How to increase directed traffic to your law firm’s website.
By Bob Schwartz, CRS, GRI ©2003 Promotions Unlimited All rights reserved.
This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorized use, copying or mirroring is prohibited.
Reciprocal Links – Good idea or time waster? That is the question we face when we receive e-mail from people asking us to make a link to their website, or when we are looking for link partners ourselves and find a prospective site. How can one decide if it is good to make the effort to add a link for such a site? If we look at the fundamental reasons for making link exchanges in the first place, it is easy to decide which link possibilities we should pursue and which we should drop.
So what are the most important reasons for exchanging links?
They are as follows:
1. Increase your site’s Link Popularity:
One of the key components of most major search engines algorithm is the number and quality of links pointing to your firm’s website. The Google search engine rates websites using its PageRank system. To rank well, a site must have quality incoming links. All things being equal between two websites, the site with the higher quality incoming links will out-rank the other site. Quality is key here. Though the number of incoming links is also important, with Google, it’s the quality of those links that is of the utmost importance
So, what does a better page rank on Google mean? Quite simply, a higher standing in their search engine results! This means more directed traffic too your website.
Keep in mind, incoming links are just one component in your site’s standing. The undisputed king for top ranking is the content of your website. So, the combination of content and links is the real key to top search engine standings.
If you want to see what links Google is counting for your firm’s site, just go to www.google.com and enter your site as follows:
link: www.yoursite.com. You will see a list of sites that link to you. Now check www.msn.com for your links:
On the MSN Search home page, click Advanced Search.
Type a Web address in the search box.
Include http:// at the beginning and a forward slash (/) at the end of the address (for example, http://www.microsoft.com/).
In the Find list, select links to URL.
Click Search.
Google ‘s number of incoming links is much less than shown on other search engines because Google only counts links from well ranking sites in the Google database.
2. Increase your website Traffic:
Well placed links on sites throughout the Internet will generate additional traffic from these links.
Key points to keep in mind here are:
The home page of the linking site should have a link from the home (index) page to the main links page.
The higher on the links page your link appears, the better.
Link pages with large numbers of links reduce the value of all links.
3. To Add Value To Your Website:
Your website should provide your visitors with all the information that they need. The links you provide your visitors should be an important source of information.
Accordingly, from this standpoint and also for achieving quality-incoming links, you should only accept, and ask for reciprocal, links from sites that are related to your firm’s practice. Accepting a placement from a stained-glass artist’s website, or asking such a site to link to you, would be a waste of your time. Such off-theme links could actually be determinal to your sites rankings.
The key here is to accept, and place, links from ONLY legal related websites. Other legal firm sites are great. Also, legal directories, legal publishers, private investigators, and bail bonds would be appropriate. Don’t be afraid to link to your direct competitors. This is a two way street. If you are linked to a few competitors, you will both benefit and hopefully outrank many of your other competitors. Besides, if a visitor is not motivated to contact your firm after visiting your site, all they have to do is query a search engine to seek out other firms in your practice area.
Avoid the easy fix schemes where you join into a program that promises instant links with hundreds of sites. These are typically useless exercises that do not affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines. Because search engines frown on this practice, once detected, your rankings could drop dramatically. To be effective you must devote time and effort into developing your own linking strategy.
As a free service, exclusively for the legal community, our 14 top rated legal websites have implemented a free reciprocal linking program. There is no obligation to join and if your site qualifies, our top rankings will create a valuable link back to your firm. To check out the program, just click here, or send me an email.
Quality incoming links are critical to improved rankings and therefore, increased business. With a good linking program in place, your firm’s site will soon reap the true potential the Internet offers legal firms.
Copyright 2004 Promotions Unlimited - search engine optimization - All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bob Schwartz, is the founder of Promotions Unlimited, an Internet legal directory (CA, TX & Las Vegas ) publisher and search engine placement technology analyst. You can contact Bob via e-mail at seo711@gmail.com or visit his San Diego legal directory at: http://www.sandiegolawyerforyou.com/special.htm
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