Your website is an important element in building both your reputation and brand. You rely on it in the same manner you would any other investment made to promote your firm.
You’ve done everything you’ve been told is necessary to really put your legal marketing into overdrive, but there’s one thing that you might have missed with your digital marketing efforts.
It takes just a few minutes and can significantly improve the way Google ranks your website.
Google Algorithms And Digital Marketing
Google’s algorithms are the driving force in how internet search engine returns are delivered to users. This area of digital media marketing can be overwhelming, partly because the rules and algorithms change often.
Understanding the algorithms and then leveraging them to your organization’s advantage can make a big difference in how your website ranks on search engines. The Google Panda algorithm brought with it important changes in how duplicate content is viewed.
While this applies to plagiarized content, it also applies to content that’s found on your site or blog in more than one place. If duplicate content is found, your site could be penalized.
Lower rankings could affect whether potential clients even find you. If your website isn’t visited as often, your bottom line suffers.
Aggregating Content
Many sites aggregate the content for the sake of convenience. This can help a potential client, especially if he or she’s looking for something specific.
If they’re looking for a blog they read awhile back about DUI laws, they might use your search bar on your site to find it. The returns might show that this post is tagged with different words, such as the year it was published, “DUI laws” or other keywords.
They can then click on the returns from the search, and it will take them to the page they’ve found. It’s convenient, but it can also mean the ranking takes a hit on Google.
Because the content is aggregated with identical text, odds are, it’s also indexed on Google as duplicate content, and therefore, your site is penalized, due to the Panda algorithm.
Avoiding Duplicate Content
There’s a quick and easy way to fix this without compromising the convenience factor for your site’s visitors or the ever-important Google ranking.
There are several websites that will conduct a duplicate content check for your website. It’s fast, and the information you gain from this tool can greatly improve your digital marketing efforts.
One of the better sites we have found to accomplish this is siteliner.com. Type your site address, and you’ll see instantly the percentage of duplicated content and where it is on your website. It checks your tags, author pages, blog entries and any other content you have.
If you find duplicated content, check to see if it’s cataloged within Google. To do this, simply put a “site:” in front of the specific links siteliner.com returns:
site:http://water.com (Note that there is no space added after the colon.)
If the pages are returned in your search, it’s been cataloged, and your site might not be ranking as high as it should.
The fix is simply having your IT people add a “no index” command. Problem solved. There are other ways to make the most of your SEO efforts. To learn more, contact us today.
