SEO for Lawyers: The Attorney’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization for Law Firms – Part 2

In part 1 of “SEO for Lawyers: The Attorney’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization for Law Firms,” we briefly discussed the “Why” and “What” of SEO. Today, however, we are going to start discussing the “How” by covering how search engines compile data.

The Search Starts with the Crawl

Google and other major search engines use Spiders/Robots to crawl the web and compile their index. Googlebot will essentially visit a web page, record the content, and follow links on the page to other sites. The recorded information is then placed into an index/database and arranged according to the search engine’s algorithm.

The indexing of the site is done by the search engine’s algorithm which analyzes the text, links, and other page elements for keywords that the algorithm will then use to determine the relevancy of the page to keyword searches that are performed. Using a number of “secret” and “not so secret” factors, the algorithm will determine where each site should rank in the index for a particular keyword search.

Some websites, however, are considered unfriendly to search – which is why you should consider having your attorney website assessed by an SEO professional. For example, websites that heavily utilize Flash graphics, or frames will not index well because certain kinds of content are difficult for the spiders to crawl. If content is difficult for the spider’s to crawl, it will most likely not be placed in the index or will perform poorly therein.

It should be noted though that simply having a website will not guarantee that it will be indexed. In order to be indexed, a site will generally either need to have links to it, or alternatively be registered with the search engines in some other way.

For example, if a page is not linked to, it will be difficult for the search engine spiders to find it. This is why most search engines will offer manual submission of urls to be crawled. Additionally, participating in services like Google Webmaster Tools can speed up inclusion in the index for new sites. In my own experience, however, I have noticed that Googlebot can actually find web pages that are not officially linked to or submitted to Google Webmaster Tools — though it is unlikely that such pages would actually perform well in search.

Which Search Engines to Target

Since Google owns the largest share of the search market in the U.S., this guide will cover Search Engine Optimization as it applies to Google. However, it is important to note that Bing also has a noteworthy share of the search market and that many of the techniques discussed in this guide will equally apply to Bing.

SEO is Different than Pay Per Click

Buying Pay Per Click or Adwords ads is advertising, not search engine optimization. Many SEO companies will offer both services, but it should be noted that they are different services. Just because a company is good at SEO, does not mean they will be good with Pay Per Click, and vice versa. However, there are some similarities between the two. For example SEO research often involves using the same tools that Pay Per Click research involves.

Plan to Commit to SEO

If you are going to engage professional SEO services, or SEO your own site, you will need to be committed to it.

Such committments may include:

• Taking the time to research and find a SEO service provider for your law firm.
• Making time to write or approve blog posts for your website.
• Taking time to review web analytic reports.
• Taking the time it takes to communicate with your SEO service provider.
• Committing to your SEO budget.
• Committing to your SEO link building campaign.
• Committing to Content Marketing production and distribution.

Although the above list is not necessarily comprehensive, it should give you an idea of what kind of commitments will be necessary to achieve SEO success.

Stay Tuned for Part 3 of this Series

Now that you have an overview of how search engine’s compile and organize information, you are ready to learn more about “How” SEO for lawyers really works which will be presented in upcoming lessons. You can easily stay tuned to the latest posts in this series by subscribing to our RSS feed or by subscribing to this blog via email (delivered by Google Feedburner and spam safe).