Getting Started With Professional Internet Marketing

Once you have a business initiated, it is time to think about expanding and growing your business. Print ads, direct mail marketing and other techniques are cornerstones of any business's advertisement. However, in the current legal landscape more is needed than simply taking out a newspaper ad. A successful law firm must have a strong online presence. But creating a website isn’t enough these days. The internet is saturated with law firms and in order to stand out from the masses, you need a pre-planned, coordinated Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign.

What is SEO?

The internet still widely uses keywords to match users to websites. SEO is a technique used to help website appear higher in online rankings for particular keywords. Effective SEO raises a websites page rank, eventually helping it rise in it’s placement on a page. SEO can be done completely for free in house, but there are companies and consultants like 321 Web Marketing that know the “in’s” and “out’s” of the trade.

What Are Effective SEO Techniques?

Experience is the best teacher with SEO as there are no degrees or certificates to be earned. Companies that can deliver consistent results are the best option for small businesses looking to compete for high rankings online.SEO is becoming more widely known and in order to stay competitive, it is wise for a beginner to seek outside help.
To make SEO simpler, simply think of it as an internet marketing technique. Some would argue the key to effective SEO is understanding the internet giant, Google. It relies heavily on understanding Google’s algorithm for choosing a preferred website. Google is constantly changing its algorithm therefore it is important to hire professionals who read and understand the frequent updates. To help give you a better idea of what goes into SEO, we’ve listed a few of the more common tricks of the trade:

• Cross Linking: Typically, SEO companies link pages of a website to other websites - this increases the original site’s exposure on the internet.
• Keyword Research and Analysis: Understanding keywords which appeal to your target audience is essential in SEO. SEO professionals should always research what keywords and phrases are being search the most so that they can include them in the website’s written content.
• Meta Data Keywords: All sites contain information known as “Meta Data”. This is information that Google uses to better understand a website. Including items such as the title tag and a well-written meta description improves a websites relevance which subsequently helps with the website’s ranking and web traffic.
• URL normalization: An additional technique used by SEO professionals is called “URL Normalization”. When using URL normalization, an SEO professional standardizes or modifies a URL into a “canonical URL”. This makes it possible to verify if two dissimilar URL’s are actually part of the same website. URL normalization reduces duplicate indexing of a website making it so all versions of a website are “counted” towards the home page’s link popularity score. Think of it as getting credit for all those pages you produce.
• Backlinks: This is a term you’ve probably heard of before. Backlinks are essential to SEO. A backlink or “inbound link” occurs when one website links to another backlink. What is important to remember is that the more high quality backlinks your site has, the better its SEO score will be.

What’s the Difference Between SEO and SEM?

There are some other important acronyms any attorney looking to start online marketing should know. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a broader term which includes both paid and unpaid SEO actions. Natural SEO is known as “organic search engine optimization” and does not require financial investment. As you can probably now guess, “inorganic” search engine optimization is SEO that requires monetary investment. Both organic and inorganic SEO are included under the umbrella of SEM. Organic SEO usually takes longer but will have longer lasting effects while inorganic SEP may cause quick gains, but burn out once funding has stopped.

What’s the Difference Between SEO and SMM

Social Media Marketing or SMM is an additional technique that SEO professionals employ to get better search results. SMM relies on promotion through social media channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (to name a few). SMM has both paid and unpaid options. For example, users can post content to Facebook for free but may decide to “boost” a particular post in order to give it increased exposure. Facebook also allows for paid advertisements which circulate in people’s news feeds.

Conclusion

SEO may seem like an alien language, but hopefully after reading this post you’ve upped your SEO IQ. Although SEO can be performed by anyone, it certainly helps to have an experienced firm on your side. 321 Web Marketing has a passion for implementing proven SEO techniques while also improvising to find the next great step. If you liked this blog, read more useful articles in or blog section.