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What do I need to know first about law firm Internet marketing?

'In modern business, it is not the crook who is feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.' Pablo Casals

There are tons of vendors out there who want to sell you websites and law firm Internet marketing services. Most are honest people who simply don't know what they are doing. In many cases, they are attempting to sell you something that is overpriced and that won't produce you any new clients at all, let alone good clients. The attorneys I have worked with report to me that the whole Internet marketing process confuses them. They don't know who to believe. Some have spent considerable sums already on websites with little or no results. I aim to stop all that. So keep reading.

Do I need law firm Internet marketing?

Yes. According to Reuters News Services by 2007 there will be over nine million legal services searches done online each month. Additionally, prospective clients and clients expect you to have at least a website or think you may be behind the times if you do not. Finally, while the yellow pages are not a good attorney marketing vehicle today they are going away since people are searching the Internet and not going to the yellow pages.

What is/is not law firm Internet marketing?

Having a website is not law firm Internet marketing. At a minimum you do need at least a 'brochure website' of a few pages, however, that website is unlikely to get you new business and is definitely not Internet marketing. The rest of this article (in four parts) is going to help you get clear on what Internet marketing is all about.

Where does Internet marketing begin?

Law firm Internet marketing begins with you becoming an educated consumer and then keyword research. Researching your practice's best keywords will tell us what words your prospective clients are using to search for legal services on search engines, what legal services your prospective clients are the most interested in, what your prospective client is thinking, how to attract these prospective clients to your site at the search engine instead of going to your competitors site, what your competitors are doing/not doing, what content to write for each of your top keywords (recommend writing a page each to at least the top 20 keywords), what are the words to use for PPC law firm advertising and how to begin search engine optimization. If you have not adequately completed keyword research using software tools like Wordtracker you have not done adequate keyword research and are likely to fail at your law firm Internet marketing.

You mentioned, ''what content to write for each of your top keywords''. What are you talking about exactly?

I am talking about what is known as the CTPM model of Internet marketing developed by Ken Evoy M.D. in 1997. This model works because it is in total alignment with how the Internet works. The C is the first part of the model and it stands for Content ' create in demand content (you determine what is in demand from the keyword research). The T is Traffic ' attract targeted traffic. The P is for pre-sell ' pre-sell the targeted traffic (using such things as newsletters, RSS feeds, free downloads, e-books, autoresponders, audio, video, and teleclasses). The M is Monetize ' this is where you convert these pre-sold prospective clients to clients easily.

You mentioned, ''tools like Wordtracker'' with respect to keyword research in law firm Internet marketing. What is Wordtracker?

Wordtracker is a software tool that can be used to thoroughly research your keywords. Wordtracker is at least arguably the best keyword research tool in the marketplace and there are others. You can go to http://www.Wordtracker.com to get all the details. Your vendor can use this tool easily and should use it for keyword research to put your law firm internet marketing on the right track from the beginning if at all possible.

You also mentioned ''how to begin search engine optimization.' What is meant by search engine optimization (SEO) and exactly what is it and how does it fit into law firm Internet marketing?

There is no mystery in SEO in particular and law firm Internet marketing in general so don't let anyone bamboozle you on that one. As I said earlier SEO begins with appropriate keyword research. If you have not done that you are dead in the water since this is the foundation of everything that comes after in law firm Internet marketing. The next step is the 'C' or content mentioned earlier in the CTPM model. You will need to write 'keyword optimized' content to each of your top 20 keywords or another way to say this is writing your content in the way that search engines want to see it so they rank you higher than your competitors. Your content needs to fit together in a site plan (the term site plan refers to in what order your pages will appear and how they link to one another) that has an appropriate pyramid type structure. This pyramid type structure includes your home page (the peak of the pyramid) themed keyword phrase being supported by all the tier two pages (the next layer of the pyramid) and their tier three pages (usually the base of your pyramid although you could go deeper) support them resulting in higher rankings for all of your pages. There are some technical aspects to SEO as well like the use of clean HTML, heading text, meta tags, alt tags, site map, etc., however, mercifully I won't go into those since they should be known to your technical person. The bottom line is put nothing in the way of the search engines spiders (spiders are sent out from the search engine to 'read' the sites on the Internet) being able to 'read' your site like fancy flash pages get in the way big time for instance. To know more in depth about keyword optimization you can go to http://www.Wordtracker.com where they have a really fine Keyword Research Guide if you want to know more of the details. All of what I just told you is known as 'on site optimization' strategies for law firm Internet marketing. There is also 'off site' optimization as well involved in SEO. Off site optimization means getting one-way links from high-ranking pages of other sites that are related to your top 20 keywords (there we are again with that keyword research being vital) that link to your site. Search engines see these links like a 'vote' for your site. The more high quality 'votes' you have the higher they will rank your site. The term 'link popularity' is used to describe this process in law firm Internet marketing. The royal road to high quality links is having (here he goes again) keyword researched and keyword optimized quality content on your website. You get these links from website directories, article directories, online forums, press releases, etc. I left out reciprocal links because most SEO authorities think they are no longer worth the effort since they are difficult to get and don't really contribute much (or can even hurt) to your page ranking.

We have completed the first part of law firm Internet marketing at this point. In part two we will go into Google Page Ranking, dealing with your competitors, RSS, the factors surrounding costs of law firm Internet marketing and more. I am committed to you being a master of law firm internet marketing at least to the point you will get new clients from your efforts and not get taken to the cleaners by vendors who may not know any better.