Here are some possible traits that lawyers should know and check to avoid being penalized by Google.
Google continuously updates its algorithm to better enhance their user’s research experience. This makes it more challenging to lawyers and their chosen Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company since they have to cope up with these changes to meet what Google demands from them. Failing to follow certain guidelines will cause them penalties.
But how will attorneys know that their site has received penalties from Google which have caused a major drop down for their number of traffics? Well, here are a few possible reasons that can contribute to these penalties.
Have you been buying links for your law firm? If your answer is yes, Google may have noticed your actions. Google sees this as a way of attempting to manipulate your page rank and if you have been buying bad links, Google does not want it. Too much reciprocal links can also be considered as an aggressive way to manipulate links, so if you have also been abusively swapping links, you may want to rethink again.
Duplicate contents can lower your firm’s traffic and can even cause you penalty. So you better focus on making your own original and unique contents and use tools like Copyscape to avoid such duplication.
Excessive H1 tag is not a good idea to boost your page rank. The main function for H1 tag is for Google to fully understand what a legal page is all about. If you have been stuffing your H1 tag with a lot of keywords, you may want to do some major changes to avoid penalty. It is also applicable if you have been stuffing too much keyword in your contents. You better read the Google guidelines for the density of keywords when it comes to H1 and your contents.
If your law firm site has internal 404s, you should take an action on how to manage this errors. Having these kinds of problems can surely cause you penalties.
Linking to other sites with another language is not a good idea at all. Google wants to enhance sites to make it more user friendly and Google knows that their users generally prefers one language so linking to sites with different language won’t be that useful at all.
Hidden contents and links can also cause you a penalty. All of your law firm’s contents and links should be visible and useful to users. Anything hidden is considered suspicious and is a big no no for Google.
There are still a lot of factors that can contribute to having a Google penalty. You must be aware of these factors to avoid your law firm site from getting penalties and can cause you major website traffic downfall.
If you law firm website have dropped lately or your web inquiries have reduced, chances are that your website has some kind of penalty.
Author: Qamar Zaman is a Dallas based SEO and an expert in attorney internet marketing. He helps law firms dominate internet traffic using holistic seo techniques.
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Qamar Zaman
Dallas SEO Services Expert
T: 972.437.8942
