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One question I often get is “when should I hire a lawyer?”

Since becoming a licensed attorney, I’ve thought about that question a lot. And I don’t have the answer to that question for everyone—frankly, it depends. But as it relates to SEO and protecting the good name of your business I think it helps to talk about your bottom line:

Money.

It costs money to hire a lawyer, and typically lots of it. So if money is your measuring stick, let’s talk about two occasions where it might not make sense to hire a lawyer.

Reputation Management

One legal related niche that has sprung up among SEOs is reputation management. Reputation management expands the role of the SEO to helping companies improve their entire reputation online. All over the internet, people are buying, using, and writing about your product or service. Sometimes the comments get out of hand and internet commenters actually libel your reputation. Or maybe someone has purchased a domain name that infringes on your trademark and has begun to gripe about your business. How do you stop this kind of negative press?

You could always sue.

For a good drawn-out trademark infringement or libel lawsuit, expect to spend between $120,000 or $200,000 on legal fees. And frankly, that’s where many lawyers stop the discussion. Or maybe a lawsuit is the only way they know to resolve the problem. But before you run to the court house I have question for you…

When You Don’t Need a Lawyer

If you had $200,000 to spend on your business, which expense would have a better long-term effect? $200,000 on legal fees, or $200,000 on a brand new SEO and reputation management campaign.

It’s possible that spending $200,000 on SEO will have a much more positive effect on your business than filing suit ever could. It’s also possible that by spending that much in terms of time and resources that you’ll get essentially the same result. As you probably already know if you read this blog, a good SEO can help you bury negative search results and improve your image online. By burying negative comments online, even ones that are legally actionable, you essentially render them useless. And you’ve improved your reputation online overall.

By spending $200,000 on legal fees you might get a judgment in your favor. Of course, you would need to consult a lawyer to find out how good of a case you actually have—you might have a very strong argument and a high probability of winning.

But even though the lawyer you talk to may know the law, will that lawyer understand the value of $200,000 on reputation management?

Think about it.

When You Do Need a Lawyer

Some people feel, on principle alone, that they should sue for things like trademark infringement or libel, even if they have cheaper alternatives. If you feel like this, give me a call

Whether or not you use a lawyer, you should start by sending the infringer a cease and desist letter. It’s a good way to test the waters and see if the person damaging your reputation will fold early on in the process.

You might also be forced to go to court if the person damaging your reputation has a lot more monetary resources than you, or if a reputation management scheme didn’t finish the job. You have legal rights against infringers and libelers, and if it comes to litigation, go for it.

Cybersquatting

The area of domain name abuse is another place where technology and the law overlap. Cybersquatting is the practice of purchasing a domain name that matches the trademark of a legitimate business in the hopes that they will buy the domain off of you. If you do cybersquatting right, you can turn a good profit. The bad news, for cybersquatters anyway, is that it’s illegal.

(NOTE: You probably still have trademark rights in your business name, even if you haven’t registered your trademark, but that’s a different discussion.)

Fortunately, most domain name disputes already have a quick and relatively inexpensive resolution option to combat cybersquatting: the UDRP. After some costly trademark-related and unfair business competition domain issues during the early to mid 90s, ICANN developed the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP). Now, every time you purchase a domain, the registrar includes some ICANN mandated language in their agreement with you. The wording in the agreement says that you represent that you aren’t cybersquatting and that you will submit to mandatory arbitration proceedings in the event of a dispute.

These kinds of arbitration agreements are legal and ICANN and domain registrars are well within their rights to enforce the UDRP for all domain owners. In the case of domain names and the UDRP, it’s the most common method to solve your cybersquatter problems.

So let’s talk about the UDRP, how long it takes, and how much it costs. The first case to ever be resolved under the UDRP was World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. v. Michael Bosman. Michael Bosman had purchased the domain www.worldwrestlingfederation.com and then promptly emailed the WWF asking for $1,000. The UDRP went into effect on December 1, 1999. The WWF filed on December 2, 1999. Six weeks later they had a favorable judgment.

Six weeks is incredibly fast for any kind of legal proceeding, and the UDRP continues to deliver on a much quicker timeline than filing in a traditional court. In most cases, disputes are resolved within 60 days of filing. If the party holding the domain loses, he’ll have to transfer the domain to you within 10 days of judgment.

But let’s talk about money. How much does it cost to use the UDRP?

Anywhere from $1,500 (for only one arbitrator) to $5,000 (for a panel of three arbitrators).

When You Don’t Need a Lawyer

If your cybersquatter is offering $1,400 to $4,900 for your domain it might be worth it to just buy it.

You’ll be spending less in money and headache than you might otherwise. You’ll also save money on legal fees. The $5,000 maximum UDRP fee only covers the cost of arbitration, you’ll need to pay your lawyer too. A good lawyer in this area will charge somewhere between $150 and $300 per hour, or a negotiated flat fee. In many instances it can be simpler and cheaper to buy the domain off the cybersquatter.

When You Do Need a Lawyer

Some of you might be reading this and think it just feels wrong to pay cybersquatters. Again, if out of principle you don’t want to give in to the demands of a cybersquatter, that’s one situation where you should hire an attorney. An attorney can help you submit your complaint to arbitration and prove the three legal elements of a strong case. I know that concepts like “bad faith” sound simple, but trust me, get an attorney to help explain it to the arbitrator. You’ll be happy you did.

In any event, no matter what you choose to do, my point here is this: There are legal problems and there are technology problems. Sometimes they overlap. And when they do, it can be more cost effective to solve legal problems with technology solutions and it can also be more cost effective to solve technology problems with legal solutions.

Whatever you do, try to find an attorney that knows the difference.

Jacob Tingen is a WordPress Developer, SEO, and Trademark and General Practice Attorney. He provides free legal forms at Docracy.com and helpful legal guides on Amazon. You can find him online at https://goodwithla.ws.

The way to navigate nimbly between chaos and order … that is organization. Mastering organization pays massive dividends. But HOW should you organize your SEO?

Organization 101

Consider the following:

• Web surfers have incredibly short attention spans. The industry rule is that, if you don’t hook someone within 4 seconds, you have her. A poorly organized site can drive visitors away in droves.
• Great material can be lost easily. You might have written profound content, but if it’s buried on some Tier 4 page, it won’t pay.
• There are PLENTY of ways to go wrong. It takes discipline and practice to cultivate a well-organized website or SEO plan.
• If you go right, and you organize your SEO approach with your human visitors in mind (as opposed to search engine spiders), this can yield a tremendous return on investment.

How can you go wrong?

Whether you are building a website, a blog, or some other kind of online platform, it is all too easy to step off the path and into outer space. Here are a few common mistakes:

• Content Mistakes — too much, too little, poorly organized, inadequate, inappropriate, ineffective tone, poorly targeted for your target audience.
• Keyword Mistakes — Stuffing your content too full of keywords (the search engines will find out!), not using enough keywords effectively, using so-called black hat SEO techniques (trying to game the search engines instead of creating good original stuff for your human visitors).
• Navigation and Design Mistakes — even great content can “disappear” to a visitor if your site design is ugly, messy, too complicated, too graphic heavy, or too bizarre.

See this post for more mistakes to avoid in order to be successful.

Getting organization right

• Aggregate good content for people, not just for the search engines.
• Create a web business, blog, portal or whatever to serve a predefined niche market.
• Answer a real need that people have.
• Be focused and specific about what kinds of content you deliver, what services you provide, and why your web portal is different from every other business out there.
• Get input on your organizational scheme. Especially if you are just starting out at this, you likely will not get it right the first or even the second time.
• Look to people who have succeeded, and find out what they have done right.
• Talk to coaches and experienced SEO professionals.
• Look at web businesses that are similar to the kind of business that you want to build. See what has worked or what hasn’t worked in terms of organization.

Perfect isn’t always better

Don’t get caught up in getting your web business overly organized, however. Sometimes we can spend too much time on things that don’t really matter, but it feels like we are keeping busy doing them so we keep at it. There is a fine line between taking control of a messy situation and becoming lost in the weeds.

Many smart SEOs use GTD

Take a look at David Allen’s productivity system called Getting Things Done (GTD for short) (http://www.davidco.com/). Allen is one of the biggest productivity gurus out there. He served as an executive coach for 25 years and forged his model of organization in the crucible of the real world. If you boil GTD down, it is ultimately about “paying attention to whatever has your attention.” Allen advises people to collect what he calls “open loops” — items that have your attention, ranging from needing to buy cat food to wanting to climb Mount Everest — and then systematically processing and organizing and reviewing these items to keep you more in control of your workflow.

GTD is perfect for the SEO professionals who have difficulty keeping things altogether — and it is perfect for SEOs who want to take their business to the next level.

1. Acknowledge Mistakes When They Happen

Did you invest hundreds of dollars into a pay-per-click campaign that yielded nothing but frustration and a hole in your pocket? Fine. Lesson learned – as long as you learn the lesson! Note your failures. Talk to people in the SEO industry about what went wrong and why. And be on the lookout for similar circumstances in the future to avoid. Be a scientist and do experiments with a real hypothesis and generate data to test and prove/disprove that hypothesis.

2. Making Mistakes is a Sign of Progress

Failure is essential for learning. Think about a baby learning how to walk. She doesn’t just hop onto her feet and start pacing around the room. She pulls herself up and then falls back down. She sits up and then slides off a toy and hits her head against the couch. And so on and so forth. Some sources say newborns fall literally thousands of times before they master the art of walking. So too will you fall hundreds of times as you master the ins and outs of SEO. This shouldn’t discourage you. But again, look to caveat number one – you MUST be honest with yourself when you make mistakes and take steps to be better in the future.

3. Take note!

The art of writing things down is critical to success – whether you are SEOing or doing any other kind of enterprise. Good data – numbers and observations – can help you overcome your inherent moment-to-moment biases and emotions that blind you to your inaccuracies. This will also save you from experimenting the same thing again in the future.

SEO to the Moon

Think of your SEO as an attempt to launch a rocket to one of Saturn’s moons. There is no way you can launch a rocket right from Earth with one blast and get right to the moon. The rocket needs periodic course corrections on its journey – exquisitely timed so that the rocket can compensate for dynamic factors it encounters along the way. You can’t calculate everything out in advance. You need to have the ability to course-correct to get to your destination. More traffic, more conversions, more sales, more leads, whatever it may be, you’ll get there.

SEO Information Overload

It’s very human to feel this kind of overwhelm. Collecting more information does not necessarily make us better decision makers, as paradoxical as this may sound. As Professor Barry Schwartz points out in his important book, The Paradox of Choice, an increase in “information in” can degrade both one’s decision making capability – and perhaps more importantly – one’s ultimate satisfaction with a choice made. There is a way around information overload!

Limit your SEO Information Diet

You obviously don’t want to lose important or potentially important information, so bookmark stuff (such as this blog – wink wink). Then put everything aside.  Focus on your immediate strategic battle plan. Where do you want your website to be in the next four months, for instance? Don’t fret about getting the plan perfect. As the adage goes, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

Move Towards a Goal

As long as you are doing something productive and that’s moving you towards a good goal, that’s going to be helpful. You will be surprised at all of the resources and the good help that will spring up along the way once you get started. But the trick is taking those first few steps down the yellow brick road. It’s not easy. There are a lot of psychological forces that will act to oppose you – guilt, overwhelm, fear, etc. But you can break through this overwhelm by putting a shield up against the constant barrage of new SEO tips, strategies, and tactics – focusing on what you know absolutely must be done – and then just get it done!

Next steps…

1. Make an SEO goal

2. Write it down and put it somewhere you can see it often

3. Do everything you can to fulfill it.

4. Rinse and repeat!

If you have tons of cash on hand, no problem. Hire a big SEO firm. Your team can hire twitterers and bloggers for you, build your website, and setup your e-Commerce store.

BUT — what if you have no capital and a dearth of experience? Should you give up on the SEO game? Absolutely not. But you need to husband your resources and use them sparingly.

Pick the game you can win.

Can you become the number one twitterer in your niche? If you write about diets, chances are that you can’t. If you write about ichthyology, perhaps you can. Can you win a keyword war for a term like “New York City Travel?” Maybe – but it will likely take you years. You probably would be better off shooting for something more on the long-tail side of keywords. Setting the terms for victory is critical for achieving it.

Start with small wins.

Practically speaking, consider the old adage “measure twice, cut once.” Really think out what you want to achieve from SEO. Get your thoughts down on paper. Pass them by people whom you trust who have industry experience. And give yourself the opportunity for small wins as well as big wins. For instance, instead of looking to make $3,000 a month within three months, look to get 50 visitors a day to your site, and then work up from there. Relish each increment of success – this will motivate you to work harder and grow bigger.

Do something.

Not to confuse things… but don’t get so caught up in the “measure twice, cut once” mindset that you don’t get out there and DO something.  Your needs and knowledge will evolve as you move forward. So strike a balance between strategizing and doing, between taking projects on yourself and outsourcing them to people.

There is no magic formula. So prepare to experiment and give yourself breathing room to fail… a lot of room!

What Do We Mean By This?

Many SEO firms out there – including extremely reputable firms with powerful corporate clients – focus on winning the short game. In other words, these firms help you rank very high in the search engines for a few key terms related to your business by doing things like creating content for you, driving in-pointing links, and so on and so forth. This is all well and good. However, if these SEOs do not create a resource that has lasting and abiding significance for your potential customers, your search engine rankings will ultimately erode. In other words, it is an SEO approach that is the equivalent of building on sand. A strong looking edifice rooted in a bogus foundation. Over time, no matter how much cash you sink in, if your SEO is not rooted in something that’s truly useful and unique and timely for your visitors, your dollars will evaporate.

On the other hand, let’s say that you build with a long-term horizon in mind, say 5+ years or so. You create timeless content that doesn’t exist elsewhere on the internet. You create truly usable resources for your customers. And you focus not only on SEO tactics but also on business strategy.

If you can successfully implement something like this, over the long-term, you will win at optimizing for the search engines. This is because you will be giving the search engines precisely what they want: reliable, useful, resources for the people who use the search engines — their customers! This makes Google happy. It makes Google’s advertisers happy. It makes your customers happy. And ultimately it makes you happy because, when you offer up a real and dynamic service on the web — you don’t need to worry (as much!) — about the vagaries of the latest SEO tricks.

We talk a lot about persistence, dedication, strategy, and patience in SEO, but let’s get crazy for a minute. You want a fast acting SEO solution and you want it bad. While battle proven SEOs tend to frown upon the short-sighted path, every once in a while it’s nice to break down and give in and do something crazy. Kind of like cheating on your diet with a nice thick slice of chocolate cake. Even then, while there may be an immediate result, there are bound to be long-term gains as well.

1. Extra, extra, extra!

Want to give your blog a shot in the arm? Pick a super popular news story and blog like crazy about it. You need a unique angle. Add pictures and diagrams. Throw in a home-made game based on the story if you are a programmer and have some time on your hands. Topics should have broad appeal – e.g. the latest Lindsay Lohan DUI – or they can be ultra-specific to your niche. For instance, if you run a blog about chemical engineering (how boring) and some dude mixes up a new polymer at M.I.T., blog about that. Add relevant pics and give it some personality.

REMEMBER: If people want to read an AP story, they will read the AP story, not your knock-off version.

2. Create something ridiculous

Do you have an absolutely preposterous idea for a short YouTube video? How about a cell phone app, blog post, or even website idea that has no long-term value but may have some serious shock value? For instance, record a video of yourself jamming out to Radiohead while wearing a bunny costume in the hope that the folks at FunnyorDie will pick it up.

The key: keep it short, snappy, and attention grabbing.

3. A public stunt

Any day can be April Fool’s Day, if you’ve got the right tools and imagination. Keep it legal and clean, but don’t be afraid to push the envelope. For some examples of how to do crazy stunts right, check out the early work of Tom Green and of course Ali G — a.k.a. Borat, a.k.a. Bruno. You don’t need to be hilarious. But you need to shock and attract visitors. The stunt should be believable, outrageous, and center around someone famous to ride their celebrity status a bit.

Another great source for inspiration — the online magazine, The Onion.

These shot-in-the-arm SEO ideas probably won’t generate long-term revenue or build your business. But you never know! Remember, people out there are overloaded and have almost zero attention span. To break through this cloud of inattention, you need to yell really loudly or at least wear a crazy suit with $$$ signs all over it like that guy who used to do those commercials about getting free money from the government.

I am one who doesn’t believe Google is applying their algorithm equally in every market or for every keyword phrase. There is just too much variability in the rankings of sites and pages when analyzing links, content, domain authority and keywords to come to that conclusion. There is still too much weird ranking elements still going on, but I do believe Google applies their algorithm more consistently for specific keywords within most markets segments.

As an example I wanted to take a look at BigSenders.com and the keyword phrase of “send big files.” (Let me disclose BigSenders is a company Michael Jensen and myself have co-founded). We are now in the large attachment business, and we want to start ranking well for the keyword phrase “send big files.” Our domain name, BigSenders.com, is pretty descriptive, and we are now adding content to support some of our keywords. I decided to get an idea of where we should focus our SEO efforts, in order to get on the first SERP page for the search term “send big files.”

I first did a quick search query on Google and found the site mailbigfile.com was in 10th place on the first page of the SERP, then I ran a SoloSEO Head to Head Report to see how BigSenders.com compared to MailBigFiles.com.

The Head to Head report compares the Links, mozRank, ContentRank, Keyword Density and Domain Authority of the two competitive sites and scores them. By reviewing the differences in the scores, it is easy to ascertain how much work will need to be done to knock the higher ranked site off their perch above.

In the Head to Head report, the first thing I noticed is that they have 77 links, we have 15 (now 16 after writing this post, POW!!). Our mozRank is lower (meaning the quality of our links is lower), our content rank is higher, as they do not spend much time, if any, writing content (big mistake), our keyword density is within the 1-3% soft spot, they are at 0 (no content) and they kill us on domain authority, due to the links, but also because their domain has been around since 2006.

Bottom line, we have work to do, but with a some effort we can obtain more links, through our company, Applied Content, we can have content created and add a bunch of new, fresh content on the site around our targeted keywords, and we should be able to overcome these scoring gaps in a month or so, then we can run this report and see how our efforts influence our rankings. It is my position that the best way to improve in rankings, for a specific keyword phrase, is to analyze your competitors using the Head to Head Report, close those gaps and see the change in rankings. By tracking the changes, we can see where the search engines are giving most the ranking love, and then we can adjust our SEO strategy accordingly, but its based on real data, not some new SEO theory or hypothesis. Our SEO strategies will then need to be flexible based on the keywords we are targeting and the competitors within that keyword space. Everything else is closer to guess work than science IMHO. Its not the most convenient SEO strategy, as per each keyword phrase the SEO strategy may need to be focused differently, but it will be the most effective and efficient, as we will be focusing our efforts exactly where we will receive the most ranking benefit.

To remain the leader in the online DIY SEO world, we are proud to announce we are currently putting the finishing touches on the SoloSEO 2.0 Do-It-Yourself tool suite. This 2.0 version will include updated versions of our most popular tools, with some fresh new tools, including some social media help, to provide clients with more real-time information about their sites, and their competitors. The new interface is clean and fresh, while the framework is more streamlined and intuitive. We believe SEO research, through the use of the SoloSEO 2.0 DIY tool suite, will prove to be much easier than anything you have seen in the SEO marketplace previously. Even the newest website owners will feel comfortable moving along an instinctive, yet robust SoloSEO process.

We have also decided to expand our horizons a little bit. We have always been a Do-It-Yourself shop, providing the best SEO tools, while never delving into the business of working with others on their own SEO strategies. We understand that SEO work can be hard and time consuming, especially if you are in a tough and competitive online marketplace. So we have decided to now start offering SEO packages, where we will use our SEO tools and experience to manage a SEO campaign for you. So if you just don’t have the time for a true DIY SEO experience, or would prefer we jump in and help out, we can now offer this option. Over the last 6 years we have grown up in the SEO world and learned much; our experience is now available to you… go ahead use us.

SEO Packages

1 Key Word $125/mo
3 Key Word $245/mo
5 Key Word $445/mo

Please contact us at info@soloseo.com if you would like to learn more.

In the meantime, please enjoy our Free SEO Report to obtain some information on how some of the keywords on your site are ranking in the search engines. As soon as we launch SoloSEO 2.0, we will be sure to let you and the rest of the world know.

Happy SEOing.

Okay. So, fine. Given all the obstacles you face — technical, psychological, physical, and financial — what can you do to move the ball down the field?

The answer is a single word: persistence.

That persistence yields results is a cliché. When you hear the word, you think of one of those office motivational posters of a bald eagle soaring over a cliff with a lightning bolt in its beak or something. Still, the power of this concept should not be undersold.

Consider all the new research that’s come out, indicating that persistence is far more important than natural talent in determining success. One great book on this subject is Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin, an editor of Forbes Magazine.

Colvin makes the case that great performers in history succeed NOT because they possess innately better genes but simply because they work harder and persist through obstacles.

Of course, persistence isn’t just about grinding through difficulties. It’s about doing so SMARTLY. If you practice incorrectly, you will end up like one of those wind up toys with a broken wheel — going very fast, indeed, but going in circles.

Keys to successful persistence:

• Get good coaching.
• Learn from the mistakes and successes of others.
• Sharpen and review your process.

The SEO monster can be mounted and tamed. But you will not do it in a day, and you will not do it without significant tolerance for failure.

Tips on Persistence

Okay. So you want to bulldoze your SEO process forward. But how? Here are some ways to withstand the inevitable forces of attrition, fatigue, self-doubt, and angst.

1. Set small goals that you absolutely can accomplish. Small successes are crucial.
2. Get feedback from people you trust. Perspective can blind you to things you do wrong. No one has twenty-twenty vision all, or even most of, the time.
3. Pay attention to longer-term horizons of focus — if you are caught up in the Sturm Und Drang of the day-to-day, all the time, you may end up like our broken wind up toy — generating lotsa energy but no forward momentum. Point your compass in a direction that will get you somewhere good. Then GO!
4. Knowledge is power. Another overripe trope, but so true. Understand the landscape of your business — in particular, your niche. Establish yourself in your community, and build solutions your customers will need (but don’t know they need yet).
5. Develop a core competency. What can you do better than ANYONE else in the entire world? Find something you are passionate about (that you would still do if you didn’t have to earn another cent in your life). Become the ruler of the roost.
6. It can’t be just about the money. Your passion must come from somewhat deeper, somewhat more sincere and human. Only then will you find the internal resources to push through the (many) unpredictable obstacles that come your way.
7. Expect the unexpected — you can have the most ace business plan in the world, but the universe will find a way to blow it out of the water. You need to able to find a way to, in the words of the poet T.S. Elliot, “be still and still moving.” Be flexible enough to respond to dramatic changes to your SEO or business plan but steady in terms of your long-term vision and principles.

Remember: It’s a balancing act. But persistence is the great equalizer. With it, even the most uncredentialed novices can outgun Fortune 500 companies.

Go to it.

Never rest.