Give Your Law Practice Website a Check-Up

Validation Tools

Websites run on coding standards (html, css, etc). Those systems are fluid–they are constantly revised. And, with the advent of new browsers, new features are enabled. So, it’s good to validate your website to make sure your code is up to standard.

The principal tools for validating websites are:

The HTML validator here: http://validator.w3.org/
The CSS validator here: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ (although if your website is old, it won’t have any css code, which is not advised for commercial websites).

Simply enter your website into the validation window, and the system will advise you of any problems. And, if you are hiring a web designer (ahem, you can always call us) be sure that the firm validates their code. If your code does not validate, it isn’t the end of the world. Poor validation can result in your website appearing “wrong” in different browsers. But the real importance is that search engines like compliant code–so validated code can increase your rankings.

Check Your Backlinks

Backlinks (when another site links to your site) can raise your rankings in the search engines and can yield traffic and customers. It’s good to know how many backlinks point to your site.

To really check backlinks, you’ve got to go to the search engines themselves, and our favorite tool is Yahoo Site Explorer. You’ll find it here: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/. Enter your website in the top box, and Yahoo will return a list of websites that link to yours. For example, as of this writing, this website has 1,005 backlinks (our sister site, TastyPlacement.com, has nearly 10,000). 1,000 backlinks is quite good. Even 100 is acceptable for a small Law practice.

TIP: Want to out-rank your competitors? Check their backlinks using the same tool.

Check Google’s Index

Google does not index every page on the internet. Some pages are deemed low-value, and Google ignores them. It is always valuable to make sure all of the pages on your website are indexed by Google. Alternatively, if your pages are showing up twice (because of bad website design, old files remaining on the server, or poor server administration) your site might trip a duplicate content filter, and your pages won’t rank.

Luckily, Google provides an easy way to check the index. In the Google search window, type the following: site:http://www.yourLawsite.com. Google will return a list of all indexed pages on your site.

Check Your PageRank

PageRank is Google’s proprietary “value” assigned to every indexed page on the internet. Higher PageRank means higher rankings, and lower PageRank means lower rankings (a general rule).

There are dozens of PageRank tools in the ‘net, two popular ones are www.prchecker.info and www.validrank.com.

Good luck!

-Michael

Technical Director
Michael David
512-535-2492

michael@tastyplacement.com

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