company on the internet.   For example, according to research form Wired Magazine; Amazon receives, at its peak, around 650,000 requests every second around the world. 

Also, the same research indicates that one-third of all internet users visit the website every day.  The astronomical amount of requests correlates with the number of objects stored within Amazon S3.  The following graph shows how Amazon has increased its number of products:

Affiliate Marketing Opportunities with Amazon: #2

Another reason why so many consumers use Amazon is the trust factor.  Consumers trust the company, and a great affiliate marketing strategy will always incorporate trust.  If you’re writing reviews about legal products on Amazon and provide a link after the description, consumers won’t be afraid to click on the link. 

Affiliate Marketing Opportunities with Amazon: #3

Affiliate marketing strategies are enhanced by Amazon because they offer more relevant products for the legal field than virtually any other merchant.  Let’s say you developed affiliate marketing strategies to promote certain books on a field of law for your consumers, other attorneys, and even students.  Amazon has books for the general public and professionals such as textbooks and more. 

Don’t get out of control though.  You don’t want to start incorporating an affiliate marketing strategy that uses irrelevant advertising.  If you’re promoting legal resources and you post a review about an iPod, consumers may shy away. 

Affiliate Marketing Opportunities with Amazon: #4

Simply put, Amazon does most of the work for your affiliate marketing strategy.  All you need to do is have the consumer click on the link, and there are several affiliate marketing strategies that will occur.  First, Amazon can extend on your product reviews.  Second, you can earn commission even if consumers start buying other products. 

Amazon encourages consumers to buy more products because it suggests similar products or accessory products.  As long as you directed the consumer to the site, you’ll earn a commission on the total sale in most cases. 

Affiliate Marketing Opportunities with Amazon: #5

One of the best affiliate marketing opportunities provided by Amazon is the possibility of asking for reader reviews from associates in your firm.  This tactic is a plausible affiliate marketing strategy because readers are mostly likely accustomed to Amazon, and so are your associates.  If you encourage reader reviews and help from people you know, your affiliate marketing strategies for expansion will likely succeed. 

Affiliate Marketing Opportunities with Amazon: #6

It may seem paradoxical, but Amazon can add to your affiliate marketing strategy by giving you the information you’re going to use to market the products!  For example, Amazon provides affiliate marketing strategies through their reports and statistics by examining what products are selling the most within certain areas. 

The best affiliate marketing strategy will provide links to the statistics.  If readers know that other members of a community are buying the same products, they’re more likely to buy the products as well. 

Affiliate Marketing Opportunities with Amazon: #7

Another valuable affiliate marketing strategy you can use with the help of Amazon is backing up the information in your review.  Since Amazon provides its own reviews, you affiliate marketing strategies should try to match what people are saying on Amazon.  However, the affiliate marketing strategy can work the other way around as well. 

If there are only a couple of reviews for a product on Amazon and you disagree with the opinions, you can state your reasons why within your blog and let the consumers decide for themselves. 

Affiliate Marketing Opportunities with Amazon: #8

One of the best affiliate marketing strategies is to provide links to products that have yet to be released.  For example, Amazon will often post information about a product before it is released, and even if there are not reviews, consumers might still pre-purchase the product based on the product description from Amazon. 

Notes on Affiliate Marketing Strategies

There are two things you should note in order to receive the maximum amount of affiliate marketing opportunities: relevancy and the reputation of the product. 

The best affiliate marketing strategy will only use advertisements that relate to the overall theme of your blog and the needs of the clients and readers.  If you start posting advertisements that have nothing to do with your blog, you’ll hurt your future affiliate marketing opportunities. 

Secondly, unless there are only a couple of reviews, you’ll want to pay close attention to products with a large amount of reviews.  If there are a large amount of bad reviews about the product and you recommend that the product was outstanding, readers will start to lose trust in your word. 

Conclusion: Affiliate Marketing Strategy with Amazon

If you’re an attorney or anyone in the legal industry, Amazon is one of the best resources for affiliate marketing strategies.  Amazon is a giant in the e-commerce business, and you can promote more items through Amazon than any other service on the internet. 

Simple Guide: Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

What’s Covered in this Affiliate Marketing Guide?

This small yet comprehensive affiliate marketing guide will cover the following areas:

1.     The basics of Affiliate Marketing

2.     How does Affiliate Marketing Work?

3.     What types of payments correspond with affiliate marketing?

4.     A Quick Guide to Affiliate Networks

Note: This guide covers affiliate marketing for beginners.  If you need tips for varying levels of affiliate marketing, you can find more complex guides on this website as well. 

Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways for a beginner to make money off of advertising because any affiliate marketing guide is fairly simple.  First of all, you don’t have to have to try and sell your own product, and you can even write content on products that interest you and apply to your field of law. If you’re wondering, “How does affiliate marketing work,” well, it’s easy.  All you’re really doing is referring people to other products or services and getting paid for it. 

How does Affiliate Marketing Work?

The best way to answer the question of “How does affiliate marketing work” is to provide an example of the one of the simplest measures.  Even

better, let’s set up an affiliate marketing guide for a young attorney or someone concerned about legal products. 

For example, if you bought a package of legal documents from an online legal company and were highly satisfied with not only the product but the overall help from the company as well, you can decide to write a review.  One of the best practices of affiliate marketing for beginners is writing a blog.  In the blog, you can write an affiliate marketing guide that states how the products benefited you.  Then you can talk about the website from which you bought the legal documents  and then post a link for the website. 

How does Affiliate Marketing Work: Types of Payment

Even in affiliate marketing for beginners, you can receive several different types of payments by following this affiliate marketing guide closely.  The following types of payment options are available to beginners and those who are experienced:

How does Affiliate Marketing Work: Pay Per Lead (PPL)

Although not the best option for affiliate marketing for beginners, this option is the best overall.  You can receive compensation every time a person performs an action on or through your website.  For example, a legal publisher can receive compensation for things such as having clients fill out surveys.  Commissions associated with PPL advertising will range greatly, but it has the potential for a large payout in some cases.

How does Affiliate Marketing Work: Pay Per Sale (PPS)

Out of all the payment options in this affiliate marketing guide, this type is the most common.  This option is also hard in affiliate marketing for beginners because legal publishers will have to convince their readers that the products are good through gaining their trust, offering reviews, and more. 

How does Affiliate Marketing Work: Pay Per Click (PPC)

This is the least common within this affiliate marketing guide.  Services like Google still offer pay per click services for affiliate advertising such as banner ads, but this type of compensation is becoming less and less common because of the fraud associated with competitors clicking ads.  Google has software to detect fraud, but it doesn’t stop all fraud. 

So, if we combine all of the types of payments in this affiliate marketing guide, what are the collective benefits?  It’s safe to say the following benefits are available, even in affiliate marketing for beginners:

·         You don’t have to worry about shipping certain products (unless your firm ships other products)

·         You don’t have to deal with customers except through your written word

·         You don’t have to deal with billing

·         You make money on products sold form other companies and even on your own products apart from sale revenue

IMPORTANT: One of the Best Websites Concerning Legal Advertising

Even in affiliate marketing for beginners, there is one website that can benefit those recommending legal products (books, documents, etc): Amazon.  This website is one of the largest sites on the internet, and it also offers the majority of payment through pay per sale advertising.  This is a great option in for those advertising legal products because they can write a review, direct readers to the website to check out the product, and presto, they receive compensation. 

How does Affiliate Marketing Work: Networks

This part of the affiliate marketing guide will briefly describe how networks operate and the advantages they provide in affiliate marketing for beginners.  In the simplest terms, a network is a bridge between the publisher (you) and the merchant.  There are multiple benefits that a network can provide in affiliate marketing for beginners:

1.       You can find numerous offers within one place and then start promoting them on your website

2.       The network will only charge a percentage of your commission (usually less than half)

3.       The network can provide other incentives such as bonuses and other types of rewards

4.       The network can provide you with support and technical assistance

How does Affiliate Marketing Work: Conclusion

Hopefully this affiliate marketing guide has provided some insight for beginners.  Once you get a website or blog up and running, you’ll usually receive payments every week or month depending on the company and their policies.  Even in affiliate marketing for beginners, you can usually track your payments and statistics within the dashboard you’re using.  In order to view the best networks out there, you can perform a simple search over the internet and find numerous types of networks.

For years, building inbound links was the best way to get search engines to pay attention to your website.  However, many marketers took advantage of this system by using programs to auto-generate large numbers of low quality links from websites with a low level of relevancy to their own site.  Once Google found out, it fought back with two algorithm updates.  These updates make it so that for the first time, there is such a thing as a negative link.  If low quality links have begun affecting your website's SERPs, you need help.  This guide will help you understand what's going on and how to make it work better.

What is Low Quality Link Traffic?

Low quality links are links that aren't likely to give a consumer unique information or that are unlikely to be what someone searching for a particular topic was actually searching for.  Building large amounts of low quality link traffic was a favored strategy of many marketers for years, and a number of attorneys had begun to use these techniques for search engine optimization.

You can usually identify low quality links because they will come from sources that don't really matter—often sources that will simply accept any content, even if it made little or no sense at all.  These kinds of low reputation websites are not going to help you to get the kinds of quality link traffic you want.  The same goes for blog comment spam.  If a high number of your links come from comment spam, Google has probably already caught you—and the effects won't be pretty once they do.

What Are The Effects of Low Quality Backlinks?

If Google discovers that you have been using low quality link strategies to market your website, they are likely to decide that you are using unnatural linking.  This is not in accordance with Google's webmaster terms, and they reserve the right to lower websites in search rankings—or even stop them from being listed altogether—if they are found to be part of a low quality links scheme.

It's very unlikely that your website will be de-listed unless you're actually running a fraudulent weblinking ring.  However, if your links all come from sources that are simply not very high quality, you're going to notice a sudden and sharp drop in your SERPs.  This means that the huge majority of people who use Google—the ones who only look through the first or maybe the second page of results—are never going to see your website content through organic search, no matter how good it is.

Help!  Google Says I Have Spam Links!

Take a deep breath and don't panic.  Even if Google has sent you an email saying that your website has been penalized for having links from spam websites, all is not lost.  However, to make sure that your firm's marketing efforts aren't hurt for months, you're going to need some quick planning. 

First of all, start by increasing your expenditures temporarily for pay per click advertising.  No matter what else you do to increase your website's reputation again, you'll need to do this to make up for the penalties for low penalty links in the meantime.

Next, we'll look at the newest way to make sure that low quality link spam can't hurt your website's search engine rankings.  This tool is called “disavow links.”

What Does “Disavow Links” Do?

As of November 2012, Google allows webmasters to disavow some of the backlinks that are coming through to their websites.  Generally, you'd only want to do this if you were receiving low quality link traffic from spam websites.  If this is the situation, “disavow links” will let you make those links go away more simply and easily than ever before.

Google still advises that even if you use the “disavow links” tool (which you can find in its Webmaster Tools section), you should be prepared to speak to the webmasters of the offending sites and attempt to have the links removed.  This will prevent your reputation from being damaged further if people see where some of your links are coming from.

How Do I Find Where My Links Come From?

If you're not already using a backlink tracking tool, you should be.  You can find many tools that will work just by doing a Google search for backlink tracker.  If you notice a large number of low quality links—usually a low quality link will be irrelevant and from a website with a low PageRank value—you'll know that you are in jeopardy of being penalized or have been penalized already.

Backlink tracker tools can help you get the sources of your low quality links so that you can correspond with webmasters and have the offending links removed.  If a webmaster refuses to delete your links, you can now at least disavow the link so that Google no longer believes that it was part of your deliberate marketing strategy.

If these links were part of your linking strategy at one time but no longer are, you'll want to make that known to the websites currently hosting your links.  Often, these links can be taken down relatively quickly.  Google understands that some good webmasters were caught up in bad low quality link schemes, and has no problem re-listing your website if it believes that you have actually changed your strategies.

Results of Using “Disavow Links”

When you disavow a link, you're not just getting rid of a penalty.  You're also giving up any PageRank value that may have come from that link.  Disavow links is something you should do only if the link truly is not of any value to anybody searching online.

You can generally expect your website to start rebounding in the SERPs as soon as one to two weeks after you disavow links.  In the meantime, you'll want to focus on other marketing resources, including social media and pay per click advertising.  These will keep your revenue streams high while you recover in organic searches.

Everything About LinkedIn

Unless you've just gotten out of a time machine, if you're a lawyer you've probably heard of LinkedIn.  Statistics show that well over 80 percent of attorneys today currently maintain a LinkedIn profile, and most of those users check their accounts at least once daily.  

If you're in the 20 percent of lawyers who still haven't gotten into LinkedIn, either because you thought it wasn't important or because you didn't quite know the answer to the question “what is LinkedIn?”, know this: LinkedIn is the most powerful social media site for generating attorney leads today.  The best time to learn how to use LinkedIn was 6 years ago—but the second best time is right now.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a social media website that is oriented toward professionals, rather than consumers.  Okay, you say—but really, what is LinkedIn?  Well, to put it another way, LinkedIn is like being able to talk simultaneously to your whole Rolodex of contacts, and to actually be able to have conversations and networking opportunities from the comfort of your own office.

If you don't know how to use LinkedIn, don't worry—the site makes it easy, and help is easy to obtain.  When you first set up a LinkedIn profile, you'll add contacts from your e-mail or messaging clients who are already linked to the network.  These people can form the backbone of your social media marketing efforts.  Because so many people are already using the service, it's easy today to go from asking “what is LinkedIn?” to having a profile with hundreds of contacts in just an hour or two.

Who's Using LinkedIn?

The surprising answer is: 150 million users worldwide, including almost everybody in law.  It may surprise you to learn that attorneys at smaller firms and solo practitioners are actually more likely than those at larger firms to have a LinkedIn presence.  Perhaps this is because in the current legal hiring climate, a large number of solo practitioners and small firms are run by recent law school grads who already know how to use LinkedIn.

Typically, people don't learn how to use LinkedIn because they want to make personal connections, but rather to make professional ones.  This means that while a large number of people with Facebook and Twitter accounts are still not completely sure what is LinkedIn, professionals use it every day.  Learning how to use LinkedIn puts you in touch with professionals without needing to worry as much about talking to people far outside your industry.

What's the Point?

Okay, so a lot of lawyers use the website—but what is LinkedIn going to do for your firm?  Learning how to use LinkedIn is important no matter how big your firm is or how reluctant your firm's attorneys are to learn about a new website.  Statistics show that LinkedIn is up to 277 percent more likely to generate conversions than either Facebook or Twitter.  That's a statistic you can't afford to ignore.

How To Use LinkedIn, Tip #1: Read Every Day

When you are first learning what is LinkedIn, you may think that you can just set up your profile, make your connections, and then use them when you see fit—much like your Rolodex.  However, it's not that simple.  Learning how to use LinkedIn well means interacting with the site on a day to day basis and investigating all of its features.

How To Use LinkedIn, Tip #2: Make Your Profile 100% Complete

If you have a profile filled out and are using linked in, but still can't see what is LinkedIn doing for your business, make sure that you've completely filled out your profile.  You definitely need a photo—no, a law firm logo on its own isn't good enough, no matter what—and should fill out any text boxes with engaging, well-written (and grammatically correct) content.  This shows people you're serious about using LinkedIn for networking, rather than just doing the minimum to get on the site.  It also gives them more points of reference and commonality, which can encourage new contacts.

How To Use LinkedIn, Tip #3: Join (and Make!) Groups

Did you know that you can only message someone on LinkedIn if you already have a contact in common?  Well, that's not quite true.  What is LinkedIn doing to allow new contacts?  Simple: if there's someone you'd love to send a message to, but you can't because you're not yet connected, check which groups they belong to.  Join one, and you'll be able to contact the group…and any of its members.

Making your own groups can also help your marketing strategy.  Not only can they help generate interesting conversations about a topic area, they can also be great ways to send targeted messages to a large group.

How To Use LinkedIn, Tip #4: Check Your Contacts

You may wonder when you start using the website: “what is LinkedIn going to do to help me put in all my contacts?”  You'll quickly find that you can import contacts from a wide variety of sources.  It's a mistake to only search once, though.  People who were asking “what is LinkedIn?” just a few weeks ago may have a profile and be actively involved in the site today.  Checking your email contacts regularly to see if anyone new has gotten an account is a fast way to get new contacts that you already have had a connection with.

How To Use LinkedIn, Tip #5: Be a Valuable Participant

Don't just use LinkedIn as a way to broadcast ads or solicit new business.  Instead, look at it as an opportunity to participate in a new community.  You can start by helping people with questions or referring clients to lawyers that you know through LinkedIn as a professional courtesy.  Other lawyers will take notice when you show that you're interested in participating in the website as more than just an advertiser.  Instead of asking “What is LinkedIn going to do for me?”, try asking what you can do for the connections you've already made.

Everything About Facebook Ads Cost

It can seem like everybody's doing it—there are so many ads on Facebook today that average cost per click prices have gone up by 23 percent in just the last few months.  Can your law firm handle the cost of Facebook ads?  Do Facebook ads cost too much to be worthwhile for your firm's marketing strategy?  Keep reading this guide to find out the newest trends in how much Facebook ads cost, and how you can minimize the cost of Facebook ads while still targeting the customers who'll give you the best return.

Is the Cost of Facebook Ads Worth It?

The question of whether Facebook ads cost too much has been explored and answered in different ways by several big companies.  On the eve of Facebook's initial public offering, car manufacturing giant General Motors announced publicly that it would no longer continue advertising on Facebook due to the high costs and low return on investment.

When a high profile company like GM runs away from a potential advertising strategy because it's too expensive, it causes a lot of other companies to stop and consider whether the cost of Facebook ads has risen too much, too fast.

Your law firm isn't a car company—and when it comes to whether Facebook ads cost too much, that's important.  General Motors was targeting its ads at a huge, national base of customers in a recession where car sales have already been stagnant.  

Tracking What My Facebook Ads Cost

When you use Facebook advertising, you can track the cost of Facebook ads by viewing your performance report.  You'll be able to export your report into a .csv file in order to analyze it with another advertising analytics program, or you can use Facebook's software to analyze your campaigns at no extra cost.

It's a good idea to use split tests on your ads to determine what makes Facebook ads cost more per click.  If you're getting great results with a particular demographic, the cost of Facebook ads targeting that demographic may be worth paying, but another ad may be generating such poor results that you'll decide to cancel one campaign.

Reducing the Cost of Facebook Ads: Analytics for Beginners

Using analytics and split testing can also help you figure out what to do in your next campaign to reduce what Facebook ads cost.  Change just one thing at a time when you want to do true split testing, or you won't be able to see which changes really worked so that you can effectively minimize the cost of Facebook ads.

The goal of analytics isn't just to choose between two advertisements you're considering.  Instead, analytics can lower the overall cost of Facebook ads by telling you what works best.  If you want analytics to work for you, you'll have to do it over and over again, learning from every round of testing and developing your ad strategies based on what you learn.

Video Ads: Great for Websites, Not for Facebook

If your firm has been having good luck with video marketing on your website or blog, you may wonder how much video Facebook ads cost.  However, the cost of Facebook ads of this type is actually so high that the website currently offers video ads as an option only for companies with a monthly Facebook advertising budget of at least $30,000.

Since video Facebook ads cost too much for law firms to really be able to implement, you can do the next best thing with your advertising.  Keep the cost of Facebook ads down by getting more fans for your Facebook page and posting videos in your feed.  

You can also let videos be a main component of your landing pages—just a little bit of multimedia can make your website much more likely to convert visitors.  By using these strategies, you won't have to worry about the high cost of Facebook ads with video but can still get all the advantages of using Facebook video.

Reducing the Cost of Facebook Ads: Easy Bidding Strategies

Facebook ads cost more today than they did even six months ago on a per-click or per-fan basis.  The best bidding strategy for beginners is to start your bidding relatively high, then reduce your bids periodically as long as you're not seeing a precipitous drop-off in return on investment.

After your advertisement gets at least 50 clicks, Facebook's automatic bid suggester will be updated, allowing you to see what Facebook thinks you would be most successful bidding.  Typically, your bid should be around the lower end of Facebook's suggested range.  Try dropping your bid one or two cents below this range at a time until you reach a click to cost ratio that you're comfortable with.

Do Any Facebook Ads Cost Nothing?

It can be pretty tough to keep track of the cost of Facebook ads if you're not used to doing web analytics.  If you're not having great results and don't want to pay what Facebook ads cost usually, you can try to use social media without direct ads.  

This can be tricky, and you may want a social media professional to help give you advice about using social media effectively in order to get the most out of your free Facebook marketing possibilities.

Facebook gives you a wide range of tools for advertising that don't cost you anything at all.  You can vastly increase the traffic to your law blog by posting interesting articles and summaries of your posts in your Facebook feed. You can also run polls and ask questions of your Facebook fans—a great way to get marketing information without the necessity of expensive focuses group testing.

If you're able to leverage your social media in the right way, you may not even need the additional cost of Facebook ads on the sidebar.  Once you've had some practice with taking your blog posts viral, or getting a video to be shared with people several degrees of separation away from you, you'll start to see a widening reach even without paying what direct Facebook ads cost.