Search Engine Optimization For Law Firms

On February 11, 2009 I had the opportunity to present at the SMX West in Santa Clara on the “Legally Speaking” panel. I chose to prepare and present on a number of developing privacy laws, specifically the new Massachusetts law which requires encryption of sensitive personal information stored on a portable device or transmitted electronically. This morning, I posted the entire Massachusetts encryption law presentation to the Dream Systems Media blog. Please go read it as it is pretty fascinating stuff.

Our entire team had a great time at SMX. Besides learning a lot of fantastic tips for driving traffic to sites and increasing search rankings, I was also reminded how important it is to practice money management! You can spend a lot of money in downtown San Francisco… eating at the Cheesecake Factory on top of the Macey’s building and dining at Ruth Chris’s steak house .

Tags: General Law // Add Comment »

Several weeks ago I wrote a post about a new company called Bloggled.com.  At that point, their blog backup service was still in beta testing. They have now been live for just over a month and have backed up a couple hundred thousand blogs as of today.  I was able to help this company with their launch and it was pretty amazing to see what kind of response they received from their target audience.  The company literally received over a hundred emails the first day from customers thanking Bloggled for the opportunity to “secure my blog“. I was sort of shocked to learn of some of the stats associated with blog deletion.  Have you heard that Google once deleted its company blog? Thousands of other companies and individuals have done the same thing.  For many, blog deletion can be fatal (as far as the blog is concerned) as they simply do not have the knowledge or resources to recover the blog.  Therefore, today’s tip is to make sure you have taken the steps to backup blog. Companies who have discovered the Internet marketing power of regular blogging would be absolutely devastated to find that they no longer had all of that unique content that search engines love.  

Tags: Blog Promotion for Lawyers // Add Comment »

That was the question I was asked by a client just yesterday. Yesterday Bloggler had a scheduled outage for 4:00 p.m. The problem was my client did not see this notice and was freaked out that the article she had spent an hour working on had been lost. Luckily for her, nothing was lost but the question remained – “How can I archive my blog?” So I told her about the new company, Bloggled, which has developed a service designed to save my blog and yours, and hers. Basically Bloggled allows you to manage and back up all of blogs you own. The interface looks like this:

The company provides both free and paid services. The free services are really aimed at light bloggers, whereas the paid services will be aimed at heavy bloggers. Anyway, I cannot wait to give the service a shot. My biggest question is when does the site go live? Come on fellas, release the beta version already!

Tags: Blog Promotion for Lawyers // Add Comment »

Accountants used the term “fixed assets” to describe assets and property which cannot easily be converted into cash. For example, land, property, and vehicles are frequently considered to be fixed assets.  On the other end of the spectrum you have current assets or liquid assets, i.e. cash and bank accounts.All businesses, including law firms, have both fixed and liquid assets.  Over time, fixed assets accumulate wear and tear and consequently begin to depreciate in value. So “depreciation” is the expense of using an asset.  Tracking the true expense of these fixed assets can be extremely time consuming.  Obviously, the goal of any business is to accumulate wealth for the owners.  In order to achieve that goal, business owners must match the expenses of a given period against the revenues.  For a business to accurately match these expenses it must effectively and accurately account for asset depreciation.  Many firms have found value in purchasing depreciation software.  Fixed assets software must be programmed to be extremely mindful of tax law to assure that reports are correct and meet all current tax laws and requirements. Today’s tip is to consider using fixed assets software. 

Tags: Money Management // Add Comment »

The following is a funny but true story: A few weeks ago my “blog crazy” wife went to a friend’s house for help on a new design for the family blog.  Her friend assured her that the process would be a snap.  About ten minutes into the make-over, disaster struck as the two ladies some how lost the entire blog.  Keep in mind, the family blog has basically been a part time job of my wife’s for the last 2 years.  Luckily, her friend’s technically savvy husband was able to recover most of the blog.  Even with his heroics, significant data was lost.

This experience got me thinking about the millions of other blog users who could experience this same type of panic.  No offense to us lawyers, but many of us (particularly the older brethren/sisters) seem to be technically challenged and it is not difficult to imagine an in-over-his-head sole practitioner nuking the firm’s blog.

So here is your 3 question pop quiz:
1) Do you use a free service like Blogger or WordPress to host your company/firm blog?
2) If so, have you ever considered the possibility that this free service goes away?
3) Do you currently do anything to back up your blog? 

Enter Bloggled, a new company who’s mission is to prevent blog loss by providing free hosting to the blogger and permanently backing-up the user’s blog as part of a free subscription for bloggled.com users. Bloggled says that “most bloggers are unaware that one of the risks of blogging for free with the mainstream hosting providers is that if your blog were accidentally erased, or if in the unikely event hosting was ever interrupted there would no way to recover your blog.”  Consider the emotional or financial loss the the blogger (a.k.a my wife) that under goes this “blog loss.”  Anyway, I thought it would be helpful to spread the word to all of your search engine ranking conscious lawyers who are using the power of a blog to increase your overall traffic.   Bloggled is currently in beta version, but I will follow up on this post as the company’s services become available.  

Tags: Blog Promotion for Lawyers // Add Comment »

Recently I was called into provide an SEO quote for a large satellite tv and cable installation company.  This particular company has traditionally been a door to door sales company.  In fact, they earn over 90% of their yearly revenues during the months of May, June, July, and August, while their door to door salesman are “enjoying” their summer break between semesters.  This company has been very successful with that sales model, but they have begun to notice a radical change in their marketplace.  On a cruise hosted by Direct TV for all of their top sellers, they found that unlike in years past they were the only door to door company invited to the cruise.  While it seemed like every other invitee had earned their cruise invitation via Internet marketing.   Hence, the company called me in for a consultation.  During our conversation, I told them there were really two routes that they could take if they were serious about competing with the other dealers and affiliates online: 1) learn to do it on your own (or, more likely, hire a full time employee or team that can learn and perform in house), or 2) pay an individual/company like me to do it for you.  The cruise invitee list was proof that they could not afford to simply ignore search engine optimization in Utah.

You may find it funny that I actually encourage potential clients to look into it trying to learn to do SEO on their own.   Many SEO’s act like the process is magic and that they learned this magic process only after being invited into a top secret group owned and sponsored by none other than Google.  My theory is this: while SEO is completely learnable, most people will never take the time to learn it.  I developed this attitude while a consultant for Prosper Learning a coaching/consulting company in Provo, Utah.  During my time at Prosper Learning I was consistently amazed at how little people were willing to actually do in order to learn about something that they apparently wanted very badly.  Although, I personally learned a lot while working for Ethan Willis I was consistently surprised at how little the students learned despite having a wealth of information at their finger tips.So now when I go into a meeting to pitch a company on my SEO services I am very upfront with the business owner I speak with.  I always let him/her know that if they are willing to invest a significant amount of time, energy, and money into learning these concepts they can probably learn to do SEO on their own.  I have not had any company take me up on that offer .

Tags: SEO // Add Comment »

This week’s posts have been dedicated to money management; exploring ways lawyers and other business professionals can cut back on costs.  With gas seemingly ever-increasing in price I thought I would share a unique tip given to me by an earth-conscious personal injury lawyer in Alabama.  This particular client of mine has a fleet of 6 company vehicles which drive all across the state of Alabama visiting clients and potential clients.  This attorney and I were recently talking about ways to cut costs and he mentioned a unique gas saver product which he uses.  The eco-friendly fuel additive tabs apparently account for an average of 1.5  better mpg, which he says is roughly a 10% improvement in fuel efficiency.  These types of savings when calculated over the course of a year become significant.    I am kind of a sucker for green products so when he told me the product was eco-friendly I decided I would do some investigating.  Here is a synopsis of what I found:

1.  1 tablet will treat approximately 15 gallons of gasoline or diesel fuel
2. The tablets dissolve 100% , in fact they claim that by the time you are done fueling up at the pump the tablet will be completely diffused
3. Ferox fuel tabs are registered with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
4. The additive is a “catalyst”, i.e.  it causes a chemical reaction to happen at a higher or lower level of energy without changing itself.  The chemical reaction,” causes the combustion resistant components in fuel to combust at lower temperatures that they normally would.”  Thus, providing more energy and power to the drive train with less effort and allowing the engine to run at a cooler temperature = GAS SAVER.

So, how can you tell if the tablets are working? Fairly simple, track your fuel mileage.  Or, you can check your oil, because there is less carbon blow buy your oil should stay cleaner longer.  My attorney friend states that the tablet was originally designed to be a diesel fuel additive but that it is totally safe and effective on gasoline powered engines as well.  Thanks Robert!   

Tags: Money Management // Add Comment »

Most American households and many American business owners have a very difficult time managing their money. Although, there are a number of envelope budgeting software choices available, I have been most impressed with the envelope budgeting system from Finicity. The envelope budgeting concept is simple, essentially you have several envelopes each labeled for a different expense, i.e. groceries, gas bill, power bill, mortgage, vacation, etc. In days gone by, a family would actually put cash into each envelope and then when the money was gone from a given envelope the family was done spending until additional income was received or money was diverted from other envelopes. The Finicity software takes this concept to the next level by offering the following features:

• You can link to all of your financial accounts (checking, savings, credit cards, etc.) to have an accurate picture of your balances and overall standing.
• You can check your envelope balances via your mobile phone (for informed decisions on the fly)
• Online bill pay
• Online community of experienced users
• Fantastic money management blog

All of these features work together to help the user plan what he/she will do with his/her money before it is spent. The envelope budgeting software tends to lead to pretty radical changes with spending habits. An added benefit, is that because your “pre-spending” your income you tend to actually have money for infrequent expenses like auto repairs. So, for those of you who find you are consistently overspending take a look at the household budgeting software offered by www.finicity.com.

Tags: Money Management // Add Comment »

If your business is anything like mine you are spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on advertising, office supplies, company meals, etc.  Wouldn’t it be nice to knock off up to a 5%  discount on all of these miscellaneous business expenses?  Use cash back credit cards to get the equivalent of a discount on all of these different expenditures.   Definition: cash back credit cards pay you a percentage rebate on the money spent on the credit card.This rebate can be as high as 5% on certain purchases.  For example purchases at grocery stores and gas stations may be entitled to a 5% cash back rebate, where as expenditures at restaurants may only offer a 1% rebate.  During the course of a year, these rebates can really add up.  Look out for the following:

1.  Some cards do not provide cash back rebates until after a certain spending amount has been accumulated
2.  Some cards put a limit on the total rebate you can earn during a year
3.  Some rewards will expire if not used after a few months, or if the card is not used

There is a literal maze of offers out there on these types of credit cards.  I recommend using a credit card comparison site to help sort out the maze of offers.  Good luck credit card shopping,  I know that my wife is grateful for the cash back rebate come Christmas time! 

Tags: Credit Card Comparison // Add Comment »

****Update – even better real time analytics software that just got launched and is still in Beta and 100% free is BLVDSTATUS – check out the site to get signed up for free and start tracking your visitors in real time.

Many of you may be aware of web analytics companies like Omniture, and many of you may be scared off by the ticket price. That is, until I tell you about a much lower-cost yet extremely high value analytics program available through www.haveamint.com.

I have to admit I absolutely love this Mint program, especially considering the price is only a one time fee of $30.00. No, I am not being paid or receiving any other incentives to write this endorsement. I was literally sitting here trying to decide what I should blog about and I got sidetracked thinking about my web traffic…which got me thinking about my analytics program…which got me thinking about how impressed I was with it…which got me thinking I should hand out a real tip tonight.

Here is the tip, if you would like to get some REALLY good insight into how many unique visitors you are getting each day, which sites are referring the uniques, which keywords are pulling traffic, which pages they are entering and leaving from, which pages are most popular, which words your most recent visitors came in through, etc. etc. spend $30.00 dollars on some killer web analytics and experience absolutely no buyers remorse.

Have a good Friday.

Tags: Statistics // Add Comment »