Archive for the ‘Key Word Research’ Category

Choosing Keywords That Shine

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Although you may be aware that your chosen keywords are important, you may not realize just how important they are in the overall optimization of your site. Many experts believe that the selection of your keywords may well be the most important stage in the entire optimization process, and that choosing the wrong keywords and keyword phrases can keep your website from ever reaching its potential. Choosing the right keywords, on the other hand, can maximize your return on investment, have readers flocking to your site, and move you up in Google’s ranking with the speed of lightning.

Isn’t Choosing Keywords Just Picking the Most-Searched Phrases?

It is this specific misconception which derails the keyword selection stage for many.  First of all, choosing the most-used keywords could actually send your site reeling to the bottom of the heap rather than climbing upwards. As an example, if your business involves installing solar components, then choosing the keywords solar installation might seem like a good idea. However, this is much too broad a term, and will return hundreds of thousands of results in a search. If you add your location, as in “Austin solar installation,” you have immediately narrowed the field, and landed closer to the top just by virtue of the elimination process. Even better might be “Hill Country Solar Installation,” narrowing even more. When you are looking at your own keywords, try to determine how you can use the popular keywords—with a personal spin.

Phrases which are Considered “Buy Phrases”

If you are selling a particular product or service, then you have to guard against keyword phrases which will bring you tons of traffic, with little of that traffic turning into true conversions. If you are looking for a buy phrase, then consider the example above. First of all, the term “solar” would garner you so many search returns that you wouldn’t even know how to start. Adding “installation,” narrows the field, but it is still fairly broad. What if you add the word “services,” along with your location—as in “Hill Country solar installation services?” You have just added your “buy word,” which should target those people in the Hill Country who want to have solar panels installed on their home, and are ready to pay for those services.

The problem with using “solar” as one of your keywords in this instance is that people who type in the word “solar” may not even be remotely looking for someone to install a solar panel on their home. They could be looking for solar nails, a car which runs on solar energy, a school for solar training, or could merely be interested in the solar system—as in the stars and planets in the sky. It’s important to step outside yourself when determining keywords, and look at it from the point of view of those people you hope will be searching for your company. Promotions which target multiple “buy phrase” keywords will ultimately end up being much more successful than simply using a phrase based on the number of searches it turns up. You want to decrease your competition while increasing your conversions and ROI.

Knowing Which Phrases are Most Often Searched

There are some very good tools out there you can implement when determining your keywords, such as the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool or WordTracker. Overture can tell you which search phrases had the most searches during the prior month, however Overture’s downside is that it counts singular and plurals as the same, and corrects misspellings, while search engines do not. WordTracker, on the other hand, differentiates between plural and singular searches and does not correct spelling, meaning it gives you a much more realistic number.

When choosing your keywords, remember that just because you know your own industry inside out doesn’t mean the average layman does, so think of the terms you might type in if you knew little about the industry. Don’t target too many phrases, rather keep yourself and your keyword list highly focused—which will also keep your website focused. Spend the necessary time choosing your keywords, and you will reap the rewards in the future.

Law Firms That Optimize Their Website Content For the Wrong Keywords Likely Never See Results

Monday, September 13th, 2010

Many attorneys start out their Internet marketing campaign by purchasing a law firm website template. Some attorneys will go to the next step and will read a few web pages about SEO or buy a book on how to search engine optimize a website. This was in hopes of learning how to optimize their law firm website for search engine rankings. Like a lot of small business owners, you may have even submitted your legal website to a few search engines like Bing, Google and Yahoo in hopes that people would show up to your law firm website and call you for you to represent them. After a couple of weeks go by and your website has only attracted a few stray people to your law firm website you may feel like you wasted your time.

If you were one of the “smart” ones who even tried to “optimize” your website for your main 1 or 2 keyword phrases in hopes that you would rank well ion Google, Bing or Yahoo. You probably saw a few more weeks go by with no luck. No visitors and no money. Now you really feel certain that you had completely wasted of your time!

Most lawyer will give up at this point while some will decide to build another website but focus on a different market or keyword phrase. You may have probably figured out by now, that is NOT the way to get your law firm website on the top of Google, Yahoo or Bing. These days creating a bunch of websites expecting people to just “show up” does not work like it did in the 1990s or early 2000s.

The key foundation you need to begin any new or existing website development and search engine optimization campaign on involves using the “right” keyword phrases. The right keyword phrases are defined by LawyerSuccess.com as, “The keyword phrases the search engines have reported as most relevant and search in your area.”

Th biggest reason for law firm website optimization failure is choosing the keyword phrases you “think” people will use versus the ones people are actually using. This coms to the surprise of many of our new clients. They are relieved to know that a simple research tool made publicly available for free can help them narrow their focus to the “ideal” and most effective law firm practice area keyword phrases.

We will provide you with a few different websites that offer free keyword research when you call LawyerSuccess.com at(769) 218-6099 for a free consultation.

Law Firms Must Watch Top Positions on Search Engines for Top Keyphrases

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

How often do you check your law firm’s rankings for your top key phrases?

Are you about to spot positioning issues in real time in order to take action?

Think of your top keyword phrases as stocks that you are invested in. These are your top money makers and should be watched closely like your investments. You should be able to track the positions of your law firm’s keywords and rankings in a simple one page program. Checking your lawyer website rankings the old fashion way by typing them into Google and then Yahoo and then Bing only to repeat the process 20 to 30 times is a complete waste of time.

Other problems are that law firms simply either don’t know what their best key phrases are to target and do not have the ability to watch their rankings in real time to spot any potential problems in advance of becoming a “page 2 website” or worse, becoming de-indexed from Google, Bing or Yahoo.

Another benefit for being able to track your positioning is to see if the search engine optimization techniques are working or ineffective to your legal website’s organic search positions.  Maybe you added some content for a specific key phrase and it increased you position for a relevant key word term?

The bottom line is you should be aware of the best keywords to use for your law firm. Then you should track the positions of your website for these key phrases daily. Once you have accomplished these two goals, you will be able to make the right moves on the search engines to generate lots of new clients.

Our company Lawyer Success, Inc. does provide a service where we can 1) perform the keyword research, 2) monitor the keywords and positions for you and 3) provide you with a PDF summary every week, bi-weekly or monthly. Here is a demo of the report we could provide to you. Lawyer Success Ranking Trend Reports

Have a question? Need assistance? Call James Greenier with Lawyer Success, Inc. at (769) 218-6099 or click here to ask a law firm marketing expert.

Keyword Research Tips for Lawyers and Law Firms

Friday, October 9th, 2009

Keywords selection is critical for law firms that are trying to generate new client contacts from the Web. Keyword research is often needed when a law firm either wants to develop new website content and/or purchase advertising on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and others.

Our SEO team here at LawyerSuccess.com uses 3 keyword research tools that scour the Internet looking for high valued keywords which relate to our clients’ practice groups.  Our proprietary SEO keyword tool, developed by our organization created a list of over 14,000 car accident related key phrases. If your law firm needs help with keyword research, give us a call at (769) 218-6099.

Here is a few helpful tips in determining some keywords or key phrases for your law firm’s Internet Marketing strategy.

1. Review your website statistics and look at the key phrases your web visitors are using. Often times these key phrases can provide you with ideas about the types of content you should blog or write articles about. It also helps you better understand HOW to structure your content.

2. Use the keyword “settlement” or “settlements” within your law firm’s website content pages. A sizable percentage of keyword phrases include either “settlement” or “settlements.” For example: “personal injury settlement for ruptured disc.”

3. When talking to potential clients, take notes about the conversation taking particular attention to common questions, keywords and/or slang terms used.

4. Be specific in determining keywords or key phrases. Keep in mind that there are very educated injury victims researching their legal matter online as well.  Here is an example of a well educated key phrase used to find one of our clients, “impairment rating bilateral rami fractures inferior.”

For over 8 years and 3,500+ law firm consultations, James Greenier with LawyerSuccess.com has developed powerful keyword research tools to assist law firms with their Internet Marketing. LawyerSuccess.com can greatly improve your law firm’s website design, conversion, search engine optimization, website content writing, blog posts and pay per click (Adwords/Yahoo/Bing) campaigns through the use of keyword research.

Attention Attorneys – It's All About Keywords

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

It’s All About Keywords

What’s the difference between 100 unique visitors and 1 million unique visitors? Content & Keywords… The more keyword enriched content that your website has indexed, the more traffic you will receive. Period.


Forget link building campaigns and PageRank! Pagerank and links will come when you provide valuable information. Spend time gathering quality keywords and developing quality information.  What’s interesting to me is how quickly the Googlebots feed on this fresh content. My website took about 2 months to index about 200 pages. This blog only took about 10 days.