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Editor: Ben W. Glass
Profession: Attorney at Law

Category: Marketing Advice

Internet marketing it hard...its soooo crowded....everyone trying to get that highly valued spot on page one of Google. As Tom Foster of FosterWebMarketing teaches at our conferences, "I don't know any one way of boosting Google rankings but I know a hundred, and we use them all." Of course, what Foster is talking about is working your site--legitimately and within Google's rules--writing good content--becoming a part of the "web community"-- because, as Tom has said time and time again, mess with Google and find yourself blacklisted (and that ain't good.)

It seems that Findlaw has been accused of selling text links from high Page Rank pages to lawyers who are dumb enough to have bought into a "we guarantee top ranking on Google" sales pitch.

Thanks to Cindy Speaker and Kevin O'Keefe for brining this to my attention but go first and look at a blogger named "Oilman" says about this scandal. He did the work to track down some very interesting documents that make it look like not only is Findlaw guilty as charged...

but they were dumb enough to basically advertise what they were doing to Google and others.

Kevin O'Keefe has got a list of suggestions for what Findlaw should immediately do and it will be interesting to see what Findlaw's response is. As Kevin points out, its been a week since the scandal was unveiled...and no word from Findlaw.

In the end, an educated consumer is the best consumer. Before you buy any web search engine optimization service, learn a little bit about what you are doing. I'm still surprised by the number of lawyers who, for example, buy Adwords (because its really easy to set up an account) then pay a bunch of money to post some really dumb ad that tracks back to the front page of their website. Usually the ad says something really unique, like "hire us."

Findlaw's customer's should really have been alerted by the fact that Findlaw was virtually guaranteeing a placement on Google for payment of a fee. Can't be done (except for Adwords)... the BEST you can do is to stay abreast of SEO development and issues and try to do everything legitimate that you can. Usually that means writing a ton of content.

Hard work, I know, but the reward of a well positioned site is golden.