October 21, 2008

The number of local and regional corporate, transactional and defense law firms using search engine optimization (SEO), and getting cases and referrals as a result, has tripled in the past 24 months, according to a newly-updated national marketing effectiveness survey.

The survey shows that 59 percent of firms used SEO over the past 24 months. That compares to 24 percent in the two years prior to then. In 2007-2008, 21 percent of firms said they got cases from SEO, compared to 8 percent in 2005-2006.

Joining a legal network to stem competition from the national firms also appears to be a trend for local and regional firms More than 80 percent of firms of more than 50 lawyers in our survey which said they were members of a network had obtained work from membership

To stave off the national firms, regional and local firms should consider membership in a law firm network Other studies support the trend. Americans with an Internet connection average 32.7 hours a week on the Web, almost twice the time devoted to watching television and more than eight times as much time spent reading newspapers and magazines, according to a new study.

Those memberships appear to pay off. Forty-four percent of the firms that are members of legal networks said they received significant amounts of work from other members of the network.
Larger firms seemed to benefit more than smaller ones from membership in a network.

While networks and online marketing are the trends, the survey shows the most effective marketing tactics for law firms continue to be seminars, presentations, trade and community group memberships and client entertainment.

Size does affect a firm's marketing program and results in other ways. Larger firms in the survey commonly provide training in sales and networking skills. Most offer individual coaching for their lawyers, as well. One third of the firms who provide this kind of business development training say they were able to track new files or referrals as a direct result.

Now that Google and other engines have indexed billions of pages on the Web, what's the next big frontier in search? It is to bring that technology home by extending search to your local desktop. How many of us have multi-gigabyte hard drives now with hundreds, or even thousands of documents, images, spread sheets, and other files that we wish we could find in an instant? You know you took notes on a certain topic in a meeting with a client several years ago, but what was the name of that document? Where is it now?

Microsoft Windows provides a file search function, but if you've ever used its text search against a hard drive that contained thousands of files, you know how painfully slow it can be. Wouldn't it be nice if you could do a search for any keyword contained in any document or e-mail, and have all the best matching files appear instantly, ranked by relevancy, like Google does so well with Web documents? That's what Microsoft, Google, Ask Jeeves, HotBot, and others are all promising in the near future.

HotBot, owned by Terra Lycos, has fired one of the first shots in the local file search wars. HotBot Desktop is a free browser toolbar that promises to quickly search various types of documents and e-mail files on your hard drive. The tool is still in beta, so my first experience with it was not so positive. Fortunately, consumers should have multiple local search tools to choose from before the end of the year, with most of them expected to be free.

AskJeeves announced its acquisition this month of Tukaroo, Inc., a private desktop search company. Reportedly, this was in response to Google's plans to expand into local file search.

Microsoft has made it no secret that it plans to integrate high-speed local text search into the next version of Windows, code named Longhorn, and expected for release in 2006. Consequently, Google has announced that it has been quietly developing its own local search tool over the past year, code named "Puffin." Google even hired a former Microsoft Product Manager to help manage the development of the tool. A pre-cursor of that product may be Google's desktop search tool that can run in the Windows task bar rather than just the user's browser. The tool currently only searches the Web, but expect that to be extended to local file searching in the not so distant future.

Microsoft has announced plans to release a new local file search tool prior to the introduction of Longhorn. According to a recent New York Times article, this could happen before the end of this year. Microsoft has missing launch dates in the past, so my money is on Google's tool hitting the market first, at least as a beta.

How will Google profit from local file search? Presumably, it would be ad supported like its Web based search service, or in its more recently announced Gmail service. Gmail is a free e-mail service that scans your e-mail content for keywords and then tries to display ads relevant to your message's content. Not unexpectedly, this has led to concerns regarding privacy. However, for businesses looking for greater targeted advertising options, it could open up a range of new opportunities.

With the coming tools for indexing all the documents on your computer, the latest question is do you trust Google to have access to all of the information on your hard drive? If not Google, then whom? That's the question consumers and privacy advocates are now asking. Access to your local files will be the next big battle ground fought over by the major search engines.

Google and others may have an uphill battle if Microsoft integrates its technology into the operating system and keeps it free of keyword scanning ads as with its many other tools bundled for free with Windows. That could give Microsoft the edge in the privacy battle. Microsoft will also be able to leverage its desktop monopoly to bundle its local search tool with every copy of Windows. This, combined with its greater knowledge and control of the operating system can be used to muscle out Google in the same way it did with Netscape in the browser wars. I admire Google for taking on Microsoft in the local file search arena, but I don't envy its uphill battle. The first thing I'd do is come up with a better code-name. A beast called the "Longhorn" sounds like it might spear Google's "Puffin" critter before it makes it out of the corral.

(Will your website be ready, or will you be playing catch-up six months too late?)

November, 2003 might go down in history as the month that Google shook a lot of smug webmasters and search engine optimization (SEO) specialists from the apple tree. But more than likely, it was just a precursor of the BIG shakeup to come.

Google highly touts its secret PageRank algorithm. Although PageRank is just one factor in choosing what sites appear on a specific search, it is the main way that Google determines the "importance" of a website.

In recent months, SEO specialists have become expert at manipulating PageRank, particularly through link exchanges.

There is nothing wrong with links. They make the Web, a web, rather than a series of isolated islands. However, PageRank relies on the naturally "democratic" nature of the web, whereby webmasters link to sites they feel are important for their visitors. Google rightly sees link exchanges designed to boost PageRank as stuffing the ballot box.

I was not surprised to see Google try to counter all the SEO efforts. In fact, I have been arguing the case with many non-believing SEO specialists over the past couple months. But I was surprised to see the clumsy way in which Google chose to do it.

Google targeted specific search terms, including many of the most competitive and commercial terms. Many websites lost top positions in five or six terms, but maintain their positions in several others. This had never happened before.

For Google, this shakeup is just a temporary fix. It will have to make much bigger changes if it is serious about harnessing the "democratic" nature of the Web and neutralizing the artificial results of so many link exchanges.

Here are a few techniques Google might use (remember to think like a search engine):

1. Google might start valuing inbound links within paragraphs much higher than links that stand on their own (for all we know, Google is already doing this). Such links are much less likely to be the product of a link exchange, and therefore more likely to be genuine "democratic" votes.

2. Google might look at the concentration of inbound links across a website. If most inbound links point to the home page, that is another possible indicator of a link exchange, or at least that the site's content is not important enough to draw inbound links (and it is content that Google wants to deliver to its searchers).

3. Google might take a sample of inbound links to a domain, and check to see how many are reciprocated back to the linking domains. If a high percentage are reciprocated, Google might reduce the site's PageRank accordingly. Or, it might set a cut-point, dropping from its index any website with too many of its inbound links reciprocated.

4. Google might start valuing outbound links more highly. Two pages with 100 inbound links are, in theory, valued equally, even if one has 20 outbound links and the other has none. But why should Google send its searchers down a dead-end street, when the information highway is paved just as smoothly on a major thoroughfare?

5. Google might weigh a website's outbound link concentration. A website with most outbound links concentrated on just a few pages is more likely to be a "link-exchanger" than a site with links spread out across its pages.

Google might use a combination of these techniques and ones not mentioned here. We cannot predict the exact algorithm, nor can we assume that it will remain constant. What we can do is to prepare our websites to look and act like a website would on a "democratic" Web as Google would see it.

For Google to hold its own against upstart search engines, it must deliver on its PageRank promise. Its results reflect the "democratic" nature of the Web. Its algorithm must prod webmasters to give links on their own merit. That won't be easy or even completely possible. And people will always find ways to turn Google's algorithm to their advantage. But the techniques above can send the Internet a long way back to where Google promises it will be.

The time is now to start preparing your website for the changes to come.

The changing landscape of the search engine industry and how Google's dominance will once again be challenged on two fronts by Yahoo and juggernaut Microsoft.

The good news is that few changes will need to be made in your search optimization efforts. A highly ranked site in Google has a very good chance of ranking well in Yahoo and Microsoft when the changes do come.

My philosophy is there are only so many things you can optimize on a web page. Maybe Yahoo will place more emphasis on keyword density while Microsoft thinks link text is more important while Google feels the Title is more relevant. If you properly optimize all of these things from the get go you should be fine.

I have several sites that rank well in both Google and MSN, which is powered by Inktomi, for the same keywords. Now that Yahoo owns Inktomi, it follows that once Yahoo switches search results the site will rank well in their results.

We must continually learn and sharpen our skills but if we "bullet proof" our site through proper optimization we stand a good chance of weathering the coming storm.

Search is a billion dollar business and except for Google, every major search engine charges a fee for inclusion in their database.

The big three have several options: free listing, paid inclusion or pay per click. Microsoft can afford not to charge for listing especially if they bundle their new search technology with Windows. By offering free inclusion they can rapidly build a database to compete with Google. They can monetize their traffic by offering a service similar to Google Adwords.

Yahoo may offer free inclusion for a short time to bulk up their size but considering the background of both Inktomi and Yahoo it is more probable they will continue with paid inclusion.

Google is the one we all hope will never change. Google is free and Adwords provides them with generous revenue but no matter how well intentioned Google may one day find themselves charging for inclusion.

Free traffic is great except for one major drawback. Time. Search optimization is very time consuming and requires constant learning to stay ahead of any changes.

With the staggering rise in Pay Per Click advertising's popularity, big companies and small upstarts alike can buy their way in with minimal cost.

Suddenly, top placement in most search engines and directories is only a credit card number away. If you haven't already gotten in the PPC game or at the very least entertained the thought of doing so, now is the time to make your move while there are still many valuable keywords and phrases available at minimal cost.

We are all fortunate enough to already realize the huge potential of the Internet. No technology since television has had more impact on the way we communicate and exchange information. It is the largest untapped real estate market in the world and the possibilities are limitless.