Getting Your Articles to the Top of Google
Note that since this article was originally posted, Adrian Lursson who knows more about J.D. Supra than I do posted a helpful correction in the comments section below so it's well worth reading his comments first.
If you
use LinkedIn or search Google for law related articles you may already have come across J.D. Supra and wondered who this seemingly omnipresent super-author is. It turns out that J.D. Supra is a news and editorial syndication application allowing lawyers to post their documents for publication on the web. The system submits the work to Google and is registered very promptly but it takes a bit of trial and error to get your work returned for popular searches on Google. However, if you think about it before writing the article you can ensure that you use the right phrases, by which I mean the phrases that your target audience are actually searching for.
Employment lawyers usually want employers to read their articles so taking that example, it's unlikely that employers are going to subscribe to feeds from JD Supra or visit the website because it is predominantly for legal specialists so you rely on them finding your work via the search facility on Google when they search for help with a problem. It would help, therefore, to include the words and phrases that employers will search for.
Your next question is, of course, "How do I find out what employers are searching for?" Well, you could start by searching Google with phrases you think your audience may use. Google's new 'Suggest' feature automatically shows you what the most popular searches are as you type. Just keep changing the words around and experimenting to find inspiration from Google's ever changing list of suggestions. The list is based on the most popular searches and is rated by many experts as more reliable than Google's keyword tool.
Tags: Copywriting, PR, SEO, Syndication
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Reader Comments:
The following comments were left by other visitors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the author...p.s. is it ok to post a summary of a blog article to JD Supra with links to the blog for further reading?
Kind regards, Carolyn.
Many thanks for the mention in this post – we always appreciate the coverage.
You are correct, we are syndication service for lawyers and law firms – allowing legal professionals to shine a spotlight on expertise by sharing their written work with (as you say) target audiences online.
As a syndication service that tries to be omnipresent (thanks for that great label!!!) we don’t only rely on Google, but also actively distribute the work to target audiences where they happen to gather, all across the Web – including, among other places, on the major social networks.
We have over 100k subscribers to the legal content that passes through JD Supra.
To your point “it’s unlikely that employers are going to subscribe to feeds from JD Supra” … this is in fact not the case at all. Employers and other professionals who rely on the kind of information provided by our law firm contributors actively subscribe to those feeds every day.
Our Labor & Employment feeds (on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere) are some of our most popular – active and engaged and well read.
Subscribers/followers of those feeds include HR professionals, managers, small business owners, HR media outlets, C-level executives, and others.
In other words, not only are lawyers reading this work, but the people they are very keen to reach read it, too – across the board. For example, we have a partnership with LinkedIn in which we fuel the ‘Legal Updates’ app on that social network. Every time someone installs the app, we automatically match legal content according to their profession and/or business interests. So: HR professionals, managers, business owners, recruiters are in fact getting Employment law content via that stream every day. And the subscriber base grows all the time.
Anyway, I go on. Thank you again very much for the mention — we are happy to give you a tour of our services if you are so inclined.
Sincerely,
Adrian Lurssen
@jdsupra
Leave a Comment
Feel free to leave some words of wisdom in the form below.
I recently spoke with Lara King of BBC Radio Humberside on the subject of Employment Law. Click on the Play button, above, to hear the interview.
Regarding your blog question:
Typically, you would upload the entire blog post to JD Supra. A number of our contributors republish their law blogs (from solos to AmLaw 100s). For many of these people and firms, we are the main source of attention for their writings, blogs or otherwise… And that includes many of your colleagues in the legal marketing and law practice profession.
(Got a note from a active participant last week, who receives lots of contacts through his work on the site, who said: “Without my ability to write and JD Supra I don’t know where I’d be.” Always nice to hear.)
But, we are building a repository of legal information on all topics that should be/is substantive and helpful etc. That’s what keeps our readers coming back. Generally that does not include writing a summary with links to the original post elsewhere.
Thanks again for this blog mention,
Adrian