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In SEO, an algorithm is simply a program that gathers information for search engines and classifies it based on how useful it is likely to be to searchers.All search engines use algorithms to determine what websites should show up on each page of search results.

An algorithm update ensures that search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing, are consistently providing users with the best possible experience. When any of the major search engines discovers a way it can improve the results on the search engine results pages, or SERPs, they program an algorithm update.

Some major Google algorithm updates include Panda, Penguin and “Mobilegeddon.”Google programmed each of these updates to weed out websites that didn’t provide value to searchers.

Potential clients are looking for the services you offer, but the problem is getting them to find you. In order to make that attorney-client connection, you need to let Google and the other search engines know that you have something valuable to offer.

How Do Lawyers Reach Potential Clients Online?

There are millions of law-related searches each month, and it’s been that way for the last decade. By knowing what your potential clients want, you can target your pages toward answering their questions – and that all starts with in-depth keyword research.

However, more important than keyword research (and keyword implementation) is website usability.

Do Lawyers Really Need User-Friendly Websites?

Having a user-friendly website serves two purposes: it’s better for your rankings and it’s better for your users.

How many times have you visited a website that’s tough to navigate, slow, or features bright, flashing text (or worse, music that auto-plays as soon as the page loads)?

How long did you stay?

Usability is incredibly important, and that’s particularly true for lawyers. That’s because your clients don’t come to your site to browse; they don’t come to choose between your services.

Your readers come to your site because they need something very specific, and you have between 3 and 5 seconds to make a good impression.

Part of making a good impression includes having a clean, usable and lightning-fast website that’s designed specifically for your firm.

What Does Your Firm Need to Have a User-Friendly Site?

Your firm’s website needs to be fast, because page loading speed has a huge impact on your bottom line. If it takes your website a long time to load, users will click away and visit your competitors.

Statistics show that a 1-second delay in the time it takes your page to load leads to a 7 percent loss in conversions, an 11 percent decline in page views and a 16 percent decrease in customer satisfaction.

That ultra-fast site needs to have clear, usable navigation and – you guessed it – plenty of user-friendly content. Your website needs to convey the fact that you’re a subject-matter expert in your field so that people develop an almost immediate sense of trust, knowing that they’ll be in good hands if they choose to retain your firm’s services.

Questions? Let us know in the comments below.

How much do you know about search engine optimization?

If you’re like many attorneys, you understand the basics – and you know you need it in order to keep up with your competitors online.

But are you misunderstanding the basic tenets?

Search Engine Land says most people don’t “get it.” That’s fine, as long as you have an expert SEO team handling it for you.

Unfortunately, most law firms don’t.

What Do Most Law Firms Misunderstand About SEO?

The fact is, you need to know that:

• SEO needs to be part of everything you do, including your content marketing, your paid search efforts and your branding efforts.
• Your best SEO efforts will be a waste if you don’t deliver what searchers expect to find.
• You can’t cover all your bases when it comes to SEO with plugins, unfocused services or occasional attempts to optimize your site.
• The most successful SEO is based on hard facts and raw data, such as your website’s statistics, the most frequently searched terms relating to your practice areas, and what’s happening with Google’s latest algorithm updates.

When you’re ready, learn more about how to kick off a successful SEO campaign and how to make sure your site is irresistible to Google.

We all know that dominating the first page of Google carries huge benefits, but you only have so many websites… don’t you?

How to Dominate Google’s Page One Results

Google is built to deliver exactly what searchers want, so if you meet searchers’ demands, you should be in great shape. When you’re armed with the right knowledge, you can spread out your web presence and improve your law firm’s online visibility enough to dominate your competitors in organic (non-paid) search.

Here’s how.

Make the Right SEO Efforts

Anybody with a significant web presence can tell you that SEO is the way to drive traffic to your website. With the right anchor text, backlink profile and crowd-pleasing content, you’ll engage the Googlebot and readers – and both of those things lead to increased revenue on your end.

Feed the Knowledge Panel

If you’ve been keeping up with what’s important to the search giant, you know that being active on social media plays a big role in coming up on search engine results pages, or SERPs.

Using Google’s knowledge panel and structured data that adds your connected social profiles to Google’s index, you can fill up the SERPs with results that all point to you – even if they come from different mediums.

Engage in Effective Content Marketing

When your content appears on the web, as long as it’s connected to you, there’s a strong possibility that it will show up on Google’s first page. That helps establish you as the subject-matter expert, which bumps up your authority and encourages people to trust you. Whether you’re sharing your knowledge on other websites or on your own blog, that trust bumps up your bottom line.

Agree? Disagree? Question? Let us know if the comments below.

When you went to law school, did you imagine that you’d be competing for business with unscrupulous attorneys who try to scoop up clients when they’re most vulnerable?

If you’re like most ethical lawyers, you didn’t.

You recognize the value in the services you provide and you know that people who need you will recognize it too.

You don’t need to buy names from insurance companies or wait outside emergency rooms for tearful family members. You don’t need to hound prospective clients who don’t even know who you are while they’re trying to recover from their injuries.

That’s because you’re not an ambulance chaser.

Unfortunately, these “ambulance chasers” pose an enormous threat to your reputable personal injury firm (as you are probably aware)  – and it’s not only because they’re waiting like parasites to latch onto clients before they realize what’s going on.

Why Ambulance Chasers Are a Threat to Your Firm

Let’s face it: people rank personal injury lawyers among the least trustworthy people to have passed the Bar. Personal injury lawyers bear the brunt of hundreds of cringe-worthy jokes.

According to the American Bar Association, Americans have said that lawyers are “greedy, manipulative and corrupt.”

Why?

Lawyers who employ underhanded techniques are the ones that shape public perception of this all-important practice area.

They make the most noise and they’re the most talked-about because there are endless stories of phone calls to hospitals, incessant letters and even harassment.

There are dozens of online forums with complaints (such as this one and this one) from injured parties who are, frankly, tired of being harassed by ambulance chasers.

They give personal injury lawyers a bad name.

How to Beat Ambulance Chasers to the Scene?

The only way to beat these scoundrels is by educating the public. You must let them know, repeatedly, that there is a huge difference between reputable firms and ambulance chasers.

Luckily, every single person, whether they are injured or able-bodied, carries a powerful device with them everywhere they go.

Their iPhones and Androids!

And that is your way in.

Whether they receive unsolicited calls immediately following their accident or not (odds are they do), every person will at some point open their mobile web browser and search for help.

Is your website there to answer their questions and call for help?

If not, you are missing out big time.

Don’t sit on the sidelines with this one. This is the one way to outsmart and outmaneuver Ambulance Chasers. This is the only way to beat them to the punch… to get to victims before they do.

Happy Birthday ApricotLaw!

This is a picture of the Co-Founders of ApricotLaw, me on the left and Tom Desmond on the right, in front of The Boycott in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

We’ve been meeting at this diner from the very beginning, before there was an ApricotLaw Inc.

On one such meeting Tom was disgusted with his Turkey burger and told the manager about it.

The manager’s defensive attitude annoyed Tom enough for him to say he never wanted to eat there again.

When we met there again the very next week, I asked Tom about it and he said, (I’m paraphrasing) “Yeah, Daniela and I have boycotted this place a dozen times for one reason or another and we always end up coming back.”

That’s when we dubbed this little local place, The Boycott.

On the day in the picture, November 3rd, 2014, we had our annual shareholders’ meeting and planned out the immediate future for our company.

It just so happens that Rob Astorino, the candidate for Governor of New York, sat right next to us with his entourage and cameraman.

He is the incumbent County Executive of Westchester, where I live, so having a meeting three feet from him an hour and a half away in Brooklyn, at the same time and at the same diner was a bit odd.

I digress.

So far building ApricotLaw has been a wild ride! Being so young and growing rapidly, each month seems like a year.

So much is happening, so many great things, and there is nothing but pure excitement for the future.

It feels as though there is so much opportunity in front of us and it is our job to grab hold of it.

It’s not just Tom and I anymore.  We have a strong team that I am so proud of.

What I am most excited about are the results we are getting for our clients and what we are now rolling out for them.

It’s amazing how attracting brilliant people can turn a good company into a brilliant one.

From our very first weekly meetings at The Boycott, Tom and I spoke about building a Lamborghini of a company.  One where each stitch is perfectly hand-crafted and where each part fits together into a powerful masterpiece.

We are far from perfect.  But it is certainly coming together.

Happy Birthday ApricotLaw.