How to Start a Law Firm | Internet Marketing

Lately it may seem like this site is moving away from how to start a law firm and turning into a full fledged internet legal marketing site, but really it isn't. It is just kind of one of the things I've been working on, so I thought I would talk about it. And, in any event, what is more important than getting clients to your new law firm?

For me, it is priority number one. Your law firm business plan, office space, and good looks aren't going to get you clients, but if they can find your law firm on the internet, you can bet they'll be calling.

Do You Need a Formal Law Firm Marketing Plan?

If you are new to this site, and are wondering how to write a marketing plan, I've already discussed building a legal internet presence in past posts, primarily through blogging.

I've outlined how to set up your legal blog, how to draft your posts so the Google love you and puts you high on the search engines, and touched on creating backlinks to build your legal internet presence. Today I'm going to dive a little further into that - the backlinks, that is.

What Backlinks Mean for Your Legal Website

In a perfect world, it seems as though Google would want to put the site in it's number one slot that is the most relevant and has the best information on a particular subject. And it does. Google's goal is to get you the information you need quickly and accurately. But, unbeknownst to you, there is a seedy underworld of Google with a lot of people trying to become number one on Google so they can make money on advertising. To do this, these people do things like keyword stuff posts, buy backlinks, and do a lot of other stuff. So Google has a tough job.

To get the best content toward the top of Google (including legal content), they have decided to look to your site and what is about, looking for keywords, and the backlinks you have coming to your site. The way they differentiate a good site from a bad site is not the number of links coming in or the number of keywords on a site, but the quality of the links coming in. If you think about it in terms of an election, each backlink equals one vote for your site, and some votes are more reliable than others.

What that means is, let's say you have a website for Seattle DUI attorneys of for Phoenix Lawyers. So you start writing about drunk driving law and field sobriety tests, talking about breathalyzers and things like that. Everything anyone could want to know about DUI law. Or you mention all the things you can do in Phoenix Arizona as a Phoenix lawyer.

As Google crawls your site, it also sees that you have a bunch of links from sites that are discussing criminal law, AND the sites linking back to your site are all keyword rich, like "DUI lawyer Seattle" or "drunk driving attorney," "should you take a breathalyzer," and things like that. If Google sees this, they will think not only that your site is about driving under the influence and Phoenix lawyers, but that you actually know what you are talking about because other people have relied on you as an expert on criminal law. The more authoritative the site that links to you, the more authority you are given.

Keywords as Backlinks Improve Your Law Firm Website Authority

And, while I'm on it, the words your backlink use are very important, because it tells Google what your site is about. Think about it, for Google, a link to this site for Jim McLovin (my fake name) would tell everyone that this site is about Jim McLovin. But a link to this site for how to start a law firm really gives the Google bot an idea of what it is about. But be careful, you don't want the exact same keyword coming in from everywhere because Google will start to think you are making all of those links (even though you may be responsible for a lot of them!).

Okay, that is enough for now. Next up I'll talk about how to get (and create) backlinks for your legal website!