Google vs. SEO: The Battle Continues
As lawyers, people have a tendency to think that there is always a steady stream of business floating in and out of our doors. Unbeknownst to them, we sometimes have to resort to crafty marketing techniques just to meet our bottom line. Hopefully by now, you know about some of the new media business strategies, and perhaps have even tried your hand at a few of them. When it comes to rounding up business online, it all comes down to your website and the content on it. You can spend all day tweeting your heart out, or updating your Facebook page until you have sufficiently developed carpal tunnel, however, none of that will matter if you do not have a website and way of organically attracting new clients. This is where it really pays to know a thing or two about search engine optimization (SEO), and how Google is changing how people find the content on your website.
Organically Attracting Visitors to Your Website
If you learn anything about SEO, it should be that the more organically people find your content, the better it will be for your law practice. This is, after all, what Google, and other search engines are working feverishly to accomplish. The process of SEO has gotten so complex and scientific in such a short amount of time; it is nearly impossible for someone, like a lawyer, to keep up. With that said, it is entirely possible to do so as long as you do not try to do too much. In essence, the biggest debate, and source of many issues with SEO is whether to focus on quality content, or mass-producing to boost search rankings.
Google’s mission is not to limit you from being competitive in SEO rankings; instead, it is to make sure you are providing quality, organic, and otherwise relevant content, in the process.
Catching Google’s Hummingbird
Back in August, Google rolled out the latest update to its search algorithm, called Hummingbird. It was the first such update since 2001, but immediately made some people and businesses freak out. The primarily concern was that the new algorithm was essentially going to ruin SEO and the process of attracting website traffic, which some businesses have almost gotten down to an exact science. Fortunately, however, this is not Google’s intention, even in the slightest. Instead, Google’s aim is to eliminate, or at least reduce, artificial and irrelevant content that garners higher search results than genuine, organic content that is much more relevant to searchers.
How Hummingbird Influences Your Law Practice
Assuming that you have not gotten in the habit of creating irrelevant, and otherwise flavorless content on your website, there really is nothing to worry about in terms of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm. While it may be easy to have concern about your keyword usage and other elements of organic search rankings; so long as you feature quality content on your website, there is not much to be worried about. Furthermore, the more you focus on using relevant keywords in your content, the more likely you will be to optimize your Google search rankings.
Conclusion
As an attorney looking to boost organic search engine results, the main goal is to increase subsequent business traffic. While it may be tempting to try to shortcut the SEO process by adding mass amounts of irrelevant content to your website, due to Google’s new Hummingbird update, you should definitely think otherwise. In other words, stick to high quality, relevant SEO content on your website, and prospective clients are much more likely to find you.
