Keyword-Rich Hyperlinks for SEO Success

September 19, 2007 – 1:27 pm

Most lawyers are concerned about the search engine visibility of their website. This concern is only logical, given the vast number of consumers who use the Internet for legal research.

All throughout this blog, this website, and this web marketing book, we have offered tips on lawyer SEO — the act of improving your website for better search engine ranking (and traffic levels).

Here’s another tip for you, that’s both simple and effective. Put keywords into your website’s hyperlinks.

Putting keywords into hyperlinks is one of the easiest on-site adjustments you can make to improve the search engine visibility of your law firm website or blog.

Here’s why…

Search engine “robots” use hyperlinks to navigate your website (much like a person would), and they can read the text found within the hyperlink (much like a person would). They use this “link text” to help determine what the destination page is about (much like a person would).

I don’t mean to sound like a broken record here. I’m repeating the “like a person would” for good reason. By using descriptive keywords within your hyperlinks, you are helping people and search engines at the same time.

Note the difference:

• Click here for more information. (This is vague for people and meaningless to search engines).
• Get more lawyer marketing advice. (This tells you where the link goes, and it also tells search engines what the destination page is about.)

In other words, this simple strategy is good for both website visibility and website usability.