Search engine optimization 101 (and more) for lawyer blogs and Web sites
Nacho Hernandez, an Internet marketing veteran of 10 years, posted a nice entry on the Search Engine Watch forums appropriately called Search Engine Marketing 101. He provides a variety of useful resources for those getting started with search engine marketing. Comments and further contributions followed his post.
I couldn’t agree more with his most important considerations for search engine optimization:
- The Golden Rule of SEO: DON’T OVER OPTIMIZE, BE NATURAL.
- Don’t SPAM or use techniques that the risks are high enough that you might loose it all one day, perhaps overnight.
- Think what is best for your users first, the search engines will adapt.
- Stay up to date, search engines change, users change, businesses can change for the better or worse if not up to date.
For those with the time and desire to learn, read on to see a list of resources Hernandez has compiled.
Basic SEO knowledge
- Danny Sullivan’s Intro to Search Optimization article. Hernandez says is the best because it takes you buy the hand step by step when you have no clue what this is all about.
- SEOConsultant.com’s SEO Resources, Associations and Organizations page.
- Submission tips at Search Engine Watch.
- Pay Per Click Search Engines (CPC/PPC) info at Search Engine Watch.
- Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Report Articles Archive.
- SEOConsultants’ Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing Articles Archive.
SEO forums
- Search Engine Watch Forums
- High Rankings forum
- Webmaster world
- Seo Chat forums
- Cre8asite forums
- Spider-food forums
Easier yet, Search Engine Roundtable and Threadwatch lead you to best threads of discussion on such forums.
SEO Websites (subscribe by RSS)
Guidelines from the search engines themselves
Link building info
- 131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies
- One-way Link Building
- Slickest Link Building Tricks
- How Fair is the Link Popularity Algorithm?
SEO books
- Search Engine Advertising: Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales (Voices That Matter) by Catherine Seda
- Search Engine Visibility by Shari Thurow
- Search Engine Marketing: The essential best practice guide by Mike Grehan
- 21 Ways to Maximize Google AdWords Profits by Andrew Goodman
- The Nitty Gritty of Search Engine Optimization by Jill Whalen
- SEO Book by Aaron Wall
Checklists & guides to site building (very technical):
I don’t expect lawyers and legal marketing professionals to have the time to stay on top of SEO. For lexBlog’s customers, we’ll do our best. Just thought sharing this list of SEO resources from Nacho Hernandez would be helpful for me and some of my blog’s readers.