They call it the World Wide Net, so why just concentrate your
firm’s search engine submissions on U.S. search engines?
The main reason to get your real estate website listed on
the foreign websites is: Good foreign search engine rankings
will generate new clients!
This is especially true if your firm is located in a major
metropolitan area. Here is some of the actual business created
directly from our top foreign search engine rankings: Potential
new immigrants, business persons considering setting up a
business office, foreign nationals considering immigration,
and a foreign couple whose son got arrested in Orange County
and they needed to contact a local Orange County attorney
to help.
Why heed my advice? Well, let’s add some real world
credibility to back-up my advice. So how does our own main
legal website rank on foreign search engines? We have many
number one page placements. Below are just a few of our PAGE
ONE foreign search engine rankings for the very competitive
phrase Orange county attorneys on our Los Angeles-Orange
County legal website;
http://www.la-orange-county-lawyers-attorney-directory.com
AOL-UK - Sympatico (Canada – MSN-UK – MSN-France – MSN
Germany Google Mexico - Google UK - Google Germany - Google
Japan
Check today to see if your website is listed on the top
foreign search engines. A good starting point is to check
the engines hyper-linked above. Perhaps the best way to obtain
high foreign search engine standings is to first achieve
top ranking on the major US search engines.
Proper submission to the major directories is critical.
One of the most significant changes in search engine marketing
in recent years has been the rise in popularity of human-reviewed
directories and catalogs like LookSmart, Yahoo, and Open
Directory. You can recognize directory listings since they
are often called "Web Site" results rather than "Web Page" results.
Once you submit to a directory, it's difficult to go back
and correct mistakes later. Some of them like Yahoo and LookSmart
charge you for the privilege of simply being reviewed for
inclusion. Therefore, it's of utmost importance to get it
right the first time.
Get listed with the human-powered directories of Yahoo,
LookSmart and the Open Directory. If this is all you do,
you'll get plenty of traffic. Both get lots of visitors or "power" other
sites that get plenty of visitors. In addition, getting listed
with them helps crawler-based search engines locate your
site and perhaps help it rank better, because of the link
importance these sites provide to you.
Check log files for user country location and most often
used keywords in search engine search. This may demonstrate
the need to offer the site in another language (or to provide
a link to Alta Vista's Babelfish) if there are a lot of hits
from another country. Knowing the keywords used to arrive
at the site helps to decide on variations and changes to
the site theme.
Just in case you are wondering if it's all worth your time,
Pew Internet & American Life Project says: "As vehicles
for finding information, search engines are extremely popular
among both men and women. About 90% of men and women who
go online use search engines, and about 40% use them on a
typical day. Men and women generally use the same kinds of
search strategies, using search engines most commonly, but
also starting searches on familiar, proprietary websites
or following recommended links. Although men and women say
equally that they find the information online that they are
looking for, men are a lot more confident in themselves as
searchers."
Also, search engine rankings are a vital component of an
Internet presence: More than three quarters of hits on Internet
home pages are directed there via a search engine; and half
of consumers research online prior to making purchases.
Before a quest for higher rankings, you should obtain a
comprehensive report on your site’s current page one
through page three search standings. You need a base-line
or starting point to see if your efforts are effective. To
enhance your report’s usefulness, I would suggest that
you run the same report for your biggest legal competitor.
This report will then give you not only a benchmark but a
set of goals to strive for.
The second important report you should run is a link popularity
report. Good quality incoming links are vital to top search
engine ranking. Here again it is imperative to run this report
against your local competitors.
Investing in improving your law firm’s search engines
standings could become the most cost effective career investment
you make.
Copyright 2006 Promotions Unlimited. All rights reserved.
Bob Schwartz offers free trial & low cost software for
search
engine optimization. Improve your sites creditability w/Free
website
awards. Bob's newest site is:
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