Put your Attorney Bio Page to the Google Test

Lawyers looking for new clients should check their bio pages to make sure they pass the Google test.

What is the Google test, you might ask?

It's simple. Just search for your own legal services on Google and see what comes up. If you show up on the first search engine results page (SERP), that's great. If not, there's work to be done.

You can get first page Google search engine visibility in one of three ways:

1. Your name can come up in the free search results. If it does, congratulations. You've either worked very hard at this (probably by investing in search engine optimization) or you have a very specialized field. First page placement can be hard to achieve, particularly for personal injury attorneys in large cities where the competition is fierce.

2. Google Maps can display your law firm. This is free and available by listing your site here with Google Maps.

3. Start a Google Adwords online advertising campaign and pay to place a text ad on the first page of the search engine results. This is an auction system, so placement varies with competition and bid price. See http://adwords.google.com.

Tomorrow we'll talk about how to write search engine-optimized content for your bio page.