Developing an Effective Marketing Plan for the Law Vertical

Posted on October 27, 2009
Filed Under Google AdWords, Pay Per Click, Ranking reports, Social Media Marketing, Toronto Marketing Consultant, Toronto SEM Consulting, Toronto SEO Consulting | Leave a Comment

SEO - SEM Advice For Law Firms

Search engine optimization and search engine marketing within the vertical of law and lawyers is one of the most competitive areas within Google, Yahoo and Bing today.

Understanding what proper approach needs to be undertaken when utilizing online marketing is crucial to gaining the most exposure in a defined amount of time. Search engine optimization (SEO) for rankings to achieve free traffic does take time for organic growth and should be targeted at a 6-12 month plan. Search engine marketing through Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing or Bing Ad Center can start the flow of traffic happening at a quick pace but you will pay a premium price to get the top positioning that is needed.

SEO Advice – Organic Traffic for Law Firms

Undertaking an SEO campaign for the law firm vertical is by no means a short-term play. It involves a constant on page and off page factor that needs to be built out over a 6-12 month engagement. This time frame allows the search engine crawlers to see growth develop for the law firms web site and is the correct path for deeming any web site an authority within the targeted law firm vertical. Proper steps to research a search engine optimization plan involves the following:

1. Determine a minimum of ten long tail terms the firm wants to target. Each page within the web site should only have a one long tail term focus. This list will quickly broaden as content is developed

2. Determine your competition based upon the original ten long tail terms. Quickly doing search queries through Google will indicate which competition is scoring well. Target your findings to listing on the second and third page search results, since these sites are the most “in play”.

3. Determine your top three competitors the run those web sites through Yahoo to see what back link count they have achieve. Simply go to Yahoo and type in : site: http://sitename.com. Once the page returns, click “inlinks” to see the full count.

4. Start targeting all law firm directories, for a start some can be found here: Law Directories

5. Develop and manage a social platform that is publishing new content daily

6. Managed your expectations. Understand nowadays that the law firm promotion and new client acquisitions through organic SEO is not a easy task and typically calls for time and good budget. A five hundred-dollar solution offered by off shore SEO firms will not work, it has been proven

SEM Advice  – Paid Traffic for Law Firms and Lawyers

Since Google owns the most market share of all the search engines, the Ad Words approach has been the choice of most law firms and lawyers to execute a  large pay per click exposure campaign. However, Bing and Yahoo should not be overlooked, once you see certain areas of Google’s pricing (remember your paying full retail pricing), for example:

los angeles dwi lawyer $47.00 a click

dui lawyer in los angeles $37.00 a click

defense lawyer los angeles $30.00 a click

mesothelioma lawyer $ 27.00 a click

personal injury lawyer attorney $ 25.00 a click

As you can see, without applying a serious budget for those target terms no law firm can get market share on Ad Words. Thus, Yahoo and Bing might allow for lower prices with average demographics. Proper steps to research a search engine marketing plan with Ad Words involves the following:

1. Campaign set-up – Determine the first campaign base on the overall term focus

2. Create Ad Groups based on individual themes ( you can create more then fifty ad groups at any given time)

3. Create a minimum of four  ads per ad group – Test various ad copy

4. Create specific landing pages for ad groups. One landing page will not be enough in testing so remember to generate a few landing pages for split testing

5. Test, revise and test again. With Ad Words you can’t “set it and forget it”, you will end up with more cost then expected. Reducing cost works hand in hand with quality score.

6. Plan to manage your account daily. Daily revisions and competition tracking will only lead to successful pay per click campaign.

The bottom line for marketing a law firm or a lawyer online, is understanding that this vertical is in the top five most competitive verticals online today and simply dabbling in SEO and SEM will not work.

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Blogging For Business Needs

Posted on October 22, 2009
Filed Under Social Media Marketing, Toronto Marketing Consultant, Toronto Online Consulting, Toronto SEO Consulting, Toronto Web Consulting, business blogging | Leave a Comment

5 Reasons Why Blogging is Needed For Every Business

Blogging is a concept that started in late 90s.  It used to be a way to comment an existing webpage, an opportunity for visitors and readers to react or voice out one’s opinion on the said page.  What started as a single-sentence commentary has evolved into pages of personal take on just about anything and everything under the sun.  As it continues to move forward, online advertising has tapped into the blog’s potential.  Here are 5 reasons why you should use blogging as an Internet marketing tool for your business.

1.Blogging is simple.  The simplest way to get your piece on the net is through blogging.  No skills are necessary… an average adult can read and type, or at least click a mouse.  It’s like having a virtual piece of paper and you just write your ideas, experiences, new products, and hope that the truth behind your articles comes out and entice your reader to also try your product.  If you have a PC and an Internet connection (who doesn’t?) then you can blog and advertise.

2. Blogging is authentic.  In this day and age where advertising saturate our lives, we question the credibility of promoters’ claims.  However, in blogs, real people share their real-life experiences, unscathed by paid advertising.  Reading blogs about first-hand product use is like talking to people about their first-hand experience.  You definitely want to buy a tried and tested product.

3. Blogging is free.  Because blogging is yet to be proven as a mainstream online advertising media, most sites see it as something to augment current marketing tools and thus offer it for free.   Any opportunity for free webtime is definitely a bonus especially to businesses that are starting up.  Needless to say, paid blog pages can generate more income for your seriously growing business.

4. Blogging builds credibility.  As you get more and more into writing your experiences on a particular product or industry, your readers come to realize that they can depend on your posts for their own information needs.  As such, you become an expert on it; as a consequence, more readers visit your site and more bloggers link to your blogs.  As companies and professional organizations notice the growth of your readership base, they may soon get in touch with you for advertising on your blog page, or make you an affiliate, which pays for every referral generated from your blog site.

5. Blogging builds your market.  Unless you are a Hollywood star, chances are, only few people read your posts.  Afew people have a lot more friends , friends will find your site to start off.  But you need not depend on friends to increase your readership base.  Look into the following ways to build your market through blogging:

-By using your e-mail.  Today, blogging is overcoming the e-mail’s popularity in quickly and effectively reaching and expanding a market.  In this age of speed and quick access, logging in and downloading e-mail is simply taking longer than clicking into a blog site.  Let them explore your site by using a short e-mail message as teaser to your blog site.  If your e-mail is on an entirely different subject, use your e-mail signature to give a link to the site.

-By using subscription.  An easy way to get your readers e-mail is to give them an opportunity to subscribe to your blogsite.  Keep some exclusive information for your subscribers to entice readers to subscribe and give their e-mail address.  Just be responsible in using their e-mail address, as the last thing you want is a comment on your blog that you are a spammer.

-By understanding your readers.  Conduct a simple survey for your readers to understand their profile and advertising preferences.  Ask consumers to give you feedback on a post, an ad link, or a trial that you shared.  In this way, it is like interviewing your readers without the commitment and intrusion of a face-to-face interview.

-By joining a blog network –A network of blogs maybe a collection of blog sites that share the same industry, interest, readership base, payment mode, etc.  Consumers find credibility and convenience in clicking one link to several real bloggers about a single subject.  Clearly, more bloggers are better than one.

-By using RSS. RSS is the fastest growing technology on the Internet today.  As such, having RSS feeds to your blog is definitely another means of generating awareness for your readership base.  Having a variety of feeds can add interest to your blog site.

-By hiring a social media consultant. Getting off the ground through various SEO ans social media marketing techniques can be difficult for many business as a starting point to marketing. There is a lot of ground to cover to make any online marketing undertaking to work properly and produce traffic and sales results

KeywordDiscovery.com Keyword Research Tool

Directory Submission for One Way Links

Posted on October 16, 2009
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing Tips, Article Marketing, Toronto SEO Consulting, Web Directories | Leave a Comment

Web Directories for SEO

Submitting to a web directory can aid in your backlink count. There is a debate if “dofollow” links are the only ones that should be targeted for SEO purposes. Nowadays with Google cracking down on the exact amount of backlinks a website has, Yahoo has become the true statement for link development. That being said, Google will only display high PR value links. This has become a factor in Google but to server space and the ability to harvest competitors back links to target a campaign of your own.To find out how many links a website has in Yahoo, simply type the following:

site: http://www.domainname.com

Once the results page returns click ” inlinks” . “Inlinks” allow you to see various webpages that have either your backlink included or the competition links to see exactly where they are targeting.

Web Directories for SEO - “nofollow” Dilema

As many website owners sift through many directories to see if “nofollow” attributes are attached, the overall back link picture becomes watered down. Google as well as Yahoo have included many “nofollow” links within the databases and have proven they may not catty as much weight as “dofollow” but still can be counted as a link. What should be avoided instead of the “nofollow” attribute still remains:

Link Farms, Reciporical Linking, Web Rings….They do not count for anything.

Many free directories offer link inclusion if a reciporical link is provided. That mean you must place the directories link on your website first before they will include your link. This is not a one way link. Google has already devalued that connection between sites and those links pass little to no link juice at all.

Paid inclusion to a web directory will  guarantee that the link is one way. Within general web directories, categories are defined, you should request inclusion into the most relevant sub category for deep linking action to occur. Prices vary from web directory to web director. Life time inclusion is the best route to take for the cost, so over time the web directory itself will grow in weight , provided the owner of the directory is promoting it and driving traffic to the directory.

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