Lawyer Website Search Engine Ideas to Generate More Clients

By Bob Schwartz, CRS, GRI co-owner of websitetrafficbuilders.com Copyright Promotions Unlimited

84.8% of web cruisers use search engines to find sites like yours! (Source: GVU Center, College of Computing- Georgia Institute of Technology) Loads of people use Internet search engines every day! Simply submitting your site to the Internet search engines is not enough! If your site does get indexed (listed) by a major search engine, it will just be another fish in the sea. So, just being listed, has nothing to do with making sure you get a good position. Positioning is what matters most!

The secret to obtaining this great number of potential clients is a search engine position on the first three pages of the returned keyword search results. If your keywords rank below page three, your share of this potential traffic will be practically non-existent. There are many ways to improve your site's ranking. The most effective of which would be hiring a company that not only specializes in site positioning, but guarantees their results.

With the intense demand to achieve a top search engine position, the cost to achieve it is not inexpensive. However, it is usually much less than what you would end up spending on a bid-for-position search engine. Achieving a high ranking on the search engines is the best advertising "bargain" on the Web today. The reason is simple: Millions of searches are performed everyday. The thousands of Web sites that appear near the top of those search results essentially get free advertising. People must be able to find your site on one or more keywords when they do a search!

This article focuses on what you can do (without knowledge of HTML coding) to heighten your site's chance of getting its fair share of Internet search engine traffic:

#1. Be sure every page of your site has the correct Title, Meta description & content tags. A lot of sites only have the proper tags on their entry page, leaving the other site pages with unfinished/incorrect tags. Do not just copy your entry page tagsover to your other pages. To be useful, the tags should be relevant to the content on that page.



#2. To continue on with tags, you should check any framed pages used on your site. Here you will be sure that you are using good NOFRAME tags. Not all search engines correctly index framed pages. Without the correct NOFRAME tags here, your framed pages may not be properly indexed.

#3. Lastly, sites that are graphic intensive should be utilizing the ALT tag to properly describe each graphic. No search engine reads or indexes graphics. Therefore, the ALT tag is very important.

#4. Avoid the urge to use “Under Construction” text or images on any page. This is virtually a sure way to not be indexed on a lot of major search engines. If your page is not done, do not publish it!

#5. Try applying for web site awards. Some awards are more difficult to attain than others, but all are always free. The award issuing sites only require you place a link back to their site attached to their award graphic. Awards add creditability and also enhance the time spent on investigating your site. An excellent graphic accompanies the Legal Excellent Content Award.

#6. With the algorithms of most search engines monitoring link popularity, your site should have a links page. To be efficient, this page should be linked to your site's front page. Use this page to trade links with other sites in related (but non-competitive) industries. For example, legal sites handling accidents could link to other legal sites that do divorce or immigration law for example. Real estate sites could trade links with home improvement/maintenance sites, financial planners, lenders, lawyers, etc. Keep in mind, the goal is not to just link these sites, but to exchange links with them! Note of caution: There are a few sites that will offer you free membership in a link exchange service. You are required to host a number of pages on your site that list the other participant’s links. Though intentions are not bad, and somewhat effective in increasing your link popularity, the search engines have caught on to this ploy and as one of our prospective clients recently found out, will de-list your site for this practice. Plus, the importance of links to achieving a better ranking for your site is based on the standing of the site linking to you. So, a link from a site highly ranked will be worth more in the search engines eyes than hundreds of links from low/non-ranked sites. Do not fall for the optimistic, yet unrealistic instant promises of these services. Building effective links takes time and perseverance.

#7. There have been recent changes in search engine submission policies. Today to get your site indexed quickly, the most cost effective, and in some cases, the only way to be listed on certain search engines, is to pay for a guaranteed site review. The two best places to apply are through the Looksmart network, as well as the Yahoo directory. The price for the Yahoo review is $299, recurring annually. Additonally, you are paying for a review only, with no guarantee of being listed. Also, these services do NOT guarantee where your site will be Finally, keep in mind your fee of $299 is NOT returned if your site is not accepted. Here is part of an email site rejection notice received by a local site from Yahoo: “Dear Business Express Client, Yahoo! has reviewed the URL you submitted with Business Express order #. We're sorry to report that we've decided not to include your site in the Yahoo! directory at this time. We base our evaluation of each site solely on the content it has on the site at the time of evaluation. When we reviewed your site today, we found that it did not have enough content to support a listing through the Business Express program.” The Looksmart search engine has changed to a pay-per-click system.

#8. To mitigate the potential for your site submission being rejected, and to insure your share of the Internet search engine traffic, you could hire a company that specializes in positioning. The most cost-effective things to consider with this approach (in order of importance) are:

A. A guarantee that YOUR given keywords will attain a position on page one, two or three of the search engine results.

B. A written outline of the whole program.

C. No charge should be made for any ranking under page three.

D. There should be a sliding fee charged that is based on real results. E. There should be a maximum price stated. F. Before hiring any firm you should verify their actual prior results.

#9. With a short time and a modest investment you can achieve some very reputable results yourself. There are a few programs out there, but the best one, which we utilize in our own business, is IBP.

They have a free, thirty-day demo program that is down-loadable. Plus, just the extensive help section, alone, provides invaluable insights into top search engine positioning. There will always be skeptics and site owners who do not dedicate the time or place the investment into their sites to earn top rankings. No matter how completive the keyword phrase, with the application of the proper techniques top search engine positions can be obtained. In conclusion, websites can be very productive in achieving huge search engine keyword directed traffic. For additional insights into the Internet search engines, software programs given above and web site promotion, visit:

http://www.websitetrafficbuilders.com/ Bob can be contacted at: seo711@gmail.com Copyright 2007 Promotions Unlimited