Building Quality Links on Trusted Sites – Email SPAM

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You’ve likely received an email with a subject line like “Building quality links on trusted and high authoritative websites” or “Blogpost/Links.” Heck, even search quality representatives at Google get these embarrassingly lazy emails to try and sell high DA (domain authority) links.

Here’s an example I received this morning:

link building spam email

I appreciate being part of your team, mate. However, I’m not buying the BS.

We know what linkbuilding is, and it’s not following up to a poorly written email and handing cash to a stranger.

We know that linkbuilding, especially for law firms, is difficult. So difficult, many law firm marketing agencies won’t even bring it up to you. Go ahead – ask em. What is your SEO agency’s strategy on earning your website links?

I’m hoping their answer didn’t involve replying to Deep and spending your hard-earned money on the small chance of getting that buzzfeed link…

For the record, Google is very good at ignoring these types of links. You may even be penalized for breaking their quality guidelines.

Please, don’t fill Deep’s pockets.

gary illyes spam email links

Managing Duplicate Google My Business Listings in a Post Map Maker World

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Since the old Map Maker feature was terminated at the end of March 2017, you may be left wondering how to deal with duplicate Google My Business law firm and individual practitioner pages. The information below, summarized from the recent post by Local SEO expert Joy Hawkins, should provide some direction for you and your firm.

Steps to Fixing a Duplicate Google My Business for your law firm’s listing:

  1. Find out if the duplicate listing is verified
    1. If it is, you’ll need to get access/ownership or have it unverified
    2. If it is not, continue on.
  2. Note any reviews that are on the duplicate listing. If there are positive reviews, contact google my business support to have them transferred.
  3. Compare the addresses between the listings. Do they match?
    1. If yes, contact Google My Business support via Twitter and ask them to merge
    2. If no, find out if the business used to be at the address at some point & continue
      1. If the business never existed at the wrong address, click “suggest an edit”
        1. Toggle to “Yes” next to “Place is permanently closed”
          1. Select “Never existed” as the reason and submit.
        2. If the business used to exist at the address, contact Google My Business support via twitter and ask them to change the status to “Moved”.

Special considerations for Attorneys

Attorneys can have individual practitioner pages. If you have an attorney that has a practitioner page and the attorney no longer works for your firm, contact Google My Business support via twitter and ask them to move the practitioner page to your firm’s page. This only works if the practitioner page is unverified or is willing to give you access to it. If they aren’t willing to do this, your last option is to have them update the information to the new firm.

Example of a proper individual practitioner listing:

example of google attorney practitioner page

Google’s Video on How to Hire an SEO Consultant [or Agency]

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If you’re considering an investment with an SEO Consultant or SEO Agency, please watch this 11.5-minute video released by Google. Maile Ohye, Google’s Developer Programs Tech Lead, outlines important things to consider, tips on what to ask for, and even items to expect from technical audits.

A good SEO will try to prioritize what ideas can bring your business the most improvement for the least investment, and what improvements may take more time but help growth in the long term. – Maile Ohye

SEO Summary:

  • If you want long-term success, there are no silver bullets to get your site to rank #1
  • SEO takes time to implement and see benefits
  • A good SEO agency will recommend best practices for a search friendly site, and back it up with documentation directly from Google
  • Putting more keywords in the meta-keywords tag and buying links don’t work to improve SEO

Hiring process summary:

  1. Interview your potential SEO consultant or agency and make sure they are genuinely interested in you and your business
  2. Check references
  3. Ask (and likely pay) for a technical search audit
  4. Decide if you want to hire

 

SPAM is for Eating, Not for the Internet

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Google recently posted a blog with some tips on how to keep user/bot generated SPAM from ending up on your website. I’ve italicized user/bot because I don’t want you to get your SPAM confused… We’ve written about Google Analytics SPAM numerous times. This stuff is a little different, though it can be related.

Protecting your website from user generated SPAM is important because it can cause serious issues with your website in the eyes of Google. SPAM can be a source for malware or injected links. It can even go as far to result in your website being hijacked completely. Google doesn’t want to show a malicious website (or potentially malicious) to any of its beloved users, so act accordingly!

The major source for user generated SPAM on a Law Firm website is your blog comments. If you aren’t already, you should enable email notifications whenever someone comments on one of your blogs. This way you can act quickly.

Here are the tips from Anouar Bendahou, Search Quality Strategist at Google, to fight this type of SPAM (I’ve bolded my favorites):

  • Keep your forum software updated and patched. Take the time to keep your software up-to-date and pay special attention to important security updates. Spammers take advantage of security issues in older versions of blogs, bulletin boards, and other content management systems.
  • Add a CAPTCHA. CAPTCHAsrequire users to confirm that they are not robots in order to prove they’re a human being and not an automated script. One way to do this is to use a service like reCAPTCHA, Securimage and  Jcaptcha .
  • Block suspicious behavior.Many forums allow you to set time limits between posts, and you can often find plugins to look for excessive traffic from individual IP addresses or proxies and other activity more common to bots than human beings. For example, phpBB, Simple Machines, myBB, and many other forum platforms enable such configurations.
  • Check your forum’s top posters on a daily basis. If a user joined recently and has an excessive amount of posts, then you probably should review their profile and make sure that their posts and threads are not spammy.
  • Consider disabling some types of comments. For example, It’s a good practice to close some very old forum threads that are unlikely to get legitimate replies. If you plan on not monitoring your forum going forward and users are no longer interacting with it, turning off posting completely may prevent spammers from abusing it.
  • Make good use of moderation capabilities. Consider enabling features in moderation that require users to have a certain reputation before links can be posted or where comments with links require moderation. If possible, change your settings so that you disallow anonymous posting and make posts from new users require approval before they’re publicly visible.Moderators, together with your friends/colleagues and some other trusted users can help you review and approve posts while spreading the workload. Keep an eye on your forum’s new users by looking on their posts and activities on your forum.
  • Consider blacklisting obviously spammy terms. Block obviously inappropriate comments with a blacklist of spammy terms (e.g. Illegal streaming or pharma related terms) . Add inappropriate and off-topic terms that are only used by spammers, learn from the spam posts that you often see on your forum or other forums. Built-in features or plugins can delete or mark comments as spam for you.
  • Use the “nofollow” attribute for links in the comment field. This will deter spammers from targeting your site. By default, many blogging sites (such as Blogger) automatically add this attribute to any posted comments.
  • Use automated systems to defend your site.  Comprehensive systems like Akismet, which has plugins for many blogs and forum systemsare easy to install and do most of the work for you.

A Legal Marketing Agency’s Letter to Santa

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Whether you celebrate Diwali, Hanukkah, Christmas, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, or just consume copious amounts of cookies and egg nog, we wish you good health and much happiness! Cheers to the end of another successful year and to the beginning of 2017 from all of us at Mockingbird Marketing.

Dear Santa,

We hope you’re doing well! We’ve been extra busy this year trying to deliver more value for our customers’ marketing budgets and to make their law firms even more successful than last year. A few new products have been rolled out, and we have improved upon already existing processes to make us smarter and faster about what we do.

We’ve been lucky enough to be accepted into Google’s Partner Acceleration Program, which allows us to offer the highest level of Paid Advertising support available! Additionally, we’ve held a few hands-on workshops that have generated a lot of praise from both large and small firms. Come to think of it, you’re familiar with workshops – maybe you could swing by our next one in Austin on January 12th and let us know what you think.

Our business reporting has become more tailored to our clients’ goals, more accurate and provides even more actionable insights than ever before. We’ve deemed 2016 “the year of the spam” and have increased our efforts to keep our data clean. You know how much we love data; probably as much as you love ice cold milk and cookies.

We’ve continue to grow and have signed some of our best clients yet! We’re constantly amazed at how smart our clients are, especially outside of the law. We have noticed, however, that our legal SEO Store still gets a lot of traffic, so hopefully we can engage with these prospects so that we can have an immediate and positive impact for them next year.

We have a lot to be grateful for this year, so I hope our wish list below doesn’t obfuscate that. In fact, we are most grateful that we get to play a small role in the important services our clients provide.

P.S. If you get injured delivering all those gifts, head over to the search engines. You’ll find one of the attorneys we work closely with and highly recommend! Stay safe.

Wish List

  1. Improved local snack pack results
  2. Lower Cost per Clicks.
  3. Easier link building opportunities.
  4. #1 Rankings for all our clients.
  5. More accurate and useful Webmaster…err… I mean Search Console
  6. Fewer remarketing restrictions.
  7. To continue to have engaged, excited, passionate clients.
  8. Another Seahawks Championship.

Sincerely,

Mockingbird Marketing

Complete Guide to Understanding and Transferring a Domain Between Registrars

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For this tutorial, I use examples and link to resources that explain how to transfer a domain name from GoDaddy to Namecheap. These specific examples will vary depending on which registrar you’re transferring from and which registrar you transfer to, however, this complete guide can serve as a basic outline for most registrars.

Cool blog Robert, just tell me the steps!

Glossary – definitions that you’ll want to understand

Domain name – Your browser (Chrome, IE, Firefox, Safari) uses these to identify one or more IP Addresses. You type a domain name into the address bar of your browser to get to a website. Amazon.com is a domain name. These allow you to remember words instead of a string of numbers to get to a website.

Registrar – An organization that manages the reservation of domain names. You can think of this as the place where you purchased your domain name. Popular registrars are GoDaddy, Name.com, Namecheap, iPage, Network Solutions, and Blue Host. I highly recommend Namecheap.

Website Host – Often referred to as a Host, it’s the place that has all the files and information pertaining to your website. This can be provided by your registrar, or a different third party company. Many of the popular registrars mentioned above are also popular website hosting companies. However, we use a managed WordPress hosting company called WP Engine for improved speed and security.

DNS (Domain Name System) – This is the system that the Internet uses to convert a domain name into an IP address (or IP Addresses).  You can think of it as a map of instructions on where the internet finds important information related to a domain name, like where a website is hosted.

NS (Name Server) – Technically I’m referring to a Root Name Server here: This server (which is a technical way of saying a computer that provides a service) points the internet to the place where your DNS is setup. When you purchase your domain from a registrar, it usually comes setup with two of their default name servers. You or the person who built your website may have changed these to the name servers for the hosting company your website is using. Common default GoDaddy name servers look like this: ns01.domaincontrol.com and ns02.domaincontrol.com.

A Record, CNAME Record, MX Record, TXT Record, SPF Record – DNS records that give the internet directions on what to do with certain things relating to your domain. Example: MX Records for a domain are the instructions for handling email. If you improperly move or configure these, your email could stop working.

Why you might want to transfer a domain name from one registrar to another

  • You’ve purchased your domain name through a website provider/CMS like Weebly and you’re cancelling their service.
  • You’ve purchased domains through a variety of registrars and are trying to organize and keep track of fewer logins
  • You hate your current registrar and you’ve heard about how awesome Namecheap is
  • You’ve bought or sold a domain and need to move it between registrars.
  • Someone bought and setup your domain for you and they no longer want/can/are willing to handle that for you

 

General Domain Name Transfer Process

Option 1: Call 206-209-2125 and have us to do this for you.

Option 2:

  1. Verify the domain name can be transferred and read through these steps entirely before beginning the transfer process.
  2. Prepare the domain name for transfer* at the current registrar and acquire an Authorization/EPP Code. This must be done by whomever has current registrar access for the domain.
  3. Initiate the transfer from the registrar you’re moving the domain name to and input the Authorization/EPP Code.
  4. Accept the domain name transfer request from the administrator email of the domain.
  5. Wait for the transfer to complete within 5 days.

*If you put in some extra work and setup a third party DNS, you will limit the amount of time your website is down (if any) during this process.

Step 1: Things to know before you begin to transfer your domain name:

  1. You can transfer a domain name if it has been registered more than 60 days ago.
  2. You can transfer a domain name if it hasn’t been transferred in the last 60 days.
  3. The domain must have a valid and accessible admin email address in the Whois database. I recommend that you disable any type of Whois privacy protection/private registration before transferring the domain. Some registrars require it.
  4. The domain name cannot be expired. Domain status must be ‘OK’ or ‘Active’ and unlocked.
  5. Once transferred, you cannot transfer the domain name again for 60 days (see #2).
  6. Transfers may be denied. Example of reasons for denial are:
    1. Evidence of fraud,
    2. court order by a court of competent jurisdiction
    3. Reasonable dispute over the identity of the registered name holder or administrative contact,
    4. Failed Payment
    5. The domain name is locked (see #4)
    6. A domain name is less than 60 days old (see #1)
    7. A domain name was transferred less than 60 days ago (see #2 and #5).

Step 2: Prepare the Domain name for Transfer

  1. Disable your domain name privacy/private registration
  2. Make sure you/someone has access to the Administrative Email for the domain.
    1. Look up the domain in a Whois database. Take note of the administrative email for the domain. Someone should have access to this!
  3. If the name servers are with the company you’re transferring your domain name away from, I recommend setting up your DNS through a third party and pointing the NS to this DNS before you transfer the domain. You simply copy all the A records, mx records, txt records, and anything else that is on your domain to this third-party DNS. This way, when the DNS is in limbo at the registrar level, your site and email will remain up on the web. I recommend using Namecheap’s FreeDNS service. Especially if you’re transferring the domain to Namecheap – they will change the NS to theirs and keep all the domain records intact. Keep in mind that NS updates take 24-48 hours to complete!
  4. Unlock the domain name
  5. Obtain the Auth/EPP code from the current registrar.

Step 3: Initiate the transfer to Namecheap

  1. Once logged in, select ‘Domains’ from the menu at the top and select ‘Transfer a Domain’.
  2. Enter your domain name & Authorization/EPP code separated by a comma. Example: domainname.com, E8R8;Q893*5SH00
  3. Click ‘Start Transfer’ and Namechep verifies everything in step 2 is correct and the domain is prepared properly. Pick the administrative email address for the domain to have the verification email sent to. Again, you or someone should have access to this! Click ‘Add to Cart’ and add any coupon codes you have lying around.
  4. Proceed to ‘Check Out’ for payment. Generally, around $20.

Step 4: Accept the domain transfer via email

Delivery of this email can take a couple hours, and it can often end up in the spam folder of the administrative email account for the domain. By now, you should have already verified that you or someone involved in the domain name transfer process has access.

Once you’ve accepted the transfer request via email, the registrar you’re moving the domain name from has 5 days to automatically release the domain. You should receive a confirmation email to the email address on file at the new registrar once it is complete!

Namecheap provides a lot of good resources, one of which is a matrix of Transfer Statuses and what to do in each situation.

Resources that I think are extra helpful outside of this complete guide:

6 (not scary) Steps to Setup a Google Account [Gmail] with an already existing Email.

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Be honest: how many email accounts do you have? Now actually be honest: How many email accounts do you use? If your answer is “one” to both questions, congratulations! You win at the internet! If it took you a while to count, please read on.

Logging in to tools is a major reason why many of us have multiple email accounts. Things like Google Analytics, Search Console, Google My Business, Google +, and Bing Webmaster tools all require emails registered with either Google or Microsoft to gain access. Nobody has time to keep track of all of this (unless we are your VP of Marketing).

I’m about to share with you a step by step guide on how you can clean up your logins and use a single email account with these tools. It’s as simple as setting up an already existing email account with Google. There’s a very similar process to setting up a Microsoft account with a non-Microsoft email that I’ll cover in a different blog someday.

I highly, highly, highly (did I say highly?) recommend that you create/dedicate an email on your company’s domain name rather than using a free Hotmail, yahoo or inbox account. If you don’t have an email on your firm’s domain give us a call so we can help.

Please note: if your firm’s email is hosted through G Suite (formerly Google Apps for Business), then you’re already registered with Google! If your firm’s email is hosted through Exchange or Office 365, then you’re already registered with Microsoft!

Quick Steps to Setup a Google Account with a non-Gmail Email:

Step 1: Log out of any Gmail account(s) you’re currently logged in to, then open https://accounts.google.com.

Step 2: Click the Create Account link below the gray “sign in with your Google Account” box.

Step 3: Below the “Choose your username” field, click I prefer to use my current email address link.

Step 4: Enter your non-Gmail email address you would like to register with Google.

Step 5: Finish filling out the new account form and accept Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms.

Step 6: Confirm your new account with the email address you provided.

Longer Explanation and visual guides for Setting up a Google Account with a non-Gmail Email:

Step 1: Log out of any Gmail account(s) you’re currently logged in to, then open https://accounts.google.com.

If you’re already signed in to a Gmail account and this is the same address that you’d like to use for Google’s suite of tools, you’re done! You address is already associated to Google.

Step 2: Click the Create Account link below the gray “sign in with your Google Account” box.

google account create new account login

Step 3: Below the “Choose your username” field, click I prefer to use my current email address link.

prefer to use current email for gmail

Step 4: Enter your non-Gmail email address you would like to register with Google.

Once you’ve clicked this link, you’ll be able to enter your current (non-Gmail) email address for this setup process. This is the most important step in this process. As mentioned, I highly recommend setting up or dedicating an already existing email that is on your domain (example: admin@bestlawfirmever.com).

fields for creating google account with current email

Step 5: Finish filling out the new account form and accept Google’s “Privacy and Terms.” This includes:

  • Name (first and last)
  • Password & confirmation of Password (don’t make it the same as your luggage combination)
  • Birthday
  • Gender
  • Mobile phone (use a number that accept texts messages for recovery purposes).
  • Default homepage (as if your homepage isn’t already Google.com)
  • Location

google privacy terms

**Google’s Privacy and Terms are likely to change**

Step 6: Confirm your new account with the email address you provided by following the final instructions given (normally this is to simply click accept in the email you’ve received to the email address you’ve just registered).

Now that you’ve registered your email address with Google, you can give access/ownership of Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google my Business and any other Google tools that you use to this email account. If you’ve taken my recommendation of using a dedicated email that’s on your domain, you’ll never have to worry about the temporary front desk/law student/in-house marketer from leaving and taking all your data with them.

Now Celebrate. You’ve just made your life a whole lot easier.

Google Maps Update

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Estimated Read Time: 2 minutes

Recently, Google released an update to Google Maps on Android, IOS and desktop machines. The de-cluttering aims to help users discover your law firm and make it easier to navigate.

What Google Updated:

  • A cleaner look: removed information from the map that isn’t “absolutely required”. Example: Road outlines. This makes it easier to see important things like traffic and transit info.
  • Improved typography of street names, points of interest and transit stations.
  • New Exploration features: Cleaner means new ways to explore information.
    • Areas of interest are highlighted in orange. In dense areas like NYC, Google uses a “human touch” to make sure they are showing the most active areas.*
  • Updated design for viewing business photos and street view imagery. This includes a quicker carousel-like layout so you can interact with various images.
    • New tabs to quickly view the “Overview” or “360 degree View” of businesses.

*My best interpretation of this is that they use search data. Cause why wouldn’t they?

Examples of Google Maps Updates:

Here’s an example of the new and improved street view on Google Maps:

San Diego Lawyers HRO Google Maps

Here’s a before update and after update snapshot:

Here’s a color key for reference on what the new Google Maps colors represent:

In short, if you or your law firm hasn’t spent much time optimizing how your business information is displayed on Google Maps now would be a really good time to clean the dust off of your listing. We’re here to help.

MobileAgeddon  – Mobilegeddon Happening Again?

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Last week, Google posted an update to their Webmaster Central Blog announcing a mobile algorithm update rolling out in May of this year. The update is said to increase the effect of the mobile-friendly ranking signal in order to “help users find even more pages that are relevant and mobile-friendly.”

Google goes on to explain that if you’ve already made your site mobile-friendly, you shouldn’t worry:

“If you’ve already made your site mobile-friendly, you will not be impacted by this update.”

If you missed Mobilegeddon last year, I’m impressed. It was a big deal in the digital marketing industry and a very real example of how neglecting your online presence can impact your business.

With that said, the fallout from Mobilegeddon was lackluster at best.  Mockingbird can’t be the only SEO/digital marketing company that is feeling like a boy cried wolf.

Needless to say, we will be keeping a close eye on the impacts of this pending update and assess whether or not we can ever trust that boy again…

Is Mobile-Friendly That Important in Legal?

YES! In case you’re still not convinced that having a mobile-friendly/responsive website isn’t important despite Google making such a fuss, than consider this:

According to ComScore, people using a regular ol’ desktop computer to search peaked in 2013. Each following year, desktop searches have declined. I can’t imagine someone getting in a car accident, receiving a DUI, or seeking legal advice regarding a terrible work situation waiting until they make it home to start looking for a lawyer. Not to mention the effort involved in firing up the old Gateway computer (they don’t make those anymore) to start hammering on a mechanical keyboard (they do still make those) to find the perfect attorney.

I can, however, imagine them pulling out their awesome new Galaxy S7 Edge (which they haven’t turned off since buying it) to do a quick mobile search and call directly from the SERPs.

Overall vs. Google Desktop Search Volume in US (MM)

desktop search volume in us 2009 2016 bar graph

Graph Source: SEL | Data Source: ComScore

Final Thoughts on the May Mobile Update

If your legal website is responsive, give yourself a pat on the back. If it’s not, there’s no time like the present to make you and your law firm more accessible to the people trying to find you. If you need help, we’re happy to chat: 206-209-2125.

Now, if I were a bettin’ man I would put money on the possibility that Google might roll-out a similar update for a more secured web…