Monday, September 20, 2010
New York City #1 for Nursing Home Abuse Searches Online in 2009
To learn more about website search engine optimization, please visit our website at www.seoconsultantfirm.com
Thursday, September 16, 2010
How Blogs Can Help Attorney Websites Perform Better
The latency of website indexing
Websites get crawled by search engines spiders that will index and categorize your websites content much like a librarian does in a library. The challenge for all websites is that search engine spiders are sent out on their schedules – not yours. The only traditional way to increase the frequency of your crawl was to create as many inbound links as possible from many different sources that will send spiders your way during their own indexing process.
Google will also provide a PageRank to your website pages based largely on these links using a scale of 0-10 (10 being the best). A web page with a PageRank of 5 will typically be crawled on a weekly basis with an even higher number being indexed more frequent and visa versa. The reality is that most law firm websites do not have a PageRank of 5 or higher and therefore do not get crawled as frequently as they would like. This is especially important for class action, medical malpractice, mass tort, and high-level news firms where timing can be everything.
The value of the blog ping
The question most law firms want to know is the difference between a website and a blog. The simple answer is that a blog is a very easy-to-use extension of their website for publishing content on a regular basis. However, the other more critical difference is how the content is treated by the search engines. Since a blog is a more dynamic platform, the search engines need to constantly update their indexing based on the content that is created in a blog. In order to do this, most blogs will send out a signal (or ping) to a ping server that in turn aggregates the pings and makes them available to third parties and search engines like Google to come index the new content.
The most commonly used ping aggregators are Weblogs.com and Ping-o-matic. Since Google owns the Blogger.com platform, they are also directly pinged by BlogSpot blogs as well – a nice added bonus. In many cases with major blogs, you will find the indexing of your blog entry and subsequently linked pages from the blog can be indexed within a matter of hours and even minutes. In short, YOU through the use of a blog, now have the ability to control the indexing of your own web content through the power of the ping.
Faster indexing of new sites and content
The rapid indexing through the use of blog textual links to targeted web pages is not limited to just existing pages and sites. Although these are great ways to gain exposure for deep pages, new website indexing can also benefit as well.
When a new website is launched, typically at a new URL address, the search engines will go through a propagation period of many months before you start to build authority and visibility in searches. Often times, the initial indexing of your site may take many times to reach all of your pages depending on the depth of your site and the search engine crawl. This is where blog entries can help. Whether your law firm blog resides within your URL or outside of it, you can add textual links to each entry and point them to your specific pages to help speed up the indexing process of your new website. The inbound textual links will also benefit your new website as well – especially if your blog sites outside of your website domain.
Rapid indexing for breaking cases and events
In the past, the fastest way to syndicate content rapidly beyond the website was to publish press releases through the major news wires. This is still an effective tool but so are blogs. In both cases, you want to create content with textual links in your content back to the pages on your website but this can become an expensive and time consuming process with press releases. Alternatively, a simple blog entry with the same textual links can now be indexed typically within an hour or two and that link leading to a drug liability or mass tort page can get that page indexed rapidly as well. This is the power of the blog – proactive and timely indexing of your web content.
Contact the SEO Consultant Firm if you would like to learn more about how blogging can help with your law firm's SEO strategy. Author: Dustin Ruge
Thursday, September 9, 2010
The Impacts of Google Instant
By now, we are all used to seeing the effects of “predictive search” in the Google search box when we type words and phrases - the more common the word or phrase typed, the more likely the chance it will display prominently in the suggested terms and phrases. In many ways, this acts similar to auto-word typing on your PDA but it goes one step further through suggestive search.
So how does Google Instant impact all of this? Well, the average search today takes around 9 seconds and typically involves three steps: 1.) Type the word or phrase, 2.) Hit the search button below and 3.) Reviewing the displayed search results pages. With Google Instant, the goal is to cut-out step 2 and display the results as you type below the search box. Google claims this will cut the average search time down from 9 seconds today to 2-5 seconds with Google Instant.
Why the Need?
Google generates over $30 Billion a year on their paid advertising and it is all predicated on search starting and ending with Google. Recent ComScore reports show that the market for search is not showing an increase for Google while other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing are growing…albeit very slowing in relative terms. Another and arguably bigger challenge is coming from alternative search vehicles lead largely by PDA’s, social media, and the like. In short, Google needs to protect their search market revenues and the best way to do that is to try to create the best search experience for users. Google Instant is their way in which to try to provide that.
The Impacts on Search
By providing displayed search results below the search box as one types, it is fairly obvious that there are two major impacts as a result of this new search display:
1.) Impressions for both organic and paid search results will increase due to the increase in times a results page is displayed in the search results screen. In short, the frequency of content impressions per search will shoot up dramatically – especially for those pages that score well on the more singular and shorter search terms. For example, if I start typing in “personal injury” in Google Instant results, I am going to see all results before I ever get to adding the geography part of that search. Whatever pages typically score the highest for ALL “personal injury” searches nation-wide will see a dramatic spike in their impressions as a result. The same applies to those firms also paying for Google Adwords campaigns. More impressions for Google Advertisers ultimately translates to more money for Google.
2.) Short search words, phrases and terms (commonly referred to as “head terms”) will outperform the long tail searches. This is analogous to somebody interrupting you while you speak and suggesting an answer before you have finished your statement. The main benefactors here will be the larger more established websites and blogs at the expense of smaller companies and firms with fewer resources to compete. Coincidence? Not when you realize who the biggest spenders on Google paid advertising are.
In summary, we have seen two sweeping and dramatic changes in the Google search interface starting with the May Day release and now Google Instant. This all reminds me of the recent 10 year birthday of Google when they released their search engine interface from 10 years ago with what at the time was a simple search interface and very limited “interruptive” advertising – my how things have changed.
I recently looked up the definition of Google and found this as the #1 result: “a widely used search engine that uses text-matching techniques to find web pages that are important and relevant to a user's search.” I continue to wonder with the recent changes to Google whether or not “important and relevant to a user's search” may need some changing as well…
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Bad "Tweet" Could Land Hilton In Jail
As we all know by now, Paris Hilton was arrested last week for possession of Cocaine...in her "borrowed" purse of course. Now it turns out that the same "borrowed" purse had suddenly made a previous appearance on one of Hilton's previous Tweets in July when she stated that "Love My New Chanel Purse I Got Today :)" - with a picture of what appears to be an identical purse to the one she "borrowed" last week.
The moral of this story is that social media tools like Facebook and twitter have created an unprecedented paper trail when it comes to the courts...much to the chagrin of people who are so destitute to have to resort to "borrowing" identical purses I guess.
Read more: http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/09/radar-exclusive-paris-owns-purse-identical-one-she-claimed-was-borrowed-night