Gavin Ward

Significant changes are taking place with Google’s search engine algorithms and it’s important for all SEOs to keep up-to-date and understand the changes, but it is equally important for lawyers to know that their SEO teams can be trusted and aren’t using black-hat tactics to get them to the top of the Google rankings.

The 2012 Legal Market Survey Report was published yesterday, providing comprehensive analysis of legal marketing trends from the United States. The main conclusion? That online marketing has become the main generator of new business.

We are pleased to announce that we have now set up on Pinterest.  We currently have three boards active, showcasing some examples of our work in Social Media, SEO and Law Firm Website Design and we look to add more to these boards both in terms of our sharing our knowledge but also in terms of sharing other valuable information and will be looking to connect with other professionals on what is surely one of the hottest social networks of 2012.

Google is currently rolling out is latest 'Panda' update (version 3.4). Google notes that this is a rather minor update, only affecting around 1.6% of queries noticeably.

Google is in the process of changing its search engine so that sites that are 'overly optimised' will be penalised in the search engine rankings.

According to CNET News, Google aims to 'level the playing field' for other websites who do not concentrate as heavily on search engine optimisation ('SEO'). CNET cites an audio clip from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land in respect of a panel discussion at the recent South by Southwest conference ('SXSW'), where Google's Matt Cutts discusses the proposals.

Schwartz quotes Cutts as saying that Google aims to "level the playing field" regarding "all those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO--versus those making great content and great sites...We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect."

Schwartz notes that the changes should start to affect search engine results "in the upcoming month or next few weeks."

The following is our article first published on the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers (Making the Most of the Legal Web) in November 2011 regarding the looming personal injury referral fee ban and generating more direct business online.

We work with many law firms in the UK to optimise their websites and blogs for search engines through advanced SEO techniques and we manage and advise on social media campaigns. The end goal is always to generate more laser-targeted leads and enquiries for our clients.

It therefore comes as no surprise to hear that 4 in 10 law firms in the US are reporting winning new clients through blogging and social media. The news comes through ALM’s Legal Intelligence report on law firms’ use of blogs and other social media ($499 to download) via Daryn Teague (@darynteague), as picked up by one of the leading authorities on legal blogging, Kevin O’Keefe, in his article 40% of Law Firms and Attorneys Get Clients From Blogs and Social Media.

According to a recent website design, SEO and social media infographic by R.O.I. Media, a significant 42% of search users click the top ranking link when they perform a search in a search engine. 8% of users will click the second link and, thereafter, the click-through rate (CTR) drops. The research also indicates that 62% of search users click links on the first page of search results for any given term.

As search engines and search engine marketing continue to evolve, Google has announced in a blog post that it is making one of its most radical transformations ever. Following on from their introduction to Social Search, they are continuing their transformation with the rollout of their “Search Plus Your World” format, comprising three main features:- personal results, profiles in search and people & pages.

We are pleased to announce that our clients, LawCloud, for which we provide social media consultancy services, have had their LawCloudComputing blog listed by Computer Weekly as one of the top 10 best new blogs of 2011.

Our clients, LawCloud, for which we provide social media consultancy services have recently blogged about setting SMART objectives for law firms in 2012. We thought it would be good to supplement this by explaining how lawyers, law firms and other professional services firms can set SMART objectives for their SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategies for 2012.

"A shrinking legal market and fierce price competition has placed law firms under immense pressure to be as productive as possible. For their IT departments, this means a focus on freeing up fee earners so they can spend as much time as possible doing what they are best at – making money."

We are pleased to welcome guest author Rob Greenslade, Sales & Marketing Director of Centralis, as he looks at the competitive pressures driving law firms towards virtualisation and the technology options available:-

A new version of Twitter is being rolled out in the next couple of weeks. Explained in more detail through the subdomain Fly.Twitter.com the new version of Twitter has been released already for Android, iPhone and Tweetdeck users, with the full version to appear in the next few weeks.

If you are trying to drive more traffic to your website, it is a good idea to share links to articles or other pages on your website through social media channels. And when you do so, you will want to increase your click-through rate ("CTR"), i.e. the rate at which others click-through your links to arrive at your website. You may think that sharing a link with hundreds or thousands of followers, on Twitter for instance, will naturally result in many clicks through to your website. It is, however, not quite as easy as that and there are some additional tips to consider when sharing links.

Further to our recent post about our thoughts on the relatively new social network Google+, Google+ has now activated business pages.

Google announced yesterday that it has updated its search algorithm, with the results impacting around 35% of Google searches. This news comes only months after their Panda update which had a major impact on search results, particularly in respect of duplicated content. This time, it's about making their search results as up-to-date as possible for news-worthy stories, while preserving the prominence of older posts where these are still relevant.

Looking to drive more traffic to your website using social media? StumbleUpon is your answer. Over the past year in the US, for instance, StumbleUpon sent more traffic to websites than any other social media network including Facebook or Twitter.

Head of Google’s Web spam team, Matt Cutts has recently clarified that Google does not consider SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to be spam.

For law firms and other businesses in the UK and around the world, search engine rankings are becoming more competitive. Some areas of practice are more competitive than others, but even in the most competitive areas, it is still possible to get to the highest places on Google or other search engines for targeted keywords in targeted geographical locations. Considering the more competitive areas of online search such as car hire can provide some welcome examples for law firms and other professional service firms considering enhancing their online strategies to convert relevant enquiries.

Hubspot has published an article recently about the "9 must-haves for the Perfect Landing Page".