Through the executive coaching and business consulting services I deliver, I advise my attorney clients how to organically raise their website’s Google page rankings – without having to spend money on advertising or SEO services.
The Three Biggest Mistakes I See
When reviewing an attorney’s website, the three biggest mistakes I see are:
- Going Cheap – in an effort to save costs, the attorney decides to create her own website, lured by the free and easy “build your own” website options online. This results in an unprofessional website, often with too much text, poor organization and lack of content designed to increase SEO.
- The Fix: Hire an expert. We are attorneys, not website designers, or marketers. If cost is an issue, check out 99designs.com where web designers all over the world can bid on your website projects, which can result in amazing costs savings. Be sure to tell your web designer that you’d like to increase SEO organically and have them suggest and create ways to do so on your website.
- No Blog – instead of a blog, there will be a “Publications” or “Articles” page with links to the publications or with the full text of the article published on the site. The problem with this is threefold, (1)it it’s a link, the visitor will leave your website to read the article; (2) if the full text of the article appears, it’s too long yet again; and (3) no blog, no organic SEO, no easy way to search your article through an index.
- The Fix: You guessed it – start blogging. Here are some fabulous sites to check out for information on how to blog, what to blog, and how to create blog posts that increase your SEO organically.
- No Links – Incredible as it may seem, I’ve consulted on attorney websites that have no links, internally or externally, in their content. Imagine that – no links to further educate clients, substantiate claims, build credibility, or demonstrate expertise.
- The Fix: Go through your website content and just like when you researched an area of law and had to provide a citation or an authority, you’ll provide a “citation” by way of a hyperlink to another site to validate the claim, further educate, give credit to the source or demonstrate your expertise (especially if you link to an article you’ve written in a recognized publication).
Happy Website Updating!