Legal Marketing & SEO Blog

Hi Friends,

Yahoo! has released a Creative Commons Web search cut of their Web search that limits itself to content that has a Creative Commons license (they basically filter their results by looking for the license codes on the indexed Web pages).

This Yahoo! Creative Commons Web search is in addition to the original beta Creative Commons Licensed Content Search on the Creative Commons site.

More info on the Yahoo! Creative Commons Search can be found on the Yahoo! Search Blog and you can find a note and comments on Lessig's blog.

The Yahoo! search seems to return an order of magnitude (10x) the number of results that the original Creative Commons search returned.

And the law firm marketing spin? You can limit the search to documents you can use for commercial purposes, so there may be some law firm Web site content out there you can use :)

Peace - Tim

:: Hand of Fate, Black and Blue by The Rolling Stones

Posted In Yahoo! Search

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Hi Friends,

Today Justia formally released the search engine optimized Web site for Pintas.com for Chicago injury lawyer - William G. Pintas & Associates. They had bought a Justia Web Pro Solution.

Google Search Result page for Chicago Injury Attorney - Pintas.com - #1 out of 1,100,000.

Doing well in search engines is the key to have your Web site produce a high ROI on your marketing investment. For most law firms, a properly optimized Web site will lead to search engines accounting for 50-80% of your unique visitors.

The Pintas firm previously had a FindLaw West Firmsite. Justia did a complete overhaul to the Web site structure and page layout that resulted in greatly increased search engine optimization of the Pintas.com Web site.

As an example, for the search terms Chicago Injury Attorney and Chicago Injury Lawyer, the old FindLaw version of the Pintas.com Web site was showing up as the 126th (on page 13) and 133rd (on page 14) Google result respectively.

Within 24 hours of Justia releasing the new SEOed Pintas.com Web site, it was in the top 3 of the first page of Google results for both Chicago Injury Attorney and Chicago Injury Lawyer.

Pintas.com is not just doing much better on Google, it has also significantly improved its positions on Yahoo! Search and MSN Search. Pintas.com was many pages deep in the results on both of these search engines before Justia optimized their Web site. Now they are on the first result page at or near the top.

Yahoo! Search Result page for Chicago Injury Lawyer - Pintas.com - #2 out of 754,000.

 
 

MSN Search Result page for Chicago Injury Lawyer - Pintas.com - #1 out of 797,979.

But it is not just these two phrases, they are doing great for many other search terms as well....

Posted In Search Engine Optimization

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Hi Friends,

Today and tomorrow I am going to cover a few more free tools, starting with YouSendIT.com's service for transferring large files over the Internet. You can upload/send files of up to 1GB.

How does YouSendIT.com's service works? You upload the file to the YouSendIT.com server and then have YouSendIT.com send a link in an email to the email address of the recipient that you would like to give access to the file. The recipient can then click on the link and download the file. That's it.

Here is the URL of the file that I just uploaded to the YouSendIT.com system: http://s4.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0C5BIJESYKK1H0SKW83459EGFU.

As you can see, the URL is not easily guessable, but it is not secure. While you can use https to securely upload the file if desired, access to the file itself is not password protected.

Anyone who visits that URL can not just download the file, but can also remove the file from YouSendIt.com's servers (so if you do not see a file at this URL it is probably because someone deleted it). But unless you tell many people the URL, like I just did, it is unlikely the file will be deleted before the recipient downloads it (and/or deletes it him/herself).

YouSendIT.com's service works well for sending very large documents that email services may not be able to handle. Examples are large Photoshop files or PowerPoint presentations or any large document where confidentiality is not critical. i have personally used it many times, and YouSendIT.com service is great.

And best of all YouSendIT.com's service is free :)

Peace - Tim

Note: You may have seen the YouSendIT.com service being used by the WaveofDestruction.org Web site when they were collecting tsunami videos.

:: You Love the Thunder, Running On Empty by Jackson Browne

Posted In Free Marketing Tools , Useful Tools & Web Sites

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Hi Friends,

According to a Forester Research report (see article on ClickZ), Internet Yellow Pages providers have fallen behind in the battle for the local search audience and will need to partner to remain competitive in 2005. The report by Charlene Li (Charlene's blog) gave four suggestions for the Internet Yellow Pages.

1. offer better local content, such as more detailed business profiles
2. partner for both local search technology and content
3. develop new products and services for local businesses to brand themselves as a local search engine marketing provider
4. dominate local sales by creating an advertising network that would allow for national buys and partnering with search engines, as seen in Bell South's partnership with Google

Read the ClickZ Article for more information...

Of course the 5th step, for independent Internet Yellow Page providers, is to sell your Internet Yellow Pages to one of the remaining RBOCs, or two of them, like YellowPages.com (Dane Madsen et al) sold to SBC and BellSouth late last year :)

For information on Internet Yellow Pages from the Yellow Pages Association, visit their LocalSearchGuide.org, which was launched in December of 2004.

Q. What is the Local Search Guide?

A. The Local Search Guide is an Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) and Search Engine Who's Who. Updated frequently, this objective resource profiles IYP, Search Engine and Search Tool companies' Local Search capabilities. (from the Yellow Pages Association's Local Search Guide's About Page).

The Local Search Guide has profiles on the following companies:

In any case as I continue my law firm Internet marketing "how to" posts over the next few months, I will run through the products offered to law firms from each of these Internet Yellow Pages, as well as the search engines and portals. And hopefully at the end of all this, we will be able to give a simple plan for spending your marketing dollars. And of course I will cover your free options as well :)

Peace - Tim

:: The Ties That Bind, The River by Bruce Springsteen

Posted In Online Yellow Pages

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Hi Friends,

Ted Meisel, who runs Yahoo!'s Overture Services (as well as being a lawyer from Stanford :) told Adweek that he expects Microsoft not to renew their deal with Overture to supply search ads to MSN. The current deal runs through June 2006.

This is not really a surprise, as Microsoft has been hiring many people of late to focus on a paid search product for the new MSN Search. And in the brand arena, Yahoo!'s Overture, division is changing its name to Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions. Having the Yahoo! brand selling paid search placement on MSN would not be good for Microsoft, although Yahoo! would probably have maintained the Overture brand longer had they been able to renew the Overture - MSN deal.

For those with a lot of $ to spend MSN is already selling search related ads directly to clients who spend more than $75,000 per year with their MSN Featured Sites product. And for a few million a year, you can probably get your link on the MSN home page (it looks like the lawyer directory link space has opened up).

In any case, for most firms it will just lead to one more setup of search terms for search advertisers, and one more system to track. Hopefully MSN will design their paid search fulfillment system to be like Google's AdWords, and not Overture's user unfriendly system. Better still would be for Overture to change their fulfillment system to be more like Google's AdWords. But more on that when I compare Google and Overture services in a later how-to post...

Peace - Tim

:: Turn to Stone, So What by Joe Walsh

Posted In MSN Search , Search Engine Marketing , Yahoo! Search

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Hi Friends,

Kanoodle launched LocalTarget for targeting of text links on content pages of city and locality focused Web sites today.

Kanoodle places the text ads on a network of their partners' Web sites that are targeted towards specific localities and cities (this is not the same as Google and Overture's individual page specific content ad placement).

Thus with Kanoodle, if you wanted to target a Chicago audience, your text ad would show up on Chicago related or focused Web sites.

My experience with Kanoodle has not been positive. The Kanoodle leads that clicked on my Kanoodle ads just did not convert, or in fact do much of anything on my Web site, other than click over to the landing page and leave (others have had similar experiences). This is in sharp contrast to Google AdWords and Overture, where we have gotten much better results.

Before advertising with Kanoodle's LocalTarget, I would look at Kannodle's partner sites for your particular locality, and then start with a low bid while measuring the results (conversions/page views/repeat visits) of each click over. But before spending your marketing dollars on Kanoodle, make sure you have local Google and Overture campaigns set up and running. Then spend on Kanoodle or other pay per click marketers (eg FindWhat), maybe they will work for you, they did not work for us.

Peace - Tim

Justia Product Marketing Message : We offer Google and Overture local campaigns as part of our Justia Web Pro and Justia Practice Pro Web site packages. This includes setup of keywords and phrases, locality settings, ad text and landing pages. Four (4) Google and Overture practice-area/locality setups are included at no extra charge with these packages [ see Justia Web Site Pricing ]. Our focus is to get your pay per click ad quality user views that lead to quality user clicks, allowing you to maximize the ROI of your online marketing budget.

:: Count On Me, Earth by Jefferson Starship

Posted In Search Engine Marketing

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Hi Friends,

A recent study of eye movement by search marketing firms Enquiro and Did-it and eye tracking firm Eyetools shows that......

1. Listings on the top of a search results page is viewed more than listings on the bottom of the Web page and

2. Being on the top of the editorial results or having a top AdWord placement is better than having a side AdWord placement.

This graphic shows the eye movement of a participant in the study.

The Key Findings:

Organic (non-paid / not Google AdWords) Ranking Visibility - shown in a percentage of participants looking at a listing in this location. These are NOT click through rates.

Rank 1 – 100%
Rank 2 – 100%
Rank 3 – 100%
Rank 4 – 85% (above the fold)
Rank 5 – 60% (below the fold)
Rank 6 – 50%
Rank 7 – 50%
Rank 8 – 30%
Rank 9 – 30%
Rank 10 – 20%

Top Sponsored Ad (Google AdWords) Visibility were seen by 80 to 100% of participants (which indicates that some top ads were not seen, and thus are not as valuable as a top placement from an organic result listing).

Side Sponsored Ad (Google AdWords) Visibility - shown in percentage of participants looking at an ad in this location Again, these are NOT click through rates.

1 – 50%
2 – 40%
3 – 30%
4 – 20%
5 – 10%
6 – 10%
7 – 10%
8 – 10%

Okay maybe this is obvious for eye movement on Google search results... but think about how this might apply to your own law firm Web site. In particular look at the graphic above, and notice that the Google header is ignored, and the user looks right at the content, and starts in the upper left of the screen, and then scans to other blocks of content, in this case there being one on the right. One starting place on Web site usability at UseIt.com (among numerous other places on the Web). A good usability book, which will soon be out in a second edition this summer, is Don't Make Me Think : A Common Sense Approach to the Web by Steve Krug.

Click here for the press release at Enquiro or Eyetools. And do a Google search on -- Google "Eye Movement" -- and you can find many discussions about the results of this study, positive and negative.

Great graphic!!! A good example about how to use a graphic to present information and get good pr. I am sure that this study has been a big win for all three companies.

Peace - Tim

:: Louisiana Rain, Damn the Torpedoes by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Posted In Google

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Hi Friends,

Doing well in the search engines, like Google, Yahoo! Search and MSN Search, involves three primary components - (1) Search Engine Optimized Web site structure and page layout (see the free Justia Web sites post), (2) links to your Web site from other related Web sites (this post :) and (3) strong legal content with related key words and phrases that Web users search on (to be covered in a later post).

Two (free) places your law firm should be listed in our the Open Directory (DMOZ.org) and Washburn Law School's WashLaw.edu legal Web directory.

The Open Directory is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. The listings from the Open Directory are provided under a free license and are used by Google, for their Google Directory, and hundreds of other Web sites. Getting a link in the Open Directory thus essentially gets you 100s of links to your Web site.

To find the best place to get linked, look at both the practice area and locality of the directory page, the PageRank (download the Google ToolBar or a FireFox extension [ PageRank Status (Google PageRank) | SearchStatus (Google PageRank & Alexa) ]) of the page, and the number of links on that page. What you would ideally like is a Web page that matches your firm's primary practice area, matches your city, has a PageRank of 3+ and few links. To find where to ask for a link, you have two starting point choices, the Society: Law: Services: Lawyers and Law Firms section or through the Regional directory section.

Washburn Law School's WashLaw.edu is the best law school Web directory site for getting a link to your law firm. Washburn has long been at the forefront of online legal research, and their directory is well maintained and updated quickly.

Where else should you get your Web site linked? Well look for places that have legal or locality content that is related to your practice. Practice specific Web site directories and local directories. Sites with a lot of good content are also great for getting links from.

And a non-free note: How much should you pay for a link? Well that depends somewhat on the content of the Web page, the PageRank and number of links on the page, but I would place $100 per year at the upper end, with the exception of the Yahoo! directory, which is $299 per year.

And a Yahoo! directory note: I will have other posts on this blog on the Yahoo! directory and other Yahoo! marketing solutions (Yellow pages etc...) in the near future, but a quick note about Yahoo!'s Web directory placement. Choosing the correct page on Yahoo! to get linked up is non-trivial, and involves many of the same factors listed above in choosing a page to be linked in the Open Directory. But no matter what your practice is, do not submit to a Yahoo! directory listing page that is being split into multiple pages unless your Web site will show up on the first page of the split directory page. Being on page two or three of a split page is of minimal value, and probably not worth $299 per year, especially since there should be other places to purchase a Yahoo! directory link.

In summary... submit your law firm Web site to the Open Directory and Washburn Law School's Washlaw.edu. There is more information about link popularity in the Justia SEO Center.

Peace - Tim

:: Highway 61 Revisited, Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan

Posted In Free Marketing Tools , Search Engine Optimization , Useful Tools & Web Sites , Web Directories

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Hi Friends,

We are now on to free mailing lists. There are a number of places you can make a free mailing list, Google Groups, Yahoo! Groups (the former eGroups) and Topica are some of the better known ones.

All have their strengths and weaknesses, but for a one-way email newsletter or a conversation email list, Google Groups is the best.

With Google Groups you will have the ability to read the archive and post on the Web (just like a message board) . If you allow your posts to be "public" then the text message archive is included in the Google Groups archive of Usenet postings (this includes the former Deja News archive of the Usenet). The Google Groups Usernet archive is the most searched archive of Usenet postings on the Internet.

If you want to start a community with photos, file sharing and a calendar then Yahoo! Groups is pretty good. The downside of Yahoo! Groups is that there are sometimes banner ads on the pages, extra ad only pages when reading posts, and the interface is not as clean as Google Groups. MacLaw and Network-Lawyers are examples of popular legal mailing lists on Yahoo! Groups.

We at Justia use Google Groups for our announcement mailing list, justia-friends, to which we send out about 1-2 messages per month. You can join our announcement mailing list by filling the boxes below! :)

For updates on Justia's services, please subscribe to justia-friends. Thanks!
	Email:
	Browse Archives at groups-beta.google.com

So what do you need to do to create your own Google Groups mailing list in under 2 minutes???

Well first you visit Google Groups, then either sign-in or create a new account (you will need to verify your email addresses to create your new group).

To create the group, you click on the "Create new groups" link on the home page, enter a group name, group email address, group description, decide who can post, and who can read the posts, and then add members.

Posted In Free Marketing Tools , Google , Useful Tools & Web Sites

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