Today we are going to discuss optimizing your law blog - in regular people speak, we are going to make it easy for Google, Yahoo, and the other search engines to tell what your blog is about so that when people search for your services the search engines will put you at the top (or at least near the top). For example, they know this site is about starting a law firm because I do things to tell it that.
If you weren't aware, most of the sites you see in the top ten positions on Google when you do a search for legal services aren't there by chance or luck. Because a lot of money is made on Google through advertising, sales, and other methods, ranking high on Google has become a bit of a science for some. Luckily, I have studied this "science" a bit and am willing to help you out. It isn't hard. It just takes a little time and some planning. So let's get started.
To begin with, you have already started optimizing your blog for Google just by picking a good title and blog address. When analyzing a site, Google tends to start at the top left hand of the page and work its way down toward the bottom right. Whatever Google sees first (the web address and title of the blog) it assumes is a good indication of what the site itself if about. That is why I suggested you use your practice area or whatever you think potential clients may search on Google as your blogger address and blog title. Don't worry, if your title isn't right, you can change it now. Just go to the Settings tab and change it - same with the description - the more keywords the better (but make sure it makes sense).
Before we go any further, you may be asking yourself, why would I be putting this information on the internet? Wouldn't I want to keep this information to myself and continue to rank high on Google (although I don't yet for my main keyword)?
The answer is twofold. First, How to Start a Law Firm is meant to be here to help you out. The purpose is to help others start and build a law practice, just like I am doing. And second, it is highly unlikely that you are in my area of the country and my area of practice and would be competing directly against me. And third, honestly, I think I can rank higher than you anyway.
Before the first post there is one other thing you can do to optimize the layout of your law firm blog quickly and easily - the "about me" section. Go to the "Layout" tab of your blog and click the edit button on the about me box. Then fill it out including as many of your law firm keywords as you can get in there, including the geographic location of your practice. For example, if I were a criminal defense attorney in Seattle, I'd write,
CMS, a Seattle DUI lawyer who will do whatever it takes to fight your criminal charges and get your life back on track.This gets all of your keywords on all of your pages automatically - Google will see this and know what your law firm blog is about.
Now comes the fun part - your first post. Unless you really want to dive right in, I'd suggest making this an introductory post to help get your blog on the map. Here is a good example of a law firm introductory blog post. As you can see it introduces what the law firm blog is about, what it will say, and welcomes everyone in. There are also two other key aspects to this post.
First, when you are creating this post you will see a title box, to fill in the title, and "link" box, where you can put in a link. Every time you make a blog post, the link needs to have the home page of your law firm blog. For this "How to Start a Law Firm" blog, I insert http://startingalawfirm.blogspot.com each and every time. What this does is create unique pages for each of your posts. This allows each page to have its own Google "juice" and build up Google "juice" to your home page.
The second thing you will notice is that in the post there is a link to the homepage using some or all of the keywords. This is very important, and you should have at least one link back to your site (to the home page or an older post) each time you post. For my first post I linked to the home page. For this post I linked to the last post I did about starting a law firm blog.
So, your next homework assignment is to make this first post. I probably won't post for about a week, so if you want to post to your blog in the mean time make sure it is keyword rich and has the internal links. And if you are wondering wear I learned all of this, it's off a how to make money blogging site I just love (that's why I just gave the good link juice - read his site and you'll know what I'm talking about). The author offers great information on optimizing blogs (he doesn't care how you use it for the same reasons that I don't care how you use the information I am giving you - he is way out of my league). Go check it out and read it from the beginning. You can really learn a lot.
Next week - Starting a Law Firm | Getting People to Your Blog.
Related Posts:
Starting a Law Firm | Getting Ranked in Google
Starting a Law Firm | Internet Marketing 101
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