Unfortunately, as lawyer web marketing is becoming more sophisticated, most law firms are having trouble staying ahead of the curve. Even web sites that are informative are still getting lost among multitudes of other legal sites on the Web.
In the not so long ago days, Google searched key words, single phrases and links in order to rank web sites. But Google soon discovered that method alone was faulty. Now this approach is being phased out as a more holistic approach to judging website content is utilized by the search engines.
Latent Semantic Indexing - This new concept, called latent semantic indexing, has many webmasters scratching their heads. Yet, this more sophisticated Google driven creation is designed to better evaluate the content of a single web page in relation to the entire site to discover the overall theme.
Cepac a marketing firm for lawyers has for years specialized in law firm marketing and advertising, has devoted a lot of energy and resources to crafting effective and creative web sites. Unlike other legal marketing firms, they have realized early on that effective legal web marketing is a four prong approach. A law firm’s web site has to not only be well designed, well written and able to inform the public and referring attorneys, but it also has to be easily located on the World Wide Web.
As a result, Cepac has become one of the few legal marketing and advertising firms that has built an extensive expertise in latent semantic indexing, in order to place our client sites at the top of the search engine lists.
Content is King - The key to latent semantic indexing is content. Not just a special word here or there or a metatag thrown on a few pages, (although those are important too), but the actual content of the entire web site. Quality content gives the web site relevance with Google’s visiting robots and relevance is what gets a web site top billing on the Web. The new focus puts an emphasis on the quality and freshness of content to help web sites gain higher-ranking positions.
However, achieving relevance is not so easy, as not all content holds the same weight with the search engines. Some types of content can actually lower a site’s rating. Also, the size of the content affects relevance. For instance, a few hundred words less or more can make the difference between a legal web site being listed first or twentieth on a search engine.
In addition, content not only has to be relevant for actual human beings who visit a law firm’s site to learn about the lawyers, the firm culture and their cases, but also has to be relevant for the search engines. To make it relevant for both a computer and a human being can be a tricky enterprise. The two are not necessarily interested in the same exact thing.
Once the content is created, it is critical to keep it fresh and updated. Fresh content, such as press releases, blogs and new articles, catch the ‘eye’ of the search engine robots and give more relevance to the law firm’s web site when it is being ranked. Without fresh content, a legal web site will quickly fall to the bottom of the heap.
At Cepac, they have high quality marketing copywriters who are both journalists and lawyers draft the content along side search engine optimization experts. Their legal marketing specialists work together to make the content both informative and effective, so people can easily locate the law firm’s site among thousands other legal sites on the Web, and then also find the web site helpful and interesting.
Cepac uses many tools to determine best key words and phrases
Content is king, but keywords and links still play an important role in Google’s evaluation of web sites. For years, Cepac has specialized in writing effective titles and descriptions in order to get our clients’ web sites the best possible placement on the Web.
Cepac has access to keyword database and uses analytics to determine which keywords and phrases people are searching more often. After conducting our research, Cepac experts are able to determine which titles, descriptions, and metatags will attract the Google robots and place the law firm’s site first. Our expert optimizers and copywriters work together to write the most effective and compelling titles and descriptions.
Links, which are mainly recommendations from other web sites, are vital too. But not all links are equal. For instance, a link from the bar association to an attorney is highly regarded by the search engine. Yet, some other links might not be nearly as effective.
Finally, good law office web design is always essential as it speaks volumes about the law firm and its lawyers. At Cepac, our web designers have decades of experience crafting creative and sophisticated legal web sites.
At Cepac, they understand that every one of these components are necessary to create a legal web site that is a first rate legal marketing tool. Our experienced professionals work together to ensure that every component from writing to design to optimization is the absolute highest quality, and when they all work together, the law firm’s site is professional, sophisticated, creative, informative, AND easily found on the Web.
