Search Engine Optimization Raises Bar for Law Firm Web Sites

On Aug. 13, a techie blogger named Oilman posted an article entitled, “Shame Shame Shame Findlaw,” accusing the legal behemoth of violating Google's guidelines. Within hours, FindLaw was pilloried by the Search Engine Optimization (“SEO”) blogosphere. Terms like “ethical violations,” “multimillion dollar business models,” “potential lawsuits” and “scamming” were bandied about. Google dropped FindLaw's Page Rank from a 7 to a 5. Popular legal blogger Kevin O'Keefe outlined a course of action for FindLaw, which called for public disclosure, refunds and apologies.

The controversy unveiled FindLaw's SEM Advantage program ' which was essentially an agreement to sell a link from FindLaw.com to a law firm's Web site for up to $2,500 a month for the sole purpose of improving that site's search results. This is in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines, which state: “Buying or selling links that pass Page Rank is in violation of Google's Webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.”

What happened? What is Search Engine Optimization anyway? What was the big deal?

Search Engine Optimization is the fine and very competitive art of positioning a Web page to rank high for a specific phrase submitted to search engines. Ranking is simply the order in which the search results appear ' with the top three positions accounting for approximately 70% of all clicks. Ranking first on Google for a highly competitive term like “Chicago DUI Lawyer” can bring a massive volume of highly qualified prospects to a law firm. Because the upside is so big, firms spend thousands of dollars on SEO consultants, third-party applications and interactive agencies to reach and maintain their position at the top.

Search engines compete with each other on their ability to guide users to relevant content. The search engines, therefore, reward those Web pages that provide useful content to their consumers with high rankings. To understand how to get the most out of search engine optimization, it is important to learn how search engines catalogue and evaluate trillions of Web pages to determine which one is most relevant to a given search query.

How Does a Computer Know
What a Web Page Is About?

Huge computers at Google, MSN, and Yahoo “read” Web pages with computer programs called spiders (also referred to as bots or robots). To determine a Web page's content, the search engine spiders count the number of times a word or phrase appears on a page. The more frequently a keyword or phrase shows up on a page, the more likely that page is about that specific keyword. This is referred to as keyword density. In addition, keywords that appear in the page's title or URL are weighted more heavily as they tend to be very strong indicators of a Web page's content.

How Does a Computer
Determine Page Importance?

Once the search engine understands the content of a Web page, it must determine in what order to rank all of the pages about a specific keyword. They do this by favoring those pages considered to have more authority than others. Search engines measure authority by the number and quality of links from other Web sites. Each link serves as a vote of confidence for the content to which it is linking. The simple theory is that a page that a lot of other sites link to is probably more interesting than a page without any links. Search engines consider not only the number of these “inlinks,” but also the quality of those links when they determine which sites rank for a specific keyword. For example, a link from the homepage of The New York Times is much more valuable than a link from deep page on conradisawesome.com. For each Web page, Google calculates and displays Page Rank ' a roughly logarithmic scale of authority.

The importance of SEO has exploded as more and more people are turning to the Internet to research legal issues, identify potential lawyers and vet attorneys who have been recommended by friends. The Internet has eclipsed the Yellow Pages as the primary source consumers turn to when searching for an attorney. A 2007 survey by consumer research firm Ipsos revealed that only 25% of consumers turn to the Yellow Pages when looking for an attorney, while 33% utilize the Internet. There are over 19 million Web searches that include the word “lawyer” or “attorney” every month. The attorney with the largest, flashiest Yellow Pages advertisement has started to lose business to the lawyer who knows how to present him- or herself in front of prospective customers searching for legal counsel online. In addition, consumers are using the Internet to check up on lawyers recommended by personal referrals, even before picking up the phone.

As competition heats up to attract online consumers, some law firms have adopted search engine optimization strategies. Some strategies involve trying to trick the search engine about a page's content or its authority. The classic example is repeating a key phrase in white text on a white background ' while it looks normal to human eyes, the spiders misread the keyword density of the page. Because these tricks lend no value to the consumer, Google actively punishes sites caught trying to game their system. Google's anti-spam team carefully monitors the Web for sites that profit from the manipulation of the Google algorithm. Google's concern with FindLaw was its apparent trickery by selling links to artificially improve the search results of its clients. Google reprimanded FindLaw by lowering its Page Rank. FindLaw responded by adding “no follows” to the links ' essentially removing the SEO value of the link ' and its Page Rank was returned to its original level.

Conclusion

Search Engine Optimization is ultimately about providing people with interesting content to read and making sure that the search engines think that content is important. While there are plenty of consultants available, lawyers who are naturally good at marketing tend to also be naturally good at SEO. Web sites that are constantly updated with search-friendly content, such as recent successes or commentary on issues and cases for a specific practice area, tend to perform well. Lawyers who extend their networking and marketing to the Internet build opportunities to link back to their own Web site.

Legal marketers are increasingly including SEO as consumers turn to the Web to become more informed about attorneys and specific legal issues. Smart lawyers are proactively managing their online reputation by monitoring and influencing the results of searches for their names.

SEO Jargon

• H1 Tag. HTML code that identifies a Web page's title. Search engines look at the H1 tag to determine the content on the page.
• Index. Google's assessment that a page is worthy of consideration for search queries. Google doesn't index all of the pages it finds ' and those that don't get indexed never display in search results.
• Keyword Density. The number of times a word or phrase appears on a Web page.
• Linkbait. Content written specifically to attract links.
• Linkfarm. A group of Web pages built exclusively to provide links to each other. Frowned upon by search engines.
• Link Exchange. An agreement to trade links.
• Meta Description. HTML code that describes what a page is about. This shows up as the detailed description of the page in search results.
• Page Rank. A roughly logarithmic scale of a Web page's importance. To display Page Rank for any Web site, simply download the Google Toolbar.
• Search Results. The list of Web sites that show up for a given query.
• White Hat and Black Hat. Black-hat techniques are focused around tricking the search engines, while white-hat tactics conform to guidelines published by the search engines.

Five Tips for Search Engine Success

1. Write Interesting Content (for humans). Don't view Web sites as static virtual brochureware that needs to be updated every five years. Instead, use a Web site to constantly publish information about yourself, your law firm and your practice area.
2. Update. Keep content fresh to encourage the engines to keep coming back to see what is new. A blog is an easy way to do this.
3. Rank for Your Name. Make sure you rank well for your own name. If you have a common name, make sure you rank for “Attorney, Bill Smith.”
4. Avoid Copying Content. When search engines encounter identical copies of content around the Web, they try to determine the original source and ignore all others. The only valuable content is original content.
5. Focus Pages. Ensure that each and every Web page is focused on a specific topic that is reinforced through the page title and URL. For example, don't list all of a firm's attorneys on the same Web page.

On Aug. 13, a techie blogger named Oilman posted an article entitled, “Shame Shame Shame Findlaw,” accusing the legal behemoth of violating Google's guidelines. Within hours, FindLaw was pilloried by the Search Engine Optimization (“SEO”) blogosphere. Terms like “ethical violations,” “multimillion dollar business models,” “potential lawsuits” and “scamming” were bandied about. Google dropped FindLaw's Page Rank from a 7 to a 5. Popular legal blogger Kevin O'Keefe outlined a course of action for FindLaw, which called for public disclosure, refunds and apologies.

The controversy unveiled FindLaw's SEM Advantage program ' which was essentially an agreement to sell a link from FindLaw.com to a law firm's Web site for up to $2,500 a month for the sole purpose of improving that site's search results. This is in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines, which state: “Buying or selling links that pass Page Rank is in violation of Google's Webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.”

What happened? What is Search Engine Optimization anyway? What was the big deal?

Search Engine Optimization is the fine and very competitive art of positioning a Web page to rank high for a specific phrase submitted to search engines. Ranking is simply the order in which the search results appear ' with the top three positions accounting for approximately 70% of all clicks. Ranking first on Google for a highly competitive term like “Chicago DUI Lawyer” can bring a massive volume of highly qualified prospects to a law firm. Because the upside is so big, firms spend thousands of dollars on SEO consultants, third-party applications and interactive agencies to reach and maintain their position at the top.

Search engines compete with each other on their ability to guide users to relevant content. The search engines, therefore, reward those Web pages that provide useful content to their consumers with high rankings. To understand how to get the most out of search engine optimization, it is important to learn how search engines catalogue and evaluate trillions of Web pages to determine which one is most relevant to a given search query.

How Does a Computer Know
What a Web Page Is About?

Huge computers at Google, MSN, and Yahoo “read” Web pages with computer programs called spiders (also referred to as bots or robots). To determine a Web page's content, the search engine spiders count the number of times a word or phrase appears on a page. The more frequently a keyword or phrase shows up on a page, the more likely that page is about that specific keyword. This is referred to as keyword density. In addition, keywords that appear in the page's title or URL are weighted more heavily as they tend to be very strong indicators of a Web page's content.

How Does a Computer
Determine Page Importance?

Once the search engine understands the content of a Web page, it must determine in what order to rank all of the pages about a specific keyword. They do this by favoring those pages considered to have more authority than others. Search engines measure authority by the number and quality of links from other Web sites. Each link serves as a vote of confidence for the content to which it is linking. The simple theory is that a page that a lot of other sites link to is probably more interesting than a page without any links. Search engines consider not only the number of these “inlinks,” but also the quality of those links when they determine which sites rank for a specific keyword. For example, a link from the homepage of The New York Times is much more valuable than a link from deep page on conradisawesome.com. For each Web page, Google calculates and displays Page Rank ' a roughly logarithmic scale of authority.

The importance of SEO has exploded as more and more people are turning to the Internet to research legal issues, identify potential lawyers and vet attorneys who have been recommended by friends. The Internet has eclipsed the Yellow Pages as the primary source consumers turn to when searching for an attorney. A 2007 survey by consumer research firm Ipsos revealed that only 25% of consumers turn to the Yellow Pages when looking for an attorney, while 33% utilize the Internet. There are over 19 million Web searches that include the word “lawyer” or “attorney” every month. The attorney with the largest, flashiest Yellow Pages advertisement has started to lose business to the lawyer who knows how to present him- or herself in front of prospective customers searching for legal counsel online. In addition, consumers are using the Internet to check up on lawyers recommended by personal referrals, even before picking up the phone.

As competition heats up to attract online consumers, some law firms have adopted search engine optimization strategies. Some strategies involve trying to trick the search engine about a page's content or its authority. The classic example is repeating a key phrase in white text on a white background ' while it looks normal to human eyes, the spiders misread the keyword density of the page. Because these tricks lend no value to the consumer, Google actively punishes sites caught trying to game their system. Google's anti-spam team carefully monitors the Web for sites that profit from the manipulation of the Google algorithm. Google's concern with FindLaw was its apparent trickery by selling links to artificially improve the search results of its clients. Google reprimanded FindLaw by lowering its Page Rank. FindLaw responded by adding “no follows” to the links ' essentially removing the SEO value of the link ' and its Page Rank was returned to its original level.

Conclusion

Search Engine Optimization is ultimately about providing people with interesting content to read and making sure that the search engines think that content is important. While there are plenty of consultants available, lawyers who are naturally good at marketing tend to also be naturally good at SEO. Web sites that are constantly updated with search-friendly content, such as recent successes or commentary on issues and cases for a specific practice area, tend to perform well. Lawyers who extend their networking and marketing to the Internet build opportunities to link back to their own Web site.

Legal marketers are increasingly including SEO as consumers turn to the Web to become more informed about attorneys and specific legal issues. Smart lawyers are proactively managing their online reputation by monitoring and influencing the results of searches for their names.

SEO Jargon

• H1 Tag. HTML code that identifies a Web page's title. Search engines look at the H1 tag to determine the content on the page.
• Index. Google's assessment that a page is worthy of consideration for search queries. Google doesn't index all of the pages it finds ' and those that don't get indexed never display in search results.
• Keyword Density. The number of times a word or phrase appears on a Web page.
• Linkbait. Content written specifically to attract links.
• Linkfarm. A group of Web pages built exclusively to provide links to each other. Frowned upon by search engines.
• Link Exchange. An agreement to trade links.
• Meta Description. HTML code that describes what a page is about. This shows up as the detailed description of the page in search results.
• Page Rank. A roughly logarithmic scale of a Web page's importance. To display Page Rank for any Web site, simply download the Google Toolbar.
• Search Results. The list of Web sites that show up for a given query.
• White Hat and Black Hat. Black-hat techniques are focused around tricking the search engines, while white-hat tactics conform to guidelines published by the search engines.

Five Tips for Search Engine Success

1. Write Interesting Content (for humans). Don't view Web sites as static virtual brochureware that needs to be updated every five years. Instead, use a Web site to constantly publish information about yourself, your law firm and your practice area.
2. Update. Keep content fresh to encourage the engines to keep coming back to see what is new. A blog is an easy way to do this.
3. Rank for Your Name. Make sure you rank well for your own name. If you have a common name, make sure you rank for “Attorney, Bill Smith.”
4. Avoid Copying Content. When search engines encounter identical copies of content around the Web, they try to determine the original source and ignore all others. The only valuable content is original content.
5. Focus Pages. Ensure that each and every Web page is focused on a specific topic that is reinforced through the page title and URL. For example, don't list all of a firm's attorneys on the same Web page.