Law Firm And Attorney SEO and
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by Foster Web Marketing

Matt Cutts’ Google State of the Union Recap by Foster Web Marketing

Matt Cutts recently released a video that recapped his 2009 State of the Union recap speach that he gave at Pubcon in Las Vegas back in November. Here is the video:

And a few things that you can take from this as an attorney/law firm with a website/blog:

1. Matt Cutts can’t sing. Just kidding (maybe)…
2. We haven’t had much experience with Google Squared or how it can help anyone in the legal field. It can be good for finding some niche websites that someone has created a Square for, but we don’t see much that Google Squared can do for you. Feel free to create a square though, it probably can’t hurt.
3. Google Social Search is a great tool that you should be utilizing. A lot of recent searches have displayed Twitter and Facebook posts, and this is a good way for you to capitalize. Simply fill out a Google Profile if you haven’t already done so (and be sure to include some of your keywords in the description and throughout the profile), add your Facebook and Twitter URL, and opt-in for Google Social’s experimental search. This is a great way for your Facebook and Twitter profile (if you update them, which you should) updates to capture some searches in your area.
4. Most of us are aware of the new abilities of Google Blog Search and Google News Search, and if you aren’t: basically you can see posts within the past day, week, etc, and also break down the results based on a specific date range.
5. Similar to Google Squared, we haven’t found a way to effectively utilize Google Wonder Wheel, and not sure it’s necessary for you to become familiar with this feature. If any attorneys or law firms are utilizing Google Wonder Wheel please let us know by commenting on this post.
6. Google doesn’t use page loading speed as an organic ranking factor. I’m not sure that this is accurate/truthful this is, but be sure to be aware of your site loading speed in 2010. (and of course, Foster Web Marketing clients do have access to site loading time in DSS under “site performance”).
7. Make sure you’re familiar with Google’s February 2009 update, rel=canonical to avoid any possible duplicate content issues. Your webmaster should be handling this for you, but it’s always worth checking up on.
8. Matt continues to claim to not hate SEO. I don’t think that he hates us, but he definitely doesn’t love us .
9. Google not using keyword meta tags to display results is “verified”. Do they use the keyword tags? Probably not. Do they see them at all when crawling your web pages? I think so, they just don’t put much weight on them (and rightfully so) when determining rankings.
10. Google Caffeine, Google’s new search engine algorithm, is recapped. Again, faster indexing and more up-to-date content.

It’s always good to see Google communicating with webmasters and SEO professionals. Cutts promised to keep this promise to communication in 2010 and we all hope that they do so.

About the author

George Murphy

George Murphy is the Web Marketing manager for Foster Web Marketing, the leader in website design for attorneys and attorney web marketing. To find out more visit http://www.fosterwebmarketing.com