Legal Internet Marketing Blog

Time and time again, we’re approached with the same scenario. A client finds incorrect listing information on Google Places, or Manta, or some other local listing site, and then explains to us that he or she can’t figure out how to correct the errors. In short, they can’t get to the root of the problem, and the incorrect listing information never goes away. Ultimately, what’s happening with this client is exactly what he or she described – that is, they are not getting to the ROOT of the problem, mainly because, it isn’t what you would expect.

For anyone who’s ever attempted to correct listing information in Google Places, it’s no secret that the process can often be less than successful. Listings are claimed, information is corrected, and the incorrect information reappears again and again, often times supplanting the client’s “main” listing as the primary profile that Google then goes on to associate customer reviews with. Sound familiar? If you answered yes, you need only take a step back:

Doesn’t sound right, or fair, does it? But, the reality of local search is that Google, along with a host of other local listing directories, trusts information obtained from partner sites more so than they do the actual business owner or marketing representative trying to supply the local directory with accurate information.

So what can one do to help curb these local directory listing nightmare issues? Plainly stated, get to the root of the problem. Find the listing site that Google or Bing or Yahoo is pulling information from, and correct the inaccurate information at the source. Essentially, what you’re going to be doing is working backwards. Find the primary source of your listing nightmares, correct it, and move forward from there, correcting information in each listing that needs editing. In the end, you should find yourself right back where you started – one of the more popular listing sites (e.g. Google, Bing, etc.) where the majority of your web traffic is coming from. Hopefully, once you end up right where you originally started, you should be able to correct your business’s listing information once and for all.

Want to grow your law firm online? The SEO, design, social networking, and writing team at SLS Consulting can assist you with your legal Internet marketing plan to achieve high search engine rankings. With over 12 years of experience, we stay on top of the latest developments in SEO updates and marketing strategies, including Google Places listings. Call (323) 254-1510 today for a free growth assessment.

Have you ever heard an advertisement that was more sales-pitchy than informative? For the majority of companies out there, an eye-catching, effective advertising campaign is a necessity, and finding one is often a difficult task. Whether you hire an advertising firm to oversee your campaign or you employ an in-house department to do the same, advertising is an absolute must as far as acquiring new business is concerned.

In the world of legal Internet marketing, advertising comes in no better form than a properly optimized and well designed website. And at the root of the website is the copy, and how well that copy incorporates pertinent information (to sell the consumer) and keywords (to help the website rank well).

Do you know what keyword stuffing is? It’s the act of incorporating as many keywords into your website content as possible, often at the expense of the content sounding natural. Basically, keyword stuffing is a blatant attempt to manipulate content SEO so that a page ranks well. Put even more simply, keyword stuffing is bad.

People don’t appreciate reading keyword stuffed content. Search engines don’t like it, and neither do potential clients. Think about it. If you choose to use keyword stuffed content on your website, the risks you’re taking outnumber the benefits. While keyword stuffing may allow your website to rank better, this improved ranking is going to be temporary.

Once search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo determine that your site uses keyword stuffing as a ranking tactic, they will devalue your site, hurting your rankings and lowering them even more than they were in the first place. On top of that, visitors to your site won’t remain their very long, particularly since keyword stuffing makes content less informative and more annoying.

The most important thing to remember about content is to make it informative, yet accessible. If you’re an attorney, for instance, don’t use intricate legal jargon in all of your content. Write for your audience, and your audience will appreciate you for it. Who knows, it may even lead to future business, and all because you chose not to sully your content with too many keywords.

People don’t appreciate reading content that uses keyword stuffing, and often think lesser of companies who utilize it. Remember, while some keyword stuffing may help your site rank better, it won’t help you obtain new business in the long run. That is, if people visit your site, and your content is filled with advertising language rather than pertinent information that visitors are looking for, no one is going to want to remain on your site, thus increasing your bounce rate and hurting your overall marketing effort.

To learn more about how to grow your business online, contact the legal Internet marketing team at SLS Consulting. Call (323) 254-1510 today for a free growth assessment.

What makes you unique as a lawyer? How does your law practice differ from all the others in your field, your city, and your state?

These may seem like basic questions, but they are important to ask. Once you have the answers, use them. The best place to start is on your website; after all, it’s one of the first places potential clients will “see” you and it’s your chance to make a lasting first impression so they pick up the phone and call you.

What You Can Do
Not to discount the tremendous skill, knowledge, time, and effort that go into handling cases through deposition, mediation, settlement, or trial, but it is commonly understood that for an attorney’s career to really take off, he or she must find the time to be involved in the legal community outside of the courtroom, so to speak.

Whether it’s giving lectures, teaching a course, attending seminars, or becoming a member of a prestigious legal organization, an attorney’s hard work doesn’t stop with cases. Taking the time and finding a way to most effectively share these involvements, contributions, and successes is an important part of a legal Internet marketing campaign that goes unnoticed far too often.

How to Show Yourself Off
Let’s take a closer look at highlighting your unique characteristics online as a lawyer with an example. There are handfuls of Long Beach personal injury lawyers. However, Joseph H. Low stands out from the rest in a simple, but precise way. On Mr. Low’s website, http://www.jhllaw.com/, the home page features lectures and seminars that he leads with a link taking visitors to a page with more details about each event: http://www.jhllaw.com/lectures.html. Mr. Low has made the time and put in the effort to teach Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit courses for attorneys. How else would you know this unless you attended one of his course’s yourself, saw a website newsletter flyer about it, or read about it on Mr. Low’s website?

Why You Should Do It
Choosing a lawyer is a big decision. If a person visiting your site sees that you go above and beyond by being an instructor or leading speaking engagements to share your knowledge and that others rely on you for this information, then that’s another way for you to use your website to highlight your uniqueness and reputation.

If you’re going to take away one thing from this example, and this blog post, let it be that it’s vital to be involved in events and activities outside of the courtroom; however, don’t just do it and then walk away. Make sure you have tangible representation of your involvement in speaking events so others can learn more and see how you’re different than other lawyers.

Your legal website is the perfect place for you to shine. There are tasteful and advantageous ways to highlight your accomplishments and unique characteristics so that visitors will no longer be in doubt as to who they want handling their case.

Have you ever wondered what Google does to improve search results and keep users happy with such a reliable and trustworthy search engine? So have we, and so does everybody else; and with good reason: the Internet is always evolving.

To stay ahead of the competition and effectively promote your law firm or business online, you need to know how the Internet is changing, especially when it comes to search.

This Message Will Self-destruct in 5…4…
It may seem like top secret information, but a recent SearchEngineLand article discusses the most recent Google search results improvements made in December. Some of the highlights, with their respective Google codenames, are as follows:

• “Megasitelinks” – Sitelinks in search results are invaluable and help with SEO in that they provide additional links to your website by showing specific web pages. Google recently improved their algorithm (guidelines/processes that apply to search engines for ranking a site’s listing within its index) for selecting sitelinks so that results are more relevant. One example of how this improves search results is that sitelinks may be displayed based on precise geographic locations.


• “Foby” - Byline dates, the date connected with an online document/publication, helps search engine users skim the results to assess whether a site will be helpful to them based on when a site was last updated or when the content on a page was published. Google isn’t giving away much, but has stated that improvements have been made to establish what date goes with a document. As such, users should expect to see more precise dates being added to search results. So, even if a blog post is a few years old, a 2011 or 2012 byline date may show up in search results displaying the most recent updated dates.


• “Simple” and “Leaf” – To ensure that search results are displaying the most relevant images with regard to the inquiry and that images are being linked to the highest quality source pages, Google has improved quality sources with the “simple” image search update. In other words, the quality of a landing page now serves as an algorithmic flag for image search. The “leaf” image search upgrade expands algorithms used for main search results to spam detection. With better spam identification in Image Search, users shouldn’t have to do as much sifting as before when trying to find the right photo(s) or image(s).

Other Google search updates from December range from song lyric search results to live NFL and college football results, and from a +1 button visual display update to enhanced Vietnamese spell check.

Client Development Starts with Search
Want to net more clients? The place to start is with search results. For a free growth assessment of your law firm, contact Susan L. Sipe at SLS Consulting by calling (323) 254-1510 today. For over a decade, SLS has helped attorneys throughout the U.S. obtain high search engine rankings that last.

The simple fact that LinkedIn public profiles are indexed is reason enough to employ a little bit of SEO when filling out your LinkedIn information. However, it’s not always about SEO, particularly when it comes to social media profiles. For businesses especially, it’s important to remember that there is a difference between your company website and your social media profiles, namely the simple fact that one web presence is (by name even) more social than the other.

When filling out your LinkedIn profile, all the experts recommend you do one thing: show rather than tell. Showing your accomplishments always goes much farther than just telling people what you’re capable of. In the world of legal Internet marketing, showing accomplishments can involve a variety of options. Talking about successful case results, mentioning awards you’ve received, and highlighting positions of authority within legal associations are all ways that prospective clients can see how accomplished you are.

If you choose to fill your profile with keywords, it will come across as spammy. It may show up high within LinkedIn search results, particularly since LinkedIn’s ranking algorithm can be very easily manipulated, but it won’t keep people on your profile very long. Telling people you’re an excellent attorney, and doing so with a profile that reads like a sales pitch more so than a resume, is the best way to turn potential clients off. Though everyone these days loves to use industry buzzwords, they do little to help promote your brand and label you as an authority in your respective field of law.

So when filling out your LinkedIn profile, brag a little! Highlight your strengths and how those strengths have translated into happy clients and professional accolades. Your social media profiles should show people who you are, and shouldn’t necessarily just talk about what you do. Visitors to your profile know you’re a lawyer. Now all you have to do is show them that you are a good one.

The New Year presents the perfect opportunity for a fresh start. If you haven’t put together resolutions for yourself and your business already, take a moment to envision what you want 2012 to be. After setting goals for your company, one step towards making them a reality is to anticipate what lies ahead in the Internet marketing world so you can stay ahead of your competition. As such, complements to New Year’s resolutions are predictions, and we wouldn’t be an Internet marketing company if we didn’t come up with our own!

SEO Will Continue to Reign
As much of an impact as social media and social networking will continue to have on Internet marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) is the glue that keeps rankings and lead generation together. To ensure that your target audience will be able to easily find your website and content through high search engine rankings, you must make sure that proper SEO has been and will continue to be implemented.

Keep an Eye-out for Twitter Brand Pages
While Twitter brand pages have yet to become available on a wide scale, stay alert for when the chance arrives. Businesses are expected to benefit from these brand pages since they will provide a way for new interactions and different means to engage with followers.

More specifically, Twitter brand pages provide an expanded header image area, an ability to have a “featured Tweet” for an extended period of time on a brand page, and the option of splitting up a brand’s @replies and @mentions.

New Hats for Keyword Research
There is no denying the importance and value of keyword research, but what are the best tools to utilize? As a larger number of businesses are becoming more ambitious when it comes to Internet marketing, new keyword research tools are expected to develop to provide new perspectives on target audiences and search results. And it’s not just about new tools.

How businesses will combine, use, and implement keyword research methods will play a vital role in the outcome of predicting changes in demand, responses to fluctuating market conditions, and providing the right kind of content, products, and services Internet users are searching for.

Make Way for Google +
Not that anyone is underestimating the power of Google, but we must remind readers that Google Places profiles are linked to Google business pages (Google+’s version of Facebook fan pages, to an extent), which means that the blend of social and search will play an importantly groundbreaking role like never before in 2012.

Questions for the Magic 8 Ball?
Here at SLS Consulting, our legal Internet marketing team will be hosting a Tweetup this Friday, December 6 at 10 a.m. PST to discuss predictions for 2012 in more detail as well as share our Internet marketing New Year’s resolutions. To join in on the discussion being held through @LegalBlogs, please include the hashtag #knowSEO in your tweet(s). We look forward to hearing about your predictions and resolutions for 2012!

Social media has quickly developed into a key asset for creating a successful business, but shifts in social media trends can often make a business feel as if it is always struggling to stay current with the times. However, there are a few simple steps that every business can take to stay current even as the world of social media seemingly changes from day to day.

1. Set Clear Goals for Social Media in 2012 – Most importantly, every business should understand where they want to go in the span of a year. Setting goals and creating a timeline will inform the rest of the company’s decisions in social media. While strategies may change in accordance with trends in social media, a strong focus on goals will keep a business on track.
2. Integrate Social Media Sites into Your Other Websites – There are a plethora of social media sites on the Internet today, but all companies should have a presence in the major sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). These separate sites must be directly connected to a business’s main websites, with the ability to like, tweet, and recommend individual pages. 2012 will bring even more social media marketing options, leaving behind companies that do not incorporate these aspects into their sites.
3. Consistently Create New Content – No matter what trends have come and gone over the years in social networking, one factor remains the same: consistent new content is king. Without new blog posts, tweets, status updates, and many other content additions, a company’s online presence quickly diminishes, directly affecting their day-to-day business. In 2012, social media presence will be tied into advertising, shopping, and business leads more than ever.
4. Target Your Consumer Base – Never forget who your customers are as well as who you want them to be. Social media output should directly target demographics which will be interested in your products and services. Be aware of the demographics using various forms of social media and tailor your online presence to suit your consumers.
5. Be Aware of Changes – Social media, and Internet marketing as a whole, is consistently changing with updates, new layouts, new search engine algorithms, and shifts in trends and popularity. Every social media site is playing a more important role than ever before and will implement new features in 2012. Companies that are not ahead of the game run the risk of being seen as outdated and out of touch.

Creating compelling and fruitful social media content can be complex and confusing, but it is key to helping your business grow and flourish on- and off-line. For more information on how to integrate social media with your business, contact SLS Consulting’s legal Internet marketing team at (323) 254-1510 today.

While no blogger should ever feel ashamed of their downfalls – and we all have them – it can be difficult to admit to ourselves, let alone to others, what needs improving.

Nevertheless, here are 10 New Year’s Resolutions no blogger ever wants to say out loud, but may catch themselves realizing they should, so as to tackle them with initiative in 2012!

1. I will not go an entire month without posting a blog!


2. I will not go an entire week without posting a blog!


3. No longer will I post blogs without having someone proofread them first.


4. If I’m tempted to rush through writing a blog, I will slow down and take my time so I can make it worthwhile for others to read.


5. Before I publish a blog, I will pause and ask myself if there’s anything I can improve about the way it looks and what it is trying to say to my target audience.


6. I will stop rambling and get to the point!


7. As I conduct research and think about blog topics to write, I will also make the time to read other blogs within and outside of my niche.


8. I will not focus on the quantity of blogs I publish, but the quality of what the blog discusses.


9. I will make an effort to leave relevant comments on other blogs that apply to my field as well as respond thoughtfully to comments left on my blog.


10. After I publish a blog, I won’t stop there – I will utilize social networking sites and other platforms to effectively distribute and share what I’ve written.

Hopefully, you were able to skim over the majority of these points because you already do them. If not, don’t beat yourself up about it. There is plenty of time to change your ways so that you can blog more effectively for your business or law firm.

The key to New Year’s resolutions, whether they are personal or for your business, is that they should be reasonable. Push yourself, but don’t set the bar so high that you end up losing sight of your goals. Take things in stride and evaluate your Internet marketing plan as a whole and in pieces as you think of how you can achieve your ambitious, but realistic, long-term and short-term goals.

Here at SLS Consulting, we wish you and your business a prosperous, gratifying, and productive New Year!

'Tis the season for legal marketing,
Law, Law, Law, Law, Law
Law, Law, Law Law

That’s right. As we spend time with family and friends this holiday season and ring in the New Year, it’s important not to neglect your legal Internet marketing resolution: rank better! So, without further ado, we present our holiday-themed Legal Internet Marketing To-Do List:

• Be sure to DECORATE your home (page): Is your home page eye-catching? Does it have that special something extra that’s going to make people want to explore your site? If not, think about sprucing it up a bit.


• Remember to INVITE friends and family (to social media sites): It’s difficult to get fans and followers after you’ve created a Facebook fan page or Twitter account, so start out by asking those closest to you to lend a “liking” hand.


• Make sure you have your wish LIST(SERV) ready: Try offering a free how-to-guide on your site, requiring those who want it to enter their email address to gain access and offer the option to opt in for future announcements from your firm … reminding people about your firm (in moderation) can’t hurt.


• Don’t forget to CONTACT loved ones: How easy is it for clients to contact you via your website? Make sure the process is simple and allows you to obtain the preliminary information you need to get back into contact with your potential client.


• BE SOCIAL, and don’t neglect new people you meet: the most successful social media campaigns never fail to neglect new followers, fans, or connections. Send a quick thank you message or tweet to recently acquired social media friends.

By keeping the above checklist in mind, you’ll not only be doing your customers a favor, but you’ll also lay the groundwork for an effective marketing campaign that is bound to pay dividends in the future. Make sure your site is eye-catching, be sure to make it easy for potential customers to contact you, and be social. Everything else will fall into place after this.

At SLS Consulting, we work hard to ensure that our clients reach their goals online and develop their client base. Our legal Internet marketing firm is offering a free guide download, A Beginner Facebook: Do People LIKE You?, which provides some basic tips and insights into how to best utilize Facebook for your business. If you’d like more information about how to obtain higher search engine rankings and launch an effective marketing and social networking campaign, call us today at (323) 254-1510.

When it comes to business, the financial bottom line is ultimately what dictates whether a business sinks or swims. If you sell a product or service that people have a need for, you’re in the right business. If you sell a high quality product or service, then you’ve distanced yourself from the majority of your competition. But if you’re not properly marketing your product or service, you’re missing a huge opportunity to expand your market base, which can have a significantly negative impact on your company’s bottom line.

This time of year, a lot of companies are choosing to allocate leftover funds from the marketing budget so that they can write the cost off as a business expense for the current tax year. If your company is contemplating hiring an Internet marketing firm, be sure to do your research before entering into any sort of contract. Don’t just hire a company because you want to write it off on your taxes – hire a company because it has a proven track record of success and satisfied clients.

Time and time again, our clients explain to us that word of mouth is where they obtain many of their clients. This is no different than how we obtain our business. Having recommendations from satisfied clients is one of the most effective ways to help secure new business, both for us and for our clients. Being able to point to past successes as an indicator of future success gives potential customers peace of mind, and shows them that you and your company are capable of performing a job well done.

Remember, if you want to effectively market your company online, it’s important not to neglect input (both good and bad) from your past customers. Feature your biggest advocates on your website testimonials page, ask current customers to Like your fan page on Facebook, and be sure to consider both criticisms and praises when building your future marketing campaigns.

Is your Google Places listing accurate? Have you created a Google Places account, claimed your listing, and edited the incorrect information only to find that your listing information stays the same? If you’re like most marketing professionals who handle your business’s local listing accounts, chances are very good that you’ve encountered plenty of frustration when trying to correct information on a Google Places listing. However, while it may be time consuming, a Google Places listing can be edited to reflect a company’s most recent information, such as address and phone number, albeit in a relatively indirect manner. Allow us to explain…

The first thing you should realize is that while Google appreciates the information you provide it about your company, that information does not represent the end-all, be-all of data Google uses to create your listing (that’s right, Google creates your listing…not you). Google scours the Internet, searching for any information about your company it can find. The majority of this information comes from listing directories, so suffice it to say that, if you don’t have a well balanced legal Internet marketing campaign already in place, you’re going to run into roadblocks on your way to ranking well in Google Maps.

This brings us to the second thing that you need to realize. Creating and maintaining accurate and strong ranking local listings takes a lot of work, even if all you’re concerned with is your Google Places listing. Because Google relies on a multitude of other websites whom it considers authoritative in terms of business listing information, marketing professionals must make sure that all of those listings are accurate as well. So, while all you may be concerned about is Google, it isn’t the only site you’re going to have to deal with in order to obtain an accurate Google Places listing.

So, with so many marketing companies out there promising unsuspecting businesses page one placement in Google, it’s important to understand the actual process behind acquiring a page one ranking. A lot of effort has to go into a multitude of listing sites, strong SEO must be present throughout your website, and dynamic content needs to be regularly updated in order for search engines (Google included) to favorably rank your website. If the company you’re dealing with promises to do the above, you’re good to go. If not, you may want to rethink who you choose to help you with your legal Internet marketing campaign.

For most business professionals, having a LinkedIn profile is fairly commonplace. Taking the form of an online resume, LinkedIn serves a valuable purpose in that it not only gives others insight into your background, but it also allows you to connect with other industry leaders. Aside from individual profiles though, LinkedIn also offers the creation of company pages.

At this point in time, LinkedIn Company pages are pretty minimal. LinkedIn allows you to connect your company profile with your blog, post job listings, offer descriptions of your various services, and even links to individual employees at your company who have indicated on their Linkedin profiles that they work at your company. While the job listing option is certainly practical if you are looking to hire new employees, it’s not terribly useful when it comes to SEO and establishing a well-rounded social media presence on the Internet. With that mind, be sure to take advantage of the other areas of LinkedIn’s Company pages:

• Be sure to highlight your Services using keywords that you want your company to rank for…remember, LinkedIn Company pages are public, and therefore indexed by search engines.


• Post regularly to your blog, not just for the sake of your LinkedIn Company page, but because regular posts made to your blog will help it rank well and create additional opportunity for others to stumble across your brand’s presence on the web.


• If your employees are willing to associate with your company on LinkedIn, make sure that their individual profiles are completely filled in as well…for example, if your company offers social media consulting, there is no better way to convince potential clients that your services are worthwhile than showing them that your employees and company know how to optimize their own LinkedIn profiles.

So, if you want to establish a presence on LinkedIn, be sure to not just have a profile, but to create a Company page as well. It gives your blog additional exposure on the web, gives your company name an additional spot amongst search results, and gives your overall legal Internet marketing campaign a strong link. Remember, LinkedIn is not only for working professionals, it’s now for companies too. To find out more about how LinkedIn benefits attorneys, read this blog post or call SLS Consulting for a free growth assessment at (323) 254-1510.