That's The Best Evidence He Can Find?

Describing how bloggers have embraced conspiracy theories, Eugene Robinson provides only one example to back up his claim:

Almost immediately after Lay's death was reported last Wednesday, bloggers began speculating that he had somehow faked his demise, which "conveniently" came just before his sentencing for his role in what was arguably the most spectacular business fraud in American history.

"I wonder how many doctors you need to bribe to fake your own death," Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip "Dilbert," wrote in his blog. "Is one enough? Or is there some special double-checking that the police do if the guy is heading for prison? I'm sure there's a body, but I wonder if it's his. I have a bad feeling that some pizza delivery guy's last words to his co-workers were 'Hey, I have a delivery to that Enron guy's house! Wish me luck!' "

Scott Adams? Isn't this a bit like citing to The Onion as evidence that American newspapers don't fact-check? (Or is it more like citing to a Eugene Robinson column....) For some reason, Robinson doesn't mention Adams' implication in the same post that Ken Lay may actually have been Burt Lahr.

Scott Adams apparently likes to write about conspiracy theories because they provide easy fodder for what he does - making jokes.

My favorite conspiracy theory is the one that says the world is being run by a handful of ultra-rich capitalists, and that our elected governments are mere puppets. I sure hope it’s true. Otherwise my survival depends on hordes of clueless goobers electing competent leaders. That’s about as likely as a dog pissing the Mona Lisa into a snow bank.

The only way I can get to sleep at night is by imagining a secret cabal of highly competent puppetmasters who are handling the important decisions while our elected politicians debate flag burning and the definition of marriage.

It’s the only explanation for how the governments of the world could be staffed with morons and yet everything still runs okay, sort of. Granted, things aren’t perfect, but when you hear our leaders talk, you have to wonder why our energy policy doesn’t involve burning asbestos on playgrounds. There must be some competent people pulling the strings behind the curtain, adjusting the money supply, twiddling with interest rates, choosing the winners for American Idol, and that sort of thin

I know it's fashionable for editorial columnists to dump on bloggers these days, but c'mon.

An Interesting Pseudo-Law Firm SEO Site

I stumbled across a site called casedetails.com, which claims to be by somebody who has an interest in law firm SEO issues. The post, "Is Traditional SEO Dead" raises issues I have not seen on the blogs and sites of people who market themselves as law firm SEO specialists. The post suggests how difficult it can be to launch a new website, due to the evolution of the Internet and how search engines now treat new websites. It ends somewhat optimistically,

Traditional SEO may be dead, but it has been replaced by more traditional marketing ideas like i) offering visitors quality content they can use; ii) building of brand reputation & authority; and iii) the importance of developing an ongoing relationship with site visitors.

Yes, but.... great content of itself doesn't guarantee visitors any more, so with most sites a lot of the marketing and public relations effort needs to occur outside of the realm of search engines, to build interest, traffic and links which will ideally increase the site's importance and credibility as perceived by search engine algorithms. With most sites, that won't be easy.

The site itself reflects how SEO rules can change faster than even SEO professionals can keep up with them. Another post describes how search engines give better treatment to sites where the content appears at a higher location in the html code. This seemed to be true for a while, but no longer appears to be a significant factor. (Still, if you can do it, have your web designer rework your pages for clean code, a minimum of tables, use of CSS, and text instead of graphic links for navigation.) It is worth noting that the content on the casedetails.com website starts at line 186.

A quick note on things not always being what they appear: There's nothing on this site, other than perhaps the site owner's reluctance to identify himself, which shouts out "This guy isn't really a law firm SEO professional." He even critiques some law firm websites. So why am I skeptical? Well, the failure of the owner to clearly identify himself is a factor, as is the failure to provide any business contact information or details. The feedburner links are spammy. And the site owner describes himself as having interest in "hotel reservation/travel directory sites" - which he correctly notes are particularly challenging to place in search engines, but also are more consistent with somebody who is into marketing his own affiliate link-based sites as opposed to other people's websites. (Want to bet that that this is the same guy?)

Don't get me wrong - if I found an SEO who could effectively launch a travel affiliate website and get it to the top three search results on Google for a hot search term such as "New York hotel" or "cheap ticket", while using a long-term strategy and only "white hat" SEO techniques (those which search engines view, and are likely to continue to view, as appropriate and ethical), I would very much consider using that SEO to promote a law firm site. I'm just suggesting that with any SEO, before you hire, check under the hood and kick the tires. And if you hear somebody describe the hard and fast rules of SEO (a mistake this guy does not make), consider the probability that the person either doesn't understand SEO or stopped following search engine developments several years ago.

It's all about the links....

There is a conventional wisdom in legal circles that blogs ("blawgs") are great because they can generate traffic and interest which won't be generated by a traditional website, while helping to establish you as an expert. There is truth to this, but the reality is "it's all about the links".

If you have a decent weblog you have a good chance of being linked within the "blogrolls" of other weblogs. You also will periodically have your posts, typically your freshest posts, linked to other weblogs. "Look at 'this really cool thing' Mike wrote over at Crime and Federalism." "Paul Craddick's been a bit slow with the posts lately - is he waiting for something?"

Search engines love links, and more to the point they love natural links. (By "natural links" I mean those inspired by a genuine interest in the linked material, as opposed to links added for the primary or sole purpose of trying to inflate a site's search engine ranking.) Weblogs are a natural source of both.

Search engines also love fresh content, and sometimes give it a boost in their results for a few days after they find it. If you update a blog with any regularity, you are producing fresh content for the search engines.

Also, weblogs typically feature RSS feeds which can create an easy avenue for people to follow your work without actually visiting your site. That is a lot more efficient than trying to create and distribute an online client newsletter.

At the same time, the older material on a traditional site tends to do better in search engine results than do older blog entries. There are a couple of obvious reasons for this. First, although new blog content tends to generate links, linking tends to drop to nothing or near-nothing within a day or two. The absence of fresh links, and the fact that existing links are relegated to archive pages on other blogs, and the passage of the material from the front page of the weblog where it was published, diminishes the value of the linked content to search engine algorithms. In contrast, a traditional collection of quality articles will tend to continue to generate interest and links over time.

In my humble opinion, a law firm will typically benefit from a weblog, but the weblog should be integrated into the firm's site. The firm should build a collection of articles on the firm website, and use the weblog to feature its new article content. By featuring an article on the weblog (e.g., by announcing its publication with a short excerpt and a link), the odds go up that external links (those on other sites) will be directed at the article as opposed to the weblog entry, which in turn should help that article in future search engine results.