Law firms now need to pay attention to this area, if they have not already.  The good news is that getting a listing is relatively easy. Getting a top rank can be done with minimal effort.

Let’s read more though to understand the algorithm.

Business Quality Guidelines From Google

http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=107528

• Represent your business exactly as it appears in the offline world. The name on Google Maps should match the business name, as should the address, phone number and website.
• Do not create listings at locations where the business does not physically exist.
• Use the description and custom attribute fields to include additional information about your listing. This type of content should never appear in your business’s title, address or category fields.

Other Top Articles on Google Local Optimization

http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

• One of the best articles to read.
• Top 41 Factors
• Top 8 Negative Factors
• Most important data providers
• Most important data review engines
• Must read

http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/general-marketing/local-seo-citation-is-new-link/

• There is a difference between a citation and a link.  Citation can just be address.
• You do not necessarily need links, but citations to your office address.
• “Plenty of sites that are only listing address and phone number, or otherwise unspiderable links, are showing up as citations.”
• For the most part, the businesses with lots of citations rank higher than those with a lower volume.
• Two of the top 10 Local businesses have MORE citations than they have inbound links!
• Submit your site to the typical InfoUSA, SuperPages.com, and InsiderPages.com, but also submit to all types of niche sites.

http://www.seorabbit.com/optimizing-for-google-maps

• Priority to City Center is Key.
• Title tag is important.
• Categories are important – but don’t be spammy.
• Create multiple listings, if you are in different cities.
• Add in details, photos.

http://www.naturalsearchblog.com/archives/2007/01/11/extreme-local-search-optimization-tactics/

• Tip # 1: Change your business name to include a few of the top keywords that users type into search engines when seeking your type of business in your area.
• Tip # 2: Change your business name so that the first characters will be earliest in the alphabet for your locality.
• Tip # 3: Move your business so that you can have presence closer to your city’s center.
• Tip # 4: Get a separate directory listing for every city in your area for which you provide services.
• Tip # 5: Customize your address by having your street renamed to include beneficial keywords.
• Tip # 6: Lightly influence user ratings to your benefit.
• Tip # 7: Add the common nicknames for your locality into your site’s front page text.

http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/10-likely-elements-of-googles-local-search-algorithm/519/

• Use of Google’s Local Business Center (LBC)
• Availability/Trust of other business data
• A Business Web Site
• Listings in 2nd-tier Local Directories
• Listings in Vertical Directories
• References from other Web sites
• Reviews
• Proximity to location
• Location Prominence and User Query
• Use of other Google services

Any other articles?  Let us know and we will summarize and link up.

Emergencies

Is your pet hurt or sick? We are available for emergencies at any time, day or night.

Call us for immediate help at 561.272.1552. A licensed Florida Veterinarian will answer the phone.

Your emergency office visit, costs $100, plus cost of treatment and testing. We are here to help.

Pages on the Site

• Home
• Treatments
• Boarding & Grooming
• Vaccines
• Pet Emergency
• Products
• Contact
• About Us
• Articles & Media
• Forums
• My Pet

Main Clinic
Atlantic Animal Hospital
1950 W. Atlantic Ave.
Delray Beach, FL 33444
Tel: 561.272.1552

Emergency Clinic
10160 La Reina Dr.
Delray Beach, FL 33446
Tel: 561.272.1552

He serves all of Boca Raton – Get Directions from Boca

But IE 6 Sucks!

Yes, it does.  But losing business sucks more.  Spending a few more hours on a site can help the client.  For each client, I think we need to check their server logs and determine their traffic.  It takes about 3 minutes of work to determine their audience and will help our clients. 

• If a client has a HUGE population of IE 6 users (like 10% or more), then we have to still code for them.  I could easily see this happening if our clients have older customers, lower socio-economic customers, or customers in developing countries.  Why?  Because they probably have older computers.
• If they have a 5% or less share we can just drop features and make small work arounds.
• If they have a 1% market share we can just ignore completely – just like we do for poor Opera.

My Gut Feeling

I have a sneaky feeling that it will be not a dramatic drop as we want.  I would love to see our server stats go from 4.6% to 0% in the next few months.  I just don’t think it will happen. I think it will continue trending down, but by next year we will only be a few percentage points lower.

Big Question – Our Web Site and Our Clients Sites

The big question is should we cater to 4.6% of our audience.  I ran our numbers and that is the number of visitors that came back – see attached chart.  I say yes, we should still provide a solid experience in IE6.  However, we can kill any fancy features and just do basic things.

In the last month we had 700 visitors in IE 6.  That is quite a few people (20 to 30 a day).  We had an inquiry just today from an IE 6 user.  Yes, I know a mere coincidence, but still there are people who don’t use it.   Would you design your store or restaurant to exclude 5% of your traffic?  No.

I did run a report and since August we have had 40 inquiries with IE6 as the browser (about 8% of our overall inquiries via the web form).  So, would we want to lose 8% of our business?  At this time, I don’t think we would want to do that.

So, says the Zen Master….we’ll see.

McConnaughhay, Duffy, Coonrod, Pope & Weaver, P.A. has long enjoyed a reputation as a premier workers’ compensation defense firm. Since the founding of the firm more than 30 years ago the scope of their practice has expanded to meet the needs of their clients, which range in size from small businesses to multinational corporations and span a broad array of industries. Today, they are also recognized for their work in employment law and a full spectrum of civil litigation.

The firm has nine offices throughout Florida and one location in South Georgia, from which they serve resident businesses as well as regional, national and international clients with legal matters in Florida and neighboring states.

Practice Areas:

The law firm of Schall & Barasch LLC  is dedicated exclusively to protecting the rights of employees. Unlike other firms that practice law in a variety of areas, we practice in only one area – employment rights.  Our attorneys represent individual  employees throughout the State of New Jersey in cases involving discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, non-compete agreements, retaliation, breach of contract and all other employee rights related issues.

Practice Areas:

• > Discrimination
• > Reasonable accommodation for disabled employees
• > Sexual harassment / Hostile work environment
• > Family Medical Leave Act
• > Non-compete agreements
• > Retaliation & Whistleblowing
• > Breach of contract
• > Failure to pay overtime
• > Wrongful termination
• > Severance package negotiation

Contact them now to make an appointment.

Overarching Guidelines: For all Forms of Advertising

• Name of lawyer or law firm – Lawyer must advertise under their official bar name
• All forms of law advertising must disclose the town or city of one or more bona fide office locations of the lawyer. It is considered to be misleading if law firm lists offices in cities where there is no bona fide firm offices in those cities.   May only advertise that they are “available for consultation” in locations where they don’t have an office that they have furnished & have staff at.
• With regard to misleading information:  they basically cannot misrepresent facts or law, is in any way false/misleading/deceptive/omitting material information
  • Must not refer to past successes or results obtained
  • Promise results
  • Compares lawyers services with another lawyers services unless factually substantiated
  • May not contain statements describing or characterizing the quality of their services
    • May truthfully state ratings or awards if is legitimate, and uses the actual name of the award and the lawyer includes the name of the organization bestowing the award, and the year.
• May contain visual or verbal descriptions depictions as long as they are not deceptive, misleading or likely to confuse viewer.
• Lawyer advertisements may not include an area of practice in which the advertising lawyer or firm does not currently practice law.
• Advertisements cannot include statements that claim or imply a lawyer is certified, board certified, specialist, or expert in an area unless the lawyer is Board Certified in that area.
• Can’t state or imply that the Florida bar approves of them whatsoever.
• Cannot use illustrations only if they could confuse, deceive or mislead the viewer.
• Every advertisement which contains information about the lawyers fee must also disclose whether the client will be responsible for costs or other expenses in addition to the fee.
• Lawyers may not advertise under firm names that are false, misleading or deceptive.   Lawyer may not advertise under a trade name unless the same name appears on the letterhead, business cards, office sign, fee contracts and appears with the lawyers signature on pleadings and other legal documents.
• Cannot use any celebrity in advertising whose voice or image is recognizable to the public.
• Sounds – cannot use sounds that would confuse or be deceptive.   Cannot use sirens or car crashing noises.

Specifics for Web:

• Jurisdictions which attorneys are licensed – home page
• Office locations – home page
• Any past results, testimonials or quality of legal services, can only be supplied if requested – must have a disclaimer where the client must request to see these.   Any testimonials/past results etc must be secured in a way that they are not searchable within the site without signing off on the disclaimer, and must not be able to be found on a Google or other external general search without signing a disclaimer.

Specifics for Print / Direct Mail:

• Direct mail must have “Legal Advertisement” printed on the  outside of the advertisement in red in the lower left hand corner.
• Must contain statements as to how the attorney obtained the information about prospective clients legal matter, and a written statement detailing the lawyers of law firms background, experience.
• Direct Mail – must always include as the first sentence “If you have already retained a lawyer for this matter please disregard this letter.
• Any mailings must be sent by standard post mail & not be made to look like legal or court documents or anything else sneaky.
• Cannot have anything on the outside of the envelope stating the nature of the clients legal problem.
• No mailings can go to someone within a 30 day window of a personal injury, death or disaster.

Specifics for Email:

• Unsolicited Direct Mail & Email -
• Subject line of email must state “Legal Advertisement”.
• Statement of attorney or firm qualifications is required.
• Must contain statements as to how the attorney obtained the information about prospective clients legal matter.
• And must comply with rules above about geographic disclosure, board certification, and such.
• No mailings can go to someone within a 30 day window of a personal injury, death or disaster.

Better yet, it has increased the number of emergency contacts from a few calls a week, to a few calls a day!

Some key pages:

• About Delray Beach and Boca Raton Veterinarian
• Articles & Media about Vet Practices
• Treatments of Cats and Dogs
• Boarding & Grooming for your cat and dog
• Vaccines for your Pets
• Emergency Services in Boca and Delray Beach
• Contact a Boca and Delray Beach Vet

Mark S. Gottlieb, CPA PC (MSG) is distinguished as one of the Tri-State’s premier business valuation and litigation support firms. Their practice is devoted exclusively to providing attorneys and their clients with a diverse continuum of forensic accounting, business valuation and litigation support services.

List of Services

• Business Valuation
• Litigation Support
• Forensic Accounting & Investigations
• Record Reconstruction
• Economic Damages & Analysis
• Expert Testimony
• Trial Preparation and Settlement Negotiation
• Divorce and Matrimonial Matters
• Asset Tracing
• Preparation of Net Worth Statements
• Lifestyle Analysis

Contact them now.

The Firm has been at the forefront of numerous consumer protection issues over the years and is nationally known for producing outstanding results in all of the Firm’s areas of practice. The Firm’s innovative approach to the law has yielded its clients with superior recovery results – in fact their WorldCom clients received 100 times greater recovery than those who participated in the class action suit. While the Firm has had great successes in its legal battles, their fight to protect consumers does not end at the courthouse steps. The safety and fair treatment of the public is our leading concern and they pursue every option available to reform undesirable practices and standards. Among the many aggressive measures taken by our firm to effect change, they have lobbied Congress to improve investor rights in securities arbitrations and argued at FDA hearings for the recall of infant and child products containing Bisphenol-A (BPA).

Practice Areas:

• Securities Litigation
• Structured Product Litigations
• Product Liability

• Negligence & Malpractice

Contact them now to make an appointment.