Contact Richard Keyt at 480-664-7478 ! |rk@keytlaw.com

A Fool-Proof Formula for Easily Creating Compelling Content

Copyblogger is a great website for learning about blogging and website building using WordPress.  It’s tag line is “Content Marketing Solutions for WordPress that Work.”  I bookmarked this site a few years ago and recommend it for those who want to learn more about using WordPress and getting more traffic to their website or blog.  The site contains a ton of articles on creating good content.  For example, here are some Copyblogger posts just on the subject of the importance of writing good eye-catching headlines:

  1. Why You Should Always Write Your Headline First
  2. The Cheater’s Guide to Writing Great Headlines
  3. Do Key Words in Post Titles Really Matter?
  4. How to Write a Killer “How To” Post That Gets Attention
  5. 7 Reasons Why List Posts Will Always Work
  6. Why Some People Almost Always Write Great Post Titles
  7. 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work
  8. 9 Proven Headline Formulas That Sell Like Crazy
  9. 7 More Sure-Fire Headline Templates That Work
  10. Warning: Use These 5 Headline Templates at Your Own Risk
  11. The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines
By |2018-01-14T08:51:51-07:00May 2nd, 2012|Blogs, Ramblings, Websites|0 Comments

My Favorite iPhone / iPad Apps

I’ve had an iPhone and an iPad since each device was first offered for sale.  I do love both of these incredible electronic computers/phones/do-it-alls.  Today at lunch two of my long-time former law partners showed me their new first time-user iPhones and they asked me what apps to get.  Which apps to get from iTunes is something that comes up a lot with me and my friends.   Here is a list of my favorite iPhone & iPad apps for lawyers, attorneys, law firms and other iPhone and iPad users:

Productivity

  • Dragon Dictation – free.  This is a must have app because it is a great tool for converting your voice to text which you can then send as a text message, email, make a copy, send to Facebook or Twitter.  It’s conversion of your voice to text is very accurate.  You can also edit the text to make corrections or additions.  A great tool for sending your thoughts to yourself or secretary.
  • TurboScan –  Use your iPhone to scan any type of document.  Once scanned you can email it as text, a pdf or a jpeg.  You can also open the document in pdf, print it or save it to your iPhone camera roll.  I checked the app on iTunes today and it had 2,285 five star ratings.
  • HP 12C – $13, but it is two great calculators, a standard calculator when held vertical, but it changes to the HP financial calculator when the device is held horizontal.  P.S.  It uses reverse polish notation logic.  Use the financial calculator to find loan payments based on the loan amount, interest rate and number of payments.
  • Google – free.  Touch the microphone icon and speak your search words.  This app then quickly does a Google search and displays the results.  My lunch group buddies crack up every time they ask me to do a Google search such as who do the Arizona Cardinals play next week?
  • PDF Reader Pro – free.  Allows you to open pdf documents.
  • Fake a Call – free?  Maybe this should be in a different category, but you can use it to get out of a meeting.  Set it to fake an incoming call during a meeting so you can excuse yourself.
  • Travel Track Pro – $.  Great for trips.  Enter all of your trip information into this app such as airline flight information, hotel and car rental info and reservation numbers.  All information is then at your fingertips when needed.  It will tell you if your flight is delayed and when it will arrive.  Lots of great information for trips.

News Apps

  • Wall St. Journal – free, but I pay $9 a month to get all of the paper on my iPhone & iPad
  • Los Angeles Times – free
  • New York Times – free app, but $ to get access to all of the content
  • USA Today – free and no charge for a lot of well organized content
Social Media
  • Facebook – free
  • LinkedIn – free
  • YouTube – free
  • Videos – free.  A great way to watch the music, TV show and movie videos you buy from iTunes

Games

  • Solitaire City – $.  21 different solitaire games.  At one time everybody in my family was hooked on Alternations, a great solitaire game.
  • W.e.l.d.e.r. – $.  A fun word spelling game.
  • Wurdle – $.  Another fun word spelling game.
  • Tetris – $  Years ago in the days of playing games on the PC I wasted too much time playing this classic game.
  • Scrabble – $.  The tech version of a board classic.  Play the computer, a random live opponent, friends or join a local multiplayer game.  Way better than the board game.
  • Monopoly – $.  The Parker Brothers classic.  I like to play against two computer opponents and have all the cards dealt at random to the players.

Miscellaneous Apps

  • iPhone Secrets – free.  A great way to learn all the hidden secrets of the iPhone.
  • iBooks – free.  A great place to get ebooks (low cost best sellers and many free books).  I’d rather read a book on my iPad or iPhone than hold it in my hands the old fashioned way.
  • Instagram – free.  It’s Twitter for pictures, no text.  In five seconds you can take a picture and post it to your Instagram account and all of your followers can see your pictures on their Instagrams.  Great for a family.  Make your profile private then only allow your family members to follow you.  Whenever anybody who you follow posts a picture you can see it immediately and so can all all of the other people who are following the picture taker.  You can add captions to your pictures and people can like and comment on other people’s pictures.
  • Facebook Camera – free.  This is Facebook’s version of Instagram, but it integrates seamlessly with Facebook to put your photos on your Facebook timeline.  It is Instagram created specifically for Facebook.
  • Zinio – free.  This is a magazine reader app.  You purchase subscriptions to your favorite magazines and read them on your iPhone or iPad.  Reading magazines on the iPad is awesome.  Links on pages are hot and take you to another part of the magazine.  My favorite magazine is PC Magazine, but a few years ago it stopped making prints and went entirely digital through Zinio.  I love reading PC Magazine using my Zinio reader.  Every issue is retained on Zinio unless I delete it.
  • RedLaser –  free.  This is a must have app.  It scans bar codes on products and then gives you a list of websites that sell the same product and the price of the product.  If you finder the product cheaper online you can quickly buy it using your iPhone or iPad.  Barcode scans can be emailed, sent to Facebook or Twitter or turned into a text message or added to a favorites list.  RedLaser will also scan QR codes and interpret them.
  • Amazon Mobile – free.   This app also scans bar codes, but it only give prices for the products sold on Amazon.  I love this app because Amazon has very low prices.  If you have an Amazon account like me you will be able to instantly purchase a product after you scan and get the results.  Slick.  It has a camera feature that lets you take a picture of the cover of a book, CD, DVD or video game and get Amazon’s price for the item.
  • Yelp – free.  Find local business such as restaurants and read reviews written by customers.  Write your own reviews.
  • iPhoto – free.  PC Magazine’s May 2012 issue gave this app its Editor’s Choice award for being an excellent iPhone/iPad photo editor.
  • Shazam – free.  If you hear a song you like but don’t know its name let Shazam listen to the song.  It will not only tell you the name, but if the sound quality is good it can distinguish between different artists singing the same song.  You can also buy the song from iTunes.
  • Flixster – free.  Great for checking the movies playing at your local theaters.  Lots of information about each movie including start times.
  • Pandora – free.  Create a “radio station” for your favorite recording artist.  Pandora will then play songs by that artist mixed with other artists is selects that have a similar sound.  It’s a great way to listen to your favorites and find other artists and music.  If you don’t like a song press the thumbs down button and you will never hear that song again.  Give your likes a thumb’s up.  If you hear a song you like you can buy it from iTunes at the click of an icon.
  • Sex Offenders – free.  Not an app I use much or that has much value, but it will amaze you when you ask it to search your surrounding area and list all the registered sex offenders.  Here in central Phoenix where I live there are literally thousands of them.  The app shows their locations on a map and via a list ordered by closest to farthest away.  Click on a person on the list and it tells you that person’s address and conviction(s) including a picture.

What are your favorite iPhone and iPad apps?  Please tell us by making a comment.

By |2018-01-14T08:40:47-07:00May 2nd, 2012|Ramblings, Stuff We Recommend|0 Comments

What is Google +1 & How to Use It

The Google +1 button is a shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.” Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. Your +1’s can help friends, contacts and others find the best stuff when they search.  Watch this short Google video to learn more about how to use Google +1.

httpvh://youtu.be/OAyUNI3_V2c

By |2018-01-14T08:40:47-07:00May 2nd, 2012|Google, Video|0 Comments

44 Must Read Resources on Content Marketing

The secret to getting a lot of traffic to your website is not really a secret.  For those of you who do not know the single most important thing you must do to get lots of visitors to come to your website here it is:

Put lots of high quality content on your blog/website!

The reason my law firm website averaged 163,000 visitors/month during 2012 is because the site has thousands of pages of content.  Yes thousands.  My site is 11 years old and includes eleven separate websites all of which have content and bring visitors to keytlaw.com.

Keyt’s Technology Rule #4 is “If you build it they will not come.”  Yes, your law firm should have a website or blog, but do not be discouraged if it has little traffic in the beginning.  It takes time to create good content.  Your goal should be to add original content on a regular basis – daily is best, but several times a week is better than once a week.  Set a time every day to write content.  I like to get up at 6:15 everyday and spend the first two hours of the day working on my websites.  Over time a regular plan of creating content and adding it to your site will add up to a lot of content, higher search engine rankings, more traffic to your blog or website and more new clients.

To learn more about creating content, read an excellent article published by Kissmetrics called “44 Must Read Resources on Content Marketing.”

By |2018-01-14T08:40:48-07:00April 30th, 2012|Blogs, Ramblings, Websites|0 Comments

Email Signature Block Spam

This morning I saw an email message that contained one line of text and FORTY-NINE lines of signature block spam.  Here’s the message (with redaction to protect the guilty) with the same line spacing, but with the 15 html links removed:

Would you be willing to share the language that you use?

XXX XXXXXXXX, Attorney at Law
Quick links:
Prospective Clients
Information and Living Trust Seminars
Existing Clients
Photo & 3 Law related Logos omitted
XXX X. XXXXXXXX, Attorney at Law
Certified Specialist, Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law
(State Bar of X Board of Legal Specialization)
address line 1
address line 2
(xxx) xxx-xxxx (office) / (xxx) xxx-xxxx (fax)
www.xxxxxx.com (main website)
www.xxxxxx.net (information website)
www.xxxxx.com (online living trust seminar website)
XX Insurance License #xxxxxxxxxx

FOR PROSPECTIVE CLIENTS:
Schedule Initial Consultation for Estate Planning
(may also be used to access and download Consultation Packet for consultation)
Schedule Trust Administration Consultation
(may also be used to access and download Trust Administration Consultation Worksheet)

INFORMATION BROCHURE AND LIVING TRUST SEMINAR INFORMATION
Download Consumer Guide to Wills, Living Trusts and Estate Planning
Register for Upcoming Living Trust Seminar
View or Download Online Living Trust Seminar
Request a Copy of My Living Trust Information CD
Request a Living Trust Seminar for Your Group

FOR EXISTING CLIENTS
Schedule Plan Design Meeting
(may also be used to access and download Plan Design Meeting paperwork if needed)
Schedule Signing Appointment
Member Attorney of the following legal service plans:
Plan 1
Plan 2
Plan 3
Plan 4
Plan 5
Plan 6

NOTICE: This communication may contain client privileged and/or confidential information, including material protected and governed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the Confidential Medical Information Act (CMIA) of the State of California). If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please advise the sender by return email and immediately delete the message and any attachments without copying or disclosing the contents. Thank you.
I do not waive attorney client or work product privilege by the transmission of this message. Unless I have been formally retained by a signed fee agreement on file, nothing contained in this e-mail shall be construed as legal advice.
IRS CIRCULAR 230 NOTICE: Any tax advice contained in the body of this e-mail (or in any attachment) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, by the recipient for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed under the Internal Revenue Code or applicable state or local tax law provisions. If you would like to receive written advice in a format that complies with IRS rules and that may be relied upon to avoid penalties, please contact the author of this e-mail.

Not only does all that signature block spam look ugly at the end of the message, but my guess is that most people will completely ignore it.  What do you think?

I do like to put a substantive marketing blurb at the end of my email messages  My hope is that somebody will click on one of the links and that it might lead to more business.  Does it work?  I don’t have a clue.  I’ve never tested any of my email closings and nobody has ever told me that contacted me because of a marketing line in an email from me.

I believe that when people are given too many choices more often than not they ignore all of the choices and do nothing.   What follows below is my current email signature block.  Am I giving too much information?  Note:  The request that the recipient like my law firm on Facebook works.  Many people will send me an email response that he or she liked us and a lot of people also respond that they do not use Facebook (these tend to be older people).

P.S.  Could you do me a big favor and click on the Facebook icon below to go to the KEYTLaw Facebook page then click on the Like icon?

Richard Keyt
LLCs, Business Law & Estate Planning
Phone:  (602) 906-4953 ext. 1
Fax:  (602) 297-6890

Follow KEYTLaw & Click Like & Google +1
Icons with Links to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube & RSS feeds omitted because I was too lazy to figure out how to put them in this post)

KEYTLaw Websites
AZ LLC Law: www.keytlaw.com/azllclaw
AZ Wills & Trusts: www.keytlaw.com/arizonawills
AZ Landlord Tenant Law: www.keytlaw.com/azlandlordtenantlaw
Law Office Tech & Marketing:  https://www.keyttech.com
Flying the F-4: www.keytlaw.com/f-4

Am I committing signature block spam?  Are you?  Tell us about your signature block and marketing results good, bad or indifferent.

By |2018-01-14T08:40:48-07:00April 30th, 2012|Ramblings|1 Comment

WordPress Plugins Used on My Law Firm’s Websites

I have used WordPress to create 11 websites (put your cursor on the menu text above that says “My Other Websites” to access one of my other sites), ten of which I created to get more clients and revenue.  The only WordPress site I created that is not for my law firm is one called “F-4 Phantom,” a site about my five years flying the F-4 Phantom supersonic fighter bomber in the United States Air Force.

If you want to know why I use WordPress to create my law office websites read my article called “Why I Love WordPress for My Law Firm.”  In that article I say that the biggest reason I love WordPress for the law firm is because WordPress has over 19,000 free plugins that allow a WordPress administrator (you should be your site’s administrato) to add cool features to your WordPress blog or website.  A WordPress plugin is software written to accomplish a specific task or add a feature to your WordPress site.  My guess is that somebody has already created a free plugin that will do  everything you could possibly want to do with your site.

Do you want to have message forums or a list serv on your site?  Would you like your site to have a gallery of photos or videos that are displayed to viewers in the order you select for the number of seconds you select?  Would you like to require a visitor to type a captcha before he or she could send you a message?  There are numerous plugins that provide all of these features right out of the box.  That’s cool and free, but the second neatest thing about WordPress plugins is that when you see one you want you click twice and the plugin is installed and working on your WordPress website.  IT ONLY TAKES A FEW SECONDS LITERALLY TO INSTALL A PLUGIN.

The following is a list of plugins in alphabetical order that I always install on every WordPress website or blog I create:

  • Akisment – used to prevent comment spam.  It automatically deletes spam comments of which there are many.
  • All in One SEO Pack – a great tool for adding title, description and key word meta tags to your posts and pages.
  • Bad Behavior – another spam preventor.  I use Akismet and this one.
  • Broken Link Checker – A must have program.  It alerts you to broken links and makes it easy to fix them
  • Contact Form 7 – Use to create web forms to collect contact information and message text so visitors can communicate with you or your firm’s personnel.  See one of my contact forms.
  • Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin makes a map of your website every night and sends it to Google and other search engines to help you get better search engine rankings.
  • Sharedaddy – It creates icons and links to share your content with other sites like Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn and Twitter.  You can see this plugin at work at the bottom of every one of my posts.
  • Smart Youtube Pro – This plugin lets me insert and position a Youtube video any where on my site just by copying the Youtube share URL and pasting it where I want it to go on my WordPress site.  It also requires me to add “vh” just before the colon in the Youtube URL.
  • Sociable – I use this plugin to send a post to our Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn pages.  Although you can configure it send every new post we have it set to send posts only if we want to send it and then it only goes to the other sites we select.
  • Subscribe to Comments Reloaded – Use this plugin to allow people who leave comments to chose to receive copies of all future comments and replies made to their comment.
  • Websimon Tables – WordPress does not do tables so you need a plugin.  I have tried a number of table plugins, including one I purchased, and my favorite is Websimon Tables.  It comes with 9 pre-configured tables.  Everything about a table can be customized easily.  It is also easy to move rows and columns.
  • WP-DB Manager – This plugin does all your back ups of your data, including the site’s MySQL data.  It also zips backup files and emails them to you.  I also use it to optimize the WordPress site.
  • WP-PageNavi – This adds a more advanced paging navigation to your WordPress blog or website.
  • WP-PostViews – It counts and displays the most popular posts and pages on your site.
  • WP-Print – Gives your visitors a better printed output than was is inherent with WordPress.
  • Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – This one displays other posts on your site that are similar to the post a visitor is viewing.

To learn more about these plugins and the 19,000+ other free WordPress plugins go to the WordPress plugins page.

By |2018-01-14T08:51:51-07:00April 28th, 2012|Blogs, WordPress|2 Comments

Why I Love WordPress for My Law Firm

I love WordPress.  WordPress for attorneys is a fantastic tool for generating clients and more revenue.  I have been creating my websites using WordPress since 2009.  As of today I have created 11 WordPress websites.  You can access them from the menu link at the top of this page.  Of these 11 sites, I am the only person who adds content to 7 of them, two sites contain content created only by two other KEYTLaw attorneys and two sites contain content created by me and other KEYTLaw attorneys.

If your website is not a WordPress site, you are making a mistake unless you have the money to pay a consultant or web development company a ton of money for a super-duper site.  My experience is always been that I can invest the time to learn a software program so I can use the program and its powerful features without being dependent on a high paid consultant who probably isn’t really that knowledgeable.  See Keyt’s Technology Rule Number 1.

I started the original www.keytlaw.com website in the winter of 2001.  At that time I was a partner at one of the largest law firms in Arizona.  The firm’s board of directors told me I could not have  a website and that a firm website was worthless for generating new clients.  I knew that virtually all lawyer websites did not generate new business because they were nothing more than electronic firm brochures.  I was convinced that I could create a website with original content that informed the public about legal issues and that it would generate business.

I was right.  Since leaving big law in 2001 I have obtained over 6,000 new clients most of whom hired me and my firm because of my websites.  A good informational website is a great way for a lawyer to obtain new clients.  During 2011 the total combined traffic on my websites averaged 163,000 visitors/month.  Per Avvo and www.alexa.com the KEYTLaw website is one of the 35 most visited law related websites in the United States.

Microsoft FrontPage

When I took the plunge and created my first website in 2001 the two most popular HTML editors were Microsoft’s FrontPage and Adobe’s Dreamweaver.  FrontPage was cheaper and sold to the public as more user friendly than Dreamweaver so I bought FrontPage.

For eight years I used FrontPage to create every page on the old www.keytlaw.com.  Take a look at an old FrontPage created KEYLaw page.  The old site look and feel worked well for me for many years despite it’s cludginess.  I designed the look and feel of the site without any knowledge of what I was doing, which is why the site looks like it was made by somebody that didn’t know how to design a site.  I knew I wanted a website and so I just loaded FrontPage and started creating web pages.

My original website and now the other ten WordPress sites generate a tremendous amount of web traffic because they contain content. See an old web log report for the month of December 2006 which shows www.keytlaw.com had 91,489 visitors that month, an average of 2,859/day.  For the year 2006 my old site averaged 85,500 visitors a month and 2,850 visitors a day.  Every year the number of visitors increases because we are constantly adding content to our sites.  Web success is very very simple – the more good content you have on your site the more visitors it will have.

FrontPage was actually user friendly for its era, but the problem with HTML editors is that you start with a blank screen and you must build every page and every feature of your website from scratch.  A simple website was easy to create in FrontPage, but to create any feature required a ton of time and html editing.

WordPress

In 2009 I decided to create a law blog so I did a little research and concluded that WordPress was the way to go.  The difference between WordPress and FrontPage is as great as the difference between night and day.  FrontPage was a low tech do everything yourself program.  WordPress is a high tech do everything for you program.  WordPress combined with WordPress plugins is a winning combination that allows a novice to do anything with a website/blog with very little effort or knowledge needed by the WordPress user.

WordPress comes in two flavors, i.e., wordpress.com and wordpress.org.  The .com version is hosted on WordPress’ website.  The .org version is free downloadable software that you must install on a server (shared or dedicated) and that is accessed by people who go to the URL of your domain.

WordPress.com

The .com version of WordPress is a website that as of today hosts 426,536 free WordPress blogs.  To have a blog on wordpress.com all you need to do is sign up and two minutes later you are in business on the internet.  Your site will be a subdomain of www.wordpress.com such as www.lawfirm.wordpress.com.  WordPress hosts your site on its server.  Although it is actually very easy to have a WordPress.org site on your own domain, the WordPress sites on wordpress.com are even easy to use.  See a list of features offered for free by www.wordpress.com.

The downsides to the .com version are:

1.  Your site is not on your domain.

2.  You will not have access to the vast universe of plugins available when you have WordPress running on your domain.

3.  You cannot have any ads.

4.  Customization is limited.

5.  Moving your site to a Wordpress.org site later is a big deal for the average WordPress user.

Reasons Why I love WordPress

1.  WordPress is Very Easy to Install:  With a good webhost like Bluehost anybody can create a WordPress law firm website or blog simply and easily.  I’ve hosted my websites at Bluehost since I created my first blog in 2009.  Bluehost hosts millions of WordPress sites and is adding 20,000 new sites a month.  I cannot say enough about Bluehost.  It’s cheap ($5 – $7) month.  It’s got great tech support 24/7, which I have used from time to time.  What I love best about Bluehost is that is uses something called Cpanel and Simple Scripts.  What these two programs mean to the WordPress user (prospective or actual) is that you can create a new WordPress website/blog in less than ONE MINUTE.  Yes!  In a future video I’ll demo how to do it and how quickly I can create a new site.

To learn more about everything Bluehost gives you for $5/month go to its hosting features page.

2.  WordPress is Very Easy to Learn:  It takes me about 15 minutes to show a person everything he/she needs t know to add content to WordPress.  Only one person in your firm needs to be the administrator of your WordPress site and know how to do things like add, configure and update plugins and do the admin stuff.  There is a higher learning curve to be the administrator, but there is virtually no learning curve to be a WordPress content creator.   Everybody only needs to know how to create a blog post or a web page, both of which are extremely simple.

3.  WordPress Themes:  A WordPress theme is software add on to WordPress that gives the entire site a certain look and feel and built in features.  In my bad old days of using FrontPage, I had to create the look and feel (theme) of my website.  It is not an easy task for a novice, which is why my theme was not too spiffy for eight years.  WordPress, however, for some reason I do not understand offers 1,549 free themes that you can download and install in a matter of seconds.  Yes.  That’s right SECONDS!  See the free WordPress themes yourself.  If you see one you like all you have to do is click on the “install” button then 5 seconds later click on the “activate” button and your WordPress site has a new look and feel.  I use a very popular theme on all of my sites called “Atahualpa,” which had been downloaded 941,182 time as of the date of this article.  There are also thousands of themes that you can purchase if you can’t find a free theme you like.  Update:  I now use the Avada theme on most of my websites.  I love this theme.  It is state of the art including being “responsive” out of the box.  A responsive site is a site that looks great on smartphones, iPads and tablets.

4.  WordPress Has Plugins:  The thing I like best about WordPress is that there are thousands of plugins (19,330 free ones as of the date of this article) that I can quickly download and install on my WordPress site.  Most plugins are free, but some require that you purchase the plugin before downloading.  A plugin is essentially software code that you can add to your WordPress site literally by making two clicks with your mouse.  Unlike the FrontPage days when the website developer had to create all the code to do anything on a website, there are probably several free WordPress plugins that will do anything you could imagine doing with a website or a blog.  See WordPress’ plugins page where you can find all the free plugins.  Here are the four most downloaded plugins (I use all of them on all of my sites) with a description of what the plugin does:

  • Akismet – downloaded 9,949,581 times.  This plugin detects comment spam and deletes it.  Yes  Comment spam is common whenever you have a website/blog that allows visitors to leave comments.
  • Contact Form 7 – downloaded 6,732,250 times.  Allows the administrator to create a contact form to collect information when people want to contact the website creator or somebody in the company that owns the site.  See one of my contact forms I created with this plugin.
  • All in One SEO Pack – downloaded 10,606,267 times.  This plugin has fields into which I enter the title of a page or a post, the keywords therein and a description of the page or post that is not more than 160 characters in length.  When a page or post is saved this information is included in the meta data for the page or post and used by the search engines.  This information is important for good search engine optimazation.
  • Google XML Sitemaps – downloaded 7,368,379 times.  Every night this plugin creates a sitemap of my WordPress site and sends it to Google and the major search engines to assist them when their bots crawl my site.

How to Learn How to Use WordPress

There are many ways you could learn how to use WordPress, but here are my recommendations:

1.  Teacher-Student Method:  If you know somebody who is a serious user of WordPress, ask him or her to give you a lesson and if you can call from time to time with questions.

2.  Watch Lynda.com Training Videos:  Whenever I want to learn how to use software I go to Lynda and watch one or more training videos.  When I wanted to learn how to make Adobe Acrobat pdf fillable forms I watched a 20 hour training video on Lynda.  Today Lynda has a 6.5 hour course on the self-hosted version of WordPress and a 5 hour course on the WordPress.org hosted version.  Both of these courses are about version 3.3 of WordPress, the current version.

You can pay to watch individual videos, but for years I have paid Lynda $25/month for unlimited access to all of its training videos.

3.  Watch My Demo Videos:  You can’t watch them today, because I haven’t created them yet.  In the very near future I will have demo videos that show lawyers interested in learning WordPress everything they need to know to install a WordPress site on Bluehost , configure it with a theme and plugins and how to add content.  Check back in the near future or enter your email address in the field in the top of the left column of this page if you want to get an update when I add new content.

Your thoughts?  Do you or your law firm use WordPress and have any gripes?  Do you use something else that you like?  Leave a comment.

By |2019-06-17T07:03:15-07:00April 28th, 2012|Blogs, Stuff We Recommend, WordPress|0 Comments

Facebook Ads Can Now Be Optimized To Drive Any On-Facebook Action

Tech Crunch:  “Marketers don’t actually want clicks, they want the downstream conversions and the return on investment that follow. So today Facebook begins allowing advertisers using its API to ask it to show their ads to people most likely to take any specific post-click action on the social network, such as sharing a brand’s content to the news feed, buying virtual goods in their apps, or redeeming one of the new Facebook Offers at a local brick-and-mortar store

By |2018-01-14T08:51:54-07:00April 28th, 2012|Facebook, Marketing|0 Comments

What is a QR Code & How Can I Make One?

More and more people are using QR codes.  An example of a QR code is made in one minute is below.  A QR code is a digital method of conveying information contained in the design of the QR code.  It is a great way to quickly deliver key information to another person or his or her phone or electronic device.

Let’s say we just met at a conference and I want to give you the following contact information:

Richard Keyt
KEYTLaw, LLC
Arizona Attorney
602-906-4953, ext. 1
Website: www.keytlaw.com
AZ LLC Law: www.keytlaw.com/azllclaw
Wills & Trusts: www.keytlaw.com/arizonawills

I could convey the above information using the old fashion method and slowly tell you my contact information while you type it into your mobile phone, but why not use a quicker and 100% accurate method, i.e., the QR code method?  Instead of using the old way of conveying information I could just “give” you my QR code that contains my contact info.  I would display the QR code shown below on my iPhone and you could scan the QR code using your QR code app on your mobile phone.  My QR code application is RedLaser, a free iPhone app that scans bar codes and QR codes.

qrcode

I made the QR code you see above in one minute for free at Kaywa QR Code.Kaywa allows you to quickly and easily create QR codes that are URLs, text, phone number or SMS text.  You can also adjust the size of your finished code.

Although I recently read that the traditional business card is being used less and less I plan to get all of the attorneys in our firm to have a personalized QR code on the back of their business cards and also saved in their mobile phones.

By |2018-01-14T08:40:48-07:00April 25th, 2012|Ramblings, Tech Stuff|0 Comments

Introducing LinkedIn Targeted Updates

I do have a LinkedIn page, but I question its value as a way to get my name out and a source for generating new law firm business.  Many people tell me that saw my article on my website, but I don’t recall anybody ever saying they saw me on LinkedIn.  Nevertheless I do believe it is one of the social media sites on which all lawyers should have a good page.

httpvh://youtu.be/gxGCKJAJlpE

By |2012-07-17T06:28:48-07:00April 25th, 2012|Social Media, Video|0 Comments

Beginners Guide to Google Plus

Do you know what Google + is?  If you want to get more traffic to your website or blog and you do not know about and use Google + you need to learn about and implement it now.  The below video will give you an introduction into this relatively new Google product.

httpvh://youtu.be/5TDMObxEtEY

By |2018-01-14T08:40:48-07:00April 25th, 2012|Google, Video|0 Comments

Google Plus & Google’s Rich Snippet

Do you know what a Google “rich snippet” is?  Should you?  If you want more visitors to your blog or website you need to know what a rich snippet is and how to create them.  There are three types of bloggers and webmasters:

  1. those that are clueless about Google +,
  2. those that have heard about Google + and who are vaguely aware it might be a good thing to understand and use, and 
  3. those who understand and use Google + and related Google features to get more traffic to their blogs/websites.  

Until yesterday I was in category 2.  Now, after reading the two excellent articles listed below I have the knowledge I need to create a Google business page for my law firm, KEYTLaw and implement the suggestions contained in the two articles.  I’m now at stage 2.5.  I just need to implement my new knowledge.

To date Google + does not have the reach of Facebook and Twitter, but we all know Google’s power and innovation track record so it is safe to bet that Google + could be as important blog/website referral source as Facebook.  By the way I have heard many people, including a keynote speaker at the 2012 Infusionsoft convention, say that Facebook doesn’t send much (or any) traffic to their blog/website.  The primary reasons for the lack of Facebook referrals are:

  1. the business does not have a Facebook page (hint:  a page is different from a Facebook account)
  2. the business has a Facebook page, but little happens on it, i.e., not much content.
  3. the person or people in the business responsible for its Facebook page don’t understand how to use the Facebook page to generate referrals to the firm’s website.

My websites get a lot of referrals from my firm’s Facebook page.  Earlier this month I did a blog post on a new law passed by the Arizona legislature entitled “Arizona Legislature Passes Broad Internet Censorship Bill.”  I also put the entire text of the bill on the KEYTLaw blog.  The day that blog post went live it got over 800 visitors, including over 400 who were referred from Facebook!

Here are the two articles on Google’s rich snippets and Google + I recommend:

The second article listed states “according to one study on the impact of rich snippets on traffic, the number of clicks increased by 150% once the rich snippet was added. This is one of those opportunities to give yourself an almost unfair advantage in Google.”

Read also “Google+: Should Lawyers Care?” which states:

“Last week, Google announced that Google+ (aka, “Google Plus” or “G+”) has reached 170 million users.  By any measure, that is a truckload of users; but it is staggering when you consider that G+ is less than a year old.  That makes the infant G+ roughly the size of Twitter (200mm registered users) and larger than LinkedIn (150mm registered users).  And, while G+ is still only 20% of the size of Facebook, it has clearly arrived, requiring lawyers to strongly consider it as part of their online branding and business development strategies.”

By |2018-01-14T08:51:51-07:00April 25th, 2012|Blogs, Google, Ramblings|0 Comments

What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?

If you have not subscribed to Search Engine Land’s RSS feed and if you want to learn how to get higher Google / search engine rankings you need to sign up yesterday.  SEO means search engine optimization.  It is the “science” of how search engines work and what to do on your website to get high search engine rankings and how to avoid being penalized for engaging in bad SEO practices.  What you do not know about SEO can prevent your website from getting higher rankings and more visitors.  To learn more see “What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?“

Search Engine Land has a great introductory course to SEO.  Watch its video called “What is Search Engine Optimization” and then read its course on SEO.

httpvh://youtu.be/hF515-0Tduk

By |2018-01-14T08:51:51-07:00April 24th, 2012|Search Engine Optimization, Video|0 Comments

Google’s Advice on How to Create High Quality Websites

The following is the beginning of an article on Google’s Webmaster Central Blog called “More guidance on building high-quality sites“

“In recent months we’ve been especially focused on helping people find high-quality sites in Google’s search results. The “Panda” algorithm change has improved rankings for a large number of high-quality websites, so most of you reading have nothing to be concerned about. However, for the sites that may have been affected by Panda we wanted to provide additional guidance on how Google searches for high-quality sites.

Our advice for publishers continues to be to focus on delivering the best possible user experience on your websites and not to focus too much on what they think are Google’s current ranking algorithms or signals.”

The article mentions 23 things you can do to improve the quality of your website.

By |2018-01-14T08:40:48-07:00April 24th, 2012|Blogs, Google|0 Comments

Create A YouTube Traffic Jam With These 4 Simple Optimization Tips

You have probably heard that if you want more business and traffic to your website you need a Youtube channel with a lot of videos.  Once you have a channel and videos you must also configure the video in Youtube to maximize the information about your firm and/or practice area, but this requires that you know this fact and that you know what you have to do.  The article “Create A YouTube Traffic Jam With These 4 Simple Optimization Tips” solves both of these problems.

I did create a Youtube channel for my law firm, KEYTLaw.  As of the date of this post, April 23, 2012, our channel is 11 months old and has had 3,678 views of our 19 videos.  Below is a sample video from our series called “Ask the KEYTLaw Girl.”  It is typical of the videos, but longer than most because it explains the steps needed from A to Z to form an Arizona limited liability company.

httpvh://youtu.be/LtrVQDQ-dfM

All of the videos on my Youtube channel were made by a talented young man I hired.

Compare the above video (very professional in my humble opinion) to the amature video below I made in one hour of filming in a conference room with my Flip camera in 2009.  It’s the KEYTLaw girl ad libbing text that I told her to say.  We had many takes and I just edited the final and put it up on Youtube without realizing I should have created a KEYTLaw account and uploaded the video to that account.  Nevertheless, this homemade video has had 13,210 views since it went up on October 7, 2009, and given me a lot of LLC formation business.

I do get a lot of people who hire me to form their Arizona LLC who make a comment about the KEYTLaw Girl.  My favorite is “whoever hired the KEYTLaw Girl should get a raise.”  I hired her and I’d like a raise.  She is my daughter who has worked form me as my LLC legal assistant since she was a senior at Arizona State University in 2006.

httpvh://youtu.be/Oc5QBLi9TxU

By |2018-01-14T08:43:07-07:00April 23rd, 2012|Video, Youtube|0 Comments

12 Things That Will Kill Your Blog Post Every Time

Neil Patel wrote an excellent article that I recommend bloggers who want to get more visitors read.  He describes in detail 12 mistakes bloggers make.  They are:

  1. Crafting cute, clever or confusing headlines (or really bad ones)
  2. Never linking to old posts
  3. Never linking to other bloggers
  4. Forgetting to fill out your page title and description fields
  5. Creating clunky URLs
  6. Plagiarizing other bloggers
  7. Publishing less than one post per month
  8. Writing big blocks of copy
  9. Zero presence on any social media platforms
  10. Never inviting readers to leave comments
  11. Writing about a topic nobody cares about
  12. Giving up
By |2018-01-14T08:43:07-07:00April 23rd, 2012|Blogs|0 Comments

Beware of Nolo / Experthub Paid Attorney Listings

In August of 2011 a good salesman for ExpertHub suckered me into purchasing a listing for estate planning lawyers on Nolo’s website at www.nolo.com.  Here’s a link to my listing.  The “referrals” I got from my listing on Nolo were of no use to me and did not result in a single dollar of income.

I paid ExperHub $750 eight months ago in return for which I would get a listing for estate planning probate and commercial real estate lawyers when people looked for that type of lawyer in Maricopa County, Arizona.  If somebody left an online inquiry about that type of legal service ExpertHub charged me $25 and sent me an email message with the text entered by the prospective client.

Here is a sample of some of the “leads” ExpertHub emailed to me:

  • Father and grandfather passed away on the 2nd. We would like some assistance with the estate and paying final bills and distributing what remains of the estate.
  • Misty said she was underage when her father died and his ashes were given to another person. Now that she is older she wants to get her fathers ashes back. But this other person will not give them back to her.
  • Significant other has been diagnosed with life threatening illness. Need to know how to protect assets upon death. is marriage the only solution?
  • Do I need a living revocable trust if my son is listed on all my accounts as the beneficiary?
  • father died, assigned girlfriend personal rep., she wont answer our calls
  • Review purchase and sales contract to see if earnest money can be returned.
  • My Aunt died and has no will.

The next one is my favorite.

  • I have a judgement against me for $160,000. I am single and make $10 an hour and will not be able to pay this back in my lifetime but what would happen if I were to marry a man with substantial assets? Will he also become liable for my judgement?

Bottom Line

In my opinion the $750 I paid ExpertHub in August of 2011 was a complete waste of money.  Now to add insult to injury I recently reviewed my March 2012 Amex account and saw that ExpertHub charged me another $750 last month. On April 20, 2012, I called ExpertHub and sent an email message asking to cancel my account immediately and refund my $750.  Today I got this message from Maria Albano, ExpertHub’s Billing Analyst, Ad Services Manager:

“We received your request for cancellation that was sent to our Customer Service department on April 20, 2012.

 Per our Terms and Conditions, our Advertising fees are non-refundable. Nolo/ExpertHub will terminate the automatic renewal of services and charges at any time, provided that Company delivers written notice to Nolo/ExpertHub by confirmed email, fax or letter at least two business days prior to the start of the next billing cycle date if paying on a flat rate or before the account balance reaches $0 if paying per lead.

 Because your request came in 4 weeks after we replenished your account on 3/13/12, and after the requirement of notification before your account balance reached $0, I am unable to issue the requested refund. I did however set your profile to deactivate upon reaching $0 balance and you will not incur further charges.

 You will be hearing from your Account Representative Dan Haight on our team for feedback and perhaps to offer suggestions for altering your Campaign to retain better results.

ExpertHub never sent me an email with an invoice that showed the charges and the balance remaining in the account.  Why do you suppose it didn’t do that?  ExpertHub never sent me a notice that my account would automatically renew and be charged $750 unless I cancelled before a certain date.  Nor did it send me a message that it had charged my credit card and renewed my account.  Why didn’t ExpertHub use the power of technology to keep me informed about the status of my account at least once a month.  P U!

Nolo vs. Avvo

For over a year I paid Avvo over $200/month for a priority attorney listing on its website.  I had the same result with Avvo, i.e., a complete waste of my money.  I do not recommend that any attorney pay money to Nolo / Experthub  or Avvo to get client prospects.  My opinion is that the primary reason prospective clients use these types of services is because they are looking for free legal advice.  If your experience is different, please comment.

By |2018-01-14T08:43:07-07:00April 23rd, 2012|Ramblings|8 Comments

Leveraging Your Blog to Bring in More Work

In a one hour video LexBlog CEO Kevin O’Keefe provides some tough love and explains how he uses his blog and other platforms on the Internet — like Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, and even text messaging — to build relationships and bring in business.  Blogging is an important piece of my internet marketing solution.  Every lawyer should have a blog to which he or she contributes regularly.  A good blog is a great way to get new business – if you do it right.

Blog Tip:  All lawyers get people who email and call and ask routine questions about their areas of law practice.  When you get one of these emails or phone calls, turn it into a blog post on your Frequently Asked Questions category/topic.  For example, on my Arizona Limited Liability Company Law website I have a blog category called “How Do I” (another name for a FAQ) where I pose a common question and then give the answer.  A great marketing benefit from answering common questions on your blog is that when you do get an email or phone call asking the same question you can send the questioner an email message with a link to your blog post that gives the answer.  Prospects tend to be impressed when they read an answer to their legal question on your blog.  Written content on your blog is a great way to establish that you are an expert on a topic.

httpvh://youtu.be/5iBu98XctFg

By |2018-01-14T08:43:07-07:00April 23rd, 2012|Blogs, Ramblings|0 Comments
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