Working a Room in the Digital Age: Social Networking for Law Firms - Part II
An update to last year’s popular LMA program, Kevin O'Keefe, a nationally recognized authority on blogs and social networking, will give us the latest trends in social networking and discuss what social networking is, which social networking tools are effective, and how to successfully implement a social networking plan in your law firm.
Invite the lawyers from your firm so they can hear how networking online today is as important, if not more important, than networking offline!
Kevin will be presenting live in Seattle on May 19th and in Portland on May 21st.
SEO Tip #10: "Click here" is SO 1999
I was just on a web site and it seemed like every few lines said, “click here for more information” and it got me thinking about 1) how distracting it was when reading the content, and 2) what a missed SEO opportunity.
There was a time when people needed to be guided as to where they needed to click for more information. But that time has passed. Now readers know that when the text is a different color and/or underlined, it means that it’s a link to more information. What’s more, search engines pay more attention to word and phrases that are hyperlinked. As a double bonus, these words and phrases are easy to visually scan and will draw people’s attention. See, made you look didn’t I?
Continue Reading...Free LMA webinar hosted by LMA Northwest
To show appreciation to our members, LMA Northwest will be hosting a get together to watch LMA's Webinar "What You Don't Know Can Hurt You" with Carol Greenwald, Ph.D., President, Marketing Partners.
| When: | Wednesday, March 18 at 11:00 |
| Where: |
Stanislaw Ashbaugh |
Continue Reading...
SEO Tip # 9: Check your link popularity
I know, I know, we all thought we outgrew the popularity contests in high school but those darn search engines are bringing us right back. To a search engine, it’s all about how popular you are and you can’t be popular amongst the dorks, you need to be popular with the cool people or it doesn’t really count. To determine if you’re cool, search engines look at how many sites are linking to yours and the quality of those sites – the more popular the sites that like you, the more popular you become by association. It’s a high school e-deja vue (only former high school nerds are now often the cool people so who's getting the last laugh now…)
How do we know how many people are linking to us?
Continue Reading...LMA Northwest: Turning Attorneys into Thought Leaders in Nine Semi-Painless Steps
Just about every legal-marketing expert agrees that attorneys with recognized expertise in a specific type of law command higher rates than the legions of the undistinguished.
But how does an attorney become a thought leader?
By turning to a legal marketer who’s heard Mark Firmani talk about the nine steps to creating thought leadership, that’s how.
Lawyers: Facebook's Friend, Foe or Frenemy?
I know, I know, I’m writing about Facebook AGAIN. In my defense, I clearly stated that I was addicted to both Facebook and Twilight so it’s either I write about Facebook AGAIN or yammer on and on about Edward, my vampire crush. I’m choosing Facebook in order to save “face” (pun intended).
This time I want to focus on lawyers in particular. How can you encourage your lawyers to join Facebook (or other social networking sites)? But, even more important, should you encourage your lawyers to join Facebook?
Continue Reading...The Pope: Facebook's Newest Friend
When it comes to ringing endorsements, you can’t get much better than the Pope! On Friday (1/23), Pope Benedict XVI talked about social networking sites such at Facebook and MySpace and called the technology a “gift”, while also warning about some of the potential dangers. I guess he thinks FB is more friend than foe!
Facebook: Friend or Foe?
I have two obsessions as of late: The Twilight Series books and Facebook (FB). I’m not going to talk about the Twilight books here since they have nothing to do with Marketing Technologies (but they’re really good!). Instead, I’m going to focus on FB.
It all started innocently enough. I’m a marketing technologies consultant so naturally social networking has a big impact on what I do and so I went about getting involved in the various networks. Twitter <check>, LinkedIn <check>, MySpace <check> (Well, I didn’t actually join MySpace so as to avoid horrifying my son but I do closely monitor his account from both a technical and parental POV). And then I met Facebook <queue the angels harmonizing from above>.
Continue Reading...SEO Tip #8: Attorneys v. Lawyers
You say tomato, I say tomahto. You say potato, I say potahto. Okay, that’s cool but what do we call ourselves? Attorney? Lawyer? Does it matter?
Yes, it does to search engines. Many firms prefer the term “attorney” because it somehow feels more palatable than the word “lawyer”. I mean, you never hear someone tell an attorney joke, it’s always a lawyer joke (and I have quite a few good ones, btw). So we call ourselves “attorneys” to distance ourselves from these jokes and images conjured up. But what do search engines look for?
Continue Reading...SEO Tip #7: Naming your URL
Your URL, which is essentially the filename and path of a page on your web site, is an opportunity to enhance your search engine optimization efforts. Before you start adding pages to your web site, take a few minutes to plan your naming conventions and keep the following in mind:
- Your URL should be relevant to the page, and if you can add a targeted keyword in the name, great.
- Don't add spaces in your filenames, instead use "-" or "_" in between words.
- Keep the names short and clean.
