Why Google Ignores Your Awesome Law Firm Website
Over the past 3 years, website and blog platforms have come a long way in terms of conforming to Search Engine Optimization best practices. In simple terms, the technology to support SEO is becoming more ubiquitious. However, every now and then I run across sites that still run afoul of SEO fundamentals. Take this visually georgous site for the Atlas Law Group. Unfortunately, the site is built entirely in Flash and the search engines have trouble (although getting better) parsing Flash content. What does this mean in real terms? Well, because the engines can’t navigate in Flash, they can’t even find any of the additional pages on the site (in fact, technically there aren’t any additional pages, the entire site is one single shell built in Flash). So all of the content on the site is invisible. A search for the pages indexed by Google returns only one single page – the homepage. (You can do this search for your own site by doing this search on Google: site:www.atlaslawgroup.com). This search should return all of the pages on your site, if it doesn’t, you may have a technical problem.) To demonstrate why this is such a significant problem, the site doesn’t even rank for the attorney’s name: Megan K. Pionkowski.
Now lets look at what we get when we search for “atlas law group“, the homepage does come up, but unfortunately the snippet reads: “Non-Flash Site Under Construction – Click here for access to the Atlas Law Group Twitter page. loading…” This is hardly a welcoming advertisement for someone looking to hire the Atlas Law Group.
SEO technical problems used to be rampant. Technology has improved so much in the past three years that problems like this should never happen. Be careful who you hire.
March 28th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Great Point Conrad! As a web professional, I hate flash, simply because they haven’t been able to figure out how to read the words and text within the flash. Furthermore…..there is limited text within the flash script, it’s mainly all photos. Flash needs to be used in a very effective way….to connect emotionally with the visitor. If you can make the connection without flash, then you should do so.
Great article….fyi I found it naturally, so great content as well.
March 29th, 2010 at 9:22 am
Another “flash-issue” is load time. Slow load times are bad for usability and for search performance.
That being said, there are ways to implement a flash site and still have success with search engines.
Unfortunately for Atlas, their flash problem is only one many obstacles that are preventing them from getting results from the web.
While I’m not positive how long this site has been up and running, the site’s link profile needs a lot of work. If fact, your link to their site is probably the strongest in their profile.
March 29th, 2010 at 9:48 am
[...] Tagged with law firm internet marketing, Law firm marketing, law firm seo Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed or email updates on this topic.Depending on your practice areas and internet marketing goals, having a law firm website that has all the fancy bells and whistles may not be worth the thousands of dollars that these features typically cost. Avvo’s Conrad Saam points out some of the reasons Google may be ignoring your awesome law firm website. [...]
March 29th, 2010 at 9:48 am
The problem is that like finding a good dentist or a good lawyer it’s tough for law professionals (attorneys or law firm business administrators) to delegate the work necessary to have a decent web presence because SEO and SEM are not something most lawyers understand.
March 29th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Nice post Conrad. SEO needs to be thought of at the beginning stages during design and development and not as an after thought. In addition, content needs to be filled with keywords to help generate exposure on Google and other search engines. Any smart strategic agency should assist in this matter and educate their client from the get-go.
March 30th, 2010 at 8:29 am
Yes, but has anyone bothered to tell her that her website is terrible?
March 30th, 2010 at 9:03 am
@Galen- And even for those lawyers that understand some of the basics, many that we talk to simply don’t have the time.
March 30th, 2010 at 11:20 am
Are you suggesting we should rate SEO’s? :)
-Conrad
April 1st, 2010 at 4:04 pm
After looking at the Atlas Law Group website, it appears that the website has only been up for a few months. It is possible that they are in the process of creating an HTML version.
Then, I performed a Google search of the law firm and it’s web presence is very impressive considering it’s relatively short existence and the fact that it dominates the initial multiple pages of the search results.
I think that the client base the owner is targeting will be much more appreciative of the site’s cutting edge design. I haven’t seen many law firm websites take this approach and it appears to be working in the owner’s favor. I’m wondering if this will be a new trend started by law firms targetting IP specific clients, because this is the way I would think firms will want their sites to look, barring the absence of HTML.
Additionally, I noticed that the website has a full screen option which gave me the impression of somewhat walking into an actual office.
April 16th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
If you are still thinking about your options to beat the global recession, its time to move forward with hiring an SEO professional who can potentially improve your ranking, performance, and save you time. However, it is important that you do not risk your company’s success with SEO practices that are open to doubt. Therefore, you must conduct a thorough research on SEO companies to keep away from any damage a number of them can cause to you by employing unethical techniques that are penalized by search engines.
May 13th, 2010 at 6:44 am
Having a rebust SEO for a flash site is really hard, as we all know. Furthermore, forget about organic SEO The one of the many best practices for developing a professional services website is- NEVER develop a Flash only site.
Ted made a point about creating an experience for the user. Flash is not the only solution for that. True experience, visual and content wise, comes not from the kind of application that a website is build on, rather on the branding, research and the usability of the site. A smart agency should be able to deliver that on any kind of platform.
June 24th, 2010 at 5:39 am
That is quite intriguing. It provided me several ideas and I’ll be placing them on my website soon. I’m bookmarking your site and I’ll be back. Thank you again!
September 10th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
I can understand why google bot doesn’t like flash. I personally do not like them. It takes time
to load and it is messing up with browsers. I love quality contents most of the time so if your website doesn’t really need flash then you might as well get rid of it or at least moderate the usage.
December 31st, 2010 at 11:10 pm
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January 17th, 2012 at 4:25 pm
I agree with Galen Gentry. Many lawyers seem to want to also play designer and it dilutes their image and multiplies the cost. SEO happens to be pretty straightforward if you think a bit like a programmer (which helps a great deal when you’re a designer who was a programmer…having both skills seems to work every time.)