By Ian M. Bardorf Generally speaking, people who are in business are not inclined to give their company’s strategic assets away to the competition. However, many attorneys and law firms do exactly this and they don’t even realize it! When it comes to online marketing, what many attorneys fail to realize is the actual value of their online presence. All too often, “beach front property” in the form of a top website ranking on any search engine, is simply given away to a competitor because of what may be good, yet ill-conceived intentions. A typical scenario is when someone at the firm takes the initiative to update or re-write some content on the firm’s website. Without realizing it, their modifications have dropped the website from

By Ian M. Bardorf Many attorneys are looking for effective ways to market their legal services on the Internet. Done properly, Internet marketing is undoubtedly one of the most cost effective and productive ways of growing your firm. However, attorneys suffer from the relentless bombardment of inbound solicitations that claim will change their business, and drive highly qualified clients to the doorstep. Claims like “Guaranteed 1st page Google ranking” and “We’ll put you on the top of Google“, and “Your firm will have an exclusive listing” will certainly lead one to believe that dominating the web in any particular practice and geographic area is only a credit card charge away. The reality of many of these offers is often only realized when the only noticeable

If your law firm sponsors an event make sure you ask the host to add a link to your website from the online description of the event.  Here’s why. Many times an event coordinator will ask an attorney to speak at an upcoming event on an area of their specialty or focus. In their own marketing efforts the coordinator will publish the details of the events highlighting the speakers invited. The value of publishing your website (and getting an active hyper-link to your site) in their online listing is significant. It’s significant not because people attending the event will see your site and click through to visit your website, but because a link from their site to your website serves as “a vote” in Google’s

The practice of search marketing has significantly progressed over the past few years and businesses from Fortune 100s to the two attorney law firm in South Boston, are reaping the benefits. However, still most businesses fail to embrace what is arguably the most cost effective means of marketing and advertising their services by continuing to believe that effective marketing on the Internet is simply having a website. Search marketing is a continual process of integrating and optimizing various online components. The fact is, there is only so much real estate on the search engine result page (SERP) and we all know that Google is not going to present your website ten times as the only choice. The search engines look for variety. They select websites,

In an online world where just about everything can be tracked and measured, why do so many marketers have trouble putting ROI on any sort of online marketing, advertising or lead generation campaign? There was a terrific post by Pat LaPointe on the measurement of Social Media where he adds his comments and insight to an interview with three experts from well-know companies who were asked about the best ways to measure the ROI of a social media campaign.

QUESTION: Given the distortions caused by SEO, can the results of Google be trusted? Ah, the age ol question, “Is SEO ultimately advertising?” Given that it is in the best interest of Google, and the other major search engines, to serve the most authentic results in the organic section of the SERPs, (they would lose significant share if everyone thought it was just a search engine of advertisment), I maintain that the results are credible – at least for now. The results may not always be what you’re looking for or expect, but the various criteria, algorhytmic and otherwise, used to determine the results favor an authentic process. The question suggests that perhaps organic results are obtained by underhanded methodology, i.e. the way to “distort”

Its amazing how many offline campaigns still launch today without any consideration for the online audience. Yes, this was a common occurrence several years ago as traditional marketers just began to acknowledge that the Internet was an influential medium and not going away. But what about now? How do multi-million dollar offline campaigns ignore their online target audience? Is it still unreasonable to accept that someone watching television will swing their chair around and search Google for a product they just saw on tv or read in the newspaper? Search marketing taps into a massive online audience that continues to increase every day. More then 225 million Americans have Internet access. Search Marketing can be the most cost effective way to market your business or

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) leverages search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN’s Bing to obtain visibility and highly qualified traffic in the most cost-effective manner. While most web sites reside passively on the Internet, a growing number of businesses (large and small) have been extremely successful at dynamically leveraging their sites to produce meaningful results and achieve specific business and marketing objectives. What makes these individuals so successful at attracting customers online? What is it about their sites and their strategy that separate them from their competition? What are they doing right? The most successful SEO strategies target two entirely different audiences: (1) The Customer and (2) The Search Engines! Most websites neglect to consider the search engines and thus, their website obtains minimal visibility.