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When your prospective clients or customers search for your services, do the search engines return your site early on? The art and science of making this happen is called search engine optimization (SEO).
Optimizing your website for search is a lot easier if you observe certain guidelines.
First, you will need your own domain name, preferably one that contains the search terms that those looking for your service will use. This can be your geographic location plus your service. It can also be a name that searchers can remember and spell.
Secondly, you need to have that domain attached to your own paid Internet Provider (IP) space.
Using your own IP address means you are not sharing one IP address (usually a free service) with a ton of other users (Example: www.LocalBarSociety.com/hundreds of member attorneys/lfhlaw).
You can have your own domain name, say LFHLAW.com, but if it forwarded to a shared space, the search engines' scanners (robots, or 'bots') still see your site as a shared IP, and do not take it seriously.
Free space on AOL, AltaVista, etc. is also shared with many others and treated the same way: the search engines may never reach your site at all, let alone index it.
Ergo, For SEO purposes,
1. Get A Dot Com, Net or Org of your own with terms that match your practice, location, etc. (more later); and
2. Host the site on it's own space (Numerous hosts provide space. E.g., this site uses Hostgator.com.)
I sell only domain names, not hosting space.
When choosing a domain name, you may want to consider a few things first: What will prospective clients type into the search bar? Will they recognize your name (will marketing be able to do this for you?) Will they look for a certain location? A certain area of practice? And will existing clients be able to find your site by memory, without searching through old letterheads, etc.
SPECIAL AREA OF EXPERTISE? CONSIDER AN EDUCATIONAL/INFORMATIONAL SITE! A site in which you convey information and post articles pertinent to your area of expertise is a practice builder for you. These sites with more specific subject matter may be easier to get listed in the various web browsers as well. So, if you are especially knowledgeable about an area of the law, a second, informational site is worth serious consideration. Many of our legal domain names work for these sites and some are specifically suited for this purpose. Different domains can lead to different pages of your site.
GEOGRAPHICAL AREA - HOW PEOPLE FIND YOU ON THE WWW: It is important to understand how people actually use Internet search engines. It is also important to grasp the monumental importance of the coming local internet searches.
The majority of people, looking for something on the Internet, will just type something into the browser address box hoping to reach information about the word or phrase they entered. Suppose you are a lawyer in Philadelphia. People looking for a Philadelphia Lawyer may type in "aphiladelphialawyer." Many browsers will add the dot com at the end and the searcher will end up on www.aphiladelphialawyer.com. Other browsers will transfer to the search function and return sites with the words philadelphia and lawyer in their text or names or both.
Many people will add the dot com themselves, concocting a domain in hopes that it will take them to something useful. This use of key words in domain names and sites is an important part of SEO (search engine optimization). Thus, you may want to register similar keyword domains. You may want to register your own name or anything that identifies you. (BTW : I recommend Search Engine Optimization for Dummies. Make sure your web person reads it too!)
LEGAL AREA OF PRACTICE: Your legal area of practice can be considered also. You may want to include search terms relating to the type of law you practice, using the words "mortgage," 'Injury, " etc., depending on the keywords that best describe you and your practice.
Lastly, the reality is that you may want to enter domains so that your competition cannot. Generally, anyone can register geographical and generic domain names, since these typically cannot be trademarked. This means your competition could register a domain that leads clients to them and not you. This defensive practice is a reality. Of course, I am referring here to generic terms and not TM infringement or interference in someone else's business.