Monthly Archives: May 2012

The Slippery Slope of Trendy Web Design

When deciding on the design for your new legal website, it can be difficult to choose between a more solemn design typical to the legal profession and a trendier design which just might grab the attention of your users a bit more. The goal of your site is to provide high-quality information to users, grab their attention and convert them into prospective clients however in the legal profession your clients will vary widely in their interests and needs. Of course all websites need to be simple, clean, user-friendly and interactive, and legal sites must add “professional” to that list.

 In order to most fully meet the needs of the majority of your users, you must have good design supported by highly relevant text. A unique design which remains in your user’s mind is also helpful. Hopefully your firm has chosen a logo which clearly defines your firm and you have included information about who you are, where you are located and the types of legal cases you handle. But what about the overall design of your site? Should you dip your feet in the waters of a trendier design or stick with the tried and true?

The Constantly Changing Web

Well, take a look at a site from, say, a decade ago. How does it look to you? Does it appear ancient and outdated? Because the web is a constantly changing field, many designs which look great today might look antiquated a mere year from now. On the flip side, some of the most successful companies today use a basic website structure that has changed little over the past ten years—or more.  Perhaps the best choice for legal professionals is to implement some of the latest trends while staying usable and true to your firm and your goals and integrating your brand into goal is essential.

Your brand encompasses the entire customer experience, all the way from your logo to the design to the content you include and finally to your overall level of customer service. A word of caution here regarding your logo—the visual part of your brand that should be recognized instantly. Because of this, your logo should really never change. In contrast, your website should be updated on a regular basis while keeping it recognizable as your company.

Jumping on the Trendy Website Bandwagon

If you spend much time surfing the web, then you may run across all kinds of new and exciting web designs. You look at these obviously successful sites and wonder if you should implement some of these design trends into your own site. It can be awfully tempting, and studies have shown that when clients see active changes in your site they have more incentive to visit on a regular basis. At the same time, your site is your business, meaning it must also rely on functionality.

Visitors who come to your site expecting the more traditional legal web design can be overwhelmed to encounter a high-tech, trendy design and may make the assumption that your company is also trendy—not good for building trust and confidence in the legal field. Perhaps the best course of action is to hedge your bets a bit. Keep the main design of your legal website clean and timeless, yet make sure your content is updated often and change out promotions to keep the site fresh. Staying in touch with website trends can allow you to spruce up your site without making an entire overhaul. Unless your site design is clearly not working, you are better off staying with the tried and true, adding in your own unique design elements to ensure your visitors remember your firm when they need legal help.

 

Is SEO Still a Viable Marketing Strategy for Your Legal Website?

Through the years we periodically hear murmurings that “SEO is dead.” In the end, nothing will kill SEO, yet many people have a deep dislike of the term largely because they misunderstand what SEO is all about. While it is true that website owners should ensure their content is friendly both to search engines and to regular human beings search engines remain the primary way people look for websites albeit not the only way. Websites are found in some cases through word-of-mouth, traditional advertising, web directories or links from other sites.

In some instances these less traditional methods of site location can be at least as effective as search engines. While websites will always have to concentrate on search engine optimization—ensuring the site is as relevant as possible—remember that search engines are fickle creatures that you should never totally build your business around.  Think about what happens nearly every time Google makes major changes to its algorithms—many sites which were doing great suddenly lose high quantities of traffic.

Coming Through Google’s Changes Unscathed

Despite the frustration felt every time Google releases Pandas or Penguins there remain lots of sites, both large and small, start-ups and the well-established which have done quite well with search engine optimization. While some experts believe that SEO is not a viable marketing strategy for start-ups due to their small budgets and unwillingness to engage in any black-hat SEO tactics, there are plenty of start-ups and small sites which get large chunks of their visitors through SEO and that have come through Google’s changes relatively unscathed. The trick is to remember that SEO is a piece of the puzzle in the marketing mix, not the only piece.  SEO is not about tricking search engines or ruining great web design, rather it is about building great content, understanding all the ways your visitors might attempt to find your site, and making sure your content is both search-engine friendly as well as human being friendly.

Tips for Increasing Your SEO

So long as you remember a few key SEO factors it will continue to serve you well, remaining a very viable marketing strategy. You must first realize that SEO is not a one-time event, rather something you must commit yourself to. Keeping up with the changes in search engine algorithms is important because what worked last year might not work so well this year. You must be in it for the long haul, and put in the time it takes to keep up with changing SEO tactics and search engine algorithms.

It takes considerable patience to be successful with SEO since results can sometimes take months to become obvious, particularly for those with a brand-new online presence. Using Google Analytics or a comparable analytics software will help you track what is working and what is not, so get on board early on. Always include a site map page for your legal website since search engine spiders can’t index pages they can’t crawl. A comprehensive site map allows the most important pages on your site to be found

Ensure you have a unique yet relevant title and meta description on every single page of your website. Many experts feel that the page title may well be the most important on-page SEO factor in your entire site. While the metal tag doesn’t necessarily improve your rank, it often appears below your listing so should be comprised of relevant keywords. While you need the blessing of the search engines in order to have a successful site you should nonetheless write for your users first and the search engines second. Sites that are built only around what the search engines want may not be particularly user-friendly for your humans—the ones who actually buy your product or use your services. Search engines love blogs, so make sure your law firm has jumped onto the legal blog bandwagon to increase your exposure and help you garner new links. In the end, SEO will likely never die and will remain a very viable marketing strategy for a long time to come so long as you remember to remember your living, breathing users as well.

 

The Importance of Your Header or Logo

As you’ve likely noticed, we live in a world that leans heavily on first impressions, and as far as your firm’s web pages are concerned, your header is that hugely important first impression. Your header essentially sets the tone for your entire site, so don’t take the creation of the header lightly. If you use illustrations or photos in your header, make sure they are of the highest quality—in other words, if your choice is between a relatively mediocre graphic and nothing, go with nothing. Since your website header is the first thing your potential clients see—not to mention the element they will see repeated on each subsequent page—it simply msut be top-notch.

 This is not to say it has to be over the top by any means. After all, the legal profession is relatively serious so you wouldn’t want to discourage the potential clients who have come to your site looking for serious answers to serious problems by having dancing bears in your header. It might be cute and catchy, but would also likely lose any potential client who clicked onto your sight almost immediately. Strive for a professional header which reflects the look and feel of your site as well as one which instills confidence in new and returning visitors. Of course your header also has to make sense in the grand scheme of things as far as giving visitors a good idea of what your firm is all about.

The Importance of Design in Your Header

If your header is perfectly functional—but unattractive—it can be nothing more than a distraction from a really great website. First of all your header needs to tell your viewer who you are and what you do. Since reader’s eyes naturally drift to the left hand corner of a webpage, take advantage of this and ensure the most important thing on your web pages lives there—your header and logo. Should you choose to center your header then leave the upper left corner blank so as not to detract from the importance of the information contained in the header.

While you most often see the navigational links in the sidebar, you might consider placing the navigation in your header, or at least having the basic categories in the header then more specific categories located in the traditional left sidebar. The clear advantage to having a header/navigation is that not only does it offer a quick synopsis of your site, but also helps users navigate around your web pages. Remember that you have less than ten seconds to ensure your viewers figure out just what your site is all about or they will be gone in the time it takes to click the back button.

Don’t Forget the Logo

Your logo is an important piece of the overall web design puzzle which brands your firm and provides an image for people to remember. A company without a logo is akin to a company with a lost identity. Think about the greatest logos of all time—when we see the Apple logo or the Nike swoosh, we immediately associate them with the product. Your company logo should mesh nicely with your company name or at the very least be relevant to your business. You don’t want potential customers having to guess what your logo symbolizes and you do want it to be something they will remember. The color should be eye-catching while managing to separate your firm from the competition. Once you’ve settled on a log, register it to prevent future infringement then use your logo often and wisely to build your brand image. In short, don’t skimp on the time, money or thought you put into your website’s header or your company logo. 

Has the Penguin Update Affected Your Legal Website?

As you may—or may not—have noticed, Google introduced their latest algorithm changes on April 24, 2012, nicknamed the Penguin. Then on May 26th, Google announced a “data refresh” for the Penguin. The latest algorithm is said to be aimed primarily at web spam and any sites which Google feels are violating its quality guidelines.  When the initial Penguin came out Google stated that anyone who had been “hit” by the changes had been penalized, yet many sites which did not appear to be spamming in any way nevertheless suffered serious drops in traffic. Experts feel that the sites which saw a drop in traffic with absolutely no black hat SEO techniques going on were not actually penalized they merely failed to receive the same amount of credit as before since other sites were being penalized. While this doesn’t appear to make too much sense to those who faithfully follow Google’s stated guidelines, it could actually take a bit of time for the dust to settle, allowing you to see where your site stands.

How Do I Know If My Site Was Hit?

According to Google, there is no way to definitely know if your site has been slapped by the Penguin. If you noticed a major drop in traffic soon after the April 24th, you can figure you were probably hit. In the same vein, if you saw a rise in traffic, then it’s likely you benefitted from the update. However, there is a caveat here: On April 19th, Google also released an update to the Panda algorithm—while Penguin is targeting spam, Panda simply targets any pages which may not be spam, but are definitely poor quality.  Take a hard look at your Google Analytics or any other program you use which analyzes your site’s traffic, looking closely at the dates. You should be able to determine whether you suffered a serious hit, benefitted, or saw relatively little change at all as well as whether the changes came from the Panda or the Penguin.

I Was Hit—Now What?

Since the Penguin was primarily targeting spam, you must remove anything that even hints of spam. Google may have flagged what they consider spam on your site and sent messages—if so, take their recommendations and make the changes immediately. If you’ve received no notices, then take a painstakingly careful look at your entire site. Is there any duplicate content at all? Have you engaged in any sort of low-quality article marketing or blog spam? Do the internal/outbound links on your firm’s pages indicate any type of keyword stuffing? Additionally, take a look at the following areas:

  • Have you recently launched a very aggressive SEO campaign?
  • Have you kept your most relevant content properly above the fold?
  • Is your site slow as molasses in loading?

Any one of these issues can get your site penalized, so you will want to ensure your website is following all the guidelines and not engaging in sort of black hat SEO techniques.

Making SEO Work for You

Google believes that you can use SEO effectively in a positive and constructive manner to make your site more easily crawled and more accessible. Make sure you’ve done your keyword research rather than simply inserting your legal industry jargon here and there.  Anything which lends credibility to your site as well as making it more compelling will help you with SEO as well as with social media. If you have cleaned up your site of anything even resembling spam, and consistently publish only high-quality content, there is little to worry about from Google’s latest changes or the ones to come.

The Importance of Your Firm’s Website Logo

The logo you choose for your business may well be one of the most important first impressions you can make on potential clients as it not only tells them you are reliable, but instills a sense of trust. Of course the ability to offer sound, high quality and professional legal services will determine your ultimate success, but your initial presentation is your first opportunity to declare that level of quality and professionalism. Your business logo can go a long way in establishing your overall brand and ideally it should communicate your mission, the services you offer and the principles your company is built upon. The logo gives potential and present clients a quick, visual image of your company, and the best logo is one which allows clients to identify you immediately. On the flip side, a poor quality logo not only will not help your company grow, it can actually do more damage that you imagine. Assume you have spent agonizing hours on your logo and finally have the perfect one for your business. How will you then use it on your legal website to achieve maximum success.

 Thinking Outside the Box on Logo Placement

While the standard placement of the logo on websites tends to be the top left area, in some cases it can be wise to avoid the standard conventions and mix it up a bit. True, the upper left is familiar to users, although you will certainly want to include the logo in your header in one way or another. While placing the logo on the upper right is probably the rarest position, if you include sufficient whitespace around the logo so it will clearly stand out, it can nonetheless be effective. Some large websites such as CNN have placed their logo in the center of the page, yet still at the top and still displayed prominently. You might want to consider placing your logo in the sidebar or even in the footer as a visual reinforcement of your brand.

Logo as Strategic Marketing Asset

Your company logo could well be the most important marketing asset your company possesses. It not only creates instant brand recognition, it can also inspire your future clients and create admiration for the superiority of the legal services you provide. Aside from expressing what your company does, your logo tells who you are therefore you should follow a few simple tips in creating the ideal logo. First of all, be aware that the logo that appears to be perfect on your computer screen may not translate so perfectly elsewhere. Remember that logos are typically used in many places besides your website. For this reason, a brightly-hued logo with tons of multi-layers detail might look fabulous on your website however once converted to stationary or the black and white of a fax, it could appear completely different. Very complex logos tend to perform less well in traditional settings than on websites, so keep this in mind.

Specifics to Keep in Mind During Logo Design

Skip the ultra-trendy graphics—trends are trends for a reason and are typically very short-lived. You don’t want your logo to appear dated rather it must stand the test of time. Once you’ve chosen a logo don’t be tempted to change it every time a new idea comes along. Building a brand takes time and effort and you are building up trust in the process. Should you decide to change the logo that your faithful clients are accustomed to seeing you could find it has very negative consequences. Finally, make sure your tag lines and marketing text blend seamlessly with your logo’s graphical elements, that your fonts are simple and easy to read, that the colors fit the “feel” of your company, and that the graphics remain relatively simple. Keep all this in mind and you will create a highly successful logo which works equally well on your website and your more traditional uses as well.

Content Strategy Mistakes to Avoid on Your Legal Website

By now it’s a sure bet that you are well aware of the necessity of publishing only the highest quality content on your legal website. Your content must be interesting, compelling, and must give the reader something of value. When your company engages in content strategy, however, it goes a bit beyond the words on the page and encompasses the challenges all sites face from web pages, mobile apps, print materials and social media. You want to ensure that all your efforts to publish only the highest quality content are paying off for your business as well as to your visitors—the ones you hope will eventually become clients. It’s easy to find your site has gotten bogged down in strategy issues, and although most of these mistakes can be relatively easy to correct, you must make it a priority or your site will take a hit.

Reacting Without Planning

While it can sometimes feel that you are on an endless treadmill where your content is concerned, simply trying your best to keep up with your firms brand campaigns, projects and new services, it’s important that you do more than simply react to all the demands being thrown at you. Of course you also must respond to user requests as well as staying up with and responding appropriately to your competitor’s actions. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, so take a deep breath, sit down with your team, and actually map out a strategy which allows you to plan your content for the future of your firm. You will always be busy—probably excessively busy—but a plan can keep you from getting behind and shifting into reaction mode. Remember to involve all those in your organization who are a part of the content process otherwise tasks will be duplicated and there will be an overall lack of quality control.

Expecting Miracles

Of course the content on your pages is extremely valuable to your firm and to your potential clients however it can be difficult to show that value as a clear return on investment. Of course you—and every other website owner—want a fast, indisputable manner to determine whether the investment in content is worth the effort. Determining your content’s ROI is much more complex, and requires both your time and effort. You must first define exactly what it is you expect your content to achieve then ask yourself whether those goals are being met. What is that particular achievement worth to your firm?

Add in the cost to your firm of creating the content and regular maintenance of the content and calculate the final cost, although it’s unlikely you will come up with an absolute number since evaluating content is a bit subjective. Measuring your content with an analytics program alone will never give you the complete picture of how your content is doing, so think about asking your peers or external content experts to give you an evaluation of your site’s content. Most experts believe that every hour you spend in analysis of your site will save many, many more hours of content creation, delivery and maintenance.

Focusing on Quantity Rather Than Quality

Yes, you should post often, particularly if you have a legal blog. It’s extremely important to keep your content fresh if you want your clients to keep returning for more, however don’t fall into the trap of believing that publishing anything—so long as you publish often—is  better than publishing nothing. This is simply not true. First, more content obviously costs more to create, takes more time for maintenance and can actually subject your users to information overload. Scale back and ensure each and every piece of content you publish is first and foremost high-quality information that your users will find highly relevant. Then ask yourself if each particular block of content supports one of your firm’s primary business objectives, if it fills a distinct need of your readers, and if there is a person available to maintain it. The content which survives these rules will, in the end, be much more valuable than content posted simply to post. Plan wisely for every piece of your site’s content, then keep planning—remember why your user is interacting with your site in the first place, and never underestimate the power of your content.

 

The Importance of Updating Your Navigation after Adding Web Pages

Website navigation encompasses all webpage elements which allow your users to move easily around your site. In today’s busy world, the easier a website is to use the more likely your potential clients are to stay and read your content—and to return. In short, the success of your legal website can actually hinge on the navigation, and many experts feel it is even more important than a great design or exemplary content. If your user is unable to find what they want on your site, then even if what you have to offer is absolutely fabulous, they won’t be able to easily find it and will head to a more user-friendly site. Navigation on your legal webpages should be simple, clear and intuitive to be effective. Further, any time you update your pages, you must also update your navigational tools to reflect those changes. Let’s look at the elements of navigation in order to more fully understand just what great navigation is.

 Mapping Your Navigational Tools

Start with a large piece of paper to put together your legal website’s navigation. For legal firms it is likely you will simply have free content rather than a private membership area, so make a large box at the top of your paper labeled “public home page.”  You will then draw lines to every page your home page is meant to link to with another box at the end of each line. You will be using this exercise to determine your level one pages such as your home page, the level two pages which are the pages linking form your home page, and level three pages which link form your level two pages or other category pages. Once you have a rough model of your sitemap, sketch out your home page with all the links you want to appear within your webpages. The most important thing to remember when you are outlining your site is that over three-quarters of the people who land on your site will arrive at a page other than your home page. Your visitors must immediately feel comfortable no matter where they arrive within your site, and must be able to quickly find their way around to the area they most need.

Menus Contribution to Navigation

The most critical element of your navigational tools are the menus. Your main menu should either run across the top of your page or down the left-hand column and many websites also add a navigation bar at the page bottom.  Your menus and links need to look exactly the same on each and every page within your legal website and must be visually presented in a way which allows your potential clients to have no trouble identifying the most important links.

Other Navigational Tools

Images which contain links, links with your content, floating menus and the use of individual buttons all contribute to your site’s ease of navigation. The individual buttons will be those with words such as “back,” “details,” “previous,” etc. Other elements which will contribute to great navigation will be an “About Us” area which will give an overview of your firm as well as a short bio of each attorney. Your contact form will be short, simple and will inspire trust in your web user, asking for just the right amount of information. Depending on your specialization you will detail your services, having an easy-to-find and use link to each different area. A privacy policy is always a good idea in order to reassure your users you will not use their personal information in any way except to contact them about their current issue or problem. Many legal websites now have a blog which gives your users high-quality, useful information about specific legal problems. You may also add testimonials from existing clients or news items, including press releases.

Taking a Second Look at Your Web Design Strategies

When you have made the decision to have a website designed for your firm—or even if you have an existing site—having a solid strategy for your website design can help you stay on track, ensuring your site tells the story you envision. If you have actually worked with all those involved and have determined a web design strategy that you can easily articulate and write down on paper, then you will have no doubts that everyone is on the same page once you begin implementing that plan. Of course as your site evolves, this web design strategy may change, however you will always need to be able to put that strategy down on paper and have all key players agree to its implementation. Don’t have a clue how to best articulate your design strategy? Below you will find some tips for doing just that. Your design strategy doesn’t have to be a fifty-page dissertation, rather just a couple of well-defined pages.

  • First and foremost, what is the purpose of your site, or why does it exist. You should be able to write the purpose of your site, or its goal, in three to four succinct sentences. You want every person in your firm to be able not only to remember the goal but to repeat it if necessary, therefore it should be highly strategic, short, and to the point.
  • Second, put down on your paper a side-by-side analysis of all your problems and their potential solutions. In other words, perhaps your website has had its struggles with redundant content. That’s your problem, so you must now define a workable solution, which could be something as simple as choosing a highly experienced legal web writer who can provide authoritative content, or blocking out the time to write your own content.
  • Work hard at developing your brand, and consider using your tagline to further that goal. Your tagline is your firm’s opportunity to tie everything together with a phrase your potential clients will find highly memorable. Brainstorming with others in your firm can lead to an exceptional tagline that will help your brand come together and solidify for your readers.
  • Do you have a clear view of who your firm’s audience is? Consider writing up a “profile” of your average visitor as well as another of the visitors you would like to attract in the future. Use your analytics program to determine where visitors go on your site as well as what they are searching for, and bend your web design to fit these needs and preferences.
  • Define your tasks then prioritize them. Once you’ve clearly defined your target audience, consider what content and services your site offers them and ask yourself if that content and those services are fully meeting your user’s needs. Whether you are talking about editorial content or instructional content see what the majority of your readers are looking at then add new, fresh content in that area and retire the content that doesn’t appear to be working.

Further Benefits of a Web Design Strategy

A clearly defined web design strategy can provide an historical reference point for your entire site, and supports accountability since all the elements of your design become traceable.  A web design strategy ensures everyone involved is on the same page and that your business tactics are a result of strategy rather than a gut reaction. Once you’ve stated your web design strategy, you can essentially quit talking about it, allowing you to get down to the job at hand and prioritize the workload. Your web design strategy can actually tell a compelling story of what your site will accomplish and why it matters, leading you straight into success.

 

Strategic Placing of Strong Calls to Action on Your Web Pages

Among legal websites, perhaps even more than other types of webpages, a strong call to action can be one of the most important elements of successful lead generation. Because of this, a call to action should be used in every single marketing tactic you employ. If you want to ensure your firm’s website is having the desired results, ask yourself what call to action you are implementing in order to drive user’s behavior. Hopefully your web pages are full of great content, exemplary headlines, prime keywords, excellent design and the kind of easy-to-use navigation which makes your users happy. Even if your pages implement all these elements, without a strong call to action your users will be unable to get to the final “goal.” In other words, you need to ensure you have let your users clearly know what you want them to do.

 Laying the Groundwork

Before your user can be convinced to complete a call to action they must fully recognize the need. In other words, a problem must have been presented, and the call to action link will presumably solve that problem. Depending on your firm’s specializations and goals, you may have more than one action you want your visitor’s to take. You may want them to request a free consultation, sign up for your newsletters through e-mail and download a particularly informative whitepaper. If this is the case, prioritize your action calls, and give the most important one both a bigger size and more prominent placement. Further distinguish between your action calls by varying the color.  Don’t, however, allow yourself to diminish the importance of the call to action by having too many of them—when people are presented too many choices they tend to leave without choosing any of them.

Design of the Call to Action

Strong calls to action should be located below the contact form and should integrate a strongly-colored link or button to ensure they are easily identifiable. As far as the exact color goes, while some marketers believe a red call to action will significantly increase click-through rates, others believe the color should be determined by your context. In other words, although the color should contrast to the colors around it in order to make it stand out, you nonetheless want it to fit in with the overall color scheme and design of your site. Although the link or button should be large enough to spot easily, you shouldn’t determine the size independently of other factors since it is related to the context on your web pages.

Allow some white space around your call to action in order to avoid it appearing overcrowded and ultimately to attract more attention.  The most effective placement for your call to action link will depend on what surrounds it, so test various positions to ensure you’ve located the sweet spot.  An unconventional shape can attract your reader’s attention plus you may want to avoid the more traditional square corners lest your visitors view your call to action as an ad or banner and avoid it. Experiment with out of the ordinary shapes for your site’s call to action.  Some of the best calls to action will give the visitor a sense of direction through an arrow which points to them and while graphics are important, generally speaking those who are looking for information are searching for text.

Language

You need to use specific language when designing your call to action. Active words such as “call,” “register,” “subscribe,” “click here,” “free whitepaper,” “order now,” “sign up today,” “free download” and “more info here,” all work well in calls to action.  Once you realize how important your call to action really is, you will begin to put the necessary thought into it. 

What to Do When Your Google Ratings Drop

It’s easy to find yourself in a panicked tailspin when you look at your ranking one day find you’ve taken a Google algorithm update hit and fallen off your treasured first page. It’s equally important not to have a knee-jerk reaction, rather to look at the situation calmly and analytically. First of all find out whether your site has been penalized, and a drop in rankings does not always answer this question. There are ways to determine if your site has suffered a Google penalty; first, compare your rankings to those of your closest competitors to determine whether they too have dropped or if it is only your firm’s site.

Your location can affect your rankings, so have others check your ranking as well. Make sure you stay up with Google’s Panda, Penguin and any other algorithm changes that are implemented. In general, issues that will result in being penalized include keyword stuffing, publishing duplicate content, paid links or questionable links. Not only should you keep up with algorithm updates, you should also keep a log of all changes made to your site. If you keep up with your analytics, your changes and Google’s changes you should be able to get a pretty fair idea of why your ratings have dropped.

Specific Issues to Take a Look At

In some instances a drop in page rank can be directly tied to one or more links to your site which have been removed and which formerly provided a substantial amount of PageRank. Since pages with low or medium-level PageRank tend to get most of their strength from a relatively small number of links, losing even one of them can cause significant impact. Next, ask yourself how “old” your site is. If it is less than six months old, it could have benefitted from Google’s help for new sites so they can be more easily found by users. Unfortunately that assistance generally only lasts about six month, and if you have not engaged in a solid link-building program during that time, you may find that the honeymoon is over and your rankings have taken a hit.

Violating Guidelines

The search engines are punishing offenders more quickly when their guidelines are obviously being violated. Hidden text is one trick that can get you in serious hot water with the search engines, causing your rankings to slide. Never hide any text by making it the same color as the background of your page and never stuff keywords on your page in a way that only search engines will see them. Both are serious no-no’s and you will pay for the violation. Next, ensure you have no “thin” content on your pages. Your goal is always first and foremost to offer exceptionally high-quality content which brings something of value to your readers. In other words it is both informative and compelling, and updated frequently.

Google has also begun penalizing sites which show a high ratio of advertising to content and those which show a significant amount of white space above the fold, meaning users must scroll down to get the most important information. Google’s goal is to enhance the user experience, and if they feel you are not assisting them with that goal your rankings will suffer. Never have multiple domain names which point to the same site—although it makes sense that this tactic would increase your rankings, quite the opposite is true and will trigger the search engine’s methods for filtering duplicate content.

Broken links, problems accessing your site, a site with a slow response, error codes and any form of duplicate content will also lead to a drop in page rankings so take the time to look carefully at your website and change any issue which is causing your site to suffer a drop in rankings.