When you're starting to develop your strategies for legal marketing, you'll find all kinds of opinions online that make it sound like there's only one way for your firm to be if you want to be successful.  Only one design aesthetic, only one right way to talk to clients, only one right way to divide your marketing budget.  This couldn't be further from the truth.  There's no one perfect legal website that you should model yours after.  There's no one way to get your marketing message out.  To understand what's actually best for your firmwide marketing plan, you need to ask real questions about your firm's priorities.  These tips are best for people who are just starting out with their law firm marketing plans and are in the brainstorming phase of strategic planning.

#1: How Personal Do You Want to Get?

One of the biggest questions you have to ask yourself when thinking about legal marketing is whether you want your content to have a personal, warm touch, or for it to be more formal and traditional?  Traditional approaches are the way that many law firms choose to communicate that they are staffed by serious professionals.  This kind of approach usually doesn't offer much in the way of new content, but if you're going to go with traditional approaches make sure you're doing them well—with professional photography, excellent writing, and fresh, informative content.  If you're dry, at least be dry with a lot of well-organized, easy to understand information.

On the personal side, make sure that if you're trying a personal strategy, you don't let it get unprofessional.  You can be funny, you can be authentic and earnest and folksy, you can do just about any style that fits with your personal style.  What you can't do is let that style get in the way of communicating clearly with people looking at your site.  Don't lose sight of the fact that you want to keep people informed, and tone down your style if it's interfering with your ability to be informative.

#2: What's the Role of Technology?

You need to decide right away whether you're actually committed to using new, online technologies in your marketing campaign.  With over 85 percent of consumers of legal services looking for attorneys online instead of using phone books, you can't afford to be a total Luddite—but how much tech do you want to get involved with?

You're the one who knows your people.  Will you be getting in over your head if you try to download social media dashboards and maintain 7 different social networking profiles?  What are the technologies that excite you?  What are the ones that scare you?  Just because you're using online marketing doesn't mean you have to latch onto everything—use the marketing ideas that call out to you, whether you're working online or off.

#3: Which Social Networking Sites Match Your Clientele?

Some law firms are dealing primarily with hipper, younger clientele who are more likely to have smartphones and use social networks like Twitter.  Other consumer oriented firms are much more likely to have a client base that uses Facebook as its only source of social networking.  Still other firms interact largely with businesses and prefer LinkedIn.

Pay attention to what kind of client you're trying to attract when deciding which social networks to join.  A consumer oriented firm in a small town is unlikely to get much, if any, new business from LinkedIn, for example.  Make sure you know what people are using not only in the demographics you're interested in, but also in your local area.

#4: Focus on Long or Short Term Returns?

If asked, the vast majority of people will say that they want to focus on their long term goals, whether those goals are related to marketing, their personal life, or anything else.  But that's not always really true.  Maybe in an ideal universe we'd always be able to focus on the long haul, but in today's intensely competitive legal world, that's not always what really needs to happen.

If you need short term gains because otherwise you're going to have a hard time keeping the lights on, you don't need to hear more platitudes about long term planning.  Instead, you need to work on the kinds of advertising and marketing that work right away.  Probably the best form of online marketing for those needing a quick fix of new clients is pay per click advertising.  This form of advertising allows you to target specific types of clients based on search terms or demographics.  Using this form of advertising allows you to get new clients within hours or days, not weeks or months.

PPC advertising is very short-sighted if you want to keep your eye on the long term goals, though.  As soon as you stop spending, it stops working.  Consider options with better long term payoffs, like social media and building on your social networks, when short term goals aren't enough.

#5: How Do You Know If It's Working?

Before you get started with your campaign, you need to think about how you'll determine if you've seen the results you wanted.  What criteria are actually important to you?  What do you want your online marketing to do for your law firm?  Only you can decide what results make a difference to you.  Don't listen to what marketing gurus have to say about calculating return on investment—figure out the metrics that make the most sense in your specific circumstances.

#6: Who Do You Trust For Critique?

Everyone—no matter who—could use a good editor and critic.  By having someone you trust to critique your work, you can make sure that you're only putting your best foot forward in your online marketing campaign.  Always make sure you have an extra set of eyes look at any marketing material—one of the fastest ways to a faux pas is to go too quickly and send out copy that isn't yet ready for prime time.

It's the biggest social media behemoth in the world, and no competitor even comes close: Facebook boasts over 1 billion active members in 2013, and 680 million of them take the site with them on their mobile phone.  Tapping into the potential of Facebook is something many law firms are trying to do, but many of them fail to stand out in the social media world.  Why?  Usually, it's because while they understand the basic uses of social media for consumers, they have a harder time applying that knowledge to their law firm's business model and brand.  In this article we'll look at 8 different ways to make Facebook work for you as a business tool, rather than just a way to connect with long-lost friends and distant family members.

#1: Make Your Pages Your Own

One of the worst mistakes you can make with your business Facebook page is to set up your page very quickly, without customizing much.  A generic tagline copied and pasted from your website copy, a couple of hasty photos, and presto, you have an account—right?  Well, sure—but is it really the kind of account you want people to see?

A Facebook page that is just a Facebook-branded version of the same information users could find on your website isn't useful.  You need to make your Facebook page stay with your brand, but with unique information and posts that people can't find elsewhere.  Having unique content on your Facebook page is the best way to attract subscribers and likes.

#2: Appoint Someone As the Face of Your Facebook

Some law firms make the mistake of having all of their posts come from on high, as if they were simply from no person in particular but some sort of firm mascot.  This is a huge mistake.  Instead, you need to have someone who is tasked with being the face of your law firm when it comes to social media.  This lets people ask questions of a real human being (who can always refer the questions to other people for answers) instead of feeling like they have to ask some kind of monolithic entity.

This also ensures that people feel like they're being personally addressed, which can help to soothe hurt feelings and ensure that people feel their critiques are being listened to.  Keep in mind that the person who is the face of your Facebook should be outgoing, personable, and steadfast in their approach to avoiding the kinds of conflict that could lead to embarrassing Facebook incidents.

#3: Bring Attorneys In For Comments

Because you have a face for your Facebook, your attorneys can comment as their own selves on questions and comments made on your Facebook pages.  Your attorneys can also post their own content using a Facebook page for your firm, including links to their blog entries or a list of frequently asked questions about a particular legal issue.

If your attorneys are part of your social media brand, people will be able to get a better feel for your firm and see easy demonstrations of their expertise.  Don't be afraid to let people's individual voices shine through.  You don't always all want to talk as one—it's fine if your attorneys have a discussion with points and counterpoints!

#4: Link to Video and Blog Content

You should try to make sure that your Facebook feed isn't all just simple posts.  Linking to articles (whether they're by people at your firm or just really interesting to the kinds of people you want reading your feed), blog entries, or videos can make sure that people keep paying attention.

When too many of your posts are in the same format or seem the same, people tune out.  Help them avoid this kind of fatigue by giving them content that shakes up the usual.  Sometimes, try posting something that's funny instead of strictly informative—people like to be entertained on their Facebook feeds.

#5: Respond to Commenters—and Critics

Make sure that you're keeping on top of comments made to your Facebook wall.  If you're not responding to at least the comments that ask questions or request clarification, you're not doing your job when it comes to social media marketing.  The point of social media is to socialize—to interact in a two-way fashion, not just to broadcast one-way information to advertise your law firm.

If you're not responsive, it will start looking like you're using social media not to communicate and provide services, but just to reel in clients.  Even if reeling in clients is exactly what you'd like to be doing, that's not the reputation you'd like to build online.

#6: Stay Knowledgeable About Changes to Facebook

Facebook has had its share of changes to how pages are displayed and how users interface with the social networking aspects of the site.  Privacy and account policies can also change significantly from year to year.  Don't get caught unaware of a change that will significantly affect how your Facebook pages look or behave for people reading your pages.

#7: Listen More Than You Talk

When in doubt, listen to what people are asking for.  Try to make sure that you're listening to people's comments and also reading other people's Facebook feeds to see what's making people react.  If you're talking all the time without listening, you may not have your finger on the pulse of social media.  Make sure you're reading social media sources outside of Facebook as well, so that you can see fresh content that your viewers may not have taken a look at yet.

#8: Keep It Up For the Long Haul

Understand that even if your primary goal with your Facebook page is attracting new clients, you're not going to do it overnight.  If you assume after a month without many new page views or friends that no results means you should pack it in, you're wrong.  Shake it up, reach out and network with other people in your area or field, and get involved in Facebook groups that are local and interesting to you.

On average, just 1-2 percent of the people who find your website using search results will actually contact your firm to set up an appointment.  While this number can seem very small, there's some good news in it, too—if you can push those numbers up just a couple of percentage points, you'll start to see a huge uptick in business to your firm.  In this guide, we'll look at how to give your website the best chance of converting clients and bringing you the new business you need to thrive in today's intensely competitive legal marketing climate.

#1: Use Video, Not Just Images

Studies show that websites using video are up to 50 percent more likely to convert clients.  Why is this?  For one thing, video allows people to see you the way that you would actually talk to them in the office.  This can help alleviate some of the anxieties that new legal clients, especially those who haven't needed legal services before, have before they schedule a consultation.

What's more, you can use video to talk about some of the most common issues in your practice areas.  When people watch your videos, they'll gain an understanding about the basic legal issues in cases like theirs, so that they'll come in with more informed questions and have a better idea of what they're looking for in an attorney.

#2: Select Your Images Carefully

Too many attorneys use old standby images, thinking that the typical pictures of gavels, courtrooms, and law books will give the impression that their firm is reliable and professional.  Unfortunately, that's not what most people will get out of these kinds of generic images.  Instead, they'll see a law firm that's literally just following the crowd.  Instead of conveying that you're a good law firm, you'll just be any random firm.

Instead, try to give your website a professional, but distinct look.  Instead of using stock imagery, make sure that you have real, professional photographs of your office, professional shots for your attorney bios, and so on.  These images, which convey real aspects of your office, won't be photos anyone else has.  Try to make your photographs professional, but perhaps a little unorthodox—standing out will make it more likely that people will call your law offices instead of the offices of your competitors.

#3: Link Up With Social

Today, most Americans have some type of social media account, with the most popular website for these accounts being Facebook.  When you link your website up with your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts, you make sure that people can see your social presence and understand how you interact with people in the social networking world.

Because Facebook is a comfortable internet environment for many consumers, they may be more likely to convert after reading your Facebook page.  Attorney websites can feel stressful to people who are not used to needing legal services, and having a social media presence helps you meet these consumers in a place that is more likely to feel safe to them.

#4: Get Specialized and Specific

Today, consumers of legal services are much more likely to prefer attorneys who specialize.  Specializing in very narrow legal fields, or having mini-sites designed to help people with very specific issues and emphasizing your firm's experience with those issues, can make it much more likely that you'll convert new clients.

When people see firms that do everything, they often worry that their case won't really be an area you specialize in.  For example, many people who have been arrested for driving under the influence will specifically want a DUI attorney, rather than a more general criminal defense attorney who sometimes handles DUI cases.

#5: Be Informative and Helpful

Today, people aren't just looking for you to advertise to them.  They also want real information about their legal options and what they can expect from the courts and the legal process.  People who have the information they need are ready to call attorneys, while people who still feel uninformed are more likely to continue their web search and call someone once they feel more comfortable.

It's fine to “give away” information.  Keep in mind that when you have information about common misconceptions and very detailed information about what people can expect at your law office, you'll be ensuring that people have their most commonly asked questions answered so that by the time they call, they're confident that they need an attorney and that you're a good fit for their needs.

#6: Design a Mobile Site

Mobile consumers are exactly the kinds of people who are most likely to become conversions right now.  They have their phones in hand, ready to book an appointment or even visit a law office immediately.  This means that you want to get this market—and the best way is by having a website version that works well with mobile operating systems like Android and iOS.

Your mobile site should be distinct from your desktop site but have much of the same feel so that it doesn't feel like it dilutes your brand or design aesthetic.  You should also make sure that you allow people using the mobile site to view your full desktop site, and should make sure that the desktop website doesn't display so badly on mobile devices that information becomes inaccessible to mobile users.

#7: Use Compelling Testimonials

Some of the best people to speak about your firm aren't your attorneys and other staff members, but former clients.  By having client testimonials on your website, you make it easier for people to feel good about calling your law office and scheduling a consultation.

The best testimonials are the kind that give a narrative of your firm, rather than just listing positive attributes.  Anyone can create a list of compliments, but having an honest, authentic story is worth much more than compliments can be.  That authenticity will make your website ready to convert even the most hesitant potential clients.

As many as 90 percent of lawyers in recent surveys have said that they have a LinkedIn page.  However, the vast majority of attorneys who use LinkedIn are not using the service as well as they could be.  It's not enough to just build a profile and leave.  In this guide, we'll take a look at why LinkedIn is one of the best—perhaps the single best—social media service for attorneys who primarily work with business clients.  We'll also look at eight different ways to maximize the value of your LinkedIn account for finding new clients and making your law firm's social media strategy work well for you.

#1: Use the Right Photograph

When you start creating your LinkedIn profile, you may be tempted to use a generic photograph of your law firm or an older headshot.  The best thing that you can do to make sure that LinkedIn works well for you right away is to have a new, professional photograph taken of yourself.  A more contemporary looking photograph will be more likely to draw in viewers, and will ensure that your firm doesn't look mired in the past.

If you're unsure of whether you're photogenic, the best advice is: don't worry about it, but make sure that you're hiring a photographer who knows how to make you look your best.  Clients want to see that you're taking care with your appearance and that you know how to look your best in a photo—don't make the mistake of thinking that just because you're not gorgeous, you shouldn't post a realistic photo on your LinkedIn profile.  Don't use older photos just to make yourself look younger—odds are, you'll also make yourself look dated.

#2: Complete Your Profile—Completely!

Your profile, complete with skills and summary, is a great place for you to make your profile stand out from a search engine optimization standpoint.  You get enough words in your profile to really be able to fit in a wide array of keywords.  Don't make it obvious that you're putting keywords into your profile—this will usually be off-putting to people who find you some other way than with a search engine.

Instead, make sure that the keywords fit into your content and summaries organically.  Don't overload the keywords—you're better off making your profile informative and have a slightly smaller number of keywords.

#3: Don't Forget SEO In Your Headline

Make sure that when you use your LinkedIn headline, you use all of the most common terms that people might want to use to search for an attorney like you in your area.  If you're not using basic SEO knowledge in your headline, you're missing out on some clients every single day when people search for attorneys using common keywords.  Google weights LinkedIn results highly when looking at the reliability of websites for professionals like attorneys.  Using SEO in your headline increases the chances that your LinkedIn profile will come up early in Google or Bing searches for your name or your occupation.

#4: Get Involved—Don't Be a Wallflower

Make sure that once you've completed your LinkedIn profile, you don't think that your involvement with the website is over.  “Set it and forget it” isn't the key to online marketing success in the 21st century.  Social media requires active participation.  Many attorneys today think that their social media presence isn't succeeding, when the truth is that they just haven't really put in the effort needed to see success.

Make sure that you're posting updates routinely.  You can think of LinkedIn updates as being similar to your Facebook status updates, but targeted to a different audience.  Typically, the people on LinkedIn are more likely to be educated professionals, so you should frame your LinkedIn updates accordingly.  If you're making routine status updates, try mixing it up a little.  Ask a question, try to get discussions started.  Raising questions can often be better for getting people talking than trying to say that you have all the answers.

#5: Answer Questions to Get New Clients

One of the other places that you can use LinkedIn as an attorney is the LinkedIn Questions section.  In this section, people post questions that they have about different problems.  Many of these problems are legal in nature, making this a good fit for attorneys looking to expand their client base.  You can look at people's questions and answer them based on your own legal knowledge and understanding of local and state laws and practices.

You should always steer clear of providing direct legal advice, but you can definitely answer hypothetical questions and talk about your own experiences on LinkedIn Questions.  Make sure to use basic disclaimers so that the people you're discussing legal issues with know that you are not giving legal advice without a consultation.  This can be a great way to show your website's resources for dealing with common legal situations—in many cases, answering a question on LinkedIn Questions can lead directly to new client contact.

#6: Link to Your Blog Content

If you also have a legal blog, you should be linking to some of your blog's content on your LinkedIn account.  Updates should sometimes include links to your newest relevant blog entries.  However, make sure this is a step you're taking only if your blog really has quality content that might be relevant, fresh, and interesting for your LinkedIn readers.  If you give them content that looks like it was just designed as search engine ranking fodder, your readers are likely to be insulted and may stop being connected to you on LinkedIn.

#7: Build Your Connections From Existing Lists

LinkedIn will let you create your list of connections in several different ways.  You may want to connect in several older email addresses in the hopes of getting more connections for your LinkedIn account.  Because LinkedIn provides networking opportunities, many people will simply accept nearly any LinkedIn connection request that comes from somebody they know or used to know at an earlier time.

As an attorney, one of your best marketing tools is something you may not yet think of as a tool: your address book.  Now that over 80 percent of American internet users use at least one social media website, your contact list has just become more valuable than ever.  Making use of your online contacts to extend your networks and get new clients is the way things are done in the 21st century—if you're not doing it yet, you're missing out on one of the best new places to find clients in the online world.  In this guide, we'll give you seven tips that will make it easier for you to expand your network and make yourself more appealing to people two or three degrees of separation away from you.

Tip #1: Blog, Guest Blog, and Get Guest Bloggers

If you're not already blogging, you're missing out on one of the best possible opportunities to do networking in your field.  Blogging, if you're doing it right, can be an exciting way to actually talk to people online that you wouldn't normally be able to get an “in” with in the offline world.  It's worth noting that the only blogs that will do for this tip are the kind you're actually writing in house.  If you're outsourcing blog content, it may be something that can get you ahead in search engine rankings, but it's not going to be easy to get guest blogging spots or to connect with other legal bloggers.

Once you've got a blog that's running fairly well, you can start connecting with people and asking them to guest blog.  Maybe they'll have a topic in mind already that would work with the topic of your blog, or maybe you'll have a topic that you'd like a specific connection to blog about.  Either way, guest posting lets people see fresh content on your blog more often while giving your audience a wider range of opinions and analysis.

You can also participate as a guest blogger on other legal blogs.  This is often a good way to get new visitors to your blog.  If you can make your guest post sincerely interesting to the audience on the blog, you may find that you've attracted dozens or even hundreds of new readers.

Tip #2: Keep In Contact With Friends on Facebook

Don't let your friends on Facebook and other social media platforms fall by the wayside.  You never know when your social media contact list might become incredibly valuable for building a new customer base.  Friends on Facebook can be some of the best sources for finding new clients when you put out a call to your connections.

At the same time, this doesn't mean that you should just friend anyone on Facebook who asks.  Make sure that you aren't including trolls or people who are just spambots on your Facebook friends.  All these so-called “friends” will do is wreck your feed with irrelevant or offensive content.  Make sure that all of your Facebook friends are real people with real profiles.

Tip #3: Start Tweeting and Don't Stop

If you haven't started using Twitter yet, it's time.  Studies have shown that Twitter conversion rates for attorneys may actually be as much as 10 times higher as conversion rates for Facebook or LinkedIn.  This extraordinary difference means that law firms need to get into Twitter and start using it according to community norms.

You may not notice your new Twitter strategy working right away when you first begin to implement it.  However, if you keep tweeting, as time goes by it is likely you will first gain more followers to your Twitter account, followed by account followers and friends on other social media accounts connected to your Twitter name.

Tip #4: Keep Your Website Looking Great

If you want people in your network to be able to show other people your website, you need to make sure that it works well, loads quickly, and doesn't look like something pulled out of 1999.  If you're not taking care to redesign your website periodically to keep up with the changing web, you may not be putting your best foot forward in front of potential clients.

It's often best to have professional web design teams help with this portion of your online marketing efforts.  Trying to do the technical details of a website yourself can get very complicated very quickly, and there's nothing wrong with outsourcing this labor so that your website can be the best that it can be.

Tip #5: Give Things Away Online

People online are used to a culture of getting information for free.  One of the best things you can do to make your content go viral is to give useful, understandable information away in an easy to understand format.  Infographics, short videos, and even top ten lists can all be easy ways to arrange your content so that it's easier for your users to understand.  When you give things away online, people are more likely to pass your content on, getting your message out to people several degrees of separation removed from you and your firm.

Tip #6: Don't Be Afraid of Technology

New technological developments can be challenging for some law firms to accept.  However, these new developments will happen whether you want them to or not.  The only thing you can control is whether you're prepared for them.  Make sure that you've got a good understanding of best practices for online marketing using all the newest technology—this will help you focus your targeted ad campaigns instead of spending more money to get a similar number of clients.

Tip #7: Listen to Feedback and Improve Constantly

If you're going to have viral content, you have to be responsive to your audience.  Listening to feedback is critical to having a great online presence today.  When you hear feedback, even if it's negative, try not to get defensive.  Instead, consider it a chance to get better—it's much better to hear about your problems than to have people simply walk away without telling you what went wrong.

4 out of 5 new legal clients use web searches to help them make a decision about which lawyer to hire.  Because link popularity influences search results so much, many lawyers are now looking into using link popularity tools to increase their traffic and conversions.  However, not every lawyer has the same problem, and not every lawyer needs the same link popularity tool.  Here are some of the most common problems that attorneys have when trying to put together a successful, high ranking website, and the link popularity tools that can help you to overcome those problems.

Problem: We Don't Know How Popular Our Links Are

Solution: Link Popularity Tools for Link Checking

Sometimes, lawyers have had a website for a very long time—maybe your site dates from a time when search engine optimization mostly depended just on keyword percentages.  If this is the case, you may not have checked your link popularity at all, especially not with modern link popularity tools.

Using a link popularity tool designed to check your level of link popularity can give you part of the picture about how well you're performing.  In order to get a more detailed image of what you're doing right and what you can do better, you should check out your competition's website using the same link popularity tools.  This helps you understand comparatively where you are, and using a link popularity tool like this may even give you some new ideas about where to try to build new links.

Problem: We Don't Have Enough Links

Solution: Link Popularity Tools For Link Building

Maybe you've already used a link popularity tool to check how popular you were—and you didn't like the results very much at all.  You saw that your website was languishing behind many other sites like it, and you want to use some link popularity tools to help you create new ones.

Some all in one link popularity tools act as link managers that can help you post links to a wide variety of websites from a single interface.  This also helps you to keep track of the links that you have already posted.  If you're not using a link popularity tool like this to enhance your link popularity, you'll have to post at every website individually, using their interface, which may not seem like it takes very long—but once you add up all the time you're spending navigating different website layouts, it turns out that these link popularity tools can be one of the biggest time savers your law firm can invest in.

Problem: Not Enough Time To Post Our Links

Solution: Automated Submission Link Popularity Tools

This is one of the biggest problems that many law firms have when trying to figure out what link popularity tool to use.  Posting links takes time, and for lawyers, time is money in a very direct and tangible sense.  To avoid the feeling of those billable hours just slipping away, many attorneys use link popularity tools that automate their link submission fully.

However, this type of link popularity tool has a down side that you should be aware of before you ever choose to use one.  Automated link building through link popularity tools is not looked upon favorably by search engines, and if you're caught, you can expect penalties to your search rankings.  For some lawyers, this may be perceived as a risk worth taking.  Others won't want to chance it.  You'll have to make up your own mind about whether or not automating your links is enough of a time savings to be worth the possibility of losing your hard-won rankings.

Problem: Finding New Sites To Post Links On

Solution: Using Social Bookmarking as a Link Popularity Tool

Some of the best link popularity tools today aren't freestanding pieces of software.  Instead, think of websites that allow free user posting to be their own unique form of link popularity tool.  If you want to increase your link presence, social bookmarking sites are the best link popularity tools possible.  Just start by creating an account and soon you'll be able to freely post links to whatever part of your website needs them most.

Problem: Don't Know Which Links Are Better

Solution: Use SEOQuake or Other Link Popularity Tools to Check PageRank

When you're building your links, you'll want to prioritize them by quality, and there's no better way to check than by using a link popularity tool.  Google bases the amount of link juice you get with each link on how authoritative the link source is, and how many other links are on the website.  Using a link popularity tool like SEOQuake, which works in your browser to tell you information about a website's PageRank and other data, can be extremely useful if you're hoping to find the most efficient route to Page One of search results.

If you're considering two different sources for your link, try using SEOQuake and seeing whether their PageRank is the same or not.  If it's not, you probably want to prioritize putting links on the website with the higher PageRank value.

Keep in mind that not all of your links can or should be from high PageRank sites—this would be a very unnatural linking pattern.  However, you can definitely use link popularity tools like SEOQuake to find out which links are likely to be most valuable and which ones you can probably ignore.

Problem: Google Says Our Website is Overoptimized

Solution: Use Link Popularity Tools to Identify Bad Links

One last use of a link popularity tool that you should know about is using tools to identify bad links.  Whether they're inbound links leading to your website or outbound links that go to websites other than your own, you need your links to work.  If you use link popularity tools and find out that one of your inbound links isn't working, you can talk to the webmaster or redirect the link URL to the page that now contains the relevant information.  If an outbound link no longer works, you should find where the data you were linking to is now displayed, and change your link accordingly.

Search engine link popularity is now the #1 factor that matters when it comes to where your link appears in the rankings.  If you're not actively working to boost your SEO link popularity, you're going to fall further and further behind your more prepared competitors in 2013 and beyond.  In this guide, we're going to look at some of the hottest search engine link popularity topics of 2012 and examine how they can affect law firms.  Sit back and take some notes, because these tips will help you to get your website onto the top page, where the traffic flows freely.

Is Your Law Firm Prepared for 2013?

It's not exactly a secret that most lawyers hate marketing.  Search engine link popularity just isn't a very exciting topic to most legal professionals, which probably explains why so many lawyers are ignoring it.

Today, though, it's like everybody's living in the future—over 80 percent of people look for lawyers online before deciding on who will represent them, and over 90 percent of those people aren't looking past the first page of their search results.  That means that in order to get clients, you're going to need to put yourself on the first page for at least some search strings that people actually use.  

Google makes most of its rankings decisions based on your inbound links—both how many of them there are, and how authoritative each link is based on the linking website's PageRank.  If you're going to boost your SEO link popularity today, you'll need to not only focus on building large numbers of links but also on checking the quality of every link you get.

Use Caution When Boosting SEO Link Popularity

There is such a thing as trying too hard to boost your search engine link popularity.  If you spam the entire internet with link after link to your website, you might think that the boost to your SEO link popularity would automatically lead to a dramatic increase in your search ranks.  Not so—in fact, Google has several ways to detect when someone is gaming the system.

One of the easiest mistakes to make is building your link presence too fast.  No real website builds its search engine link popularity overnight.  Gradual, slow changes to your SEO link popularity will look more natural and will lead to a slow but steady positive change to where your website appears in search results.

The Difference Between Indexed and Non-Indexed Links

Not all links are created equal.  Not only are some links poorer quality than others for search engine link popularity purposes, but some links actually don't make any difference at all.  Why?  Because Google's “spiders” (the programs used to find new web pages and index their content) aren't able to find them.  If your inbound links can't be found by Google, there's no way for their link juice to add to your website's level of authority.

The best way to ensure that your links will be indexed and affect your SEO link popularity is to put them on websites with easy to navigate interfaces and site maps.  You may also want to actually build links to your links in order to increase your search engine link popularity—this is called nested or tiered link building.

Worry About Clients First, Search Engines Second

With all the focus in the search engine marketing world today, some marketers make the mistake of putting the machines first.  It's worth keeping in mind that the best way to build your SEO link popularity is still to get natural links from people interested in your content.  If you build for people first, and think of search engine link popularity as a nice bonus, you'll do much better than if you make barely readable pages full of content that an audience wouldn't care about but a search engine would.

Methods of Boosting Your SEO Link Popularity Naturally

Search engine link popularity isn't necessarily hard to build naturally, as long as you're good at creating content and can do so consistently.  Start joining and participating in social networking websites, and you'll see your SEO link popularity start to build up overnight.  It's not because you've done anything “black hat,” but because you've actually provided a way for people to find information they're looking for.

You can also improve search results and your search engine link popularity by listing yourself in a large number of directories, both for websites generally and for lawyers specifically.  Attorneys who aren't listed in these directories will have substantially lower SEO link popularity, and most directories are either free to participate in or cost only a nominal fee.

What Changes Will Happen in 2013?

Google tends not to talk about search engine algorithm changes until they come out, so it's difficult to speculate on exactly how SEO link popularity will change.  However, we can make some educated guesses based on how Google has dealt with search engine link popularity issues up until now.

So far in 2012, Google has been making big changes to their search algorithm to prevent people from gaining SEO link popularity through automated or “black hat” techniques that involve spam.  However, spam results are still very noticeable, especially when making searches for very competitive terms.  We can expect for Google to address this and tweak the way they correlate search engine link popularity with rankings next year.  So far, the trend has been toward penalizing automated SEO link popularity building, so you should start phasing out the use of automation programs, even if they're still working for now.

Differentiating Yourself From The Competition

The best way to make sure that your search engine link popularity continues to climb is having an effective brand identity and promoting that brand identity across the web.  If you just seem like another lawyer, without a lot to differentiate yourself from the competition, don't be surprised if your results are tepid.  Don't just do what everyone else is doing—if you want to be on page one, you need to build your search engine link popularity organically and contextually.

Running a free link popularity check tool isn't difficult, but most law firms aren't using a link popularity checker yet.  Why not?  It may be that many lawyers haven't yet really grasped how important link popularity is for their websites—so they don't even know that a link popularity check could be useful.  If you're not sure whether a link popularity check would be beneficial for your firm, this guide can help steer you in the right direction.  Here are seven different ways that a free link popularity check can make your firm's website easier to find for potential clients.

#1: Learn What You're Doing Right

When you run a link popularity check for the first time, you may be surprised by how many links you have.  It's very likely that the link popularity checker will reveal not just links that you've deliberately built for your firm, but also many other links that other people have made with or without telling you.  If you haven't run a free link popularity check in some time, or have never run one before, you're going to find out which of your pages tend to get the most links and which get the fewest.

By finding out what other people are linking to with a link popularity checker, you'll be able to understand which topics are most interesting to your viewers and which don't get as much traffic.  You may not have known that a particular niche was making so many waves for your firm online—this kind of understanding is one of the biggest advantages of running a link popularity check.

#2: Investigating the Competition

Knowing what your firm is doing right is only part of the battle.  The reality is, you've got competitors, and some of them may be doing a link popularity check right now—on both their website and your own.  Once you've already run a link popularity checker on your own website, do a free link popularity check on your competition's site as well.

The results from running a link popularity check on your competitor can be a veritable gold mine of information.  In many cases, you will find through your link popularity checker that they're listed on directory websites or other types of sites that you haven't yet built inbound links from.  You can get your links on the same sites, then re-run a free link popularity check on your own website to make sure they're showing up.

#3: Finding Different Websites For Links

When you use a link popularity check, you can find brand new websites to start posting on.  Maybe you'd never even heard of reddit.com, but now you find out through the link popularity checker that the social bookmarking website already includes three different inbound links for your blog.  Because of your free link popularity check, you can now start using websites where it's clear you or your competitors have had success.

#4: Learning Who's Following You

Having a great network of people is one of the best ways to build inbound links.  By using a link popularity checker, you can find out whether there are a few people or websites that are linking to you repeatedly and seem to be following you.  By identifying these people with your free link popularity check, you can start actually interacting with them and following them as well.

When you use your link popularity check in this way, you're actually building a small web community all of your own.  Make sure that when you reach out to these followers after running your link popularity checker, you don't just seek them out as a source of better links.  Treat them as people deserving of respect and consideration, and you'll have much better results and can possibly make a lifelong career networking connection because of your link popularity checker.

#5: Checking Reciprocal Links

If you've asked somebody for a link exchange, you may have used a link popularity check at the beginning of your arrangement to make sure they put up the link they promised.  But have you checked with a link popularity checker since then?  If not, running a free link popularity check can give you peace of mind and help you see whether anyone has broken their agreement.

If you run a link popularity check and find that someone is no longer running the link that they said they would be, you can talk to the webmaster and ask them to reinsert the link on their website.  If they refuse, you can take down the reciprocal link from your site.

#6: Making Sure Your Links Are Up To Date

When you redesign your website it's imperative to run a free link popularity check as soon as you can.  If you don't run a link popularity check periodically after a site revision, it's possible that your inbound links will direct to pages that you no longer maintain or update.  This means that people trying to follow these links won't get what they're coming for, and they probably won't search all over your site to find it.

When your free link popularity check reveals that some links are going to outdated pages, you have two options.  You can either alert the webmaster of the site where the link is hosted, so that he or she can change the link based on your link popularity checker results, or you can include a new redirect page on your website so that people don't get lost.

#7: Learning Where You Need Expansion

Your link popularity check can show you not only where you've already got links, but also where you haven't got them.  If a free link popularity check reveals, for instance, that you have few or no links from social networking sites, you may want to start pursuing a social networking strategy.  If the link popularity check reveals that you're not yet taking advantage of any type of commonly used link, you should definitely at least consider adding those links to your site.

A majority of marketers today rank link building as being a difficult or very difficult search engine optimization task.  How can your law firm improve link popularity numbers without running into problems with Google?  How can you increase link popularity in a way that will make sure that you're getting closer to the front page of search results every day?  Here we'll learn 8 ways to improve link popularity that work without “black hat” techniques.

#1: Improve Link Popularity With Quality, Not Quantity

If you learned how to increase link popularity in the early part of the 21st century and haven't brushed up since, you may need to start relearning some things.  Today, quality matters much more than just how many links you have.  If you want to improve link popularity for your website, you'll need to focus on getting links from websites with high amounts of traffic and high levels of authority.

Google will increase link popularity for a website more when it receives links from pages with a high Google PageRank.  This is because these websites are viewed as being more likely to be authoritative.  Similarly, because they are perceived as more difficult to get, inbound links coming from .edu top level domains will improve link popularity more than a similar link coming from a .com address with equivalent PageRank.

#2: Increase Link Popularity By Monitoring the Competition

If you're not sure where your strategy to improve link popularity could use improvement, use your competitors to get your next ideas.  Use a link popularity checker tool to find out what kind of links your competition is building, and then use those results to find your own link sources.  Whenever you find a website that your competitors are using to increase link popularity, you can work to get a link built in that website as well.

Consistent monitoring of your competitors can generate valuable intelligence about their strategies to increase link popularity.  Don't be too beholden to their results: remember that you should also strive to improve link popularity in ways that your competition hasn't yet figured out, so that you can more easily defeat them in the search rankings.

#3: Improve Link Popularity Organically and Contextually

Google has recently started paying more attention to whether a website is working to really improve the quality of its results or just the quantity.  Because of new, stricter scrutiny that Google is applying to websites' inbound links, you should try to make sure that many of your links are contextually based.  When you improve link popularity with contextual links, each of your links will grant you more link juice than if they had come from a website with very little in common with yours.

The best way, bar none, to increase link popularity is to have other people post your content and provide inbound links organically.  This means that people are posting links to your website without being asked or prompted to.  However, it can be difficult to improve link popularity in this way.  If you can't, try to at least make it look like your links have been naturally built rather than artificially.

#4: Increase Link Popularity Slowly For Best Results

A sudden spike in the number of links to your website won't lead to a meteoric rise and thousands of new hits.  Instead, it's likely to set you back, because Google will penalize websites that are seen to improve link popularity too quickly.  If you're in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines, it may not happen today or tomorrow but you will be found out—and it can be absolutely devastating to search rankings when you are.

Start with three or four links per day at most when you start to improve link popularity.  If you increase link popularity more rapidly in a month or two, this won't look nearly as suspicious as if your link building had happened all at once.

#5: Monitor Your Google PageRank To Check Your Progress

You should consistently check your PageRank to see if your efforts to improve link popularity have translated into a direct result for your website.  If you're seeing your PageRank number slowly increase, you're probably in very good shape for the future.  Keep in mind that because PageRank is a logarithmic scale, even if you are an amazing web marketer, it's very unlikely that your website will ever become a site with PageRank 8 or 9.

#6: Use Analytics to Increase Link Popularity Efficiently

If you're just shotgunning your approaches, you may not know which method for improving link popularity is actually working best.  You should instead try a single method to increase link popularity at a time, and see how it works using analytics tools.  If you find that a particular method is ineffective, you can improve link popularity using a different method and then use analytics again for a side by side comparison.

#7: Improve Link Popularity With One Way Links

If you're using too many links that are reciprocal (that is to say, two way between sites), Google will assume that you have just been trading links.  It's fine to have some casual reciprocity, just don't make it the entire focus of your campaign to increase link popularity.  It's easy enough to build one way links today that you shouldn't have any trouble finding sources.  Reciprocal linking should only account for a small percentage of your overall links.

If you're not able to get enough one way links using conventional means, you may consider using an automated one way linking service.  However, this is usually a bad way to increase link popularity.  When you improve link popularity with one of these services, you're automating the link building process in a way that Google disapproves of.  If you're caught, you can expect to face stiff penalties in the rankings or even see your website de-listed from Google searches—the search engine optimization equivalent of the death penalty.

2012 has made significant changes to how link popularity is tracked and measured by Google.  As link popularity has become important, more firms than ever want to know how to search link popularity.  In this guide, we'll look at some of the reasons that law firms find it in their best interest to perform a link popularity search.  We'll also find out how to search link popularity effectively, and why it isn't always your website that you should be searching for.

Why Should We Perform a Link Popularity Search?

No matter what you've done to build your links, it's a good thing to know how to search link popularity.  Understanding searching techniques will make it much easier for you to monitor and track your reputation online.  By doing a link popularity search, you'll learn what kind of websites are linking to you and where you might be able to create profitable advertisements.  You'll also find out what kind of linking is most effective in bringing clients to your website.

When you thoroughly understand what kind of links you're getting, you can begin to develop a comprehensive plan for expanding your link presence.  Identifying existing strengths and weaknesses can make it easier to develop a more well rounded approach to link building.  This versatile approach is often neglected by online marketers desperate to cut corners instead of providing the very best advice and service.

How to Search Link Popularity: Getting Started

Before you actually start to learn how to search link popularity, it's a good idea to have your goals in mind first.  What kind of results do you want from your link popularity search?  Are you learning how to search link popularity so that you can compete more easily with a rival firm?  Will a link popularity search be used by your firm to figure out where to post your links next?  Understanding what you want will help you make better decisions about what tools to download and how to use them.

How to Search Link Popularity: Free Web Tools

The most common way for people to search link popularity today is by using websites that have free online tools.  These free online tools are a good way to keep people coming to websites, so nearly every search engine optimization guru has his or her own link popularity calculator for people who want to know how to search link popularity.

These tools change locations online constantly, and you may want to check more than one of these tools before you decide that you have a hard and fast number for your law firm's link popularity.  Doing a double or triple check with multiple tools is always a good idea, because disagreement among the results may be an indicator that the websites you're using for your link popularity search aren't working as well as you had hoped.

How to Search Link Popularity: Your Website

The first website that you should do a link popularity search on is, of course, your own.  Start by running a link popularity search that gives you your results for Google popularity.  Different tools will give you different information.  For example, if you learn how to search link popularity using seoprofiler.com, you'll find out how many of the pages of your website are in Google's Top 50 search results, as well as seeing a list of websites in direct competition with yours.

Other tools can just list a large number of backlinks in whatever search engine you prefer.  Don't hesitate to do a link popularity search that involves several different search engines—you may find that you have much better search rankings on one than another, and exploring why can help you create your next strategy for improving your link presence.

How to Search Link Popularity: Competitor Websites

Once you've looked at some link popularity search reports for your website, it's time to turn your attention elsewhere.  Where are your competitors building their links?  Are they getting inbound links by getting directory entries, or by having social media link to their site regularly?  Analyzing where your competitors' links come from can give you fantastic ideas for helping out your own website.

After you learn how to search link popularity, you can do it for any website at all.  If there's a legal website that you're in awe of when it comes to search engine optimization, a link popularity search can take away the mystery and make it easier to imitate that site.

Tracking Your Link Popularity Search Results

It's great to know how to search link popularity and run a search, but just one search is of limited use.  You'll want to use consistent tracking of link popularity in order to make sure that you're seeing whenever a new inbound link appears for your website.

At least once every week or so, you should be looking at a link popularity search.  Tracking changes over time to these results can be helpful in identifying patterns of behavior.

What an Ideal Link Popularity Search Will Show

Google monitors link popularity because some patterns indicate that the popularity has been built artificially.  If your link popularity search reveals that almost all of your links come from the same few IP addresses, you are probably skating on very thin ice with Google and should watch out—your website could be sandboxed at any second.

What you want to do when you learn how to search link popularity is to generate a real variety of links.  You should make sure that you're cultivating links of several different types on many different websites.  Your link popularity search should indicate that you're using varied anchor text and that you don't use the same content over and over for all of your inbound links.

Maintaining link variety is the only way to ensure that Google doesn't identify your website as being too optimized.  What's more, when you have a wide variety of links, you'll be substantially more invulnerable to new spam detection techniques.