Bing Search Engine for Attorneys

Bing, Lawyer Marketing Tips, Legal SEO Marketing /

Bing Search For Lawyers Bing is never going to beat Google and it’s never going to be as popular, yet it’s still important because it does get a lot of searches and you never know where your next potential client is going to search for you. Also Bing has certain webmaster tools including a solid keyword research tool that can provide great value. So it makes sense that you setup a to make sure your site is submitted to Bing.  I personally like Bing better then Google and have been using it more and more. BING HISTORY Bing (formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search) is a web search engine from Microsoft. Bing was unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on May 28, 2009 at the All Things Digital conference in San Diego for release on June 1. Notable changes include the listing of search suggestions while queries are entered and a list of related searches (called “Explore pane”) based on semantic technology from Powerset which Microsoft purchased in 2008. On July 29, 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo! Search. All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners are expected to have made the transition by early 2012. Market Share Before the launch of Bing, the marketshare of Microsoft web search pages (MSN and Live search) had been small but steady. By January 2011, Experian Hitwise show that Bing’s market share had increased to 12.8% at the expense of Yahoo and Google. Bing powered searches also continued to have a higher “success rate” compared to Google, with more users clicking on the resulting links. In the same period, comScore’s “2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review” report showed that “Bing was the big gainer in year-over-year search activity, picking up 29% more searches in 2010 than it did in 2009.” The Wall Street Journal notes the 1% jump in share “appeared to come at the expense of rival Google Inc”.  In February 2011, Bing beat Yahoo! for the first time with 4.37% search share while Yahoo! received 3.93% SUBMIT YOUR SITE TO BING Submitting a URL from your website can be an important first step to being indexed.  There are two ways to accomplish this with Bing: Submission through the Submit your Site to Bing web form: this method is designed to allows web publishers to quickly alert Bing that there new site exist. Bing will crawl the URL you submitted and — provided it meets certain criteria — your page will get indexed over time. The Submit URLs feature in the Configure My Site section in Bing Webmaster Tools: this feature is much faster and allows you to submit 10 URLs per day and a maximum of 50 URLs per month for immediate crawl and indexation. To submit URLs using the Submit URL feature, simply add 1 URL per line and click Submit. The URLs are immediately evaluated for search indexation and when quality criteria are met we will begin to surfacing to searchers. Very useful in helping get important content indexed quickly, but there is a limit of 10 submissions per day, up to 50 (total) per month. Note: the Submit URLs feature in Webmaster Tools is currently restricted to root domains only. ********************* You should not only submit your site but also make sure to have a XML sitemap created and submit that to Bing as well.  Then within the Bing webmaster tools, there are a lot of tools to see how your site is performing within Bing.

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Use Google Alerts to Monitor Your Law Firm Name

Lawyer Marketing Tips, Legal Internet Marketing /

Google Alerts If you need to stay on top of your legal industry, competition, or general news, Google Alerts is a powerful, free tool to cut down on your search time. Google Alerts prompts you to enter specific keywords you want to receive updated information about and will automatically email you a list of new articles, blogs, and posts on the Internet about any subject or keywords chosen. You can chose how often you want to receive alerts, and can easily add, change, or delete keyword lists. Google Alerts saves you time in two ways: Google hunts down information across the Internet for you and there are no accounts to log into. After you set up your alerts they are sent to you with links and snippets so you can choose at a glance what interests you most.

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SEO Tips for Lawyers: Use Unique Titles

SEO Tips, Web Site Tips /

What is a Title? The TITLE is one of the most important things to focus on with organic SEO.  A title shows the name of a web page and is displayed by the browser, usually at the top of your computer screen, and tells a reader what page they are on. Meta titles are “read” by search engine robots and seen by site visitors. What you put between the <TITLE> and </TITLE> element is very important so try to get it right. The metal title is very important for helping the page rank higher in search engine returns and should be written to cater to search engine robots first and to site visitors second. Meta titles should make sense to the reader, but the wording should be based on keyword search popularity and relevance to the rest of the web page including other meta data and content. USE UNIQUE TITLES ON ALL PAGES Most lawyers don’t even realize that they are using the same TITLE on every page, they dont know what a title is or how important it is to organic SEO.  You want to make sure that for every page you have, especially your more important practice area pages, that you create a unique title for each page and include your most important keywords in the Title. You don’t want to overdo it though and stuff your title with as many keywords as you can think of, this is not a good idea. You want to limit your TITLE to about 65-70 characters and include two keyprases that are related to the page and that you want to be ranked on at the search engines. So if your a Chicago Criminal Lawyer and have a practice area page devoted to Drug Charges, then you want to have a TITLE that includes keywords related to your location (Chicago and Illinois) and the practice area of Drug Law. So a sample TITLE would read Chicago Drug Lawyers | Illinois Drug Offenses It’s also a good idea to include these two main keyword phrases that your using in the title on the actual page within the content of page.  Having unique Titles is important and can make the difference in getting ranked for your most important keywords at Google.

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Google Launches Disavow Links Tool

Google Search Engine, Legal Internet Marketing, Link Building /

Google has launched a new and widely anticipated “disavow links” tool. The tool was announced by the head of Google’s web spam team Matt Cutts, when speaking during a keynote at the Pubcon conference today. The tool is live and can be found here. It has been beta tested by some selected SEOs already for the past few weeks. About 45 minutes after Cutts spoke, Google formally announced the tool on the Google Webmaster Central blog. Matt Cutts Video From Google Blog: Today we’re introducing a tool that enables you to disavow links to your site. If you’ve been notified of a manual spam action based on “unnatural links” pointing to your site, this tool can help you address the issue. If you haven’t gotten this notification, this tool generally isn’t something you need to worry about. First, a quick refresher. Links are one of the most well-known signals we use to order search results. By looking at the links between pages, we can get a sense of which pages are reputable and important, and thus more likely to be relevant to our users. This is the basis of PageRank, which is one of more than 200 signals we rely on to determine rankings. Since PageRank is so well-known, it’s also a target for spammers, and we fight linkspam constantly with algorithms and by taking manual action. If you’ve ever been caught up in linkspam, you may have seen a message in Webmaster Tools about “unnatural links” pointing to your site. We send you this message when we see evidence of paid links, link exchanges, or other link schemes that violate our quality guidelines. If you get this message, we recommend that you remove from the web as many spammy or low-quality links to your site as possible. This is the best approach because it addresses the problem at the root. By removing the bad links directly, you’re helping to prevent Google (and other search engines) from taking action again in the future. You’re also helping to protect your site’s image, since people will no longer find spammy links pointing to your site on the web and jump to conclusions about your website or business. If you’ve done as much as you can to remove the problematic links, and there are still some links you just can’t seem to get down, that’s a good time to visit our new Disavow links page. Read full post on Google Blog

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Page Quality, Local & Ranking Changes Top List of 65 Latest Google Search Updates

Google Search Engine, Google Updates /

Google’s most recent installment of their search quality highlights is out, listing more than 65 changes to the search algorithm from August and September. Most are decidedly minor, a few stand out, and a couple major changes we know about seem to be missing entirely. Specifically, there is nary a word about the exact match domain update Google warned of on September 27. Why is this? “These changes rolled out very recently, and their launch language was approved after the cutoff date where we were finalizing the blog post,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Watch. “We tweeted these changes and were also planning to include those launches in future updates.” We know for certain a Panda update occured on September 27. We also know there was a Panda data refresh Sept. 18, though Google announced that one via Twitter. Perhaps this September change entry applies to Panda: “#84394. [project ‘Page Quality’] This launch helped you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.” Google has filed algorithm changes related to Panda and Penguin under the “Page Quality” project in the past, as they did in May of this year. It’s vague, but this entry may very well refer to the September 18th or 27th Panda update. Keep in mind, Matt Cutts’ tweet from September 28 said the EMD update was “upcoming.” Some believe it happened September 27 or 28, though they could very well have mistaken it for Panda. To my knowledge, there has been no official confirmation the EMD update came out at the time of Cutts’ tweet. We’ve asked Cutts for clarification and will update the post if we hear back. Here is an overview of the more interesting recent changes that were included in the report from Google: Local & Mobile LTS. [project “Other Ranking Components”] We improved our web ranking to determine what pages are relevant for queries containing locations. #83659. [project “Answers”] We made improvements to display of the local time search feature. nearby. [project “User Context”] We improved the precision and coverage of our system to help you find more relevant local web results. Now we’re better able to identify web results that are local to the user, and rank them appropriately. #83377. [project “User Context”] We made improvements to show more relevant local results. #84586. [project “Other Ranking Components”] This change improved how we rank documents for queries with location terms. #81360. [project “Translation and Internationalization”] With this launch, we began showing local URLs to users instead of general homepages where applicable (e.g. blogspot.ch instead of blogspot.com for users in Switzerland). That’s relevant, for example, for global companies where the product pages are the same, but the links for finding the nearest store are country-dependent. #81999. [project “Translation and Internationalization”] We revamped code for understanding which documents are relevant for particular regions and languages automatically (if not annotated by the webmaster). Ranking & Indexing #82279. [project “Other Ranking Components”] We changed to fewer results for some queries to show the most relevant results as quickly as possible. #83709. [project “Other Ranking Components”] This change was a minor bug fix related to the way links are used in ranking. #82546. [project “Indexing”] We made back-end improvements to video indexing to improve the efficiency of our systems. #84010. [project “Page Quality”] We refreshed data for the “Panda” high-quality sites algorithm. #83777. [project “Synonyms”] This change made improvements to rely on fewer “low-confidence” synonyms when the user’s original query has good results. Project Freshness Imadex. [project “Freshness”] This change updated handling of stale content and applies a more granular function based on document age. #83761. [project “Freshness”] This change helped you find the latest content from a given site when two or more documents from the same domain are relevant for a given search query. Knowledge Graph #83443. [project “Knowledge Graph”] We added a lists and collections component to the Knowledge Graph. #83012. [project “Knowledge Graph] The Knowledge Graph displays factual information and refinements related to many types of searches. This launch extended the Knowledge Graph to English-speaking locales beyond the U.S. Knowledge Graph Carousel. [project “Knowledge Graph”] This change expanded the Knowledge Graph carousel feature globally in English. #83304. [project “Knowledge Graph”] This change updated signals that determine when to show summaries of topics in the right-hand panel. Snippets & Sitelinks #83105. [project “Snippets”] We refreshed data used to generate sitelinks. #83442. [project “Snippets”] This change improved a signal we use to determine how relevant a possible result title actually is for the page. #82407. [project “Other Search Features”] For pages that we do not crawl because of robots.txt, we are usually unable to generate a snippet for users to preview what’s on the page. This change added a replacement snippet that explains that there’s no description available because of robots.txt. #83670. [project “Snippets”] We made improvements to surface fewer generic phrases like “comments on” and “logo” in search result titles. #84652. [project “Snippets”] We currently generate titles for PDFs (and other non-html docs) when converting the documents to HTML. These auto-generated titles are usually good, but this change made them better by looking at other signals. #84211. [project “Snippets”] This launch led to better snippet titles. #84460. [project “Snippets”] This change helped to better identify important phrases on a given webpage. Query Intent & User Experience #83135. [project “Query Understanding”] This change updated term-proximity scoring. essence. [project “Autocomplete”] This change introduced entity predictions in autocomplete. Now Google will predict not just the string of text you might be looking for, but the actual real-world thing. Clarifying text will appear in the drop-down box to help you disambiguate your search. #83484. [project “Refinements”] This change helped users refine their searches to find information about the right person, particularly when there are many prominent people with the same name. TSSPC. [project “Spelling”] This change used spelling algorithms to improve the relevance of long-tail autocomplete predictions. #83406. [project “Query Understanding”] We improved our ability to show relevant Universal Search results by better understanding when a search has strong image intent, local intent, video intent, etc. #80435.

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The Google +1 Button Has No “Direct Effect” On Rankings

Google Plus, Google Search Engine /

Google’s +1s do not have a direct effect on a site’s ranking in search results. Google’s Matt Cutts said as much in a “Power Searching With Google” hangout on Google+ (via Alex Graves). However, he did indicate that Google is really only getting started with authorship, which he hinted will only become a stronger signal going forward. Right now, it seems, Google cares a lot more about authorship, and expects this to become possibly a weightier signal in the future. Here’s more of what Cutts had to say in the hangout: “In the short term, we’re still going to have to study and see how good the signal is, so right now, there’s not really a direct effect where if you have a lot of +1s, you’ll rank higher. But there are things like, we have an authorship proposal, where you can use nice standards to markup your webpage, and you’ll actually see a picture of the author right there, and it turns out that if you see a picture of the author, sometimes you’ll have higher click through, and people will say, ‘oh, that looks like a trusted resource.’ So there are ways that you can participate and sort of get ready for the longer term trend of getting to know not just that something was said, but who said it and how reputable they were.” … “I think if you look further out in the future and look at something that we call social signals or authorship or whatever you want to call it, in ten years, I think knowing that a really reputable guy – if Dan has written an article, whether it’s a comment on a forum or on a blog – I would still want to see that. So that’s the long-term trend.” … “It’s just the case that that picture is just more likely to attract attention. It’s just a little more likely to get the clicks, and you now, it’s almost like an indicator of trust.” “The idea is you want to have something that everybody can participate in and just make these sort of links, and then over time, as we start to learn more about who the high quality authors are, you could imagine that starting to affect rankings.” This is not the first time Cutts has downplayed the significance of the +1 button with regards to ranking. At SMX Advanced back in June, Cutts said (according to a liveblogged account of the conversation), “When we look at +1, we’ve found it’s not necessarily the best quality signal right now.” It’s going to be interesting to see how Google progresses with how it handles social signals, because it may have some major competition right around the corner. You know that little social network that just surpassed a billion active users? They’re talking about doing search. Here’swhat Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said about it this past week: “As Mark said, I think people are surprised how much search is done on Facebook, you know, every day there’s enormous percentage of search. There’s also a promise in the market that search could become more social that we don’t think this has been met. When you’re looking for information, the question is who do you want it from, the wisdom of crowds or the wisdom of friends? Our answer is the information that’s most relevant for users is really about friends. That if I’m looking for a restaurant to go to in New York this week, I’d rather get a recommendation from a friend. That’s really what we’re working on.” OK, so getting a bunch of +1s on your content is not going to necessarily going to get it ranked higher in Google’s organic listings, and Google is not necessarily looking to it as a quality signal. However, there are still clear benefits to the button for search visibility. Consider that many people are seeing Google’s “Search Plus Your World” results, which push social connections (frequently from Google+) into the search results, making the +1 button a much more significant factor. For that matter, Google tends to show less regular organic results on pages these days. The button can also, of course, spread content throughout Google+ itself. And there’s still no reason to think Google won’t adopt it as a more significant signal in the future. Based on what Cutts said, however, authorship is practically a must for content providers. And even if your’e not seeing major benefits from that now, it sounds like we’re only in the beginning of how Google is going to use it. Of course, authorship is linked directly to your Google+ profile. On a related note, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller has also been talking about authorship, and how the sites you’re linked to don’t necessarily have any effect on each other based on your connection to them. Barry Schwartz points to this Google Webmaster Help threadwhere he said, “No, there generally wouldn’t be a connection with regards to crawling, indexing, or ranking between two websites that are both linked from your Google Profile.” So, in other words, if you have one site that was penalized by Google, it should have no direct negative effect on another site you’re connected to, just because you’re part of both sites. Source: 

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Benefits of a Mobile Site for Lawyers

Mobile for Lawyers, Mobile Marketing, Mobile PPC /

Benefits of a Mobile Site for a lawyer As an attorney in a high-tech world, increasing the business potential of your practice can be challenging. Game-changing technology is constantly emerging and it really is a matter of embracing the changes and working them to your advantage. It is true that this takes time, money and expertise, but rising to the challenge is the key to business growth. You are also welcome to dig your heels in and refuse- your competitors will be real pleased, for sure. The current online- marketing must-have for any niche is the ‘mobile site’. No matter how fancy, professional or high-ranking your current website is, it will be next to useless to your clients and potential clients who access the internet via their smart phone. Having to pinch and zoom and slide the screen around to read your information, the potential client will become frustrated and give up. It really is as simple as that. What is a Mobile Site? A mobile site is so much easier for your client to navigate. It basically is a version of your current website that is optimized for use on smartphones such as iPhone and other handheld devices. The layout on a mobile site is optimized for: 1. The smaller screen of a handheld device 2. The touchscreen platform of a handheld device A mobile site for your legal practice takes away the need for pinch and zoom navigation. All of the essential tabs are listed neatly, usually in a vertical fashion, providing your client with an instant ‘call to action’ in the form of a Contact Us button. Benefits of a Mobile Site Because of this instant call to action set-up, a mobile site can grow your legal practice like no other technology available. A conventional website can be quite distracting and overload the visitor with information. They may get so busy reading the information on your site that they forget to click the contact button. A mobile site avoids this scenario as it offers all the vital information in a pleasing yet non-distracting fashion. Conversion rates are higher with a mobile site because the Contact Us button is the first thing a client is offered when they access your legal practice’s mobile site. They can then complete the Contact Us form quickly and easily from their handheld device and there you have it; a client has initiated contact with your firm with no hassles as they sit on the train pondering their legal problem. An even more exciting use for a mobile website is the ease with which a client can call your office. When a client accesses your mobile site from their smart phone and clicks through to your Contact Us page, the phone number-integration feature means they literally are just one click away from calling your office. It is therefore an excellent idea to have your phone number on the Contact tab. The client simply clicks on it and their smartphone dials your firm. Too easy! For more information on the benefits that a mobile site can bring to your legal practice’s marketing campaign, visit Mobile For Lawyers for a free mobile site quote.  

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Top 4 Entertainment Apps for Attorneys

Legal Internet Marketing, Mobile Apps, Mobile for Lawyers /

 Top Entertainment Apps for Lawyers As a busy lawyer you are likely using your smartphone or tablet for all work and no play. How boring! There are many fun apps that attorneys are loving right now. From joke books to virtual law firms in your pocket, why not have a bit of fun laugh now and then? We have handpicked these highly rated apps just for the attorney who is looking to lighten up Francis. Lawyer Games #1 – Phoenix Wright This recently ugraded game is totally addictive. Step into fantasy land and become Phoenix Wright, the rookie defense lawyer who is new to the court scene with the wildest cross-examination skills in town. Prove your seemingly guilty client’s innocence, no matter how dire the circumstances may seem through five intriguing cases to reveal dramatic, stunning and even comical court proceedings. Great fun for lawyers and law students too; this is a genuinely comical game with cool graphics and intelligent gameplay. #2- Pocket Law Firm Grow your own virtual law firm by putting your legal wit and sense of logistics to the test. Decide if potential clients have a right, match them with the right lawyer, and win the case. The more clients you serve and the more cases you win, the faster your law firm grows! This is the most popular game ever made by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s iCivics program. Highly rated and totally free, this game has been well-received by attorneys and law students alike.  Its also a fantastic game for the children of lawyers who want to learn more about what mom or dad is doing at the office. #3 – Kaplan MBE Flash Cards OK, so not technically a game but this is a GREAT app and is loads of fun for law students to play around with. Basically, cards pop up, showing a legal term. The definition is revealed, giving law students the chance to test their knowledge. Many law students are raving about it this app, saying that it makes study for the Multistate Exam. Also provides instructional videos to give you some insight into passing your exams. Lots of fun. #4- Lawyer Jokes Ok, so attorneys don’t really like lawyer jokes- and that’s fair enough. You can run, but you can’t hide. Whether you like it or not, attorney jokes are out there and people are using them. How will you fight back if you don’t know what you’re up against? Try these apps with lawyer jokes written by people that think they are soooo clever. We all know who they come running to when they are in trouble!! So download these apps and have the last laugh. Lawyer Jokes HD This app is formatted as a book for iPad and has some pretty cool sound effects. Some old classics as well as some updated jokes thrown in for good measure. 500 Lawyer Jokes For Android platform, this is definitely the nastiest collection of jokes about lawyers we have ever set eyes on. Worth checking out as these lawyer jokes hit lower than ever.  LAWYER MOBILE APPS Need a mobile app for your legal practice? Visit Mobile For Lawyers for assistance with developing a mobile app for your law firm.

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Top 5 Legal Apps for Lawyers

Mobile Apps, Mobile for Lawyers /

With heavy demands on their time, lawyers will be pleased to know that there are several smartphone apps available to help them organize their work. From arranging your legal research neatly to managing the details of your client’s case as well as tracking your own billable hours, we bring you the Top Five Smartphone Apps for Lawyers: #1 – Fastcase If you have a subscription to the desktop edition of Fastcase, then it makes sense to download the free app for iPhone, which has won the prestigious American Association of Law Libraries New Product of the Year Award.  Fastcase for the iPhone/iPad also uses smart search technology from Fastcase’s fully-featured Web-based legal research application, which allows you to sort the most relevant results to the top of the list, customize and re-sort search results, and integrate citation analysis tools right into the results list. #2-  Black’s Law Dictionary There is nothing quite like being able to travel light. Smartphone technology makes life so much easier for lawyers in so many ways. It really can help to cut down on the amount of books lawyers have to carry around with them. Legal research is a large part of legal practice and lugging heavy books everywhere is inconvenient. With Black’s Law Dictionary now available for iPhone, lawyers can now have this invaluable Thomson Reuters reference text in their pocket at all times. View rest of top 5 list at Mobile for Lawyers…

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Legal Mobile Marketing: Push Notifications & QR Codes

Law Firm Marketing, Mobile for Lawyers, Mobile Marketing /

Mobile Marketing focusing on “Push Notifications” and QR Codes Mobile marketing makes staying in touch with your customer base a fun, dynamic experience- so everyone’s happy! With “Push Notifications” and QR Codes, you will have contact with your customers, no matter where they are. And best of all, it is something that they opt-in for. With careful strategy and a tasteful, restrained approach, you will be using your customer base’s smartphone as a medium for your business message. Here is how it goes; Push Notifications In short, a ‘Push Notification’ is a brief message altering the smartphone user as to a commerce-related opportunity. This message will be a prompt to either purchase a new amazing product or to visit a website for the full run-down on some hot-off-the-press news from your company. When your clients download your application- whether from Facebook or the App store or your website, you have the chance to get them to opt-in to receive “Push Notifications”. If they agree to this, you will then have the opportunity to incorporate this wondrous new technology into your marketing campaign. The do’s: Always give your client the chance to opt-in to Push Notifications when they are downloading your app. You can’t just spring your message on them whenever you like. Make the incentive to accepting Push Notifications irresistible. Make a promise such as “you will receive early-bird notifications” For heaven’s sake, deliver on the promise you make. Otherwise your client’s will opt-out before too long… The don’ts When sending Push Notifications, don’t overdo it. Depending on your niche, even once a day is probably too much contact with your client base. Think more along the lines of weekly. Don’t send Push Notifications at the small hours of the morning. Give consideration to time of day when sending out your Push Notifications. Quite frankly there is nothing worse than being woken up with a chime from your smartphone at 1am telling you that you should visit a certain site for a hot coupon. QR Codes You know the future has arrived when you look at these rather unsightly perfectly square bits of gibberish that translate into total customer interaction. Operate on the assumption that all of your customers use smartphones and have the ability to scan your QR code. What? You don’t use QR codes? Your business needs to get one- now. Why? Because QR codes are so hot right now and your competitors definitely make use of them. QR codes evoke curiosity and your customer base WILL want to scan. They can’t help themselves. You can put anything into the QR code- url, phone number, message- anything. They are free or next to free to generate. QR codes bring fun and creativity to your marketing campaign. Put one on your business card for example. It creates interest and makes the recipient want to hang onto your card for longer so that they can check out what your code is about. Don’t be shy about implementing mobile technology options into your legal marketing campaigns.  Push notifications and QR Codes are another part of mobile marketing and can be used to your advantage. Visit Mobile For Lawyers for more information on mobile solutions for attorneys.

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