I don't need to tell you that there is a demand for legal services in this country. Heck, 50% of all marriages end in divorce so that means at least half of the married folk out there will need a divorce lawyer's services sooner than later and the rest of us should be looking for a lawyer to draw up that prenuptial agreement - just in case. So how do all of these needy clients find you? And how can you stand out amongst the ocean of other lawyers? The answer is quite simple, really. Search Engine Optimization or SEO.



Let me illustrate by submitting the following evidence to the court as Exhibit A: When you enter the phrase "Dallas lawyer" into a major search engine, how many returns do you think you'll get? Ten thousand? One hundred thousand? Not even close. Try 2,760,000. And out of those 2.7 million returns (web pages), how many do you think will ever be noticed? The answer is ten, maybe twenty. Why? Because most search engines give ten returns per page, and statistics show that few people venture beyond Page 2 in order to find a lawyer or law firm.

So how do the lucky few lawyers and firms get onto the first page of Google or Yahoo? The answer is that it's not luck at all, but a constant application of SEO strategies and techniques, which I'll get to in a minute.

WHAT IS SEO?

SEO is the process of improving your website's position in the search engines for targeted keywords or phrases. The reality is that unless your website is on the first page of search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN, your website will not be found and neither will you.

Like so many other professions, many of your clients will come via referrals, but if that's your only way of getting clients, you are missing out on a lot of opportunity. Every day over 4,000 people search online for a ?lawyer? or ?attorney.? And that's just for those two general keywords. That's not including lawyer-specific terms such as injury, divorce, malpractice, car accident...the range is vast and limitless. Here are SEO basics that you can do yourself right now to improve your page rank, and move up the list on the search results.

1. Get a website. This is a panfully obvious first step, but I just want to make sure we're on the same page here. You've got to have a website before we go any further.

2. Choose your keywords. Evaulute your specialty or niche from which your keywords will be chosen, e.g. divorce lawyer, dallas divorce lawyer, or divorce lawyers in dallas. There are many free SEO tools out there to help you pick your keywords based on how difficult it is to rank for that word or phrase or how often are people searching for that phrase. I suggest you visit http://www.strategynode.com/SEO_SEM_Tools.html

3. Look at your website's page rank. The next thing you do is see where your website stands in the search engines' eyes. Keep in mind, the point of SEO is to make the search engines look at your site and say, this website is valuable and knows what it's talking about, which moves your site up on the search engine totem pole (quite literally). There are a number of sites which offer free tools to help you like www.seomoz.com and www.seobook.com. The most comprehensive is the free website analysis offered by www.strategynode.com which gives a detailed report and points out any website flaws (such as broken links) and tells you where your site stands against the competition.

4. Link building. Now you need to start building links to your site. Begin by submitting your site to web directories (there are a myriad of free ones out there so don't get suckered into paying for directory submissions). A place to start is the list found on http://www.paigefiller.com/resources/directories/

5. Blogging. Part two of link building is blogging - on your own blog and commenting on others' blogs. Make it a goal to make at least 25 comments a day on others' blog and create an entry on your own everyday for several months.

6. Create pages on social sites. I know you don't want to hear this, but you must. You've got to create a Myspace and Facebook page. This part of SEO is called social media marketing (SMM) where you go to social sites to generate leads. Here are 25 social media sites listed in order of most to least valuable.

1. Digg

2. Del.icio.us

3. Wikipedia

4. Flickr

5. Reddit

6. Newsvine

7. StumbleUpon

8. Technorati

9. MySpace

10. Yahoo! Answers

11. Ma.gnolia

12. Yahoo! 360

13. LinkedIn

14. Squidoo

15. Wikihow

16. Ning

17. Frappr

18. Furl

19. Wetpaint

20. 43 Things

21. Shoutwire

22. Shadows

23. YourElevatorPitch

24. Jotspot

25. BlinkList

Each of these sites are different with varying foci which is great because you can choose the ones which your target audience most likely is using. Jane Copland from SEOmoz (a leader in the SEO industry) wrote a little blurb on the goal of each of these sites: http://www.seomoz.org/article/social-media-marketing-tactics

This is enough to get your started. Following these techniques will increase your page rank and start to generate leads. It's the internet's version of word-of-mouth referrals.

For more on search engine optimization visit www.strategynode.com.