We have hundreds of WordPress sites that we have great success with and so I thought it might be useful to let you into some of the “secrets” of what actually works for us, techniques and strategies together with what plugins etc I think definitely contribute to that success. A law firm website can be based in WordPress, and I recommend using it for your law firm website AND blog. WordPress is a powerful solution and we at Easy Legal Marketing do build WordPress law firm websites (contact us to build your site).

WordPress is still the king for SEO purposes and if you set it up right it can reward you VERY well!!

Make sure that you at least do the following:

1) Always delete the “hello world” post

2) Delete the standard links.

3) Link then to authority sites in your niche or practice areas.

4) Install and configure the following plugins for optimal success:

Google XML Site Maps
Platinum SEO Pack or All In One SEO
Stealth Traffic Systems
SEO Presser
Use Google Libraries
Sexy Bookmarks
WP Super Cache
Simple Tags
Exec-PHP
ServerBuddy & BackUpBuddy
WordPress Duplicate Content Cure
GD Press Tools
Ping Optimizer
Insights

5) Get Your Robots.txt Right !!! (Note: This is REALLY CRITICAL!)

6) “Connect” the blog to a full set of Web 2.0 accounts through Ping.fm

7) Make the front page sticky with a properly optimized “fixed” page.

8 ) Create 10 Unique (100%) article posts (with mixed media) and drip them into the new blog over 30 days

9) Use the best AutoBlog Plugin(s) – (preferably highly tweaked PHP) to add diverse on topic posts on an ongoing basis.

10) Get the best spinner you can afford and create a series of dripped posts.

11) Get as many backlinks, bookmarks, etc to the individual posts (deep) in your blog on an ongoing basis but start it slow and build up to a crescendo.

Getting your site together is not an easy thing to do, but with these tips and tricks it will take you a LONG way!! We love the way WordPress is evolving, probably at the speed of light! Stay tuned for a inside look at how we build WordPress based law firm websites next post!

Need some ideas for your law firm landing page? Give away your free stuff to a prospect! Huge for lead generation! Facebook. Youre on it, your parents are probably on it, your brothers and sisters are on it, your friends are on it. It seems like everyone is on facebook. 500 million people at the last count were signed up to facebook and its popularity is still growing. The media cant get enough of it and the facebook story has reached the masses thanks to The Social Network movie.

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The time has come to welcome in a new year. Did you complete your goals for 2010? Did your law firm have better year then last? These types of questions about probably going through your mind right now, as you read this post. I get tons of emails from lawyers that have not found that “secret pill” to success. Then I ask them, do you have an online presence? And of course, they respond well what do you mean by that, well yeah I have a website.

Cheers to a successful 2011 for your law firm!

Must Have’s in 2011

1. Modern law firm website

2. Online presence in Social Media

3. Live Chat

4. Video Marketing

I think if you stick to those 4 keys to success, you will be fine in 2011. If you think that just having a basic website is enough, wrong!!

Use this for your law firm facebook fan page. This will brand your business as a facebook powerhouse! Firms that actively market on facebook do recieve an ROI in many law fields. Simply edit and redo for your personal taste! All fbml is included! Click here to learn about FBML

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Time and time again, law firm after law firm, the same questions are being asked over and over again about Google Places! When it comes to ranking on Google Places, you need to know the basics about creating and verifying your place to show Google you are the best law firm for that spot.

The Big G is always updating Places to help get the most qualified sources when it comes to a specific search term. It takes from other “yellow page” like sites including Yelp and these types of sites.

I have taken the liberty from all these questions about dominating Google Places with your listing and wrote a book about it! Yes, my first qualified ebook on Google Places.

Learn what all of the businesses are trying to learn! Have a instant first page listing on Google with your own business listing! This step by step guide includes easy to use features and some really advanced tactics to get you on page 1 with your listing FAST AND EASY!!
This is up to date information, and none of that OLD CRAP that is out there.

DO NOT let other companies have page 1 of Google with their listing and get all of the traffic when you could be!!

I have taken businesses from not having any traffic to their website and then implementing this and are now having boat loads of traffic everyday. The phone will not stop ringing and they are very grateful. So why not share it with you guys as well? I love seeing small businesses get to the first page of Google!! This is brand new to the market, and I normally would not reveal this to the general public, but it is the holiday season and I am feeling generous!

This Step by Step Guide will explain:

*How to effectively setup your Google Places profile

*How To Build Quality Traffic with It

*How to do it right the first time

*How to get people to endorse your listing

*How to use advanced strategies to rank higher quickly

*Plus much much more…

This weekly Law Firm Website Review is for the search term Tampa Personal Injury Lawyer.

When I used Google to search for this term, the number 1 search result was http://www.theinjurylawyers.com/. The law firm associated with this site is Abrahamson & Uiterwyk. The website looks like this:

This website is a clean and very simple to navigate with a good strong call to action button. It is not overly confusing, and draws you along the way they want you to think. They state their claims of experience and how good they are, which is good. The branding of the website is good as well, and clearly shows you what the two lawyers look like. Blue and white are great colors to use on a website in terms of a clear mind for possible clients.

Let’s look at their SEO for Tampa Personal Injury Lawyer.

Obviously they are ranking for Tampa personal injury lawyer pretty well.

Title tag: <title>Tampa Personal Injury Lawyer | Clearwater, St. Petersburg Accident Attorney</title>. This is a good way to rank for that search term since they start their title tag with their main search term.

Meta Stuff: <meta name=”keywords” content=”tampa, florida, injury, lawyers, attorneys” />
<meta name=”description” content=”Abrahamson and Uiterwyk has represented over 10,000 personal injury victims throughout Florida. Serving Tampa/All Florida. NO FEE OR COST UNLESS WE WIN” />
Their keywords are very targeted. This means that they are just wanting to target tampa as their main focus. They also have Tampa in their meta description, which also helps them rank for tampa in their search engine ranking.

Things that they lack for Tampa Personal Injury Lawyer:

In their page source, they do not have alt text on their images, which also could help them in the SERPS.  They also could use their H1 tag more effectively. I do not see them using this. They have setup their h tags effectively, but I do not think the h1 tag is.

A sense of the customer. This means that the site is all about the lawyers. They do not seem to focus on the prospect of a client. Yeah, bragging will get you results, but convincing a client that you are the right lawyer from them does not always come from results.

Overall their website is great, ranking well for Tampa personal injury lawyer. This means that they have many links coming in to them for these search terms. This is just some first reactions and minimal research on their site. I would go way further and find out why they rank as they do if this was for a client. Good luck! Watch for our law firm website reviews weekly like this one who featured this law firm for search term Tampa Personal Injury Lawyer!

Perfect scenario, you client comes to your website…. views all the great stuff you have to tell them and then they either email or call you for your services. Sounds like the perfect plan for a website visitor right? Well most law firm websites lack one thing that makes that happen. You want to know what it is right? Well do I have you on the edge of your seat, ready for the answer? Well this suspense is something that you should take into account when people approach your law firm website. TELL THEM WHAT TO DO!

Your website should have a strong call to action telling them what they need to do. It doesn’t help them if they have nowhere to go once they get to your site. Most lawyers think if they have just a website up the calls will start to come in, well I have news for you. People react on being told what they should, or need to do. They are emotional thinkers and think when they need to, and act when they need to. Do you practice personal injury? Tell them they need to see a doctor right away. Do you practice divorce? Tell them they need to come talk to you before they make a big mistake in their claims process.

Ok so your website is lacking a call to action, now what? Improve your headers, your colors and your wording. Use footers to tell people where to go and what to do. You kind of need to be the ringleader of your website to direct the show. Take them along the path you want them to be taken, then you will see more conversion.

Important Points:

1. Tell them what to do- Strong Calls to Action

2. Design your site to be a path rather then a informational blah site. People will find the information they need online, but you must have them react while on YOUR site.

3. Use graphics as an aid, not as a distraction.

Take these tips and turn your website into something spectacular. We also build law firm websites that follow this guidance and convert really well. If you are a lawyer with a basic boring website, contact us today to get starting on the path of convergence. Do not let your old business card website take down your online presence. Law firm marketing is important, whether it be online or offline.

Are you getting outranked by a lawyer by you? Is his website not even as close as good looking as yours, or has the amount of content you have? Well, let me just set the record straight, it could be that the lawyer or law firm has more inbound links then you do! Plain and simple. Well you ask, what is a good link? And why does he have more then me? Well simply put, people think their website is better to link to. Whether that be because of the information they provide, the content of the site, the site design, or whatever reason, you need to make your website more “likeable” as the web 2.0 states.

To do a quick and easy check on the links that your competition has over you, visit Yahoo Site Explorer.  There you will find a place where you can enter a URL, or website link. Simply copy and paste your competitors in there, and bam. Then click on the INLINKS button. You will see all of the sites linking to theirs. Pretty simple right? Well know what do you do to get some of these same type of links that they are getting. Simply put just go to these sites and see if you can leave a link there, a comment, or however you see the competition there, mimic. Yahoo site explorer tells you where your competition is getting links from, and is a great tool I have used for many years.

Now this will be time consuming, and probably easier from someone from your law firm like a marketing assistant to do, but if you really want to understand it, you can do it yourself.  Good luck if you have any questions in doing this, just contact me and I will be able to help you along. These links WILL help you move up the Search engines and will help you creep up on that first spot.

Like what you see compared to the old website? Yeah me too! I have just redesigned this site to be more modern, and more straight to the point about legal marketing and law firm websites. We built this site to help the small firm overcome the larger firms in both website design, and search engine optimization. We hope you like the new site design!! Leave a comment below and tell us what you think of it! I look forward to hearing from you.

As I was doing my daily legal marketing research I can across a informational package from another legal marketer. To my knowledge, there is not a specific lawyer website chat software that is just targeted towards lawyers and attorneys. What this marketer presented to me in terms of what lawyer chat software ChatViaLegal  presents is out of this world!

Not only is it the standard text based chat, but now lawyers can actually engage in a real live video chat with a client or prospect. This is the first of its kind on ANY level and as long as the person on the other end at the law office can bring the client in, this software is the next big thing in website marketing for lawyer websites.

What ChatViaLegal also offers is a lawyer directory that offers all sorts of information about the lawyer and connects people looking for lawyer directly to the lawyers whole online presence right then and there.  This isnt your standard boring lawyer directory that just has information, what ChatVialegal is doing is innovative and the first of its kind. And whats even better then that, they can chat with the lawyer live on the website as well! So a double bonus to any lawyer looking for chat software for their website.