Web Design
Responsive Websites
We code only modern Responsive sites, meaning that your site will load onto mobile devices just as cleanly as it loads on the desktop computer
WC3 Validation
We ensure that your code complies strictly with the requirements of WC3 Validation, and passes the Google Lighthouse audit with very high marks (usually 100%), helping you to rank higher
Optimised for Mobile Devices
We ensure that your site is optimised for mobile devices, so essential now that Google intends to rank pages according to mobile device readiness
Optimised for Load Speed
Your site will be optimised for load speed. Google has found that even small improvements in load speed aids user experience, and lowers bounce rate
Google Rankings
We ensure that the structure of your HTML will bring your site to the attention of the Googlebot and help you achieve first page organic ranking
Web Design has changed rapidly in recent years. In particular, the widespread use of mobile devices has led to an explosion of 'responsive' design. To be effective, your site should function uniformly between desktop, tablet and smartphone devices. We are specialist Law Firm website designers.
SEO
Specialist SEO
We are a specialist high quality SEO service for Australian law firms. We provide SEO, Content Writing and Web Design services exclusively to the legal sector
Page one results
The aim of our service is to achieve first page organic Google search rankings for your firm
User Experience
Our emphasis on user experience fosters the success of the site and leads to high search rankings
Valid Code
We ensure that your website contains 100% valid HTML and CSS, and performs well in Google Lighthouse audits. We ensure that your site loads quickly, an essential part of user experience. We use Structured Data to help Google find you
Google Adwords
Subject to your instructions we can conduct Google Adwords or Facebook Pay-Per-Click campaigns. We can foster your social media connections
Google Places
We will help you set up Google MyBusiness and Google Places connections
Google Review
We can assist you in obtaining a strong performance in Google Review
In the internet era, success in Google rankings is the cornerstone of online marketing for law firms. Achieve a high organic Google ranking, and you are likely to see an increase in new client contacts. Our approach to SEO is multi-faceted, from the appropriate html coding and page structure, to content and links.
Content Writing
High Quality Content
We provide original high quality content
Original and Relevant
The content written by us will be original and unique to your website, as well as being relevant and accurate to your jurisdiction (The Googlebot places an emphasis on the originality of website content)
Legal Experience
Our content writer is a practising lawyer with 25 years experience in legal practice in South Australia and Victoria. He has Undergraduate and Graduate degrees in Law, as well as qualifications in Web Design
Review and Revision
At your instructions we can provide ongoing and frequent review and revision of all content
The creation of original and relevant content is among the most important elements of a Search Engine Optimisation campaign. However, for legal website marketing, originality as well as technical accuracy of content is essential. We provide a specialist content writing service, and we can ensure that your content is up-to-date.
About Us
What We Do
eBrief provides high quality SEO, Content Writing and Web Design services
Our Web Designer
Our qualified web designer is also a practising lawyer with many years experience of legal practice
Legally Qualified
Our web designer has recent qualifications in Web Design as well as Undergraduate and Graduate degress in the Law
Our web designer has a passion for optimal, efficient and responsive web design and original content writing. He also has a passion for interacting with the Google Search Console, Google Lighthouse Audit and Google Analytics, and using these tools to obtain better organic Google rankings
News
Reasons why a web designer should never use Content Management Systems (Wix, Squarespace, Wordpress)
Author: Hugh McLean
Date: 9 August 2018
Date: 9 August 2018
seoLegal
I saw a great article by Emma Grant titled “9 Reasons You Should Never Use A CMS” available here; www.webdesignerdepot.com/2015/07/9-reasons-you-should-never-use-a-cms.
Emma is a content writer from Ireland.
It has become a common client expectation that they be able to contribute to website content through the use of a CMS. Many lawyers who are seeking the best SEO for lawyers, might avoid CMS platforms if they were fully informed.
Emma Grant has found that this invariably leads to a decline in the quality of the site to the point where she will no longer include it in her portfolio. In fact, she suggests that there is proportional relationship between the amount of time spent by the client in preparing content, and the loss of quality in the site.
Areas of SEO practice where professional web designers exercise the most fastidious control, such as the inclusion of images in the site, are often the worst hit.
She has found that content that has been carefully written for the purpose of SEO, will be the first that the client edits.
Emma sites 9 reasons why a CMS should never be used in Web Design;
Security Vulnerabilities. The inbuilt vulnerabilities of the CMS will be inherited by the new website.
Liability. The web designer (not the CMS) is liable for any harm caused by the security vulnerabilities. This liability is not voided by the passage of time, even if the fault ultimately lies with the CMS.
Appearance. The “what you see is what you get” style editors in every CMS are limited. Stylistic control is therefore limited. What you see is not quite what you get.
Learning Curve. The unthinking use of CMS in all sites is problematic. Sometimes this will be overkill for the client, who really doesn’t need or want to learn the complexities of the CMS interface. This is often the case for small sites.
Source Code. The ability to create semantically structured source code is lost.
Complication. Simple design tasks (if written in html or css) are often made complex and difficult in the CMS.
Bloat. I got two words for you. Code Bloat. This will cause an increase in website load time and impede performance. Google has found substantial differences in user retention with even small increases in load time. Your site should be lean and mean.
SEO. Many CMS products are not well set up for SEO. The use of a “plugin” to undertake such an essential task as SEO is very suboptimal.
Self Management. The client will change your design, but still expect you to provide support for the site.
In conclusion, Emma states that web designers should stop unthinkingly promoting CMS products in web design.
Lawyers who wish to engage in internet marketing, should carefully consider whether a CMS platform is appropriate.
A Summary of the Google SEO Starter Guide
Author: Hugh McLean
Date: 1 August 2018
Date: 1 August 2018
seoLegal
Google has a multitude of resources available for SEO specialists. The Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide is available at ; https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184.
Intro. The guide calls itself a complete overview of the basics of SEO according to the best practices of Google. Good SEO practice involves a multitude of small incremental improvements to a website, that when combined together, will produce an improvement in organic search results. Lawyers who wish to commence an internet marketing campaign, should pay close attention.
Any website should respond to user’s needs. The search engine could be viewed as one of those users, which functions by bringing the site to the attention of many other users.
Google Webmaster Guidelines. When building your site, pay attention to the Google Webmaster Guidelines. They will make it easier for Google to crawl your site. Make use of the Google Search Console, which will help you to check your site’s ongoing performance.
robots.txt. It is good practice to provide a robots.txt file to tell Google which pages you do not want crawled. However, for pages on your site that include sensitive information, you should utilize a more secure method. You should prevent search result pages on your site from being crawled. This will lead to poor user experience if the search result page is listed as a search result in Google. The Googlebot should be allowed access to the site’s JavaScript, CSS and image files. It is important that these are not excluded by the robots.txt.
Title Tag. It is important that your page have a well constructed title tag. If your site has multiple pages, you should create a unique title for each page. It is the contents of the title tag that appears on the first line of the Google search result. It is therefore important that the title tag communicates the topic of the page contents. It should read naturally but should not be more than 40-60 characters in length. An effective campaign of SEO for lawyers should necessarily look at all elements of the website, such as titled tag, to ensure that they maximize visability.
Meta Description Tag. Similarly, the meta description tag contents will usually appear in the Google search result, and should therefore be carefully chosen. It should include more thorough information about the subject of the page. For example the description of a business would include information on the nature of the goods or services provided. Google will not necessarily use the contents of the meta description tag, because other content on the site may provide a better response to the particular search query, and this will be included in the description. Ensure that there is a unique description for each page. For lawyers who want to improve their conversion rate, make sure that the description tag contains a concise and interesting description of your firm.
Headings. Headings are naturally sized according to their place in the header hierarchy. This provides visual clues to the user as to the importance of the header content. The header hierarchy should follow logical precepts with more general information about the site at h1, and more specific information at h3 or h4. It is important that the header structure of the page is carefully constructed in this way, both for user understanding, and for the Google crawler. There should usually only be one h1 tag on each page. Generally speaking, very long heading text should be avoided. Other tags such as ‘em’ and ‘strong’ can also help draw attention to content, both for the user and for Google.
Structured Data. Structured data is another way to improve the indexing of your site. Structured data is machine-readable, and provides a guide for the Googlebot as to the nature of the content on the site. Structured Data describes to the Googlebot what the page is about. For example, if your page contains a product, the structured data can be used to say to the Googlebot ‘this is a product and here is my description of it’. This may then be displayed by Google in the search results page; Google refers to this as “rich results”. Structured data can be investigated at; schema.org. The Google Search Console contains a Structure Data Testing Tool, which can be used to ensure that the data has been entered correctly into html. The best SEO service for lawyers will ensure that there is comprehensive structured data in the client site.
URL. It is recommended by Google that sites use Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL Technology. Similarly, the site server should contain redirects so that all versions of the domain name redirect to the https. The Google Search console should also include all versions of the domain, including http, www and non-www.
Breadcrumbs/Navigation Page. If your site has multiple pages and a hierarchical structure, you should use ‘breadcrumbs’ to provide visual navigation for the user. For a complex site, a navigation page, setting out the website structure, may also be of assistance to the user. This is preferable to using ‘search’ functionality on a page. The navigation page is there primarily to assist the user, whereas the xml sitemap should be used to guide the search engine. It is also important to use a custom 404 page in the event that the user navigates to a broken link or incorrectly types an incorrect url. Small changes can make a difference for optimal search engine optimisation for lawyers
Links. It is preferable to avoid the use of images or animations for internal links, and event handling generated lists. Link text should be logical and descriptive; a help to both the user and Googlebot. Avoid using links like “click here”. Avoid links that are too long or filled with key-words.
File Names. Remember that the file names of the pages and folders in your site will be displayed in the address bar, so these should also use names that are logical and descriptive. This is particularly important if a sub-domain is listed in a Google search result, as the url will also be listed. A simple directory structure will be more user friendly; avoid pages deeply nested in a complex directory structure. Another example where attention to detail will assist in a internet marketing campaign for lawyers.
Content. Make sure your content is well written, and free of grammatical and spelling errors. Similarly, it should be organized into logical headings and topics. Content should be original: Google may penalize unoriginal content, or content that is repeated across a site.
Alt Text. It is important to use alt text in image tags, which provide a description of the image if for some reason the image doesn’t load. It also describes the image for use with assistive technologies such as screen readers. Avoid generic names, and use short descriptive phrases, for example, “photo of John Lennon”.
Responsive Sites. Because many Google users today search the internet using mobile devices, it is important that the site be mobile ready. This can be achieved by either the use of Responsive code, or by using dynamic serving or separate URLs. Google prefers the use of Responsive technology, and will, during 2018, implement a mobile-first indexing strategy. Accelerated Mobile Pages should be considered for sites that serve a lot of static content over multiple pages. Responsive pages should make use of the meta viewport tag to help the browser display content. Avoid the use of robot.txt to block Googlebot from accessing the formatting of the page. Avoid interstitials that interrupt the user experience. Provide mobile users with the same functionality as desktop users. For a law firm engaged in an SEO campaign it is essential that their site is mobile ready.
Promotion. Be sure to promote your site by including it in blogposts and/or social media, and by creating a listing in Google My Business. Make sure postings relate to substantial content, rather than small changes to the site.
Google Search Console. Make use of Google Search Console to find out how Google is accessing your site and search Queries that are resulting in clicks.
Design and SEO
Author: Hugh McLean
Date: 12 July 2018
Date: 12 July 2018
seoLegal
An interesting article written by Myriam Jessier appeared in Smashing Magazine recently, about the relation between design and SEO. The article is titled “Things Designers Should Know About SEO In 2018” and is available on www.smashingmagazine.com. Some of the conclusions reached by Myriam are as follows;
During 2018, Google intends to change its algorithms to rank pages based primarily on their mobile version. This means that websites will need to be responsive to rank well. By ‘responsive’, we mean not only the suitability of the page code for mobile devices, but also in relation to the usability of the content. The message: Australian law firms that wish to engage in an internet marketing, should have a responsive (mobile ready) website.
Content should be attractive in a way that makes users want to scroll to see more. The emphasis should be away from text and toward animated gifs, and videos. Headings should be short and enticing.
Google currently offer a mobile-friendly testing tool; https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
Google has announced that it is evolving to a new ‘crawling scheme’ during 2018, which will allow the bot to recognize previously hidden content in a website. Therefore, the previous SEO recommendation to avoid hidden content may now be redundant. In any event, content is central to SEO for law firms, and lawyers should always seek to have high value content on their sites.
The organizational structure of a page, by means of the use of h2, h3 and h3 tags are an important part of SEO. The meaningful structure of a single h2 tag, with sub-heading levels under h2, will help with ranking. Sidebars, headers and footers should not form part of this structure.
Creating flagship content is important to ranking in Google. These days, long-form content of up to 3000 words can often out-rank short form content. It is a good way to create an immersive and engaging experience. For the purpose of creating long-form content, factors that may help the user-experience include line-spacing, visual clues to navigation, illustrations or animation to maintain user engagement, creative use of typography, intuitive scrolling and milestones. Sound principles of Web design are therefore also essential for a law firm website.
User intent is critical. Google intends to make the bot imitate human behavior and perceive the intent behind the search query. Therefore, while keywords are still an important aspect of an SEO strategy, tweaking those words in terms of the key aspects of user-intent such as; what the user wants to know, where they want to go, what they want to buy or what they want to do, will be important. A campaign of SEO for lawyers must focus on user intent.
Google Trends is a good way to learn some of the changes in the way that users are accessing searches on the net.
The homepage tends to be the most important page on a site in terms of structure. The internal linking within the site is also important. The use of generic terms, such as ‘click here’ and ‘read more’ should be avoided. Use language to give more context to the link. Links within content will also be important, and given greater weight.
Image SEO is an important part of an overall SEO campaign. Image file names and alt tags are vital. Similarly, image compression is important. Large image files can delay page load. Alt tags should contain 12 words or less, should describe the image and not surrounding content, and can be written in regular language (not separated by dashes or underscores).
Google Lens may lead to less use of stock photography in websites, and more reliance on unique images that are particular to the site in question.
Google has put in place penalties for visual interference on a mobile landing-page. Unsolicited interstitials or pop-ups will now cause a ranking penalty. The best way to avoid a penalty is to not use pop-ups, slide-ins, interstitials and to use non-intrusive ribbons.
Overall, the message for lawyers and law firms who are engaged in internet marketing, must be that attention to detail and sound web design, as well as high quality content, are cornerstones of an SEO campaign
People are using voice search such as siri more and more to search online. This will mean more conversation search terms.
Secrets of Professional SEO Article Writers
Author: Hugh McLean
Date: 30 July 2018
Date: 30 July 2018
seoLegal
Had a look at “9 Secrets of Professional SEO Article Writers” at www.contentfac.com
The article talks about the importance to an SEO campaign of frequently posting fresh content on the website. However, they reiterate the importance of developing content in the correct manner.
An important aspect of the development of content is to identify keywords that are important to the site, and to weave those keywords into your content. Then you can monitor how your site is performing in Google searches relative to those keywords by using keyword trackers such as SEMrush. The best SEO for lawyers will seek to identify keywords relevant to their legal practice, and to work those keywords into high quality content on the firm website.
However, you can’t just blindly include keywords into the copy and expect to rank. Firstly, it is important to properly develop the structure of headings within the site, and to include keywords into the site title and into header tags.
Content should be relevant to your clients. If it starts sounding like nonsense at the behest of your keyword inclusion, you have failed the overriding requirement of UX. This is the forgotten aspect of content writing, to remain focused on the reader and to try to forget about Google. Make it readable and interesting to your customers, and you will go a long way toward better ranking. Website content for lawyers should always be relevant and accessible for potential clients.
The article also talks about the importance of understanding the technical requirements of web design as they apply to SEO. For example, it can be important to have an understanding of blog structure and the manner in which the Googlebot crawls pages. Similarly, other recommendations of Google for website performance should be understood and implemented. Any law firm engaged in internet marketing should seek assistance from a specialist SEO, content writing and web design company.
It is considered important that content should be of a suitable length. Google favours blogs that provide readers with in-depth knowledge, and therefore, providing overall content in the order of at least 2000 words is important.
Other aspects of poor design, such as intrusive pop-ups and slow load-time, will tend to push up the bounce rate for the page, and reduce its effectiveness.
Good writing practices are imperative. Avoid long paragraphs. Increase line height to make your work more readable.
Previous Articles
Valid HTML and CSS Code
Author: Hugh McLean
Date: 26 July 2018
Date: 26 July 2018
seoLegal
English SEO guru Shaun Anderson comments on the necessity for valid html and css code in an article on his website written in March 2016;
https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/official-google-prefers-valid-html-css/
He states that a site that has been built to high validation standards shows good practice, and an emphasis on accessibility, and is likely to make the site function well over many devices. Lawyers seeking SEO services should also engage an appropriate Web Designer.
He also comments on the content-to-code ratio; if the content is a higher proportion of the code on a page, keywords will inevitably be more easily crawled by Google. The Googlebot will more easily find your page, and determine its relevance to the search.
WC3 validation will not magically lead to higher rankings, but it should be part of an overall strategy to improve site ranking. Shaun nevertheless says that if a site is not ranking well, it will usually be related to more substantial problems with the site than simply the validity of code.
Shaun concludes that if the site is very badly written and contains a good deal of invalid code, it will effect the Google ranking. Keeping at least a minimum level of accessibility in a website is actually law in many countries, including the UK (and Australia), so this needs to be maintained at all times. Attention to detail is essential to both SEO and Web Design for lawyers
He reflects on an experiment that he conducted in 2007 on his own website, testing the ranking of the pages on his site that contained valid, and invalid, code. He found that the page with valid html and css was ranked highest by Google.
The launch of seoLegal
Author: Hugh McLean
Date: 12 June 2018
Date: 12 June 2018
seoLegal
We are proud to announce the launch of seoLegal, a service specialising in the provision of search engine optimisation services for Australian Lawyers. We have experience in Web Design and SEO. In addition we have inside knowledge of the legal profession, gained from years working as lawyers.
Original website content is a central element for a successful SEO campaign. The legal sector provides challenges for SEO providers, in particular in content writing. The content writer for a law firm website should have knowledge of the sector. It is difficult for a content writer without knowledge of the sector to write website content. SeoLegal is directed towards addressing this issue.
In addition, we are experienced in the use of responsive technologies in Web Design. Our sites are small-device ready.
Load speed! Is it important? In the world of web design it is everything. Research has found that users are inclined to click out of websites that are slow to load. Even an extra second can make a difference. We work hard to increase load speeds.
Chrome Lighthouse Audit
Author: Hugh McLean
Date: 20 June 2018
Date: 20 June 2018
seoLegal
This is a beautiful set of numbers! The seo-legal.com.au website scores near perfect results in the Google Lighthouse audit process. This assesses a website for Performance (we scored 96), Progressive Web App (100), Accessibility (100), Best Practices (100) and SEO (100).
Compare our score with the audit result for the Parliament of Australia!! (40, 45, 95, 63 and 89).
You can audit your own website. Just launch your website in Chrome, go to More Tools/Developer Tools, and click into 'audit'.
See the results on our Facebook page. Any law firms that wish to engage in internet marketing, please contact SEOLegal.
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