Avvocating the importance of SEO name ranking

"That which we call a rose ...": SEO and the importance of the ranking for your name.

By Conrad Saam
Special to the Legal Technology blog

If you are an attorney and trying to be found on the Internet, your name becomes very important. An increasing number of potential clients are spending more and more time mining the Web for information on individual lawyers. This is true for consumer focused attorneys (divorce, DUI, etc.) as well as those serving businesses. Do you think your corporate client isn't checking out the name of the new junior associate on his BigLaw legal team? Think again.

There are 6 billion people on the earth. In the search-engine-optimization name-game, it is obviously much harder to surface your online profile if you have a common name, than an uncommon one. Standing out in this crowded name space can be a serious challenge. On the flip side, for those of us with uncommon first and last names, the Internet can provide a detailed record of our past achievements -- including the photo on Facebook from your sorority days doing a keg stand in Cabo.

So what if your name is Rose? Let's say, Rose Smith? There are at least 12 Rose Smith names plying legal services in America today; and 19 John Brownes; and even four Mark Brittons. How do you make sure that you don't get hit with an unfortunate case of mistaken identity? Are you Ashley Dupree Russell, the attorney in Texas, or Ashley Dupree of Spitzer infamy? Of the 64 legal Robert Shapiro names, are you the one from Pennsylvania who was disbarred in 1988, O.J. Simpson's star defense lead, or the recent law school graduate looking for a job?

Take the example of James Williams -- who could easily be confused among the 213 other attorneys named James Williams. A Google search for "James Williams" brings up the following results:

1. Dojo of the Four Winds.
2. A generic Whitepages search listing.
3. An article on the NBA.
4. A doctor in Tacoma Washington.
5. A Wikipedia entry of an NFL defensive back etc. ...

So what is attorney James Williams to do?

• Google your name and see what pages rank for you. If there are more than 20 results ahead of your first result, you have a long shot at ranking well for your name.


• Make sure your Core Web Presence (your primary online profile -- LinkedIn, your website, even Facebook) is focused on your name itself. This includes your name in the body, title tags and header of a specific Web page.


• If you have a named that is commonly changed (James to Jim) or go by a nickname, make sure your name is consistent across your Web presence. Yes, Google knows that Dick and Richard are interchangeable, but will serve up the closer match in a search query.


• If you have a moderately common name, consider including the word "lawyer" or "attorney" regularly in conjunction with your name. Consumers are getting smarter about search. They know that if searching for Mary Smith the lawyer, they will get better results with a query like "Mary Smith Lawyer."


• Make sure that each attorney in your firm has a separate bio page on the firm's site. A page that tries to rank for multiple names, will ultimately not rank for any of them.


• If you have a very common name and ranking well for it is very important to you, consider a distinct professional name. The James Williams we know actually goes by "J. Craig Williams" and all the Google results for "J. Craig Williams" turns up the right individual.

Ranking for your name is the cornerstone of online reputation management. Just be thankful you don't have the unenviable task of the online marketer responsible for promoting the Hilton in Paris.

If you'd like to learn more about the fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization, including how to rank for your name, we're giving a seminar on SEO Best Practices for Lawyers, this Friday.

Conrad Saam is the senior marketing manager at Avvo. Prior to Avvo, Mr. Saam's experience includes numerous awarding-winning interactive projects for clients including Disney, Nickelodeon, Lego, MTV, Ford, Macromedia, Microsoft, Kraft Foods, AOL, McDonalds, Mattel and Napster. He is a sought after speaker on interactive marketing and has been featured in publications including USA Today and The New York Times.

Comments

[Gerry Oginski]

Conrad- I feel the need to comment. I don't think your name is that important for a consumer when looking for an attorney. The reason? Most consumers looking for an attorney online don't know an attorney nor do they know someone who knows an attorney.

Instead of searching for a particular 'name' they will instead look for the specialty and their geographic area. Once they have a name or a law firm they're interested in, then I would agree with you that your name needs to be ranked highly.

However, the first step is finding you, and having your name ranked highly is not going to happen when a website visitor types in "New York medical malpractice attorney."

In my opinion you should try to get your specialty and geographic area ranked highly, then focus on your name.

Gerry

[Lisha Fabris]

I have to agree with Gerry. A clear example is with the ExpertHub legal network that includes sites such as LawFirms.com and MedicalMalpractice.com, we receive traffic from over 225,000 keywords -- approx 98% of these keywords and almost all of the traffic came from keywords that were informational in nature (such as "medical malpractice" or "reasons for deportation" or include a geographic location.) Consumers almost never type in the "name" of the attorney but rather the need and location...

That's not to say, though, that if you are a well-known attorney, then ranking for your name could be critical.

[Kelly Frame]

I am also going agree with Gerry's strategy. I think it is important that you first target your specialty and the geographic area(s) where your office is located. Once your site is getting decent rankings with the SE's for a specific area, then expand your strategy to rank your name.

By and large, if a person in need of your legal services is searching the SE's for your name, the battle is mostly already won. With all the lawyer directories available, they will eventually find you.

Good post!

[Michael]

I agree with Gerry. It seems, however, that it is difficult to get consistent exposure at the top of Google's results for searches that are based on geographic area and legal specialty. This is because Google will display 'local business results' ahead of its normal organic results for this type of search. Google appears to use some kind of round robin approach to deciding which firms will be listed in local business results. In addition to Gerry's strategy it may therefore make sense to include in your SEO efforts terms associated with your discipline as well as the name of the discipline itself. For example, a Google search for 'Chicago divorce lawyer' causes local business results to be displayed, whereas a search for 'Chicago custody dispute' does not.