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Law firm SEO : Is blog most effective method?

Most law firm websites do poorly in search engine results.

The law firm’s marketing director is then charged with a hiring a SEO expert to improve things. Usually fails. Two reasons. One, the website was not architected to perform well for search engines. Search engine optimization is best performed when the site is designed and developed. Wait till after the fact and it’s too late.

Two, SEO is not cheap. Having just paid for a website, law firms do not want to pay much for SEO. A law firm marketing director I spoke with this week told me she was getting quotes ranging from $10,000 to $15,000. A good SEO firm here in Seattle just blogged about pricing an SEO campaign. $30,000 and up. The result is the firm pays a few thousand bucks and the SEO results reflect it.

Some marketing directors are evening instructed to learn about search engine optimization. They go to seminars and read books on SEO. It’s like sending a non-lawyer to a seminar on how to do estate planning. Not recommended.

What’s the best answer for SEO? A professional blog ought to at least be tested by a lawyer or practice area in the firm. A turnkey blog solution covering strategy, design, hosting, SEO, blog & RSS training, and free ongoing support costs a firm $200/month.

What do you get with such a blog? Do a Google search for Sacramento Estate Planning Lawyer, IP Litigation Lawyer, California Business Bankruptcy Lawyer, New York Legal Malpractice Lawyer, Phoenix Divorce Lawyer, Food Poisoning Lawyer, or Electronic Discovery Lawyer.

At or near the the top of the organic results (non-sponsored links) you’ll see such a law blog. May not be titled for Google as a blog headline in blue. But blogs nonetheless.

No one can guaranty perfect Google placement with blogs, but well done blogs often have what it takes to achieve cost effect search engine performance.

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  • http://www.intuitive.com/blog/ Dave Taylor

    I suggest instead that the smart law firms are going to ask the question “what are search engines fundamentally trying to accomplish?” and realize that the answer is:
    always produce the best possible fresh content matches for a given search
    Given that premise, the key requirement for any successful legal Web site – or any business Web site – is to figure out how to add new and unique content with frequency.
    Of course blogging is one possible solution, but there are other solutions too, solutions that revolve around other forms of content management systems.
    The key, key idea here is that SEO tricks are doomed to fail in the long run because they aren’t changing the fundamental error of ‘brochureware’ sites.
    My one-fiftieth of a dollar’s worth. :-)

  • http://www.marlerclark.com Bill Marler

    I think the most important thing to remember is not how high you rank in search engines, but how well you do for your clients.

  • http://www.g7submit.com PPC management

    I agree with Bill, ultimately the client’s satisfaction is the any company’s success; SEO is not exception for that. But for achieving the good rank in Search engine blog submission is one of the good way as well.

  • http://www.atxwebmasters.com BrianPetti

    Bill Marler, you are correct. However, you need clients before you can satisfy them. That’s where SEO comes in. Your site needs to be found in order to gain new clients on the web. It’s pretty much a standard that businesses, including law firms, should have at least 30% of new business coming from online clients. If you don’t get that much then your loosing many potential clients.