Monday, April 23, 2007

Natural Language to get Longtail Searches

Many website owners, lawyer included, are often times overly concerned with showing up on the first page of Google for a few "keywords". It becomes almost and ego thing. I've heard "I have to show up on the first page of Google every time for 'New Jersey criminal attorney'"
This might not be a bad thing to keep in the back of your mind, but to focus only on these types of searches can be detrimental to your overall website look, feel, and content.

Another type of search is what is called a "long tail search". This type of search is a phrase that will never be exactly duplicated and is unique. For instance "I was pulled over in avalon nj and blew a .08" The odds of this search ever happening again is astronomical. These types of searches make up about 20 percent of all searches with keywords making up the other 80 percent. Having your lawyer website show up for these types of searches is good for 3 reasons:
1. It is not as hard to show up for these searches, because no one would or could have keywords match this search syntax. This makes it much less competitive
2. These type of searchers tend to need an attorney now and are more likely to be fairly well informed about the law.
3. It is much easier to confirm a case came through the internet by looking at your traffic report. If only 1 visitor found your website with "I need to write a terms and conditions for my website" and someone calls you with this question, then you know that it came from your website.

How do you get these kind of searches. The answer: "Natural Language" Some of your website content should have plenty of keywords that you are targeting, but at least 50% of your website should have content with no regard to keywords. Examples are articles you have written or descriptions of cases you have won. If you take this advice, you will get more targeted leads calling you for legal help. You never know exactly how potential clients will do a lawyer search.

Until next time.

Donald Imm

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