Legal Website Design and Marketing Tips

Health Insurance Denials - Assurant, Time & Fortis

2010-05-30T09:52:00.000-07:00

There is a new legal website up related to Health Insurance Claim Denials. It is a health insurance bad faith site with information for Time, Fortis and Assurant Health customers who have had their insurance claims denied or their policies rescinded.

Travis Luther Nominated for DBJ '40 Under 40'

2010-02-26T09:05:00.000-08:00

Law Father owner and president Travis Luther was nominated for the Denver Business Journal's '40 Under 40' award. This award recognizes outstanding and up-and-coming Colorado business owners under forty-years-old.

Our success is dependent upon yours. Thank you to all of our clients who continue to give us opportunities to strengthen your law firms and be recognized by the wider business community.

Yahoo! and Bing Merger Finished

2010-02-26T09:04:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! and Bing (Microsoft's Search Engine) received final clearance from government regulators this month to merge their search engine operations in an attempt to compete with Google. This combination gives Bing about 20% of the total search market. Google retains most of the search market, providing almost 80% of all search returns.

The Google and Bing search algorithms differ on a number of points. For attorneys with a search engine optimization strategy, here is what you need to know:

1.) Bing gives stronger emphasis to Keywords in URLs
2.) Bing gives more weight to capitalized search strings
3.) Bing prefers to return pages from larger sites

So, if you are launching a new site, find a key word rich www.domain.com. Add more content pages. Make sure your content writers bold and capitalize search strings.

If you do not have a web site or a search engine optimization strategy, contact Law Father today for a free evaluation. Phone (303) 618-8621 or email info@lawfather.net.

How many cases can an attorney get from a website?

2009-04-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

The question of "How many cases can an attorney get from a website?" was submitted through our website this month. I thought it was a good question to address on the blog. Search engine optimization, back linking, content development and the like are all very important for generating clients with your legal website. One area that gets little attention with regards to landing cases is the content of your contact page. That is what I want to specifically address here.

Without a doubt, you have done a Google web search and noticed that you are not the only attorney who is on the web. It is obvious that your website is facing some pretty stiff competition. One thing you can do to give yourself a little advantage is to concentrate on the content of your “contact us” page. I had a client who came to me and said that the firm was getting around 300 hits per month, but barely anyone was calling or using the contact us form. I put some analytic software on the site, and could see pretty fast that users were getting to the “contact us” form. But they were not calling or submitting. The problem with the contact form and web page was that all that appeared was the contact form and the firm physical address and phone number. I suggested that we add content to the page, to reassure users that the attorneys they were about to contact were sincere in their quest to help and reputable within the legal community.

What we did exactly was add a friendly photo of the partners and included the following text (which you are more than welcome to use):

“Hiring the best qualified lawyer to handle your case is an important decision. You need to know that your attorney is listening to you and that your attorney is setting realistic expectations about the amount of money you may collect and how long your case could take. Blank & Blank, LLC is a Colorado Injury Law Firm in good standing with the Colorado Bar Association, The Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, and the Colorado Better Business Bureau. Our law firm can sit with you, discuss your case, and offer an appropriate legal response.

Please do not hesitate to contact us. We will provide you a free consultation and explain to you all of your options. You do not have to face your injury or legal issues alone. Call us today at (555) 555-5555 or email us through the form below. Someone will be in touch with you as soon as possible or when you tell us you are available.”

Each of the associations listed in the text was a hyperlink to the firm's profile page on each website. I also included a Better Business Bureau icon (available to members) and CTLA icon. What all of this did was create a more personal “contact us” page and more importantly reminded potential clients of the quality of the attorney these partners were.

When you pay attention to what your contact page says you give yourself of much better chance of being contacted over a firm that fails to remind potential clients of just how good it is. This is your point of sale if you will. You do not want a potential client to explore your website, get to your contact page, and then think “do I really want these attorneys bugging me?” Do whatever you can to remind them that they are making a well-educated and responsible choice by choosing your concerned and reputable law firm.

Are Legal Blogs Redunant?

2008-07-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

I received this question about the redundancy of blogging through my website. It is not a question that is that unusual. I thought I might post the question here, as well as my response, to give some insight to others pondering a similiar question:

QUESTION: A blog seems redundant, if I am already writing articles which I send out on a regular basis. Is the difference just based on a blog being more informal?

ANSWER: For most people blogs are redundant. In my opinion, a blog should be spur of the moment postings and thoughts, easy reads, comments on current events, and summaries of more detailed work you have available on your website. YOU DO NOT want to repost items to your blog that appear on your website or other sites. You can be penalized in the page rank for having duplicate content all over the web (if you are trying to drive traffic to your site through search anyhow). If you are writing detailed articles, I would set a place aside on your website for those long form writings to appear. I would write abbreviated versions to appear on article submission sites and on your own blog. This avoids redundancy and shows you are providing content that IS NOT an exact duplicate all over the web. In my opinion some of the article submission sites are just taking traffic away from your site that should be arriving there naturally anyway. Most article submission sites generate revenue by placing Google ads (or some other form of advertising) throughout your work. If you are trying to be found online for the search string “medical malpractice litigation” and you write about that topic extensively and give that content to an article submission site, you are really only driving traffic to THEIR site with your article. If you just posted the “medical malpractice litigation” article on your own site, it would probably show up eventually to people searching that search string and people could come right to your site. Why send them to some 3rd party content displayer? As a side note, your page rank of articles that exceed 400 words will be greatly increased, so keep that in mind with anything you write (blogs, articles, abbreviated articles, etc).

Law Father can create a website that not only drives new cases to your firm through the internet, but that also a blog service to compliment what you are already doing online. Please contact Law Father to improve your legal website now at http://www.lawfather.net.

Beware of "Black Hat" SEO Companies

2008-05-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

You should be very wary of any company that promises instant first page search engine ranking results. Your association with these companies can result in a permanent negative reflection of your website by the major search engines. Black Hat Search Engine Optimization refers to SEO techniques that are used in an attempt to trick search engines into thinking you have a legal website that is more valuable than it truly is. Search engines such as Google continuously seek out legal websites that use tricks rather than trade to increase their page rank or link visibility. If your site is determined to be participating in Black Hat SEO or has a relationship with a company that does, you run the very serious risk of having your website "spammed out", meaning that the search engines will remove your website listing and refuse to index any future pages from your URL. If you have invested time and money with a Black Hat SEO company, your investment is lost, potential clients are lost, and building your web presence starts again from scratch.

Law Father legal websites allow search engines to see your site for what it is; a content rich resource that provides visitors with thorough expert knowledge and information related to your areas of practice. Law Father does not use SEO tricks or deceitful “spamming” practices; rather we build sites rich in content that stand the test of time. SEO “tricks” are quickly found and weeded out by search engines. Law Father builds and maintains the kind of legal websites that search engines WANT to rank in their top-ten. Law Father builds sites that are bona fide knowledge bases for potential clients looking for your legal services over the Internet.

Law Father can create a website that not only drives new cases to your firm through the internet, but that does so in a way that avoids black hat tricks and SERP penalities. Please contact Law Father to improve your legal website now at http://www.lawfather.net.

Travis Luther and Law Father Honored

2008-03-24T08:32:00.000-07:00

Law Father president Travis Luther was honored at the 2008 OppenheimerFunds Entrepreneur of the Year ceremony, held on the MSCD campus by the Center for Innovation. The event was the first of 22 to be held this year by www.ExtremeTour.org, in an effort to promote Entrepreneurship on college campuses nationwide. Law Father is very honored to have been recognized at this event and to have shared the company of the other wonderful fellow entrepreneurs.

$99 to Improve your Legal Website Today

2008-02-07T08:16:00.000-08:00

Law Father can provide your law firm a 12 point inspection of your current legal website. This analysis can provide tips to improve your legal website's search return rankings. The analysis is completed within 24 hours of your order. The 12 point inspection includes:

URL Value and Suggestions

Title Tag Analysis

Meta Data Analysis

Meta Description Analysis

HTML Formatting Analysis

FLASH Animation Analysis

Alt Tag Analysis

Content Analysis

Keyword Analysis

Internal Hyper-linking Analysis

Back-link Analysis

HTML/XML Sitemap Analysis

In addition to the analysis we provide a detailed glossary of the terms used above and the reasons for their importance. This valuable information can be passed on to your law firm’s IT person, or implemented by the staff here at Law Father.

Only $99.00. Order Now.
Payments are processed securely through PayPal.

The Top 5 Legal Website SEO Mistakes

2007-11-05T14:36:00.000-08:00

1. Targeting the wrong keywords - When you write your website content, remember how people search. Legalese is the language of lawyers, not of the people who need them. No one gets online and searches "plaintiff's claim for damages against a tortfeasor". "Car accident injury attorney" is probably a more realistic search string, and that is what you should concentrate on including in your web content.

2. Ignoring Title Tags - Title tags are the titles that appear at the top of an internet browser. Most attorneys just label their titles "Home" or "About Us" or "Contact Us" or just leave them empty. Title tags (believe it or not) are one of the most important parts of your search engine optimization. Title tags on legal websites should include some of your most important keywords. For example - Change "Home" to "Car Accident Attorney Sommer Stephens Luther's Homepage" and "About" to "About Car Accident Attorney Sommer Stephens Luther". Getting the hang of it? Title tags should be no more than 11 words. They should be grammatically correct. They should not say "Car accident attorney lawyer injury auto sue".

3. Having a Flash Website without HTML - Websites designed in Flash are nice and some Flash applications are really neat BUT they are not really that great for attorneys hoping to use their legal websites to attract new clients. Search engines catalog websites based on their content and that content is discovered and collected through the text that appears in a websites HTML. If a legal website is designed in Flash, with very little HTML available to search engines, it is not going to be ranked very high in search returns. This is because search engines just don't have a very good idea of what is contained in a Flash website. If you are using Flash, make sure it is not the bulk of your design. Include as much HTML as possible and make sure that HTML is appropriately filled with relevant keywords and search strings.

4. JavaScript Menus - Using JavaScript for navigation is fine as long as you understand that search engines do not read JavaScript. You need to build your web pages accordingly. If you have JavaScript menus make sure you also have html links within the body of your index.html text AND a HTML and XML sitemap.

5. Lack of Dynamic Content - "Dynamic" means changing. Search engines rate your website based on its relevance. If it is not being updated, chances are it is not relevant. Have there been no changes in the law over the last 5 years? Are you practicing in any new areas? One way to keep content dynamic and fresh is to attach a law blog (now referred to as a blawg) to your website. Update the blawg once or twice a month. Do this by posting information about a case you recently settled or comment on a news story related to the areas of your practice.

Jurors using Google to find you too!

2007-09-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

If you thought search engine optimization was just about appealing to potential clients you are wrong. Jurors are using Google and other search engines to learn about attorneys during a trial. More and more curious jurors are admitting to lawyers that they searched for their names and their firms on Google in juror interviews after trial. With this in mind jury consultants recommend having positive and helpful information on your website that can be used by the public and that can be easily spotted on your website. This and other improvements to your website can not only help your Search Engine Optimization, but can also improve a juror’s emotional connection to you and your firm.

Law Father can create a website that not only drives new cases to your firm through the internet, but that also provides a positive impression for jurors potentially searching for your website. Please contact Law Father to improve your legal website now at http://www.lawfather.net.

Give Potential Clients a Reason to Stay on Your Legal Website

2007-07-27T09:42:00.000-07:00

The New York Times and Advertising Age both reported this month that Nielsen/Net Ratings has added another metric to evaluating website rankings – the total number of minutes a web viewer spends on your site. One positive of this kind of measurement system is that it would help weed out “spam” websites from getting high search engine return rankings. Have you ever done a Google search for basketball tickets or car model information? Have you clicked on a Google returned link only to find it was just a pay-per-click-through page (a page where the owner gets paid a few cents for every ad you click on) and a bunch of garbage advertisements? I’ll bet you get off those pages pretty fast and return to searching for the information you were really after. If you found a legitimate site you would probably spend a little time on it looking for the tickets or car you were after. This is why the idea of incorporating minutes viewed to web rankings could be beneficial to consumers; it helps weed out the spam webpages.

Law Father builds websites that victims looking for an attorney will spend time on. That is because Law Father builds client generating websites that search engines and potential clients recognize as legitimate and significant online legal resources. Visit us at http://www.lawfather.net/ to learn more.

Understanding Dynamic Content and SEO

2007-07-18T10:58:00.000-07:00

One way search engines rank websites is by their relevance. If your legal website does not include information on relative legal topics it will slide down the ranking scale, having less of a chance of showing up on the first page of the search engine returns. To keep this from happening you need to constantly add new and changing content (Dynamic Content) to your legal webpage. Law Father incorporates the top two ways of doing this into all of our client’s web pages; top legal news feeds and a website blog. This is an automatic process administered monthly by the Law Father office. There is no need for you to do anything. You will see monthly updates appear on your legal news and blog sites. Now people will be able to find your attorney website if they are looking for information, perhaps on a new drug recall or recent judgments and settlements. Remember, Law Father shows search engines that your website is one of the most valuable legal resources available online. Including current news stories with Dynamic Content is one of the best ways to prove to search engines that your legal website is one that will be of the best benefit to people looking for current legal information.

You can learn more about incorporating Dynamic Content into your legal webpage by visiting Law Father's Dynamic Content Information page.

Blogging for Attorney Referrals

2007-07-18T10:19:00.000-07:00

Most attorneys invest time and money into their websites in hopes of generating new clients from injury victims searching the web for an attorney. What most attorneys forget to do is to use their legal website to generate referrals from attorneys outside their home state. You can generate more outside referrals by adding a blog focused directly to other attorneys on your homepage. Look for legal news in your state and comment on it from an attorney’s perspective. You can talk about different areas of a case you are currently working on. Explain why some strategies are working and why others will not. Talk about your own ideas for handling similar cases in the future. The client side of your website is not the place for legalese. But a focused attorney blog will provide all the key words other attorneys need to find you on the web.

A great example of this kind of attorney blog can be found at http://www.marylandinjurylawyerblog.com/.

If you are interested in generating more attorney referrals by adding a blog to your current website, Law Father can get you started right away! Call 1(800)325-7715 or email info@lawfather.net.