Yesterday, I attended a webinar called “Beers, Blogs and Brands: A Comprehensive Approach To Law Firm Marketing,” sponsored by My Case, provider of web-based legal practice management software.
Sam Glover, lawyer, blogger and founder of Lawyerist, the law practice blog, was the guest presenter, and covered a lot of territory in an hour.
Sam broke his presentation down into these categories:
- Brand vs. Reputation
- The Funnel
- SEO
- Ethics
- Blogging
- Networking
As you know, SEO is in the news A LOT. I stumble across at least a dozen posts about SEO every day, and know I am missing 10 times that many that my friends and followers have written. When I Google the term, I find 541 million results. They range from advice on:
- Good practices
- Bad practices
- Penguin
- Panda
- Puppy (I made that up)
- …on and on
SEO seems to be one of the most confusing marketing topics on the planet. When we discuss SEO, we get in to the Content discussion. Without putting content out there, you have nothing to optimize, right?
Sam tells us that:
“Google likes it when you are clear and easy to find. SEO really is just focusing on content. Focus on content.”
Sam has strong feelings about a lot of legal marketing topics, and the importance of content is one of them.
“You hear everyone say that content is king. Content is emperor of the universe, not just king. Google cares a lot more about drawing people to good content. They will then +1 it, share it on their blog, discuss and comment on it. Great content is like a magnet. It draws in likes and other social media comments. Good content will get human beings to your page.”
“You need to focus on good content that brings people in. If all you do is focus on SEO, nothing good is going to happen to it. It’s become such a buzzworthy thing.”
Sam’s bottom line on SEO:
“Google’s Goal: To get people to the content they want. Their goal is to make SEO superfluous.”
My bottom line:
- Write content that pertains to the needs of your target market.
- Don’t keyword stuff your posts just to be found.
- If your keywords come up as a natural part of your written conversation, this is good.
- Write often enough that you will naturally become known in your area of expertise.
- If it feels unnatural, it probably is.
What would you add to the Content and SEO discussion? Share your suggestions below.
Other posts that might be of interest to you:
How To Beat Your Competition At The Content Sharing Game
Content Marketing Is Your Digital Handshake
