We don’t build or manage all of our client’s websites here at Stem.  Sometimes it’s us at the controls, and sometimes we collaborate with the client’s in-house or local web developer.  It’s an arrangement that works quite well most of the time.

One situation where it can cause problems, however, is responding to a website that has been hacked.  Ignoring the fact that security measures should be in place prior (complex passwords, login lockdown protection, etc.), the speed at which you respond to a website that’s been hacked is absolutely critical. Especially when it comes to protecting that website’s search rankings.

Let me explain a bit more… One of the biggest hacking problems out there currently is a completely stealth operation; that is, once control of the website CMS is taken over by the hacker, hidden pieces of code are injected (or files uploaded that run outside the target site’s navigation structure). The intruder’s spam insertion is also completely invisible to site viewers without inspecting the webpage code.  The hacker’s motive? To strip off some of the target website’s trust & link value, and route it to another money making venture.

Now unfortunately, the way most Firms (& Webmasters) find out about this type of attack is that their pages almost entirely drop out of search engines.  Here’s a frequent scenario:

• someone complains that they can’t be found in Google;
• webmaster inspects & the hacked code snippets are found;
• panic;
• passwords are changed globally; and finally,
• better security measures are put in place.

The bigger problem now? Google & the other search engines believe you run a spam website!  Suffice to say, you don’t want the headache of cleaning your site code, manually removing spam URLs from Google, and ultimately submitting a re-inclusion request explaining to BigG your remedies & new security.  So now – with context – finding out about any hack ASAP & responding before the search engines can index that spam code is … critical.

One helpful solution we came across recently, almost accidentally, is using WatchThatPage.  WTP is a tool we normally use to alert us about client news items & events (sans-RSS…). This time though, WTP identified that the client’s webpage had changed and alerted us within an hour of the attack. Rather than on-page text changes, the hacked-code insertion was detected.  The client was alerted, and their local developer had the site fixes in place a few hours later.

The end result?  Not one page dropped out of the search engines!

So two lessons I’d like to pass along:

1. Website security needs be taken seriously: At the very least, do these two things: 1) add longer complex passwords (10 characters plus, no dictionary words); and 2) lockdown your CMS login – if you use Wordpress, we highly recommend the plugin linked above.
2. Get an alert service to email you when your webpage code has changed:  WatchThatPage proved to be a big help; and it’s likely we’ll expand it’s use to more client websites in the future.

Heather Morrison of the CNW Group, formerly Canada News Wire, released a 11-pg report yesterday titled Canadian Law Firms and their Use of Social Media. I am quoted in it, so please excuse the vanity reference.

The report itself offers a nice overview of the benefits of social media investment. That’s important, but the part I appreciated most was the focus on relationship building. Great relationships are a key driver of success for any law firm (or lawyer’s) search strategy. The reason? Relationships not only improve our network of contacts, which alone is a worthy goal, but they form the basis of the link network behind most firm websites.

Links, remember, are ultimately a form of online currency and a driver of what many people refer to as ‘google juice’ – a measure of trust, and better search rankings.

At one point in the paper, I’m also quoted saying that firms ‘not skip steps‘. Let me explain that further. Broken down, I often consider these three components:

• content – eg. blogs, papers, newsletters;
• distribution channels – eg. twitter, email, RSS, JD Supra; and
• relationships - either mirroring & codifying one’s existing relationships with links, or driving new relationships with social media;

Most firms (not all) have content at least partially covered. They may be sending out paper or email newsletters (distribution) and connecting with existing clients. In the past, that’s what firms had to work with. Could they now have more forms of content? or distribute via more channels? Absolutely, but it’s hard to argue that having those basic pieces functioning (think: 80:20 rule, existing clients…) didn’t create some success.

But this 2/3 element scenario, also created a huge gap in search marketing. Without relationships driving links, firms weren’t creating any kind of an ‘after effect‘; where their published content continues to rank well in the search engines, and continues to drive new readers creating exposure. But with Social Media participation (I include blogger-to-blogger relationships here), and creating new relationships with the associated links, firms are often able to make their publishing work harder & longer. In the cases of extremely popular content, years after the date of publication.

As the years pass, and a firm’s volume of substantive publishing increases, so too does this ‘after effect‘.  And the driver in all this is pretty consistent. Having a solid network of ‘web friends’, who are also web publishers, is one tough combination.

There are lots of other benefits to social media usage, which are covered in the report. But that’s my take on the why SM participation reflects positively on search marketing.

If a blog post doesn’t receive any comments, does that mean you struck out?

Actually, it’s quite common for blog posts not to receive comments. In the legal industry, and especially with lawyer blogs, we see it all the time.  The truth is the majority of online readers are lurkers. It’s called the 90-9-1 Rule, where 90% of your readers won’t respond in any way, 9% will contribute and participate once in a while, and 1% will do the vast majority of digital interaction.

This can be a difficult phenomenon to explain, but it hardly means that you haven’t connected with your intended audience.  Remember: the more focused the subject, the smaller the target audience. Apply the  90-9-1 rule to most lawyer blog audiences, and it’s a recipe for a comment-free wasteland.  I also think it’s quite unfair to compare a lawyer’s blog comment numbers to the more news-y blogs out there. You can’t compare a lawyer’s substantive commentary to ATL or ABA Journal.

Two important points:

1. Some blog posts just don’t warrant a comment — case in point, see my last post on the sudden abundance of twitter experts our there. It’s received zero comments, but 41 retweets and 1500+ visitors. The post was a fun lark, but clearly not worth commenting on.  That doesn’t mean it didn’t strike a chord or find an audience.
2. There’s always a chance for commentary to connect with readers in the future — Another example: back in 2006 I wrote the Top 10 Uses of RSS in Law Firms.   Three weeks passed and it might have had 30 readers. It subsequently got picked up by Dave Winer, and took on a life of its own.  To this day, that post drives more visitors to my personal blog than anything I’ve written there since. … Side comment: This story is also one of the reasons I still believe in search marketing and the power of positioning content in front of audiences. Blog commentary & search exposure combined continue to have a long-term impact on my own content marketing.

Bottom line: Are comments nice?  Of course they are, but you have to see the big picture.  As most experienced bloggers will tell you, comments are only one form of feedback. Don’t forget to also watch:  site traffic (both post specific, and general trends),  social media mentions, email feedback, mentions on other blogs, and general increases in your profile (eg. offers for speaking engagements) & your personal network (eg. more industry-based friends & contacts).  You need to consider all the available metrics as a group.  Micro-measuring comment counts (or even counting interactions post-by-post…) isn’t going to cut it in face of the 90-9-1 rule.

I’m with Nick Holmes, lawyers should know better than to drop comment spam, or let their SEO company do so on their behalf. To be even more blunt, Lawyers should fire their SEO company on the spot if the words “leave comments on other people’s blogs to boost your google rankings” comes out of their mouths! Leave comments & build relationships? great idea! Do so for google rankings & drop useless comments? Show them the exit door.

If we’re compiling a list of unacceptable online behaviours for lawyers, this would be in my top-10. Maybe top-3.  We expect comment spam from viagra and casino vendors, not lawyers.

Now, here’s the rub, and something I’ve blogged about before: almost every blog software out there has a ‘no-follow’ attribute on comment links – as recommended by Google. That means, don’t index the outbound link AND don’t give the link any weight in the search rankings.  And when was this ‘cutting edge SEO’ technique outlawed?  If your SEO doesn’t know, you might want to inform them it was over 4 years ago!

SEOs or marketers that recommend comment spam are incompetent & unethical. Lawyers who use this tactic are acting in an unprofessional manner. If they knowingly endorse it, they should also be considered unethical.

There are lines no professional should cross. This is one of them.

For all you iPhone groupies out there – besides the guy writing this post who wasted an entire day waiting in line for one of the first Canadian editions – there’s a new blog in town! Jeff Richardson has started a new site called iPhone J.D. and it looks like a good one!

Now to spin this back to my own topic, I’d like to describe the lesson that Jeff is teaching us about building a profile online. And that is, blogs don’t have to be about substantive law to have an impact! Jeff has a class actions and liability practise, not an iPhone-tech law practise. So where’s the value? He’s just wasting his time right? Nope. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Despite the fact that Jeff has disclaimed any connection to his firm, that little link back to his working life is set to become a major asset for the firm. And they likely don’t even know it. … Mark my words here. Over the next year, Jeff’s blog will attract many links, and will probably surpass his firm’s website PageRank of 4 within six months.

From that point forward, Jeff’s blog will drive every lawyer profile and practice page for his firm website up in the search engine rankings. All because of the link juice that link will pass back to the firm.

Think about that for a minute. His firm which has 10 offices and looks to have hundreds of lawyers, will be surpassed by the indirect efforts of just one single lawyer. All because Jeff took the time to blog about a topic he’s passionate about.

A hobby? Sure. But his clients and potential clients also get to see his personality, his level-headed nature, and a love for the topic. That kind of insight does come into play when hiring a lawyer, and yes, personality counts.

Most lawyers love their work. After years in this industry, I’ve come to believe those that have any kind of longevity also have a passion for legal practise. Blogging, on the other hand, is about constant reflection and writing about something you care deeply about. If you’re going to last at it, just like practising law, you’d better love the topic.

The lesson I spoke of earlier, is that a popular blog will drive your law firm’s web marketing efforts, whether it’s a topic directly related to your practise, or like Jeff’s blog, is only tangentially related.

If you’re going to start blogging, my suggestion would be to get this part early. Make sure your blogging topic satisfies something within you. Make sure it’s a topic that’s both fun and drives you to write! As I’ve said before, blogs aren’t law firm newsletters. Yes you need to think about things strategically, but always write for yourself first. Your readers will thank you for it.

Now, where’s my feed reader? … I need to go subscribe to Jeff’s blog.

Update: Completely forgot to tip my blogging hat to Dave Bilinsky for sharing with me. Thanks Dave!

Google has finally put their name to a guide for SEO practices. Announced on their webmaster central blog late last week, Google released a 22 page PDF titled, oddly enough, Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starters Guide.

To those looking for a top secret advantage or holy grail to a top ranking website… well, you might have to wait a little longer. This guide offers little more than an acknowledgement of what most would consider industry best practises. But for those looking for a brief introduction to the topic, especially when it comes to on-page optimization basics — this guide is good enough that I may make it my first stop for recommended reading.

And for those simply looking to avoid reading a 22-pg PDF report, I offer my own bullet point readers digest consolidation as follows:

• Make your title tags unique on every page of your site;
• Be sure to add a meta-description tag to each of your pages;
• Incorporate logical site architecture / information architecture principles;
  • ie. broad topic > specific category > finite subject
  • use breadcrumb trails, text based navigation structures
• Make content fresh, organized, unique, and relevant to the site’s subject;
• Keywords embedded in the url structure of pages are valuable additions;
• Write your content for the user, not the search engines;
• Optimize using ALT tags on in-line page images;
• Link with shorter descriptive anchor text – both internally and externally;
• Use header tags to differentiate headlines or scannable content;
• Make use of robots.txt files, sitemap files, webmaster central tools, and so on.

These types of on-page optimization factors are pretty much standard fare these days, especially within more competitive search markets. However, the fact that Google has put their name to, and indirectly endorsed, what most consider to be both ethical and standard industry practises — makes the SEO world a little easier to navigate, for everyone.

And that is an olive branch worth commending. Well done Google!

Matt Homann over at the [non] billable hour has a great new post up titled 10 New Rules for Legal Marketing.

As many of you may know, Matt is a long-term member of the legal blogging community, and prides himself on inspiring innovative thinking. His current push over at lexthink is to inject that method into his speaking, conferences and law firm retreats.  I genuinely hope he finds that success, mostly because I do find him inspiring.

While I encourage you to visit & read the post in its entirety, there were a couple items on this list that really stood out for me. And they were:

9.  Your future clients have been living their entire lives online and will expect the same from you.  If you’re invisible on the web, you won’t exist to them.

Such an essential point, and especially for younger Lawyers. If you’re in your 30s or 40s, you need to think long term. Marketing your practice the same way as a practitioner in their 60s makes little sense. Learn from an older peer’s success? Absolutely. But don’t mimic marketing tactics. The mix for a younger lawyer should be very different.

7.  Having the scales of justice on your business card says you’re a lawyer — an old, stodgy, unimaginative, do-what-everyone-else-has-done-for-fifty-years lawyer.  Same is true for your yellow pages ad.

The same holds true for law firm websites. Stock images = stock lawyer. Invest in a good photographer and a graphic designer. Find imagery that works for your practice, and stand behind it for a few years.

2.  Google tells me there are 337,000 “Full Service Law Firms” out there.  Which one was yours again?

This is one of the ‘big ones’ in my world.  Neither corporate or commodity legal consumers use generic terms when searching. Couple that fact with a lawyer that’s unwilling to ‘hang their hat’ on an area of practise, or narrow their target geographic region of service…  and the whole sales proposition becomes infinitely more difficult.  Similar to off-line brand tactics, its much easier to explain & share a simplified concept – a lawyer who knows exactly what they do, and who they do it for.

I hope you’ll go read Matt’s post … and kickstart your Monday morning. :)

Alyn-Weiss & Associates have just released a new survey that shows “the number of local and regional corporate, transactional and defense law firms using search engine optimization (SEO), and getting cases and referrals as a result, has tripled in the past 24 months”.

Also from the press release:

• “59 percent of firms used SEO over the past 24 months. That compares to 20 percent in the two years prior to then. In 2007-2008, 20 percent of firms said they got cases from SEO, compared to 8 percent in 2005-2006.”

While that’s great news for those of us with SEO services as part of our legal marketing repertoire, it does make for a tougher playing field overall.  Five years ago, on-page optimization factors were enough in many legal markets to create a competitive search presence. Now of course, this is simply par for the course.

Where there used to be two or three pages of optimized results for a competitive search phrase, in many markets that number can now span eight to ten pages. Which supports a point I’ve been making for a while now – good search positioning is at least 70% about a website’s incoming link network (and likely more).

Most firms should be asking:

• Do we know what websites are linking to us?
• Do we have a strategy to improve the quality (& to a lesser degree, quantity) of those links?
• How closely aligned, subject-wise, are those links with website content?

As more firms get onboard with SEO, competition is clearly going to be on the rise. Unless Google suddenly decides to change their default result to 20 or 100 listings on the first page. Which seems unlikely to happen any time soon.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with competition. As reputations build and performances are graded, there should be some culling within the industry. Which is good. But unfortunately, I suspect more competition also means more shady tactics from some providers in the short term. And even more unfortunate, SEO services aren’t going to get any easier to evaluate for law firm marketers or practitioners.

Not saying that as a scare tactic. Just a troubling fact. And from my own perspective, I can see how the next couple years are going to be a challenge to differentiate Stem as an ethical SEO option; and related, whether to train out those standards, recruit for them, or both.

Interesting times ahead.

I was very fortunate to be involved in a webex session this morning with the crew over at Lexblog. The topic was predictably … legal seo.

Lexblog, as most readers will know, are one of the biggest builders of law blogs within our industry.  And the purpose of the session was simply to convey the basics, and to provide a few DIY tasks that lawyers can apply to their own web presence.

If you’re interested hearing what was said, Kevin will likely be posting a link to the archived session later today (or very soon…). However, in the mean time, Lexblog’s Rob LaGatta did some amazing live tweeting covering the session over on twitter. Click on that preceding link to see a recap of over 5 screens of Rob’s notes during the session.

Many thanks to Lexblog for having me this morning. If there are follow-up questions, please feel free to send them along to steve@stemlegal.com. I’ll do my best to respond in a timely manner.

I’m making a note here for personal history, and because I’m not sure the next time I’ll get quoted on CNN Money & Dow Jones. The story relates to my recent post on the controversial Findlaw link sales program.

I would also add, this was probably one of the best experiences I’ve had with a Journalist. The writer, Nat Worden, seemed interested in a complete picture of the story from all sides. I think the final story reflects well on his unbiased approach. He also seemed to understand my limits, and didn’t push when I wasn’t willing to pass along client emails. In turn, I think he was quite happy when I relayed the google cache for pages before the link & PageRank alterations.

This was the type of information exchange I’ve always envisioned when thinking about bloggers and journalists (for some interesting related commentary see this post over at Slaw). Bloggers often know their niche market intimately and can gauge when to do a little more digging; and Journalists know how to flesh out a full & fair picture of what’s going on.

Modern news coverage sure seems to have more to offer when these two sides work together. An interesting glimpse into the future perhaps?

I have a new article on Slaw this morning for my Web Law Connected column. It’s titled SEO for Law Firms: Why Adwords is Not the Solution.

The article reflects some of my core critiques of Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing, and why I believe firms should question the value returned on this type of marketing investment.

Please drop by and have a look.  I actually think it’s one of my better efforts. :)

Most in-house law firm Marketers were aware of the Findlaw PageRank sales scam long before it hit the blogosphere. Mostly because they were the target of a huge email blast from Findlaw a few weeks back. Which is how I found out about the offering, when clients then forwarded the program details to me for review.

[If you're looking for some background, please see the preceding link from Todd Friesen who originally broke the story, and the follow up critique from Kevin O'Keefe.]

My response to clients (admittedly in hindsight) was the right one… “decline it”. Google’s hit bigger sites than Findlaw in the past including the Economist, the Times of London, and the Wall Street Journal (link cite).

I don’t want to re-hash the details of the situation in this post. And really, it’s well covered in the above links… but, I was asked recently on Twitter how I see things, and if I would be commenting. I do have some thoughts, so let me share.

• First, Findlaw selling link-based advertising isn’t the issue here. To be clear, the issue is that Findlaw used the Google measure of PageRank as the basis for selling those links. And that has long been off-side when it comes to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
• Second, Google’s response of a PageRank reduction penalty isn’t new. It’s similar treatment to what a group of prominent bloggers received just a few months ago. The penalty is likely temporary and probably will last until Findlaw kills the program.
• Third, the reduction (PR7 to PR5) is for the visible PageRank displayed in the Google Toolbar. Does it effect the actual rankings? As of today, in Canada, when you search for ‘find lawyer‘, I’m getting Findlaw as the No. 1 result. I repeated the search over the phone with a US client, and Findlaw was No. 2. If Google had hit Findlaw with a true penalty, those results wouldn’t be happening.
• And related, the reduction of visible PageRank was the objective here. Lowered PageRank removes Findlaw’s ability to sell its pages as a commodity using the Google PageRank measure. Google have been consistent and clear: they want PageRank to be a measure of authority, and not the basis of a link marketplace.

Finally, I’d just like to add one personal opinion. Findlaw’s biggest crime here may just be how blatantly overt they were. It’s almost as if they were tempting Google to hit them? or naive? dumb perhaps? Take your pick.

Here’s why I think so. Google themselves say: “Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results.” Findlaw easily falls into the class of a legitimate advertising opportunity.

Was it their choice to provide raw links? Not likely, or at least not by itself. There are lots of websites with raw links; and if that alone were the factor, paid sites with low editorial standards like the Yahoo directory (sorry, that’s how I feel) would have been hit long ago.

So what tipped Google off? It was the whole package. Those spammy marketing materials, unsolicited emails, selling links based on PageRank, training lawyers how to show ‘link love’ and apply link text, and just generally having the feel of a total Machiavellian manipulation of the system. Frankly, it was arrogant.

Now, let me tell you why those firms are wasting their money. Unless you are in a completely uncompetitive search market, 3 links and a few articles from one website won’t make a dent in your ranking equation. You need links from lots of websites; in some cases, thousands. Those links need to be from a wide range of authorities (think: government, education, professional associations, libraries, conferences, magazines, journals); and increasingly, those links should be from websites on the same finite subject including blogs and social networking groups. Subject specificity is making great strides lately. What’s the topic of the page linking in? what about the pages linking to that person? All parts of the puzzle that must be considered.

Do I think this will all blow over? Sure, and Findlaw will likely get some or all of its PageRank back… after they terminate the program. Or perhaps they won’t terminate it and the Lawyers will get involved? Either way, it should prove interesting to watch Thomson Reuters and Google – old publishing economy vs new publishing economy – stand off. Get the popcorn! :)

Law.com has a new article up that addresses the business value of SEO for law firms; including some good tips on how to get an in-house program up and going.

But what really caught my eye here, was the great personal story about Araceli Parra, a legal assistant about to lose her job who learns some SEO skills, and ends up helping her firm dive a ton of new business off the web! Check out the opening paragraphs:

Araceli Parra was about to lose her job.

The legal secretary’s Oakland, Calif., firm — a DUI specialty practice — was struggling to land clients, and she saw the writing on the wall. But instead of resigning herself to the inevitable, she decided to improve the firm’s marketing efforts to keep herself employed.

Her strategy? Create a killer Web site and make it the most popular site on Google.

“I didn’t know much (about the Web) at the time, so I started going to the library and studying online and went to a seminar called Webmaster World,” she says. “I learned a lot.”

The research paid off. Parra took the firm’s “really bad site” and tore it apart, improving the design and completely reworking the navigation. Most importantly, she created a huge amount of content and fine-tuned the site using guidelines and techniques approved by the major search engines.

The end result? Jackpot. “When I finally launched the fully optimized site, it only took seven days to hit the top of Google,” she says. And the clients began to pour back in. That was two years ago; today, Number1DUIoffice.com is still the first result returned in Google for the keywords “Oakland DUI lawyer.” And all the firm’s eggs are firmly in the online basket, says Parra: “We’re entirely Web-based, and we don’t do any other advertising.”

That’s a great success story, and a testament for anyone looking to take the initiative on a project outside their area of expertise. Not everyone always thinks this way, but they should. Good things happen when you create your own opportunities.

Many people would be surprised to find out how many SEOs first learn their skills on the job, and that includes the legal industry. Over the past year, I’ve had a number of LAs, Paralegals, and Librarians email me and tell similar stories; that they’re doing SEO in-house, or have been tasked with trying to better their firm’s Google rankings. And while I think Araceli Parra’s story isn’t as unique as one might first assume, I do think it was a story that needed to be told.

So bravo to Law.com and freelance writer C.C. Holland for digging a bit deeper. Nicely done!

I’ve been in the process of writing an article for Slaw that critiques the ROI of paid search advertising, and ended up conducting a bit of a research project.

My task? I wanted to know exactly what the average cost-per-click was with Google’s Adwords for search phrases that contained the word ‘lawyer’.

Using the Google keyword research tool, an item I blogged about back in July, I was able to turn synonyms off and then export those terms into a CSV file. That file was then imported into a spreadsheet. I tallied up the sum, and divided by the total number of terms, and…

The average price paid per click over the past year for all searches containing the word ‘lawyer’ was: $9.49 per click!

That’s close to $10,000 per 1000 monthly visitors received. And since it’s my research, let me be the first to say it – Wow!

This also comes on the heels of April’s Tamar 2008 Search Attitudes Report out of the UK, that said “91 per cent prefer using natural search results when looking to buy a product or service“.

I’ll have much more to say when my Slaw article comes out, but the short story is… give me strategic SEO and content marketing any day over those numbers.

Kevin O’Keefe wrote an interesting post over the weekend about how some lawyers are using blog comments to market themselves. The problem with the post, and with Scott Greenfield’s original assessment, is that blog comments have absolutely nothing to do with Google rankings.

Let me explain…

Back at the beginning of 2005, Google introduced the ‘no-follow’ attribute for links. This was done so Google’s indexing spiders would ignore ALL links coming from within blog comments; and more importantly, according to Google, “those links won’t get any credit when we rank websites in our search results“.

That announcement was then followed by the insertion of of the ‘no-follow’ attribute on almost every blogging software out there: wordpress, typepad, blogger, livejournal, drupal… In fact, I can’t think of a blog software that doesn’t use no-follow’s for comment links.

So, ethics and optics aside, which should be good enough reasons not to drop comment spam, let me say this. No SEO worth his or her monthly fee employs these types of tactics. If your firm is employing an SEO company recommending these tactics, that person or company is a shill, a shyster, a fly-by-night’er (I’ve got more, those are just the nice ones…), who will do more damage than good.

Not only do spam comments make your practice & ethics look disreputable, but this is a tactic that’s been completely ineffective for almost three years!

I don’t have a problem with Lawyers publishing blog comments on the posts of others. I recommend it as good way to introduce yourself and your blogging presence. But doing so in a contrived way, lacking authenticity, or forbid, hiring others to do it for you? Those are some of the quickest ways to deep-six your professional profile online.

What did your mother say about your inability to say something nice? That’s right. Step back from the keyboard, and go take a walk before hitting that submit button.

And please, don’t blame this shady tactic on SEOs. Most SEO companies know better.