Until very recently we had not been accepting new clients. We have been taking on a few just in the past couple of months, and in doing so we have noticed a pattern. If the new client was a search engine optimization client these three things are almost always overlooked or missed by their SEO companies in the past. This is not a new issue, it goes back for years, it is just the first time we put it together. So let’s take a look. You can be on the lookout for your own websites. Usually, just fixing these three issues will make a big difference.

1.  Fix Your Content

There was a time that the most important thing about your webpages was lots and lots of content. Let’s say you were a personal injury lawyer. You would post page after page of content that had the words “personal injury lawyer” included many times. You had pages that read, “good personal injury lawyer”, “the best personal injury attorney”. You would have page after page of 300 to 500 word really bad posts that sounded like a broken record. Your website(s) would grow thick with low-quality posts but due to its massive size, it would allow you to gain Google rankings. But that was then.

Now Google has something called Panda Algorithm. We knew it was coming and we started getting ready for it. Panda scans your overall website score. If you have a lot of short pages, pages that offer no value, no value link trading, Google grabs that as poor quality. But it doesn’t rank those pages. It ranks your whole site.

So number one is going through your client’s website. Remove internet fluff. Either combine pages that can build each other or delete them. Make sure any links you have are solid business-minded links. You will probably see an immediate improvement in their ranking as you remove the junk and the site rises. If you are not sure what needs to be removed, go to Google Analytics. If you disagree about a piece that Google says is bad, look deeper. Is it too short? Check the spelling and grammar. Do you have enough information on the post? Check through Google Analytics for about three months. If you are determined to have a page on your site but Google keeps targeting it, beef it up. It is not that hard to go a bit deeper. Explain it more. Explain it as if you were teaching it to a 13-year-old. Give more data, link in some pro sites. You cannot change Google’s mind unless you change the information. You probably do not need that much to do just that.

2.   On-Page SEO Correction

We are not going to get extremely technical here. The truth is, this part of our job is technical, but doing it is less difficult than writing it. Once you begin, you will understand the process easily.

  • You should only have one H1 header. The header should be in the center of the page. Usually, you will see the attorney logo and URL in the upper left corner. But, it is the H1 header you should be concerned with. For some reason, SEO marketing companies think they should take the lawyer’s logo and wrap it all around the H1 header. This is a big mistake and it makes no sense. Immediately delete this.
  • The page title is a meta tag. Again, there is a keyword in the H1 header and a keyword in the page title. Change these keywords up with different words that mean the same thing. For example, lawyer and attorney.

3.  Google My Business Listings

When you go to Google My Business, you will see a lot of options. This will take you a little time, but it is well worth the effort. Let’s say you are a Personal Injury Lawyer. You need to do your Google My Business work. Search Personal Injury Lawyer, Personal Injury Attorney, and Law firm in your city, This is not all. Try drilling down further. Accident attorney, workman’s comp attorney, and changing the terms along the way. Now that you have checked the various listings, you have been able to see what categories your competition your competitors are using. This is where you want to place your setting. You cannot play the game if you are not in the same field.

These are the three things we see over and over again when we take new clients. I do not hesitate when I say, I believe these are the three biggest mistakes SEO marketing companies will miss and the first three issues we correct. It is extremely rare that we do not correct at least one of these. Most of the time we do at least two and many times, we correct all three.

Do You Need More Help?

I actually have a complete guide that’s available. I have a free course. It’s a 24-part video series that teaches you step-by-step how to get your law firm ranked in the Google Maps and it shows you exactly which categories you should select depending on your practice area. So, all you have to do is go to heylawyers.com and you can get a free copy of that and basically what I do is send you that course on a USB drive. It’s only $9.97 for the shipping, the course is completely free.

This post and your free guide will have you ranking very highly in Google My Business in little time at all.