SEO, web development and web marketing basics for lawyer websites in Thailand
Source: snoopdesign.com Snoop Web Design
About 40% of the foreigners in Thailand looking for a Thai lawyer actually find and hire a lawyer based on search engine results. Do not lose this opportunity and get your website up to date and search engine friendly. In this article basic SEO DIY tactics and how to compete on the Internet.
Rule No. 1 for a successful website: SEO or SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
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Search Engine Optimization
SEO is the process of improving the content and html-coding to make a website search engine friendly and to increase the QUALITY of traffic to a website from search engines, not only the volume or quantity of traffic and clicks to a website. It improves the visible text content and invisible html-coding in relation to the text.
Search Engine Result Page
Search Engine Optimization increases the chance of ending up in the SERP of a search engine with keyword related searches. SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page. This is the listing of websites or web pages returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query.
A well made website for a Bangkok Lawyer will turn up in the the SERP of a search engine following a query for 'lawyer + Bangkok'. Try searching 'lawyers Bangkok' and see if bangkoklawonline turns up!
To be shown in the first page of a search engine result page in relation top certain keywords or search phrases the html-coding of the website should be complete, clear and in relation to the web page content and consistently applied.
A modern design in combination with new SEO techniques will increase a law firm's success on the Web and will increase its clients.
Rule No. 2 for a successful website: Design and Content.
Design and content helps to keep a visitor on a website.
The search engine user MUST find the relevant information he was searching for or he will be out in a second. He should find the information easily and preferably visit more than 1 page of the website.
Search engines like Google measure these statistics and use it in their next SERP in relation to a specific query. Again if a visitor following a query only stays a few seconds on a page it will be registered as a poor result and the website may in the future end up lower in the SERP. Search engines like Google monitors their users behavior. By monitoring the time spent on the page and the number of pages visited a search engine determines if the result given was relevant to the query. It is far more complicated than this but this is a basic rule.
TIPS
- Good writing with easy to find information
- Original and clear content (not only is it very poor for lawyers to copy, it is also not smart for SEO)
- Good simple design
Website basics:
Domain name
The domain name or URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of a website on the Internet and access to a website. Choosing a domain name is the number 1 and most important choice to make when starting a new website as a lawyer.
- It is not allowed to use names of existing companies and trademarks. What is illegal in the real world is also illegal on the Web.
The preferred URL for an English language website is a domain name ending in .com, for a Thai language website a .co.th is preferred. A URL ending in .co.th automatically indicates that the target area is Thailand and not worldwide. Especially if it is also hosted inside Thailand it will have a better result with search engines inside Thailand than outside Thailand.
There are basically 2 ways of choosing a domain name:
- The brand name, company name, business name is used as the domain name. Choosing the name of the law firm is preferred in the long term.
- The other option is using important keywords in the domain name. Choosing the keyword option in the domain name could help in the short term for ranking in the SERP for the specific keywords queries.
Keyword websites
A keyword website domain would for example be bangkok-condominium-lawyer.com or thaidivorcelawyer.com which are both available at this time. The one without the hyphens is easier to use and to remember.
Some law firms use both techniques, they have their brand or law firm's name as their main domain and in addition run websites with important keywords in the domain names. For example phuket-property-law-firm.com would aim at a high ranking in the SERP in response to a 'Phuket+Property+Law+Firm' keyword query. From such a keyword website is linked back to the main domain and the idea is that via the subsidiary website visitors are redirected to the law firm's main website. It is NOT recommended to link from the main domain to subsidiary websites but only the other way around.
These subsidiary websites MUST have original content to be effective and preferably related to the keywords in the domain name. A keyword domain name like thaidivorcelawyer should have a content about Thai divorce. It is not recommended to copy text from the main domain or other websites to a subsidiary domain or copy the same text in several subsidiary websites. Check content with Copyscape! The content should be original for this to be successful. It is a time consuming activity but could be effective, but mostly these websites end up in the Google's supplemental results (where google puts the trash) and rarely rank high in the SERP.
Keywords in the domain name or URL is not a long term important part of a website's success.
Other common web marketing methods to increase domain name ranking, brand name and website popularity;
- Posting various job positions on free job search websites. Usually the law firm is not actually looking for a foreign or Thai lawyer but this is a form of website marketing to increase link and brand name popularity.
- Article submissions on various websites with article directories, which again link back to the law firm's main website. These are generally short articles with general legal information aimed at marketing the website on the Web. The content of these articles is often irrelevant and this technique is primarily aimed at creating link and name popularity. Short sample article for this purpose written by Snoop Design on 'article snatch', submitted February 2010. It should increase samuiforsale in the SERP with searches related to 'condominium and floor area Thailand'.
- Paid listings on other websites and other search-engine related services (Google AdWords) that aims to increase exposure and traffic to a website, referred to as SEM or Search Engine Marketing. SEM does not mean buying hundreds of back-links from link farms ('link farms' are sites that consist only out of links). This may have boost ranking through link popularity in the 90ties but modern SEO specialist stay far away from these techniques because of the risk of penalty or ban. Some popular forums and websites with information about Thailand offer paid listings and website banners on their websites. In general this has limited effect, and in many cases these websites include a no-follow tag limiting the effect of a link from a high ranking popular website.
- Lawyers can also use social network sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Cyworld to promote their name and websites. These web-based services allow individuals or companies to construct a public profile and create connections with others.
The best strategy for any website is to put time and effort in improving its own content and popularity with search engines like Google and Yahoo. This is in the end where most potential clients and visitors come from.
TIPS:
- Use the law firm's name as domain name;
- Only use key-word website names for subsidiary websites with original content related to the key-words;
- Improve the websites content (write original articles - 'web content is king') and htlm-coding to increase quality results from search engines;
- Find a professional hosting service and do not use budget hosting;
- Build natural link popularity, get links from relevant websites, directories and forums. Check successful competitors by searching what they do (simply 'google' their domain name);
- Article submissions, preferably the ones which do not include the no-follow tag with each link back.
- If you plan to use an article for your own website do not use article submission directories;
- Submit the website domain with search engines to be indexed
- Use a sitemap
- Update the website regularly
- Check spelling and grammar
The <HEAD> to </HEAD> and standard SEO tags in a lawyer website.
The head element is the invisible part of a web-page containing scripts, browser instructions where to find style sheets, meta information, etc. The following tags can generally be found in the head section <title>,<meta>,<base>, <link>, <script>, and <style> . The <title> tag is the only required tag in the head section and the most important tag. The meta-tags are the second most important tags for SEO. Both the title and meta tags should be included in each page of the website and be unique for each page. These tags assure that the website is read and found by search engines and details what the content is about. Below the most important meta tags and title tag. Include the most important keywords in these tags.
We included some basic html code structure SEO tags for a Bangkok Law Firm (in the basic html structure only the title tag in the head section is required):
<html>
<head>
<meta name="description" content="Lawyers Bangkok, Law firm with English speaking Thai lawyers etc. etc...">
<meta name="keywords" content="bangkok law firm, thai lawyer, lawyers, legal advice, etc, etc, etc, ">
<meta name="author" content="Bangkok Law Online">
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
<meta name="revisit-after" content="1 month">
<title>Thailand law firm located in Bangkok etc. etc.</title>
<!-- Bangkok, lawyers, law-firm -->
</head>
<body>
Here comes everything that is visible such as text and images, graphics.
</body>
</html>
View Tags
A website tags are visible in the source of a website which can be viewed in most browser by a right mouse click and select 'view source', or under 'view' or 'page' in the browser and select 'view source'.
TIPS:
- Create an unique description in the "description" tag for each page of not more than 200 characters that applies to the content and with keywords that also return in the content of the web page;
- Create keywords for the "keywords" tag for each page that relate to and are used in the content of the page, separated by a commas of not more than 20 keywords (note: 'Bangkok law firm' is counted as 1 keyword);
- Create an original title for each page. Try to imagine the keywords an Internet user would use when searching.
- If your domain name is law firm X, you do not need to include the X again in the title of the web page as it is already in the domain name, but you can again include it in the description and/ or meta-tags keywords. Make a relevant title for each page. Try to make variations in words and descriptions with the same meaning.
Text content of a website
Content or visible text content of a website is in the source found between the <BODY> and </BODY> tags. Content is the most important part of any website and makes or breaks a website. A good website boils down to: good design, good writing and original content. If you create a site's content use a professional writer or someone who can advice on if it's good writing, as good writing keeps a visitor on the site and increases a website's popularity and its success with search engines.
The text content of a website is generally started with a visible title for the article or text content between the <h1> and </h1> tags. In the source the visible title text must look like:
<h1>Bangkok Law firm located in the capital of Thailand</h1>
TIPS:
1. Create at least 15 original web-pages with an original title and meta-tags for each page;
2. Create relevant links between the pages of the website;
3. Use 1 or 2 keywords in the URL. For example an article about property lease in Thailand could be saved as real-estate-lease.html, the url would look like http://www.bangkoklawonline.com/real-estate-lease.html.
4. Hire a professional web builder to have the web site properly designed with a logical internal link structure and menus. Do not use BUDGET alternatives like hobbyist or a friend of a friend but use a professional and check previous work and references.
5. Before starting on a website think of the content, starting with a main page or front page, divide the main content subjects over separate pages and LINK or work from these pages to related information and sub-pages as structured below.
INDEX OR MAIN PAGE- CREATE AN ABOUT US PAGE - CREATE A CONTACT PAGE - MAIN CONTENT PAGE 1 - MAIN CONTENT PAGE 2 - MAIN CONTENT PAGE 3 - SUB CONTENT 1, 2, ETC PAGE 1 - SUB CONTENT 1, 2 ETC PAGE 2 - SUB CONTENT 1,2, ETC PAGE 3 - CREATE A SITE MAP - CREATE COPYRIGHT PAGE - CREATE AN EXTERNAL LINK PAGE
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