Attorney SEO: Buyer Beware, Microsites Can Kill Search Engine Rankings

Attorney SEO: Buyer Beware, Microsites Can Kill Search Engine Rankings

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10/26/2011 // New York, NY, USA // Rene Perras…… Le Buzz // Rene Perras

New York, NY (Attorney SEO News) — All too often law firms are given a sales pitch for additional marketing services from another lawyer marketing company than the one they currently retain. It’s easy for law firms to think that the more efforts they employ to reach new clients the better. But, that isn’t completely accurate—in fact, “too many cooks can spoil the broth.”

In some cases, marketing agencies that only specialize in one marketing tactic, like pay-per-click (PPC), don’t always think about how their PPC campaign will affect another agency’s SEO efforts, resulting in a negative impact. This is why we advise law firms to hire one lawyer marketing firm that is experienced in creating lawyer Web marketing campaigns that encompass several attorney marketing strategies. The problem is, Internet marketing companies don’t often speak to one another, and aren’t necessarily aware how their marketing plan may affect your other marketing efforts.

For example, one of these tactics that could harm your whole SEO campaign is the creation of microsites or landing pages.

Microsites are a commonly used PPC tactic used by many of the major online marketing groups like the Yellow Pages and FindLaw. But lawyers beware; this technique to help generate traffic could actually damage your attorney SEO campaign.

A microsite, also known as a landing page, minisite or weblet, is created to target a niche market and act as a supplement to the primary website. These are often created for specific Web marketing campaigns, especially keyword targeting. For example, lawyers often create microsites for pharmaceutical litigation in order to target potential clients who were injured from taking the prescription drug. Once the potential lawsuits are over and the defective device or drug is no longer in play for litigation, that particular microsite can be taken down, without hurting their lawyer website SEO and rankings.

Microsites are tools that are used to help secure clients, but they can actually quickly destroy any future chance of acquiring cases. This is because many Web marketing companies don’t supply new and fresh content on each microsite, which leads to duplicate content and lost rankings. Many lawyer SEO companies claim that their microsites are on a proxy server, which prevents Google from crawling those sites—eliminating the threat of duplicate content. But can they really guarantee that Google won’t crawl them? No, not necessarily.

As I have stated before in “Law Firm SEO: Duplicate Content is Sure Fire Way to Kill Lawyer Website Rankings,” having duplicate content not only diminishes your credibility if someone else finds the same content on another website, it will hinder search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Fresh, new and relevant content is the key to creating visibility, establishing authority and boosting your lawyer website to page one of Google.

If you’re going to use microsites, make sure you look after your own interests because no one else will. Ensure it is in writing that your law firm microsites are going to have fresh and new content, not re-purposed or recycled content as that will only hurt your efforts. In addition, always approve the design and content prior to launch.

But, if you decide to leave the lawyer SEO marketing company that supplied your microsites, make sure that they are taken down before you try a new approach to Internet marketing and have your former lawyer marketing agency put it in writing. Then do due diligence and monitor, and keep checking those sites to ensure they have been properly taken down so that they don’t pop up unannounced. This will insure your online investment and hopefully mitigate any possible negative impact.

In addition, have an accounting done of your current lawyer search engine results pages so that you can keep tabs on how well your lawyer website continues to rank.

In the end, it’s advised that you only hire one lawyer SEO marketing company to implement your law firm marketing campaign, rather than multiple firms. This will eliminate the threat of different marketing tactics negatively affecting one another.

About the author:

For over 20 years, attorney SEO specialist Rene Perras has worked with law firms of all legal practices to create successful lawyer marketing campaigns. For a free consultation and more information about lawyer marketing and attorney SEO, please contact Rene Perras at 720-ONE-RENE or visit Cepac.com.

Media Information:

Address: 244 Fifth Ave., New York NY 10001
Phone: 720-ONE-RENE
Url: Lawyer marketing – Rene Perras


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